Mr. Speaker, on February 8, I put my main question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and a supplementary question to the Deputy Prime Minister regarding the deportation of Taramatie Ramsubhag and her three children, who are originally from Trinidad and Tobago.
The minister then asked me to bring any new information to his attention so that he could review this case on the basis on humanitarian considerations, which I did on February 10, when I personally gave a document to the minister and his parliamentary secretary. Although Mrs. Ramsubhag and her three children had adapted well to Quebec society, they were all ruthlessly deported the same day.
Furthermore, the minister rejected, without any sign of consideration or deference, a request by Quebec's Minister of International Relations, Cultural Communities and Immigration, Bernard Landry, to delay the deportation, to allow the Quebec government to consider issuing a certificate of selection.
The minister and his government did not show any respect or consideration for the numerous women's rights organizations begging them to grant Mrs. Ramsubhag permanent resident status in Canada. These organizations include Assistance aux femmes de Montréal, the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Vancouver Status of Women, the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, the CNTU's national committee on the status of women, the Quebec women's federation, etc.
The minister showed an unacceptable insensitivity to this refugee claimant. Yet, he gave her aggressor and ex-husband a special permit allowing him to return to Canada. Is that the Liberal government policy on women who are victims of spousal abuse?
Mrs. Ramsubhag does not have a criminal record. Canadians and Quebecers will never understand the policy applied by the minister in this case, nor why immigration officers had to use force to arrest three children aged 9, 11 and 13. Under the circumstances, arresting these children without a warrant amounts to kidnapping pure and simple. Mrs. Ramsubhag also had to pay $800 to have her case reviewed by the same officials who wanted to deport her.
During the election campaign in September 1993, the Deputy Prime Minister promised that women who were victims of family violence and applied for refugee status would no longer be deported. However, so far at least two members of this group of women in Montreal have already been deported. What about the Deputy Prime Minister's commitment to defending women's rights? That the Canadian government should take this kind of action is appalling, especially the immigration officers who arrested the three children. This attitude is in stark contrast with the open and generous approach taken by the Government of Quebec, which had applied for a stay of execution to consider the possibility of giving the Ramsubhag family a Quebec certificate of selection.
I wish to commend the many womens' groups that sent letters to the minister, with copies to the critic for the Bloc Quebecois, as part of the campaign to defend the case of Mrs. Ramsubhag. I hope she will return to Canada, with her children, as a landed immigrant.