I gave you your chance to speak. Give me my chance to speak. Be courteous at least.
This bill wants to give certain powers to the immigration ministry and the immigration minister so that certain cases of extreme abuse are rectified.
The legislation will give the minister the power to intervene to prevent appeals against deportation where the deportee has been convicted of serious criminal offenses. The legislation will give us the authority to interrupt the process of Canadian citizenship acquisition when the applicant's claims are being investigated. This will make it possible to declare non eligible for immigration the persons convicted on summary proceedings in Canada or abroad.
We propose to remove the right of appeal for all persons involved in crimes of violence, involved in crimes involving weapons, sexual assault or drug offences, those crimes that have been punishable with sentences of 10 years or more. I do not think this is extreme. I do not think this is abusive.
I find it sad. I must join my seatmate here to say that I found it sad, that I felt the member for Fraser Valley West lowered the standard of debate in referring to animals, creeps and creepy crawlers.
His colleague from Macleod gave him a very good example. We can debate. We can differ. At the same time, we can use language that is measured in tone, that is constructive, that makes a point. You convince people far more readily that way than by using abusive terms such as animals, creeps and creepy crawlers. I do not think this kind of language helps the debate. It certainly does not raise the standard and it convinces very few people.
My hon. colleague from Kootenay East raised the question of statistics between Quebec and Ontario, whether it should be $90 million to Quebec, $110 million to Ontario, and dividing and adding and multiplying. When I listened to him in this debate I thought to myself what about human beings? What about people? People are not statistics. Human beings are not statistics.
We should all remember back to our First Nations, to our aboriginal people who have been there for thousands of years. All of us, regardless of our political stripes, regardless of the colour of our skin, regardless of our faith, regardless of whether we are young or old, are all immigrants. They have accepted us here, sometimes not willingly, but today with great calm, with great patience and fortitude.
We have to remember that all of us, whether we were born here or not, were immigrants too. We have to give a chance to the others who want to join with us. At the same time that we give them a chance we want to make it a fair game and say "Those of you who want to make a contribution, those of you who want to be true Canadians, we will help you, we will support you, we will give you all the blessing of our hospitality and welcome. At the same time, those of you who do not want to play the game, who want to abuse the system, there will be a law, a fair law to use in cases of abuse". That is the reason I support Bill C-44.