Madam Speaker, I have a point of clarification. This bill is about extradition which is removing people with criminal records from the country. It is not mutually exclusive with deportation. One of the things criminals often do is they claim refugee status to avoid extradition and deportation.
The member is absolutely right. This country has a backlog of these cases, it is sad to say. In the last parliament when we had a backlog of these cases, the government said “We have such a backlog, we cannot deal with it so maybe we should put them all on a fast track and bring them in”. Out go the citizenship papers and guess what we are left with.
I would like to think that all the speeches from my colleagues are going to amount to a lot of difference. But in this country where there is a majority government and the Liberals now have their buddies in the Senate, these bills go through. Canadians deserve a lot better than this. They deserve some consideration for laws that work.
I have been involved with a lot of victims rights groups in my short time in this House. Victims and potential victims, honest law-abiding Canadian citizens deserve a lot better than they are getting now.