Madam Speaker, in a sense it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to address Bill C-44, an act to amend the Immigration Act and the Citizenship Act. This bill is not all bad but it surely is not all good. If I had to summarize, it is just not good enough.
When the government first announced its intention to amend these two controversial pieces of legislation it was my hope to be able to offer support. However, since the bill is little more than smoke and mirrors I have to speak in opposition to it.
The bill offers very little of substance and provides only a false impression of security to the millions of Canadians who are concerned about our lax immigration process. It offers no significant changes, contrary to the words September 19, 1994 by the immigration minister. During his speech at second reading the minister said: "Enforcement is a priority of my department".
Yet in this bill we see no provision for extra enforcement officers. There are also no specific measures for strengthening the enforcement process. In fact, during his speech the minister admitted: "There has been slow enforcement" yet I repeat there are no provisions to increase enforcement.
He also said: "When it comes to enforcement of immigration issues we have to do a better job". I fully agree with the minister's statement and therefore have to ask why this bill has side stepped the issue of enforcement?
The minister also talked of the integrity of the immigration system saying: "If we do not deal swiftly and crisply with both the perception and the reality of abuses to our immigration and refugee system, the integrity of the entire system is in jeopardy". The minister was correct in his assessment, yet by offering up this innocuous legislation he will create a false sense of security that will do more harm than good to the integrity of the process he is worried about.
While the minister talked a good talk during his speech his actions have failed to match his words. He says he wants to get tough on immigrant criminals. However, in Toronto the minister recently cut the number of investigation and enforcement officers back from 36 to 30. Only 30 officers to track down the approximately 24,000 deportables suspected of living in and around the greater metro Toronto area. The minister also cut overtime staff in the Vancouver region. This is what the minister calls making enforcement a priority?
The minister might argue these cuts were made to save money, but that is a red herring. If he wants to save money he should stop appointing his friends to the high paying jobs at the IRB. When those friends are found to be abusing the power of their positions he should not be permitting them to receive golden handshakes. Need I remind this House of the Michael Schelew affair? If the minister wants to restore integrity he should disband the Immigration and Refugee Board instead of giving it more power.
Under this bill the IRB is given the power to stop a refugee claim if a serious criminal background is discovered. Sounds good. The minister heralds this part of the bill as a great improvement. However, what the minister does not say is that he already has that power under section 69(1) of the current Immigration Act.
The problem is the minister is afraid to use that power. In bestowing that authority on the IRB the minister is abdicating his own authority. He is the man ultimately accountable to Canadians, yet by abandoning this power it is obvious he is unwilling to be accountable.
In fairness, in reviewing the bill I have to acknowledge that the government has made an effort to make the appeal process slightly tougher. However, it is only a small step in the right direction and it simply does not go far enough.
There are also other measures contained in this bill where I must say the government is on the right track, but in typical Liberal fashion these are only half measures. For example, the minister has seen the wisdom of limiting the power of the immigration appeal division to stay the removal of or allow appeals by serious criminals on humanitarian or compassionate grounds. Again this is only a half measure.
It is also a positive step to fully legitimize the act of allowing customs officers to seize mail suspected of containing fraudulent identity documents. However, at the committee hearing on this bill Mansel Legacy, the head of the Customs Excise Union, said there are so few mail checkpoints and inspection personnel that this measure is not enough in itself and will accomplish very little.
Many may say the examples I have cited here in opposition to this bill are just further proof of the Reform Party's desire to shut Canada's borders to immigrants. I would like to remind this House that almost without exception witnesses before the standing committee condemned this bill as inadequate.
Just for the sake of clarity I want to reiterate a few of the salient points of immigration policy that the Reform Party advocates.
First the Reform Party supports an immigration policy that has as its focus Canada's economic needs and we welcome genuine refugees. The Reform Party remains convinced that immigration has been and can be again a positive source of economic growth, cultural diversity and social renewal.
The Reform Party opposes any immigration policy based on race or creed. We do support an immigration policy that would be essentially economic in nature. Immigrants should possess the human capital necessary to adjust quickly and independently to the needs of Canadian society and the job market.
