Debates of Feb. 6th, 1995

Immigration Act

[Mary Clancy, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

We are all representatives, Madam Speaker, through you to that gentleman.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Some better than others.

[Mary Clancy, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

I represent the people of Halifax and I have been re-elected.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

You won't be next time. That seat is gone.

[Mary Clancy, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Wait and see.

At any rate, the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin talked about this and I would like to say it is interesting that he used that against a government with a Prime Minister who enjoys an unprecedented rate of approval and popularity. I merely bring it up as an anomaly, clearly in the way the members opposite seem to deal with the realities of politics.

What I really want to talk about here today is again the question of a phrase that is often used in this House and is perhaps ill understood. The phrase I want to talk about is due process. I want to make it very clear that I ascribe to my Reform colleagues across the way the best of intentions when it comes to areas of criminal law and the protection of Canadian citizens, the protection of victims and the incredible need to ensure the very important concept of safety in our streets and in our homes. I want to make very clear to my colleagues across the way that the questions of safety for Canadians are very important.

The hon. member is whistling. I will talk to him later. I will finish my thought first.

At any rate, the whole question of due process is one that can be very frustrating, as we all know. Situations arise and the way the law works can often be mystifying, lengthy, unsatisfactory. To many people it creates a solution that on the face of it at the very least is unjust or appears to be unjust. It is a difficult concept to come to grips with.

If you look at the concept of due process and the development of English law under which our criminal law has developed you will know that it is a process that has been developing for well over 1,000 years. The courts in England developed it prior to the Magna Carta and the bill of rights and they worked along through these various times and ages, through the politics of monarchs to the politics of Parliament, until now when we have arrived at the last decade of the 20th century and they still are colossally imperfect.

I do not think anyone who deals with the criminal justice system in any of those countries that follow the English system of common law would disagree with that. They are colossally imperfect. While they are colossally imperfect, they tend to be better than anything else. The difficulty is that if you lift the rights for some you lift the rights for all.

I have a constituent with whom I discuss these matters quite frequently and we tend to disagree a lot. This constituent is very concerned with questions of public safety, as am I. He feels that our courts are too lax, give too much credence to the rights of the accused, and on and on.

Not too long ago he told me about his son who in his early twenties was pulled over because his car resembled a car that had been used in the commission of an offence. He was very upset that his son was stopped and put in the position of possibly being a suspect in a criminal offence. As it turned out for his son it came to nothing because his son was completely innocent in this case and went on his way. It was a frightening experience for the young man and a disturbing experience for the father.

I listened to that and I took it under advisement. A couple of weeks later when he called me and talked again about the accused having too many rights and the accused being allowed this and that, I reminded him of his concern about his son who had been stopped, who was completely innocent.

I reminded him that those safeguards that protected his son have to protect the guilty and the innocent alike or they will not work at all. We have to believe in the presumption of innocence and we have to practise the presumption of innocence. We have to practise fairness in the courts. We have to practise the independence of the judiciary and the independence of quasi-ju-

dicial bodies. There are lots of times that the decisions that are mounted are irritating and frustrating and downright wrong.

There is an old story in a book about judges that was published some years ago. A particularly narrow minded member of the judiciary was giving a barrister a very difficult time. Finally he said: "I can only advise you to take your petition to the Lord", to which the barrister responded: "Thank you very much, my Lord, but I will take it to the appeal court and probably will do a lot better".

At any rate, the point is that the freedom and the balance of the law sometimes tip too far one way or the other. What we attempt to do through legislation, what we attempt to do through the administration of justice in this country is to keep the balance as fair as possible. It does not always work.

When I was in law school a professor who is now teaching at the University of Victoria used to talk about something called the universal theory of rough justice which is not terribly satisfactory. His theory as a professor was that 80 per cent of the time justice gets done.

I can remember as first year law students we were horrified at this because that meant 20 per cent of the time justice did not get done. He explained to us that by and large it was a pretty good average. To this day that still frightens and horrifies me, that in 20 per cent of cases justice does not get done.

In the 20 years that I have been involved either as a lawyer or a legislator I have yet to see another system that works better. That is not to say that we do not constantly strive to refine the system that we have, but we do not refine that system by taking away rights. We refine that system by ensuring its fairness and its balance. We refine that system by refining the basic theory of due process and justice.

With regard to Bill C-44, we have listened over the past year or more to a variety of people telling us where we needed refinements, particularly with regard to the criminal justice system and immigrants, and we listened.

