Mr. Speaker, I was asking the minister at that time how Bill C-31 would impact on closing the door to criminal elements and gangs.
For example, on the front page of the Globe and Mail on the weekend there was an article about the Chinese triads who are infiltrating our country, or who have infiltrated our country, and are establishing a very complex criminal process which is taking advantage of our citizens, and certainly taking advantage of being allowed to operate in our country as citizens.
I would hope that this bill would stop these sorts of very terrible organizations from forming in our country. We have enough crime as it is without having to import it from China and other places.
We have some reservations about this bill. It is essential that the rules apply in the name of fairness and justice and do not result in a travesty of justice. The best example is that we will not allow people who have been convicted of crimes to enter our country.
I think that is a good standard; however, I do not think we should be totally inflexible about it, because a person convicted of a crime punishable by more than 10 years, and who has served more than two years, someone like Nelson Mandela, would not have qualified as a refugee to Canada under the proposed bill. I think we have to look at what sort of criminal records these individuals have and whether they were standing for human rights in their country, charged and put in jail. We have to look at those on a case by case basis.
Other examples are the people who hid Anne Frank and the brave Canadians who helped build the underground railway for American slaves. They would have qualified for stiff criminal penalties under Bill C-31. We believe that there are some problems with that, and I hope that in committee we would be able to resolve some of those issues.
We also look forward to the minister's invitation to review and have some input into the regulations. She indicated in the House earlier today that all stakeholders, caucuses and political parties would have an opportunity to mould the regulations of this bill. I am looking forward to having our critic, our caucus and our party make recommendations with respect to streamlining the regulations, making them as fair as possible.
In summary, we in the NDP believe that the Immigration Act has to be modernized. It has to be toughened up. The two approaches this act takes, being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, are important elements, but we should also open the door for those who legitimately have grounds for immigrating to our country to allow those people in.
We have to have the resources backed up by the treasury of Canada to allow that to happen. This means more resources in the consulates and embassies of Canada around the world. One of the biggest problems we have had, for example, is with our embassy in Beijing. We cannot talk to people there. We only get a recorded message. Anybody who wishes to make application from China to Canada has to go through a very complex and frustrating process. We are hoping that because of the increased resources that will be provided with the bill this will allow the process to be streamlined and allow potential new Canadians to actually talk to existing Canadians on a one to one basis.