Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak this evening on Bill C-316. As has been pointed out by many hon. colleagues who have already spoken to the bill, there are a number of problems with it. However the private member bringing it forward did not have access to a battery of lawyers or experts in the departments of justice or immigration to point them out.
The role of private members is to bring good ideas for legislation forward. It is the role of the House and the committee to which it is assigned to improve it and make it workable. In this case I believe the member for Cambridge has focused the attention of the House on a problem Canadians want to see solved. It is now our job to ensure the bill makes it to committee where we will have the benefit of the expertise of departmental officials who have been studying the issue. I am sure the hon. member would agree to changes that maintain the spirit and intent of the bill while making it legally defensible.
Canadians want non-citizens who commit abhorrent crimes deported. It is our duty as their elected representatives to ensure the bill does not get buried in committee. We must send a clear message to other criminals who believe they are living in a land where there are relatively light consequences for breaking the law.
If we have the political will we can overcome any road blocks. By failing to act in an expeditious manner to treat the deportation of non-citizen criminals as a high priority, the government is not acting in the best interest of the safety of Canadians.
Canadians want to see criminals dealt with decisively. They will be much more willing to accept the fact that the vast majority of immigrants respect our laws if they see a government commitment to immediate deportation of those who break them.
I have heard Liberal colleagues across the way say that sentencing foreign criminals to deportation would be cruel and unusual punishment under the charter. Frankly, if they do not respect any of our other laws, they can exercise their charter rights somewhere else in the world.
The charter of rights has an implied charter of responsibilities. We already treat non-citizens differently by denying them the right to vote. We already deny convicted criminals the freedom of mobility. I do not think it is beyond the spirit or intent of the charter to deny non-citizens convicted of violent crimes or drug trafficking the right to remain in Canada.
In the meantime too many criminals are tying up our legal system and slipping out the side door while we bend over backward to apply the charter to protect their rights. The charter seems to be the only piece of legislation some criminals are aware of. Our charter is supposed to be a shield to protect the rights and freedoms of Canadians, not a sword to be used against us by criminals who do not respect any of our other laws.
In the time remaining I should like to focus on a couple of matters I believe should be looked at when the bill goes to committee. One problem is the section that allows for the deportation of dependants. This clause must be looked at. For example, what if the non-citizen was convicted of first degree murder of his or her spouse. We would hardly want to deport the children with the convicted parent. We would want to consult with family and friends to determine the safest home for them, be that in Canada or in the country of origin.
It has also been argued that by having the sentencing judge issue the removal order it makes deportation a punishment rather than merely an administrative option available to the government.
The objection is then made that we are not treating non-citizens the same as citizens and therefore they are being doubly punished for the same crime. That objection can be dealt with. The sentencing judge could be responsible for delivering the crown's administrative decision that deportation proceed. Then we could eliminate the inquiry stage.
The bill also prevents appeals through the immigration appeals division. It is trying to make sure non-citizens do not disappear between the end of their prison sentence and the immigration appeal hearing.
For example, in August, Montreal papers reported the story of Patrick Baptiste who was under deportation orders for drug dealing but not surprisingly failed to show up at the hearing when his appeal was rejected. The police caught up with him a few months later. Only this time he was implicated in planning a murder. Now that his deportation appeal has been rejected, I hope when he
finishes his current jail term he will not be given a chance to escape again.
His is not an isolated case. According to a Gazette article a special task force made up of RCMP and immigration officers has identified 1,888 convicted criminals ordered deported who remained here. Twelve hundred were serious criminals, liable to more than 10 years imprisonment. Those are ones the bill is trying to deal with. As of August one-third had either left the country or had been deported. Another third, 671 of the 1,888, had appealed their deportation orders or claimed refugee status and a further 300 are still missing.
Despite eliminating a right to appeal through the immigration appeals division under clause 3 of section 32.1 unfortunately the bill adds an automatic appeals process under the Criminal Code. This would certainly have to be amended should the bill go further.
By allowing an automatic appeal hearing it would actually be a small step back from the Bill C-44 changes and I do not believe Bill C-44 went far enough. In addition to violent offenders, non-citizens who are habitual criminals should also be denied the right of appeal.
I view the three years before a landed immigrant takes out citizenship as a probationary period. Canadians have welcomed them into our house and have given them the opportunity to become part of our family. If they do not respect our laws they have broken their contract with us.
Why do we wait a minimum of three years before granting citizenship? Is it just so new immigrants have time to learn the name of our Prime Minister or how many provinces there are? Surely we place greater value on Canadian citizenship than that.
Habitual criminals, drug traffickers and violent criminals are not welcome. How many times should someone be allowed to break our law before we show them the door? When we show them door because they have committed a serious criminal offence in Canada, they should not be allowed to come back in.
Just today the paper reported on a criminal who has been deported from Canada five times at an average cost of $50,000. That is $250,000 taxpayers have had to pay for this one case. He was first granted landed immigrant status in 1975 and by 1976 had been convicted of theft. He was deported in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988. Then he came back in 1990 and claimed refugee status. Now he is an arsonist, setting fires in public malls.
I am encouraged to see that immigration officials have taken the unusual step of trying to appeal his refugee status. The problem is that other criminals we deport also come back claiming refugee status. This is a loophole Bill C-316 does not plug.
Even the UN High Commission for Refugees does not support asylum shopping. That is exactly what it is when people who have already been deported return to Canada claiming they are refugees.
During 1993-94 according to Correctional Service Canada there were over 1,000 foreign nationals serving time in our prisons. At an average cost of almost $46,000 this amounts to almost $50 million. The auditor general estimated the real cost of maintaining someone in prison was closer to $80,000. This means it costs taxpayers around $80 million to keep foreign nationals in prison every year.
To put this in another context, the entire immigration department including enforcement, settlement, language training for new immigrants and so on has been ordered to cut $54 million from its budget over the next couple of years.
In conclusion, despite the problems the member has made a valiant attempt to address a serious issue. Let us take the bill to committee where we will have the advice and expertise of departmental officials and counsel to improve it so that we can bring it back to the House.
Immigration officials are studying ways of streamlining deportation of criminals, but it could be another year or two before the minister brings a comprehensive plan forward. Let us work on the problem now using the bill before us as the vehicle.