Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the presentations from all the witnesses.
I did want to pick up on a point in regard to the bill as a whole. We believe it is fundamentally flawed and in fact it should never have passed second reading. We need to go back to the drawing board. Just listening to you specifically, Mr. Greene, what you're saying with the idea of no consultations and so forth reinforces that. We are the only party that actually voted for it to not even come to the committee because we believe it is so fundamentally flawed.
I want to pick up on something you made reference to. I talked about this on Monday, and I'm going to repeat it. This is just a quote I took from another presenter, with regard to the criminal act. It states:
Using a false or fraudulent document under Criminal Code s. 368 carries a maximum potential in penalty of ten years. A 20 year old permanent resident convicted of using fake identification to get into a bar while visiting the US is inadmissible for foreign conviction. It doesn’t matter that the US court issued only a $200 fine. IRPA s. 36(1)(b) does not require a threshold sentence, only a foreign conviction.
Some would suggest to you that it doesn't even actually require that conviction.
Using this in a real-life example, someone who maybe was born in another country comes to Canada when they're two or three years old. They'd be in Canada for a number of years. When they're 19 years old, maybe they've graduated from high school, they cross the border and they use false ID in order to get served alcohol, because the age across the border is 20 or 21 in order to be served alcohol. They get caught. They're going to be deported. The rest of the family can stay, but they're going to be deported, even though they've been in Canada, for all intents and purposes, all of their natural life, having come here at age two or three.
We're not talking about the exceptional case. When the minister introduced the bill, he mentioned five reasons why the bill was before us. It was just one horrific story after another horrific story. He labelled the bill the faster removal of foreign criminals act. It's a scary message that I believe is sent to 1.5 million permanent residents who call Canada home.
Do you believe that this bill would be better off if the minister went back to the drawing board, consulted with different stakeholders, and attempted to reintroduce a much more modified piece of legislation? Would it be better to see that done as opposed to having to go through the charade of trying to come up with amendments to try to put a band-aid on the legislation itself?