My hon. colleague from across the way made the statement that we did not listen to the people who came to us at the committee. I would like to say with the greatest of respect to that member, we did listen. We brought in 11 amendments that reflected the majority of concerns of the people who came before us.

One of the things that I have learned in six years in this House, and I think it may be the most important lesson one can learn as a legislator, is again the lesson of balance. We cannot go too far one way or the other way. That probably reflects my own political philosophy. It reflects the political philosophy of the party of which I am proud to be a member. It reflects the political philosophy and the response of the vast majority of Canadians.

To quote the former Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau, those of us in the Liberal Party were the party of the radical middle, the party of the extreme centre. To paraphrase a poet, William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, the centre cannot hold.

In Canadian politics and in the affairs of Canadians, particularly those matters that relate to the criminal justice system, to maintain fairness and to ensure justice the centre must hold. It is our responsibility on this side of the House to hold that centre.

I want to say a few words in particular about immigration in Canada. I want to say that it bears repeating over and over that every single one of us in this House, every citizen of this country is of immigrant stock. Even both our colleagues who come from the north and several other colleagues from Manitoba, those of our colleagues who belong to Canada's founding peoples, the aboriginals, will admit that their ancestors first came here across the land bridge from Asia 5,000 years ago. Everybody in this country came from somewhere else.

We are a nation of immigrants. If it were not for the Scots, the Irish, the English, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Ukrainians, the Poles and on and on, all of the different groups that came here and chose Canada, we would be a poorer country. We would be a weaker country. We would be a less tolerant and less fair country.

The vertical mosaic that is Canada is an amazing experiment, a terrific example to the rest of the world. The response to the vertical mosaic from other countries is the response that the United Nations told us, that this is the best country in the world in which to live. Obviously that forms part of the reason for people choosing to come here, but it is also something that we must hold on to as legislators as we pass laws that will affect the citizens of this country, the people we are here to represent.

I have been very fortunate in the year and a month that I have been parliamentary secretary in immigration and citizenship to travel all over this country. I was in the riding of Calgary Northeast on Friday with the hon. member opposite, the immigration critic. I was there for a symposium on immigrant youth. There were 350 I believe-and my hon. colleague will correct me if I am wrong-places at this conference. They were all filled and there were 100 on the waiting list to meet and talk about the problems and concerns of young people who come to this country from other places.

At the opening ceremonies that the hon. member and I attended there were about 100 people, most of whom represented service organizations, NGOs, government levels, et cetera, all there because of their concern for immigrant youth to ensure that they settle into this country, to ensure that their needs are met. These things are increasingly important because we hear over and over again when so and so came 100 years ago we did not have settlement groups. No we did not. Of course we

also did not have small pox vaccinations and medicare. I hope we have improved to some degree on both of those things.

I note, Madam Speaker, that you are cutting me off in full flight. I have two minutes to go, so I had better wind up and talk a little bit about the specifics of Bill C-44.

The specifics of Bill C-44 are the response to a need. This morning the minister talked about the problems we dealt with, the rank insanity, if you will, of convicted criminals calling the immigration board to prisons to hear their stories on whether they should be granted status in Canada. Those problems will be dealt with by Bill C-44. Those problems will not be solved completely by the bill, but again we move forward to deal with each difficulty in the area as we see fit.

Bill C-44 is a strong and open response by the government to the problems evinced to us by the major players and stakeholders. We will deal with the bill and if further developments are necessary in the legislation, so too will we deal with those.

I support the bill and I adjure my colleagues on the other side to do the same thing.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Québec-social program reform; the hon. member for Frontenac-international trade.

[Osvaldo Nunez, Bloc, Bourassa, QC]

Madam Speaker, I, like several lawyers who participated in the committee hearings, believe that this bill violates certain provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and of the Geneva Convention. I hope that, once it becomes law, it will be immediately challenged before the courts.

I am thinking in particular of the provision which allows for the seizure of international mail by immigration officials. This is a reversal of the burden of proof. The presumption of innocence is protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but not in this legislation. The mere fact of importing or exporting identification documents or papers is an offence. Consequently, a person must prove that he or she has not committed an offence, which is contrary to the basic rules of law.

The parliamentary secretary then tells us that this is an excellent bill. Why is it then that all the organizations and all her colleague lawyers, including the president of the Canadian council for refugees, David Matas, who is also a lawyer and a former Liberal Party candidate, told the committee that this was a bad piece of legislation and that it violated the Charter and the Geneva Convention for refugees?

