Madam Speaker, I do not share the views expressed by the member for Guelph-Wellington. I think that this bill tends to add fuel to a climate of hostility and even panic among immigrant communities in Canada.
This morning, I received a call from Toronto's Latin American community. Several Argentinians have been detained. They are in a jail near the airport. Children have been taken out of school to be deported. People do not want to go to Our Lady of Guadaloupe, a Latin American church in Toronto, because they are afraid of being arrested. They are not criminals.
I will tell you about the case of Taramatie Seeratan Kamsubhag, a woman from Trinidad and Tobago. She will be deported in the next few days but her husband, who assaulted her, will stay here because he is remarried to a Canadian woman, and has thus acquired permananent resident status. Is this the kind of tolerance toward immigrants and refugees that the Liberal Party of Canada is talking about?
In September 1993, in Montreal, the Deputy Prime Minister promised that no female victim of violence would be deported if the Liberals were elected. Fourteen women are being deported. What are you doing to prevent these women from being unjustifiably deported? I repeat, they are not criminals. These women have children, some of whom were born here in Canada, and they are now being deported.