The pith and substance. I do not want to be too high falutin because as my colleagues have said they are not legal experts. I use the vernacular instead of using a term that might have been used in the Supreme Court of Canada.
The pith and substance of what this bill is about is really taking an appeal process that has been dragged out to three years to non-lawyers, non-judges, the Immigration and Refugee Board, an appeal process on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and saying in some very narrow circumstances where someone has committed a serious crime that will get them more than 10 years in jail maximum sentence and they are considered a danger to society, taking that appeal process and reducing it to virtually 30 days, narrowing the terms where they can only appeal to the federal court. That is the pith and substance of this bill and that is what the Reform Party should be supporting.
My colleague is absolutely right. I have never been to a border crossing and looked at the refugee determining process and what happens when someone shows up without documents. My view is that we should hold them in detention and should not let them go until we know who they are. I would certainly be happy to sit down with my colleague and look at the Immigration Act and look at the system that is in place and try to work something out that is reasonable. I agree, we should not be letting just anyone in. If they do not have documentation or cannot prove who they are then we should be concerned about that.
However, to re-emphasize my point, that is not what this bill is about. This bill is about people who apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds to the refugee board and Canadians do not want to give them the right to do that. They have said:"You are a danger to Canadian society and we want you gone from our land".