Indeed, the Canadian bar association, the Barreau du Québec, the Canadian ethnocultural council, as well as highly respected members of the legal profession in Canada criticized this bill, from a legal standpoint. I agree with the comment made by the hon. member who spoke before me to the effect that the Liberal majority did not co-operate. The Liberal members did not read all the briefs and they did not listen to all the testimonies made before the committee. More importantly, they did not listen to the opposition.

We submitted amendments that have ben implemented in other countries. We said that it was necessary to protect those who are here, the permanent residents who have been in Canada for at least ten years. These people already belong to our society; they have very little in the way of emotional links with their country of origin; they no longer have any family left over there. Why not make an exception for the people who have been living in Canada for a long time, for 40 to 50 years, and who, for many reasons, have not become Canadian citizens? They still are permanent residents.

We also said that we have to protect the younger people who are living here, in Canada, with their parents but who are not Canadian citizens. They are the products of our society. If they commit an offence, they have to pay for it here. Why should we deport them? They no longer have any family over there, their family is here, and our society is responsible for their education.

So, why were the amendments put forward by the opposition, by the Bloc Quebecois, rejected? I refer to amendments designed to include in this bill provisions found in other jurisdictions like Australia, which is as open to immigrants as Canada. Even in a country like France, not recognized for its open immigration policy, the immigration act is more caring than this bill introduced by the minister.

[Mary Clancy, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to respond to the questions of the hon. member for Bourassa.

First, with regard to his contention that we are in conflict with the Geneva convention I can only say that I believe the hon. member was there, as I was, when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees' representatives came to the committee, were questioned on that and did not agree with him.

The government does not think it is in contravention of the Geneva rules and neither does the UN. Beyond that I am not quite sure where we should go. Perhaps the hon. member thinks we should run to the position of the Bloc. I can only say that I am not now nor have I ever been nor do I intend to be a member of the Bloc Quebecois.

With regard to co-operation on amendments, particularly on the amendment that the hon. member mentioned-I am going to try to say this as clearly and as succinctly as possible because this is something that a number of members on the other side in both parties do not seem to understand-the reason is that we are on opposite sides. We have different beliefs and different ways of achieving our ends.

We are on the government side. We have a majority. Frequently we are going to disagree with the Bloc on a number of issues, particularly those issues that go to the heart of what it is to be Canadian. We disagree as well most vociferously with the third party on practically everything.

Consequently I am not quite certain what the members of the opposition expect here. That is the point. They are the opposition. We are not supposed to agree.

I am quite happy to think that both parties are serving Her Majesty in the best way possible by being a loyal opposition and disagreeing with what we say. If we agreed, I would be worried.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know that the parliamentary secretary likes to talk about flying as does the minister. He certainly has alluded many times to the planes that fly and land and the ones that crash. I believe the parliamentary secretary is still flying and she has not come down to earth yet to learn what is happening. She needs to put her feet on firmer ground.

The parliamentary secretary attended various meetings and listened to all kinds of experts dealing with Bill C-44. Several flaws have been pointed out in the removal provisions by these experts.

These flaws are in the existing legislation as well as Bill C-44. It is not going to change anything.

Could the parliamentary secretary tell me if the government is going to keep confined those violent criminals until travel documents to remove them are obtained rather than releasing individuals into society. I have the name of one here. Mr. Gregory George Jordan has been charged with second degree murder. He is an Australian with a deportation order against him. He is walking around on day parole. What is the parliamentary secretary going to do about individuals like that? Is she going to keep them confined until removal orders are present to remove them?

[Mary Clancy, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, sometimes one feels as if one is a voice howling in the wilderness. The hon. member knows, or at least he should know after a year and some time in the House and after a year and some time as the critic for immigration, that commenting on individual cases is neither proper nor appropriate. He knows I am not going to comment on a specific case.

What I am going to do is refer the hon. member yet again to the provisions of the bill that deal with the question of serious criminals, that deal with their removal. I remind the hon. member that a bill that is not yet passed can hardly be enforced. Let us get the bill passed so the kinds of criminals he is talking about can be dealt with expeditiously.

If we had the support of the third party on this bill, if they were so concerned with the whole question of criminality and the speedy removal of serious criminals, then perhaps they would support this bill instead of haranguing on issues that are not really on point.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

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.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was following the speech given by the hon. member. He always refers to new Canadians other than his own race as immigrants. I want to know, the people he was talking to, the Vietnamese Canadians, are they still immigrants or are they Canadian citizens who have the right to express themselves? Just because they look different, we should not call them immigrants for the rest of their lives.

