Mr. Speaker, it was interesting that a member of the Conservative Party pointed out that the Liberal government was not quite the party of immigration it claimed to be.
That is a good point. The Liberals always talk like they care about immigration, but they have let the system decay to a state of shambles. It is not working for economic immigrants who would help our country quite quickly. It is not working for genuine refugees. It is working all too well for bogus claimants, for people who come here illegally and for people smugglers. I do not believe the legislation will help the government deal with it.
At the same time the Liberals have allowed the numbers of immigrants to decline every year since they were elected to office in 1993. That party claims to be the party of immigration. It has allowed the numbers of immigrants coming to the country to decline every year since it has gained power. It is not what it says it is.
My greatest concern is not the number of immigrants so much as the fact that the system has collapsed so badly it just cannot deal with the problem of proper screening and attracting the people whom we need to help us build our country. We are at a stage where our country needs rebuilding.
It is very interesting that the Conservative member talks about the Mulroney Conservatives as having been the party of immigration. It is true that the Conservatives allowed the numbers in, but they were the ones following on the heels of the Trudeau regime who allowed our immigration system, which once was an excellent system, to collapse. They were the ones who allowed that to happen. They allowed many people to come in under a general amnesty. The numbers are there but there was absolutely no screening of people allowed in under the general amnesty. That is the way they allowed high numbers to come in.
The issue is how we help people who will benefit our country most quickly to come to our country and how we keep people out that we just do not want. The hon. member is not looking at the Mulroney record very realistically if he considers that the Conservatives had a good record on immigration.
Hon members should go to the 1990 auditor general's report. They were in office three years after that. The auditor general pointed out just a couple of weeks ago that exactly the same problems are still there in 2000 which were there in 1990. The Mulroney Conservatives did nothing to fix that up in the three years they had to work on the system. Their record is no better and I think the hon. member should acknowledge that.
My question for the member is about the issue of a safe third country. I have heard people who have worked in the immigration system at very high levels say that the reason our refugee system is working so poorly, if we wanted to find one reason, is the issue of a safe third country where refugees are allowed to make claims, even if they come from a country that is considered to be a safe country of origin. I have had more than one person who is very knowledgeable about the system, having worked in the system, tell me that had this issue been dealt with when the IRB was put in place under the Mulroney regime our refugee system would be working quite well right now. Because that was not done, the IRB has been a failure from the start.
How important does the member think this issue is of a safe third country and not allowing people to make refugee claims if they come from a country that is seen to be a country that respects human rights and is a signatory to the United Nations convention on refugees?