Madam Speaker, there is still very strong concern in my riding of Vancouver East regarding the immigration legislative review.
Vancouver East is one of the most multicultural ridings in Canada. It is made up of people whose mother tongue is English, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French, Tagolog, Vietnamese, as well as other languages. Vancouver East has a strong historical multicultural root and has always welcomed immigrants from every continent.
It has the rich tradition of a working class immigrant settlement shaping such diverse neighbourhoods as Strathcona, Chinatown, Grandview-Woodlands, Little Italy, Oppenheimer Park and Japan Town.
Vancouver East is also home to many multicultural organizations and services. I provide this brief snapshot of my community to illustrate why the recommendations of the legislative immigration review concern me deeply. If implemented, the recommendations stand to fundamentally change Vancouver East as a living, vibrant example of multicultural diversity that enriches everyone in the community.
Prior to the hearings that began in Vancouver on February 27, I met with local organizations and organizations that served the immigrant communities and multicultural communities including organizations such as Success, the Chinese Benevolent Association, Mosaic, Immigrant Services Society, the Philippine Women's Centre and the Storefront Orientation Service.
My constituents and those organizations told me that they were deeply concerned about the recommendations contained in the report, particularly involving language, education and the fees imposed on prospective immigrants to Canada.
I also heard very strong concerns about the process of the review itself. Even before the report became public there was a very closed door process, by invitation only, in which many organizations not only in my riding but in other ridings were not allowed the opportunity to have input into the report before it became public.
The public hearings themselves that began in Vancouver were also something that caused a lot of concern in my riding. Many groups wanting to speak to the hearing were not heard and even though the minister provided some extra days of hearings there was inadequate time for local organizations to be heard on what really is the most serious situation involving potential change to Canada's immigration and refugee policies during the last 25 years.
There was also a lot of concern about the recommendation concerning language requirements. Reading through the report and from what I heard from my constituents is that in Vancouver East we believe very strongly that the recommendations show a very deep bias toward non-anglophone and non-francophone people. If those recommendations are implemented they would fundamentally change the kind of neighbourhood and the kind of riding that Vancouver East has been over the years.
I want to call on the government and the minister on behalf of my constituents to make it clear that this report will not be adopted. There is a lot of concern this report will be rushed through by the end of the year or that some recommendations will be dropped and that other recommendations, which maybe do not have popular support in terms of policies around refugees and lack of security around an independent process, will be pushed through by the government.
I would like to get an assurance that the government is not going to rush through legislative changes, that there will be a full and open debate around our immigration and multicultural policies and that the government will assure us that there will not be punitive and biased recommendations—