Evidence of meeting #26 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
First of all, I have a problem with, as my colleagues mentioned, submitting our requests to a court before we do them philosophically. Setting that aside, I can assure you of something. Let me just quickly go through the motion, because I think it's not what you think it is.
Step one is a statement. There's nothing there. Step two is a statement. There's nothing there. Step three is just telling the government to expedite deportation orders. We know that's completely legal. It happens every day. We're just saying to expedite them. In number four, we're asking the government to do a comprehensive review. Governments do reviews all the time. Number five says that the government should table a report to Parliament. We do that all the time. Number six is a statement.
There's really nothing in here that should cause any concern to anybody. I suggest that we move forward with it as it is.
Thank you.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I have a question about the rules. Out of courtesy to the witnesses, can we let them take their leave, since we'll be leaving to vote soon? I'm not suggesting that the discussion isn't interesting, but I don't think we'll have time to ask them questions, unfortunately, so releasing them may be the more courteous thing to do.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
I'll ask others. Should we release our witnesses?
Our vote is in about 20 minutes, but we need time to get upstairs.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Okay, but perhaps others do, Ms. Rempel Garner.
Should we release the witnesses?
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
We could agree to take this up at another time and let witnesses at least get on the record with a few questions.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
I don't have agreement on releasing the witnesses. We will continue.
Mr. Fragiskatos, you continue to have the floor.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London Centre, ON
I'm not sure where along the line I was misunderstood as calling for some sort of court review. It's, again, not what I'm asking for. It's a call for the Government of Canada to provide us with an opinion on charter compliance and Canada's international legal obligations.
Furthermore, Conservatives have put this forward. They have confidence in the motion. They should have the confidence to ensure that what they're asking for is in line with Canadian law. That's all that's being asked for.
I see the Conservatives have a point.
Liberal
Conservative
Costas Menegakis Conservative Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
My colleague Brad Redekopp was pretty clear.
Mr. Fragiskatos, with all due respect, I think what you're doing here is setting a precedent that committees in general should have a court review of motions before they're presented at the committee level. Nothing prevents the government from, in their work, ensuring they have court approval before they enact something. You know that as well as we on this side know that. With all due respect, I don't see where what you're saying makes sense in the context of committee business.
This is committee business we're discussing here now. We're moving a motion. Nothing stops the government from moving forward in any way, shape or form. We all know what the game plan is moving forward over the next 30 days. We know that we have by-elections coming up. We know all this stuff. We can read between the lines as well as you can, but let's be clear. This motion is very important to a community of people who live in Canada. People who have come here from Iran are dealing with threats on a daily basis from people in the community who threaten them.
As recently as just a few weeks ago, a person dared to voice an opinion or protest against the Islamic regime. His place of business received 17 bullets overnight. These are people in our community, and this is giving us the right to find who these people are, identify who they are and deport them as fast as possible out of the country when they should not have been here in the first place.
If in doing that, somewhere down the road in the process the government identifies that the court said something different, they can bring it back to us then, but this is the motion here today. That is exactly what this is at the committee level. I don't think we would be doing anything wrong.
I don't think there would be anything wrong with calling this to a vote, and then you can do whatever you think your due diligence is on the government side moving forward. I just don't see it.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is just a technical point. I'm sure Mr. Clerk can answer this. This amendment is not asking for a court intervention. This amendment is asking that there be a review around charter compliance from the government on the motion, which is not about court involvement.
Can the clerk answer this question for us?
The Clerk
Mr. Zuberi, I don't think it's necessarily my role to interpret the way it's written. The text says, “That the Government of Canada undertake a thorough legal review”. It doesn't talk about the court there. It's for the committee to understand or interpret this the way they want.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
We'll go back to Mr. Zuberi. Then I have Monsieur Simard and Ms. Rempel Garner.
Mr. Zuberi.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Those who are lawyers here are familiar with the law and charter compliance. I wanted the clerk, as somebody who does not belong to a political party but who is a servant of the House, to clarify that for us so that we can all be on the same page and have a common understanding that this amendment does not deal with court involvement or create a precedent around courts being involved.
With respect to the concern we heard from my colleague, we actually have the same concern you do about foreign interference and the harassment of people on Canadian soil. There's no question there. We have no debate around that. We all share the same concern. What is being put forth is an amendment, an addition, simply stating that the above is also in compliance with our laws and rights and freedoms in Canada. That's all. We agree totally on the content above and the necessity for this. What we're saying is that the above must also respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our laws. That's all.
It will not interfere with the study itself. It will not interfere with this concern, this investigation, and it will address the legitimate worry or concern about people on Canadian soil being bothered by the Iranian government.
Bloc
Mario Simard Bloc Jonquière, QC
I'm going to try to explain my objection another way.
My Conservative colleagues often introduce tougher sentencing bills in the House. I don't agree with that view. They want to make it harder for people to access parole. I don't agree with that. We debate the issue in the House. However, the courts rejected a similar argument by a previous Conservative government. Now, when the Conservatives want to debate the issue in committee, do we have to check first whether it's charter-compliant? No, that question doesn't get asked. The House can debate the matter, and the courts will respond as they see fit.
Mr. Zuberi, that's what I mean when I say we're doing things backwards. In the past, we've dealt with prickly issues when it comes to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but we don't use it preventatively. I won't draw a parallel with Bill 21—God forbid. That isn't the purpose here, today. That's what I don't understand about your amendment.
While I don't always agree with my Conservative colleagues, I think this could make our work harder. One day, I'll be the one proposing something, and my job will be harder because of this complication, if we allow it now. Acceptance of any proposed committee study involving a request to the government would be conditional on a validated legal review. That's what I can't wrap my head around.
Again, I'm not imputing motives to the honourable member, but I don't think we should move forward with this amendment. It would set a precedent that would be troublesome for everyone and for our committee work.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dzerowicz
Colleagues, we're now at 15 minutes before we have to vote. Can I have leave to adjourn the meeting? We can pick up this discussion at our next meeting.
