Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-63.
There is one problem that I and others members of the House see repeatedly in our offices, that the immigration department is in a mess. The minister has had three years to deal with it and yet she has done nothing. In fact things are spiralling out of control. Most members of the House have put cases into the her lap, only to see them completely disappear and evaporate without any action being taken.
Let me talk about some of the problems that are taking place. As are other members of the House, I am an immigrant to this country. We are deeply grateful for what Canada has given us. Let us make no mistake about that. However, the traditional role of immigration into Canada, the backbone and building block of our nation, has been watered down by incompetence on the part of the minister.
We have traditionally relied on an independent class of immigrants, who are trying to get into Canada, to build the country. They are going through the hoops and are told to leave the country. They are told they cannot get in. They do all the work, put their money down, and are sent back to from where they came, even when they are employed in this country. On the other hand, individuals who are criminals and commit offences on our soil are allowed to walk free on Canadian soil. What kind of immigration policy is that?
People who are trying to get legitimate family members into Canada are not allowed to do so. People who are legitimate refugees cannot come in. However those who are bogus refugees are allowed to come in. Why is that so?
Over and above the incompetence the minister shows in botching up her portfolio and in what she does to the citizens of this country, she does a greater disservice to legitimate immigrants who want to come to Canada to build a safe and secure future for themselves and their family. Those are the people the minister is slapping in the face by botching up her portfolio. This needs to be fixed. The minister has had the opportunity to fix it but she has not.
Clause 4(1) of the bill indicates that individuals who are born on Canadian soil automatically become Canadian citizens. Let us talk about some scams. One of the scams is that persons can bring in their children between the ages of 12 and 16, let someone here adopt them and when they become 19 they can bring the whole family into Canada.
When I was delivering a baby I learned of another scam. People can come into the country in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, have babies on Canadian soil and the children automatically becomes Canadian and can then bring the entire family into the country. That is not good immigration. That is gypping the immigration system and immigrants who come into this country by going through legitimate hoops.
It would have been more intelligent for the minister to have a residency requirement for persons coming into the country who are having a child who will become a Canadian citizen. There should be a two year residency requirement or they should be landed immigrants before they ultimately become Canadian citizens. If those provisions were included this loophole would be blocked. Also the loophole with respect to adoption needs to be blocked.
The minister can do a number of things. My colleague from Vancouver mentioned the issue of the oath of allegiance. We have a lot of rights in Canada but we do not talk about a lot of responsibility. The minister could have included in the oath of allegiance an allegiance to Canada, an allegiance articulating the responsibilities of people when they come to the country. That would have made the oath of allegiance, the oath of citizenship, meaningful. She failed once again.
If we are to build an immigration policy that does justice to Canada, if we are to build an immigration policy that will be fairer to immigrants as well as to Canadian citizens, we have to get back to basic principles. We have to build an immigration policy that focuses on the independent class of immigrants. We have to make sure the people who come into the country have the skills to contribute to the Canadian economy and have the linguistic skills to be able to function within Canada.
We have to recognize our responsibility to live up to our international obligations under the United Nations treaties we have signed with respect to refugees. Letting in legitimate refugees is a good thing, a humanitarian and compassionate thing, but letting in bogus refugees, people who are using refugee claimant status as something to queue jump, does a disservice to Canada and Canadians. Above all else, it does a disservice to the legitimate refugees and immigrants trying to come into the country.
As has been mentioned before, immigrants to the country who commit crimes should be sent back to the country they came from and banned from coming back into Canada for at least 10 years. In that way we would ensure the safety and security of our country for both immigrants and Canadian citizens.
We are seeking from the minister an element of fairness, an element of intelligence, and an element of a co-ordinated strategy within the ministry of immigration which will ensure we have an immigration policy that strengthens and not weakens Canada.
Immigrants come through the offices of every member of the House with stories of how they have been forced to pay for the mistakes of the ministry. When people who try to bring their beloved into the country they come here with a certain set of rules and guidelines, only to be told that they have to return to their countries of origin and go through the process again. When they go back to their countries of origin they are told to go back to Canada. This costs them money they often do not have. It also causes them an unnecessary amount of time to go through the process of becoming a legitimate contributor to our country.
We cannot understand why the minister, after three years in her portfolio, has failed to deal with these fundamental issues. She was even guided by the House Standing Committee on Immigration and Citizenship. Four years ago the committee placed 28 recommendations inn the minister's lap. Was anything done about them? No. Why does it take four years to deal with 28 recommendations from a bipartisan committee to strengthen our immigration system? What we see is Bill C-63 which, if anything, nibbles around the edges of our system.