Madam Speaker, listening to the speech by the hon. member brought to mind the fact that I am an immigrant and had to go through the immigration process in 1979 to get into Canada. It took about two years. We first applied and we were automatically turned down. We asked why we were turned down. We applied a second time. It took three applications to come here.
My wife and I had money to buy a home. We had jobs guaranteed. We felt we had earned the right to come here. We had earned it. We truly felt like Canadians and that is the way we have behaved since, as Canadians.
I personally see nothing wrong with having a high standard. That is the same message I get in my riding from all of the immigrants who have come in through the legitimate process.
I have two questions for the member. She does not object to requiring reasonably high standards. The second point has to do with criminal refugees.
The real problem in the major centres has nothing to do with immigration as such. But it is the problem which the minister is not addressing which is the one of criminal refugees.
In a TV interview last week with BCTV, a reporter basically demolished the minister over the issue of not deporting criminal refugees and allowing them to enter our borders holus-bolus. She has done absolutely nothing.
In the last three to four months in Vancouver there have been multiple arrests of up to 80 criminal Honduran drug dealers who are all illegal entries. Up to half of the arrests every night in Vancouver are criminal non-residents, aliens who have crossed the border as criminal refugees.
Has the member thought about that problem in the big cities? Like most of the people of Vancouver, does she agree that there should be a better way of getting rid of those bad people quickly instead of having them hang around for 10 or 12 years?