Mr. Speaker, in case the hon. member has not noticed I do talk funny and that is because I come from New Zealand. I am an immigrant myself and so I think I am in a very good position to comment about immigration.
I know what it is like to work to come to Canada. It took my wife and me two years to get permission to come here. We had to apply three times. We had good backgrounds, no criminal records, we had money to bring here to purchase a house and we had jobs to come to as well. So I do not think there is anything wrong with setting a high standard.
I am also not going to apologize for saying it like it is. I have never said in this House, though, that all immigrants or all refugees are criminals. They are not, but if we do not recognize there is a problem we will reap what we sow.
I remind the hon. member that three years ago when Reformers in the Vancouver area were saying that there was a problem with astronaut families who were not paying taxes and were leaving their families here, we were called racists. Today the member for Richmond admits there is a problem with astronaut families.
If the hon. member would like to get the Vancouver papers for the last week she will see it is a major problem that affects real estate agents, accountants and the entire community because we did not talk about it and deal with it when it was a problem at the beginning.
There is a lesson to be learned from all that. We had better start talking in this House about the things that they do not want to talk about over there or things will get worse and worse. They are afraid to talk about them. They hold themselves up behind the flag and claim all sorts of compassion and tolerance, but they should stand aside a little from that ideology for a moment and just look at what is really happening out there.
Nobody is opposed to a good immigration policy for Canada but let us set some decent standards for God's sake. Let us make it so that a person entering this country feels like they want to be Canadian instead of feeling like they want to rip off Canadians, because that is what some of these people do.
The member should go to Pearson airport, as my colleague from Wild Rose has done, to see the plane loads arriving everyday where bogus refugee claimants come through, 100 a day. The immigration people are forced to let them free on their own recognisance if someone is there to meet them. Mr. Speaker, have you ever heard of a refugee who had someone to meet them at the airport?
The trouble is they will not look at the facts. They stand there accusing us of all sorts of things, but if they would just look at the facts they would see there are major problems to deal with. I actually think the move on Bill C-55 is an indication that they are finally starting to get the message. They know the Canadian people want to get tough on crime.