Mr. Speaker, I did not plan to speak today but as I listened to speakers extol both the virtues and the concerns of the act I felt it important on behalf of the constituents of Sydney—Victoria that I put forward both the things I think are positive in the act and the things that I have some concerns about.
Our party has spoken to this issue already today. The critic for immigration, the member for Winnipeg Centre, will have a fair amount to say when the bill comes back to the House. I know he accompanied the minister on her most recent trip to China because of the concerns this party has about some of the things that have been happening.
This is a tremendously important issue. It has been said by speaker after speaker in the House that this is a nation of immigrants. I suppose some native people might say we are a nation of colonists, but I think it is fair to say that we are a nation of immigrants.
Everyone in the House has spoken about their own heritage. Members of the House represent immigrants from all parts of the world. My own heritage is Italian and Scottish. My grandfather on my father's side came here when he was 15. I look at my own son at 13 and wonder about my grandfather at 15 coming on a boat from Italy, not speaking the language, alone, and with 25 cents in his pocket. He chose this country to build a life. As I look around the House, I think that is the story for most of us.
Immigration is tremendously important because it defines not only who we let into the nation but how we will let the nation grow. It sets out the kind of vision we have for Canada in the future. It also defines whom we will not let in. That is as important a part of this debate as whom we let in. It is a reflection of our international obligations.
I commend the minister for reviewing the act and bringing forward new legislation almost 25 years after the last act was passed in the House in 1976. Because immigration is an important topic, I congratulate and commend her for bringing forward new legislation and opening the issue of immigration. It is an issue that has polarized Canadians in the last two or three years.
The act has been amended numerous times. While it has been talked about, it has only been since 1997 when we began to see the boatloads of Chinese immigrants coming to British Columbia that Canadians were galvanized and polarized by the issue of immigration. That polarization is on both sides.
There are those who are adamant that we should not let anybody else into the country. There are some groups in the country who believe that if we should let anyone in they should for the most part be of European ancestry. I know who those groups are because when I was critical of them I received some of their interesting mail. I know they put me on their website and did some very interesting imaging things, so I guess they are creative in a certain sense.
We have those groups on one side. On the other side we have some, critics might call, bleeding hearts who say we should open the doors to everyone. Naturally the balance is somewhere in between. That balance is something that is not easily achieved but again as the minister has opened the door I think it is something we have to talk about.
I do not think that we can talk about immigration without setting it against a backdrop of international and global issues because we are living in a global society. We are contributors to both the good and the bad parts of the global community. It should come as no surprise to us, with our vast amount of land and with our vast wealth, that thousands and thousands of people around the world want to come to Canada because of the inequities of the global world.
Let us not forget that we live in the northern hemisphere. We are the consumers of the vast majority of the world's energy. We contribute the vast majority of waste and pollution to the world's atmosphere. On the other side of the hemisphere are millions and millions of people living in abject poverty. Yet in the global world and in the information age these millions of people know the life that we live.
I had an interesting conversation on the plane going home last week with a friend of mine originally from Cape Breton who has lived for the last almost 30 years in a remote village in the Himalayas of India. He told me now it was not uncommon to see satellite dishes on some of the little homes in that part of India. Those people are watching for the most part American presentation of life in the western world. We should not be surprised, set against the backdrop of increasing poverty in the third world and increasing wealth in the northern hemisphere, that millions of people want to come to this country.
I heard the member for Mississauga talk about Canada taking its fair share. I think we have to talk about our fair share and our obligations. If we are consuming so much of the world's energy and if we are contributing so much to increased poverty in the world, surely we have an obligation. It is against that backdrop and the backdrop of the tremendous increase in world population that we have to look at our immigration policy.
Again let us be clear. It took the human race thousands, thousands and thousands of years to reach a million people worldwide. In the last 20 years the population has increased fourfold or fivefold to the point where we now have six or seven billion people. It is against that backdrop we have to look at the good things the bill has to offer and some of the things that may cause us some concern.
Of the good things, I look at what the bill talks about. It creates severe penalties for those smuggling people into Canada with fines up to $1 million and life in prison. I support that. I think trade in human beings is the most despicable kind of crime imaginable. To take those who are most needy and helpless, to demand that those people pay a price to come to this country and to traffic in human beings as if they were silk scarves, is tragic. It is wise for us to be harsh on those who smuggle people into this country.
I also think it is wise and again I commend the government for talking about increasing the number of immigration control officers abroad. The minister has said all along that what she intends to do is open the front door wider and close the back door. Part of the problem we have had is that we have not had enough immigration officers.
People talked about the Chinese immigrants coming from Fujian province and how they should probably go to the immigration office and do it the right way. In reality, if we think about where Fujian province is in China, where the immigration office is and the fact that we had perhaps one or two refugee officers in that province, it would have been impossible for those people to go through the appropriate channels if they are refugees to seek admission to this country.
I am glad to hear there will be an increase in immigration officers. I think the department needs them and it is fair for public servants who had a huge workload in the last few years. It is also wise to look at security checks for those who are serious criminals. However, as has been mentioned by the NDP member for Winnipeg—Transcona, what constitutes a crime in some countries may be questionable as to whether or not it would constitute a crime in this country. There are those people who are imprisoned that fought for human rights in their countries and may have criminal records. It would be my hope that the definition of crime would exclude those individuals.
We commend the government for some of the points in the bill. There are others that we will take under advisement and look at very carefully, for example what constitutes a crime. Nelson Mandela was a criminal in South Africa because he fought against apartheid.
I had the fortune to meet with the vice-president elect of Taiwan who spent five years in prison for challenging marshal law in that country and today emerges as the vice-president. Her sentence was commuted from 12 years to 5 years because she had an illness. Would that person, because she carried a criminal record, be denied entrance to Canada?
I also have some other concerns. I know we will have an opportunity to examine them. I read the minister's press release which talked about expanding policies to attract the world's best and brightest to Canada. I do not know if under that criteria my grandfather would have been able to come to this country. He did not have a degree in computer science. He did not come with a lot of money. He did not have financial backing.