Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill which if successful and sufficiently improved could be a good first step in ensuring the quick deportation of foreign born criminals.
I appreciate the work the Canadian Police Association has done on the bill. I appreciate that my colleague from the Liberal Party was brave enough to sponsor it. Clearly the goals of the bill are not shared by the minister of immigration. If they were, these measures would have been amended to Bill C-44 when it was up for debate.
The minister knew the recommendations of the Canadian Police Association but chose not to act on them. He chose to ignore these common sense measures which, when the legal language is cleared up by a competent lawyer, would take a small step toward ensuring non-citizens who commit serious crimes in Canada will make two stops after they leave the court room, one to the prison and one to the airport where, unless Canadian immigration allows them to run away on the tarmac as was the case last week, they will be sent where they belong, out of Canada.
The bill has a lot of serious problems that will require serious study and fixing before the bill can be made effective. I trust it is the intention of my colleague to work on these weak points. I hope the bill is not window dressing, the sort of smoke and mirrors tactics the minister of immigration loves to engage in.
My colleague from Cariboo-Chilcotin dealt with the bill's problems admirably during the last hour of debate. I will not beat that dead horse. However, before the bill goes any further it is necessary to look at the big picture of deportations. It is necessary to understand what the Reform Party wants to see with deportation policy.
The Reform Party's stand on non-citizen criminals is clear, simple and in line with what the majority of Canadians want, something the minister for immigration would have a hard time understanding. Our policy for non-citizen criminals would not result from bargaining with special interests or with refugee lawyers but from consulting with our members, our constituents and with the people of Canada.
I am sure my hon. colleague, the sponsor of the bill, understands what the people are saying on immigration matters. I understand a lot of Liberal backbenchers are feeling the heat from their constituents. It is too bad they cannot do anything about it. It is too bad they have to toe the Liberal Party line.
We believe that the people who have not exercised a claim to Canadian citizenship or who have not lived in the country long enough to claim citizenship and who commit serious crimes have violated a moral contract entered into with the people of Canada.
The Reform Party believes that immigration to Canada is a privilege, not a right. We believe that the people of Canada, the citizens of Canada, have the collective right to determine who comes into Canada, how many people are allowed to come into Canada and under what conditions.
A newcomer to this country enters into a moral contract with Canada. There are several terms of that contract. The most important of them is that the newcomer must abide by the laws of this country. There is nothing that angers my constituents like recently arrived immigrants to Canada who commit crime. That drives them up the wall, and rightly so. Canadians collectively have the right to be morally outraged when the wonderful gift of Canadian residency is extended and then the recipient of that gift violates our laws.
We are above all else a nation of laws. That defines Canada. We demand of anyone who immigrates here that those laws are to be respected. That is a demand. When someone ignores that demand, violates the moral contract with Canadians and makes a
mockery of the Canadian generosity by breaking the law, then that person should be removed quickly and permanently.
I challenge the government. I challenge the immigration minister and the Prime Minister to poll Canadians, ask Canadians if they feel that newcomers who break the law should be removed quickly and permanently. Mr. Speaker, I will bet you Sergio Marchi's pension that they will say yes.