Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue. This file has been active in my office since the day I was elected, as I imagine it has been in many members' offices.
I would like to start by thanking the former minister of immigration and the current minister of immigration, the more than 50 people who sit on a committee I created in my riding to look at these issues because of their importance to people, and the staff of the department of immigration who work around the world helping us reach out, sort out, facilitate and help the people who do wish to come here.
This is not an easy business. It is a tough one for us to understand. When I first was elected almost immediately people were coming to my door raising questions about immigration problems they were having with the department and problems they were having getting people over here. I remember a couple of cases in particular.
One man immigrated here when he was a student. He graduated here, was landed and became a Canadian citizen. He went through medicine and is now a family doctor practising in Winnipeg. He has been practising as a physician for almost 20 years. He married and had a child. He wanted his mother to come and share his joy and excitement at having a new member of the family.
His mother lives in Ethiopia in what we in Canada would consider to be relatively primitive conditions. She was immediately denied. When he came into my office I could not believe it. I guess I was young enough to be somewhat naive about what goes on, but I thought this was silly. As a new parent myself I know the desire to have one's extended family share in the joy that one feels. I immediately wrote a letter, as we all do, and received a letter back telling me to mind my own business, which rather surprised me coming from a public servant.
To make a long story short, after some period of time I went back to him and asked him to tell me what was going on with his mom. His mother did not want to emigrate. She did not want to come here to live. She was very happy. She had her friends and was very happy where she lived but he wanted her to come and spend a few months here to let her meet one of her grandchildren.
I finally went to the minister's office to get a ministerial permit. His mom came over and spent the summer here a year ago and went back. It was a normal everyday occurrence in families. This year he wanted to bring over his mother-in-law. We had to go through the same tortuous process.
For years I have been talking with the ministers. Whenever I travel abroad I make a point of going to see the immigration staff in the department's offices. I have been to the very high pressure office in New Delhi, India and China and Hong Kong.
I keep asking why these normal things, the type of thing we would think we would enjoy as a right of citizenship, cannot just happen. I have a list of files and I suspect other members do as well.
The brother of an eminent microbiologist at the University of Manitoba had retired from his job and wanted to come over for a visit, again for a summer. It was denied. I happen to represent the University of Manitoba. The sister of another scientist at the University of Manitoba is travelling in the U.S. and Europe and wanted to stop off in Canada. It was denied. It goes on and on. Why? Why can Canadian citizens not enjoy this living quietly in paradise, as my colleague mentioned. It is not an easy issue.
I had heard all sorts of horror stories about the New Delhi office. Having been a public servant I understand there are always two sides to any story. I made a point of stopping in there and spending time with them to ask them these questions.
I have been universally impressed with the quality of the staff who work abroad, the time, energy, attention, care and thought they give to the services they provide. The problem is analogous to any problem of scarcity.
Canada is a paradise and there are millions if not billions of people who would like to get here. There is enormous pressure. When there is enormous pressure it is a recipe for exactly what we see. It is a recipe for abusing people and for exploiting people in the way we have seen with the snake heads. It is a recipe for all sorts of corruption.
What we have to do is take the profit out of it. We have to make it a system that people understand demands, deserves and receives respect so that we can take the pressure off the front door. How do we do it? Unfortunately, in a lot of social control exercises there are no easy or clean answers.
What impresses me about how the former minister and now the current minister have approached this task is that they have taken it very personally. They have worked on it very hard.
I mentioned a committee. A fellow named Sharad Chandra and another named Ken Zaifman chair a working group we have in my riding. My colleague for Winnipeg North—St. Paul has a very large population of new immigrants in his community. We all work together. We first went through the initial offerings. The initial concepts were put forward. The minister came and met with them. We went through it clause by clause. People literally put hundreds and hundreds of hours into thinking through and grappling with the solutions being offered.
We met with staff from the department. I raised it with staff overseas. When the minister changed, the new minister immediately went into the same thing. The current minister stood in front of an open meeting in my riding and we went through each one of the very contentious issues with the people who are directly affected.
What we have here is an act that I believe is balanced but heavy. It has a stick in it. It has a stick that says we have to respect the law. It allows us to deal quickly and efficiently when the law is broken. It allows justice to be done, but it does it in the Canadian context. It does it in a way that preserves the rights of people.
I believe that at the end of the day no piece of legislation will solve all the problems. No piece of legislation will answer all the concerns that are raised, but I think this piece of legislation is an important step forward to allowing Canadian citizens from countries where there is a very high demand to enjoy their citizenship in the same way that I can.
It is interesting that my friends in the first nations communities do not particularly like this, but we are all immigrants in this country. We have collectively built a very powerful, a very prosperous and a very wonderful nation. We want to share it. We want people to come here, because each new group that comes in adds to the quality of the fabric of this country.
When I talk to people who are in the most vulnerable group of newly arrived immigrants, they do not want the abuses any more than we do. Binding this process a little tighter and providing some discretion to the staff in the field in whom I have great confidence is a positive step forward. Properly implemented and properly supported, I think it will assist.
Canadians citizens should not have to come to me to get redress. It is nice that we can provide it, but the system should simply allow people to interact within their families the way all of us would like to do.
I am a supporter of the work that has gone on here. I am a supporter of the particular piece of legislation, and I hope the House will deal with it expeditiously.