Madam Speaker, I want to debate the item that refers to the intent of the amendment to ensure that privacy laws do not inadvertently restrict criminal investigations. I will talk about several issues I have been working on recently to illustrate my point.
The first issue concerns an individual by the name of Eduardo Montenegro. Eduardo is from Mexico. He came into our area of British Columbia and immediately began selling drugs to our children; cocaine in fact. This is the story about this fellow. Despite two convictions for trafficking in Canada, this 26 year old Mexican is being considered for refugee status. This is a fellow who has come into our country, who has not worked, who sells cocaine to our kids and who is now being considered for refugee status.
People in my area, and I suspect people right across the country, do not understand that. He applied for refugee status last June, just days after his second conviction for selling cocaine. That means that he stays in Canada until the refugee hearing takes place, which could take up to a year. I know because I have been through a lot of them myself, fighting them as well.
Two months after this fellow applied for refugee status the police arrested him again for selling drugs. He was waiting for the refugee hearing and he was selling drugs. Not only that, they found this fellow with two separate identities. Why? Because he was picking up two separate welfare cheques as well as selling drugs.
When that kind of thing happens one might think there is something wrong with our system. Having been there I can say that is an understatement.
I decided to find out what was going on and I started on the usual process. I applied to the refugee hearing. As soon as I applied they said “Let's have the hearing really fast so White does not get involved and we have the spotlight put on us. Let's do this really quick”.
After that happened I said that I wanted to know whether the individual had been booted out of the country, in other words whether his refugee application had failed, or whether he would be staying.
I applied in writing to the refugee board to say that I wanted to become involved. I received a letter from the good old refugee board, which I usually end up dealing with, which essentially said this: “Further to your access to information request for the board's decision in Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 27, 1998 regarding Eduardo Montenegro, we want to tell you this: In a telecommunication today between your office and another person, an access to information and privacy officer of the board, the former confirmed that you are neither his representative nor do you have his consent to know what happened”.
In other words, the privacy laws are telling me as a Canadian citizen and as a member of parliament that it is none of my damn business whether or not this cocaine dealer from another country, this guy who is ripping off our system twice on welfare, is staying in Canada or leaving Canada. Why? All because somebody says it is a matter of his privacy.
I would like to know from the government whose brilliant idea it was to say that the privacy of people who should be deported, non-citizens selling drugs and ripping off our social system, is paramount to the safety and security of the citizens of this country.
If this were an isolated case I would not be standing here. However, I can cite case after case on the issue of privacy in this country that is not correct. It is not working properly.
I come into the House every opportunity I can to talk about privacy and other laws to demonstrate to this government, all two members who are sitting across from me, that what is in existence in those departments and in the laws does not work, and yet it is bringing in new laws that do not address the old laws. It is just compounding the issues in delivering legislation.
For the life of me, for all of the people watching this, I do not understand why people continuously, for two successive parliaments, vote this group in when it is not only introducing laws like Bill C-54 that are mediocre at best, but when it is not fixing the broken laws that are breaking our society today.
I ask government members to listen, all two of them. There are 160-some representatives of the government who belong to the House and we have two sitting here listening to the debate today.