Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Minister, I see this, very much so, as an anti-immigrant bill. You have this sensational attitude of trying to make immigrants look as if they are a bad thing.
We can talk about the bogus refugees. This is something that you create, which sends very strong negative images in the minds of Canadians. We can talk about the illegal queue-jumping, or the boat people, in which you stand on the back of a boat, and you have mandatory detention, for which you did have to flip-flop.
Thank goodness you did do the flip-flopping. And it was because there was pressure at the committee stage from different organizations, many different law firms and so forth, that ultimately led you to make those changes. That is the reality.
At the end of the day, in Bill C-43 you term permanent residents, 1.5 million-plus individuals living in Canada, who call Canada home...and we call them foreigners. This is an attack on “foreign” criminals.
Then the minister goes out, Mr. Chairperson, and identifies these sensational cases—the rapists, the murderers, the pedophiles. Those are the ones in which the minister chooses to send this powerful message to Canadians.
What kind of message is he really sending to Canadians? What about the individuals who...?
Maybe there's a family of four where Johnny, who just graduated from university, has six plants of marijuana. That's the serious crime that's going to have six months and no appeal, and Johnny is going to be deported—