He quoted the figure of 24,000 deportees and mentioned that we have only 20 investigators. I am sure he knows that of the 24,000, not all of them are criminals. Some of these people are missing papers or documentation. One cannot call 24,000 refugees waiting for papers to be in order as criminals and ask them to be investigated.

Can he clarify those two points for me? I would appreciate it.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, to respond to the first point, of course concerning people who are landed immigrants, we should stop calling them immigrants after a while. The group I was referring to was a mix. Some were immigrants without status, others have status.

We are all immigrants after all, as the hon. parliamentary secretary stated just a while ago. In this case there was specific reference to a Vietnamese community. Am I to go into the political correctness realm to try to skate around the fact that they are identifiable? It was a group to whom I spoke, identifiably with a Vietnamese background, whether they are immigrants or not. Let us not skate around things. Let us call them as they are.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Call them Canadians.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

All right, fine, then this group of Vietnamese Canadians. I can speak to a group of French Canadians, Dutch Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians. There is nothing wrong with identifying their background I hope because we should all be proud of where we came from.

I cannot clarify the hon. member's question on the 24,000. The phrase I used on that-I would have to go back to it-was a suspected group that are at large. This comes from a source. The public domain says this is what it probably is. If we do not have the inspectors, the people to back it up, let us increase it. Let us spend more money there where it is needed.

[Vic Althouse, NDP, Mackenzie, SK]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan pointing out how he and his party feel that there has to be more staffing in the immigration department. It seems that is a necessity.

I have also been listening to his party for the last year and a quarter complaining that the government must cut some $40 billion from the deficit and they keep saying it should be done almost immediately. That will mean reducing about 25 per cent of the services that the government now looks after which presumably will mean a 25 per cent cut in the personnel who have been delivering those services.

If the hon. member is going to be adding to the immigration department, what departments is he going to be proposing to do away with and where can he get rid of 25 per cent of the current crop of civil servants and still add to some departments? He will have to do away with whole departments and perhaps do away with the military to perform these new services that he is now advocating. Where can he take these kinds of cuts and still get rid of about a quarter and still add to his chosen ministry?

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

The answer to that question, Madam Speaker, is very simple. We take the cuts out of the fat bureaucracy and put them into the sharp end. The Department of National Defence was mentioned as an example. It is taking 3,000 out of its headquarters in Ottawa to bolster the front lines where it needs them in support of the UN.

I say the department of immigration should do the same thing, take it out of the bureaucracy here in Ottawa and put it into the front lines where it is needed.

[Osvaldo Nunez, Bloc, Bourassa, QC]

Madam Speaker, if I understand correctly, my hon. colleague agrees in the case of a genuine refugee. I would like to ask him a question.

After an individual has been allowed to enter the country as a refugee and has been given refugee status, there is a fee of $500 per adult and $100 per child for permanent residency. A lot of genuine refugees are impoverished when they come here. They have no money and sometimes have to turn to churches or to agencies that help immigrants and refugees find the $500.

We looked into the matter and found that genuine refugees do not have to pay anything for permanent residency in the United States. What does my colleague think about this problem?

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, genuine refugees need not fear. If they fit the definitions set by the United Nations, we have to accept them, we have to pay their expenses, etc. But the number of genuine refugees is undoubtedly much smaller than what the immigration department currently claims. If they truly are refugees, we accept them and give them financial assistance.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I go back to my second question about 24,000 deportees. I would appreciate if in the near future the hon. member would look into the numbers and report to this House the exact number of criminals. He says there are 24,000. Maybe he can tell this House how many criminal deportees he is referring to.

[Bob Ringma, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would be more than pleased to try to pin down the exact numbers and report back to this House.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I suppose I could start by wishing everyone a happy 1995. I wish everyone prosperity.

In this House sometimes we educate others, sometimes we get educated from discussions such as this. I welcome this opportunity to discuss Bill C-44 today in this House.

I was watching television on January 16 which happens to be Martin Luther King's birthday in the United States. In one of his speeches he said that a first class nation deserves first class citizens. This bill calls for Canada being a first class nation, which it has been called for the last two years by the United Nations. This is a first class bill for first class citizens, especially those who are new arrivals in this country. They know they are going to start a new life with their family in this new country which they have adopted.

