Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
You have to wonder about whether the United States is still a safe third country. You have to ask the question of not only ourselves but the international community as well. We have a responsibility as parliamentarians and we have a responsibility as what I like to think of as a country that is compassionate and a country that puts the lives of people and the human rights of people ahead of all else, and not just for cheap politics or for political gain. All too often I feel like what goes on around this table and what goes on around the theatrics of Parliament and parliamentarians is simply about the politics of things.
Stripping down all of those pieces, we have to see the faces behind these policies. Why else are we here? I hope we're here because we want to actually create a better world. I hope we are here because Canada has a role to play in the face of this kind of regression and attack on the migrant and immigrant community.
Canada relied on the immigrant community to create and build this country. I still recall learning from the history books about the contributions of the Chinese migrant workers. We were brought here to Canada not because we were wanted but because we were a source of cheap labour. We were brought into this country to build the railway to connect the west coast with the rest of the country, from coast to coast to coast. The Chinese migrant workers were brought in to do the most dangerous jobs. They were paid the least amount of money, and they faced discrimination, and many of them died in that process.
Where are we today? We say we recognize history, and we apologize for the horrific treatment and discriminatory practices of the past, yet we perpetuate the situation. We allow for it to continue. In many ways, one might actually say that today's immigration stream, particularly with the low-wage stream with a closed work permit, is a modern-day program of the past with regard to how people are being treated. We have to live through it over and over again. Here we are once again. It's as though time has stood still and we have learned nothing.
In terms of the current situation with the United States, I think we can all anticipate what might be coming in the sense that people in the United States might have fear in their hearts. Whether you were a migrant or a person with or without status, can you imagine being told by the president-elect that you were the poison of that country? How would that make a person feel? Would you feel like you belonged in that country? I would think not. I would think that the government of the day was sending a clear message that migrants and immigrants are not welcome.
In fact, I think they are denigrating the people and their contributions to the United States, and some people might feel like they don't belong and they might need to leave.
On that question, isn't there a real question about whether the United States is a safe third country? Isn't that a real question not just for Canada to consider but, rather, for the international community to consider? I would even venture to say that the UNHCR needs to be considering that as well.
The United States, with its approach, is not a particularly safe country at this juncture. It's not safe for migrants, immigrants or newcomers. They're told they don't belong. They're told they're “poisoning” the bloodstream of Americans. Can you imagine that?
That's not too dissimilar in some ways, though, from the kind of message the Canadian government is sending and what the Prime Minister is saying. The government has put out ads to tell asylum seekers about the application process to seek asylum. I don't necessarily think the intention behind them is to inform people what the approach ought to be; rather, it is to scare people away from making an asylum claim. That's what I think is going on.
In some ways, Canada has picked up the narrative and mentality that the United States and the Trump administration are bringing forward. To me, that's just absolutely devastating. I never thought I would live to see that day here in Canada. I didn't.
I never thought I would hear the Prime Minister say that migrant workers and immigrants are a tap that should be turned off, as though we're some sort of weirdos who don't belong in this country, don't contribute to Canadian society and are somehow just an economic unit. We're not real people with real lives and real families, who have made Canada their home and contributed to building this country. That is the mentality that's forthcoming.
I have experienced lots of discrimination in my life. I always thought it would stop with my generation. My grandparents experienced it. People pushed them off the bus. My granddad, who has passed now, used to tell me these stories of what he had experienced. My parents experienced it. I've experienced it.
I never thought my children would experience it, but yes, they did. My daughter, just coming out of COVID, who was on the way to school on a bus, was spat on and racial slurs were yelled at her. She was 18 years old. I desperately do not want to see this happen—not here in Canada, not in my family and not for anyone else.
Often in this House, we get together and say we will not stand for hate, we will not stand for discrimination and we will fight against them. Where is that courage now, Mr. Chair?
When we see the president-elect of the United States during the campaign calling immigrants and migrants the poison of the United States bloodstream, do we think that is acceptable? Do we not think that perpetuates hate?
Now what are we talking about around this table? We're talking about how to secure a border against people who are not wanted and who are mistreated in that way. We're talking about building a wall. It's not dissimilar to the physical wall the Trump administration of the first term wanted to build. Canada built an invisible wall with the safe third country agreement by extending it further and further—