The Reform Party supports restricting sponsorship privileges to members of immediate families, that is, wives or husbands, minor dependent children and age dependent parents. All others should apply for entry through the normal selective process.
The Reform Party supports a policy accepting the settlement of genuine refugees who find their way to Canada. A genuine refugee is one who has a well-founded fear of persecution and qualifies under the strict requirements of the United Nations convention.
By the same token, we support a policy of immediate deportation of bogus refugees. If the government opposite would like to read from this it is all contained in the Reform's blue book, good reading as opposed to the red one.
During his speech the minister also talked about his broad consultative approach in all of this. However, a leading Toronto immigration advocate labelled that same process a sham. Well I will not do that, but I will say that on a couple of occasions I invited the minister to come to my riding of Nanaimo-Cowichan to hear what immigrants there think needs to be done to address current problems. It is unfortunate, I know the minister is busy, but he has been unable to find the time to accept those invitations for true grassroots consultation.
In Nanaimo we are experiencing the type of problem the minister talked about in his speech at second reading, namely a few immigrant criminals casting a shadow over the reputation of many. In fact, a confidential police report obtained by my office states: "The hub of Asian organized crime for the world will be situated in Vancouver and Vancouver Island by the turn of the decade". Unfortunately I see very little in this bill to stop this ominous prediction from becoming a reality.
People of Nanaimo, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, are concerned about this fact. That is why I wanted the minister to hear directly from these people. Since that has not been possible, at least not so far, I would like to tell the minister and this House just what a group of Nanaimo immigrants feel must be done to correct the current immigration process.
First, a direct quote from one of the Vietnamese participants at a meeting I held in Nanaimo in this last year: "The government screwed up by allowing many immigrants into Canada without properly checking their backgrounds". Again, there is nothing in Bill C-44 that leads me to believe this situation will be addressed.
Second, the same Vietnamese Canadian participants said: "Those immigrants selling drugs have no fear of the law". That is because most of these immigrants know that even if they are ordered deported, it may be years before they are actually kicked out of the country, that is if they are ever tracked down by a grossly understaffed and overworked enforcement service.
Third, quoting again from this group of Vietnamese participants: "The government must get serious about toughening its immigration laws". These are immigrants telling the government what they believe should be done.
Legitimate law-abiding immigrants in Nanaimo do not fear the kind of tough measures Reform has advocated. In fact, they would welcome the kinds of proposals Reform has talked about knowing that our policies would only be detrimental to those who do not or will not abide by Canadian laws.
In short, Nanaimo's immigrant population wants to be a productive part of Canadian society and we want them to be. They want to contribute toward building a better and safer Canada. However they agree that this cannot be done without a strict immigration policy of zero tolerance toward immigrant criminals. This bill does not have the teeth required to implement such a policy.
It is with the views of immigrants within my riding in mind that I appeal to this government here today to abandon this nebulous piece of legislation in favour of meaningful and significant changes.
Those changes should include provisions for extra enforcement officers, a zero tolerance policy for immigrants convicted of serious crimes either in Canada or prior to their arrival, the addition of health provisions such as mandatory HIV testing, and a policy to refuse admittance or expedite deportation of those suspected of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
In his 1994 annual report the Auditor General also suggested changes to the way in which immigration responsibilities are carried out by different government departments. The Auditor General has concerns about the lack of reporting either by the immigration department or the other departments that have some responsibility in this area. If the minister is looking for ways to save money, which he should be, he should consider making the necessary reporting changes advocated by the Auditor General a part of this legislation.
There are many more areas where this bill falls short. The minister has shown some courage in taking these first steps but he has also demonstrated a lack of understanding as to what Canadians want in a sound immigration policy. Either that or he simply lacks the intestinal fortitude required to make the needed changes.
The minister is fond of telling this House that the buck stops with him. In the sense that the buck is a dollar, I urge the minister to withdraw this two-bit piece of legislation and come back to this House with the entire dollar's worth of change needed to address the serious inadequacies in the current immigration process.