I was following the comments of both of the opposition parties, the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party. Obviously the Bloc Quebecois is telling us that we are not going far enough. I know its point of view because it sits with us on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. The Reform Party spokesman said that it does not go far enough. We are confused as to how far to go to satisfy the Bloc or how far to go to satisfy the Reform Party. That is why as good Liberals we always support the middle ground because the middle ground is where

the average Canadian's mentality rests. That is where average Canadians want us to be.

When we talk about immigration we always refer to negative things, the cup is always half empty. Let us look at the positive side of immigration.

Earlier I asked my colleague if he could give us the number for the 24,000 deportees which he mentioned. He could not give me a number. I would think the number is not more than 625. For 625 criminal refugees it is fair not to raise the figure to 24,000. It gives the impression that immigrants are all criminals, that they all have criminal records or that they intend to commit a crime when they adopt Canada as their new homeland.

This bill makes six basic points. Earlier the Reform Party spokesman said that this is a good bill but does not go far enough. As was mentioned earlier, the job of the opposition is to oppose. That is what it is paid for. We on this side are paid to put forward programs, which we are doing. The six points that were mentioned by the hon. member go far enough.

We should not take the approach that we are going to build a cement wall like the Berlin wall against refugees coming in, saying that anybody coming in from a certain part of the world is a criminal or intends to commit a crime in this country. That is not the way we do business in Canada. That is not the way we do business in western society.

I am sure the member agrees with me that we cannot put police officers with machine guns at every step of the way who will say: "You look different than I do, so you had better stay out because you look like a criminal to me". We cannot do that.

The hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois says that he hopes after this bill is passed that someone will challenge this bill in the courts. I hope they will because we want to do the best we can. We want to make sure that we become first class citizens in this first class country.

That is the responsibility we have and we take it very seriously. I hope they will share that responsibility with us and support the bill. If there are improvements or suggestions to be made, we should do that as we go along. The system allows that to be done. For the time being we should support this bill because it is the best we can do under the circumstances.

Before we arrived at this bill we had one year of consultations. I know the Bloc Quebecois says that consultations were not good enough because of a, b, c or d. The Reform Party says they were not good enough because x, y or z and because 29 million people did not have a chance to come forward to speak.

In my riding I organized two or three meetings to talk about immigration. People spoke up. Some said yes and some said no. Some said it was good policy and others said it was bad policy.

I sent out questionnaires and 1,100 people responded. I passed those questionnaires on to the minister. I am happy to say that most of the concerns presented to me by my constituents are addressed in this bill.

I am very happy to support this bill. I will do whatever I can to support this bill because it is important. We must have it because we have to go forward and be forward looking. We cannot be negative on everything new planned by this government.

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have heard several times today from Liberal members about hitting the middle road when it comes to immigration, that they would like to pick the so-called balance and policy and compare the message of the Bloc with the message Reform delivers.

I do not think the hon. member across realizes that we are talking about apples and oranges when we compare messages the Bloc sends and what Reform has been saying for some time now. The Bloc already has an agreement on immigration levels and on the way it handles immigration policy which differs dramatically from the rest of the country. The levels that the Bloc has are probably more realistic than the levels set by this government for the rest of the country.

I am going to ask this hon. member what he has in his mind when he wants to tell the people of this country that they have struck a balance. I would suggest to this member that there is no balance struck by the Liberal government when it comes to immigration policy, that it is floundering. If a comparison is to be made between the Bloc and the Reform the member should abandon the comparison.

I would like to hear more comments from the member regarding the so-called balance he is talking about between the Reform and the Bloc.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would be more than happy to address the hon. member's concern.

A few months ago when I put forward Bill C-229 about limiting political parties from becoming federal parties when they do not have 50 per cent of provincial representation. I noted at that time the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party both voted against my bill. They shared that regional concern.

The other point I want to make is that both of them have national headquarters for their parties outside of Ottawa. I want to remind them that Ottawa is the nation's capital. The way I see it you cannot be a federal party in this country and have your headquarters in some other region of the country. Members work in Ottawa so their headquarters should be here.

Concerning immigration policy levels, the Globe and Mail said the minister did not go far enough because he has to have 255,000 new immigrants. We have dropped to 190,000. This person complained that we dropped too much. This is a conservative newspaper that speaks often on behalf of the Reform Party.

It says we have to increase the number to make it 255,000. It says here that each immigrant coming in will add to the national budget a $10,000 surplus. How much more of a balance do we want?

[Art Hanger, Reform, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Go to the immigration department and find out.