Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to these motions, all of which have been presented by the Canadian Alliance party. They deal with the issue of appropriate punishment for dealing with crimes committed under the citizenship act.
My general feeling is that the penalties are extremely weak, particularly in a situation where a citizenship official breaks the law, takes bribes and so on under the citizenship act. I will speak a bit more about that later but that is the general problem.
The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration says often that citizenship is something to be valued, but she does not have penalties which reflect this when it comes to people who fraudulently trade in citizenship and that type of thing. That is regrettable.
The chair of the committee and other government members told me to bring my amendments to the bill forward at committee rather than at report stage. I did that with this group of motions. They did even not listen. They shot them down automatically. So much for committee functioning. I brought them back at report stage to show the Canadian public what was rejected by the Liberal members at committee. It is important that they know. It demonstrates to the Canadian public just how the government views breaches which allow people to become Canadian citizens through fraud and how weak the punishment is that it puts in place in that regard. That is what this whole group of motions is about, but they are dealing with slightly different things.
First, Motions Nos. 10 and 11 deal with clause 39 which deals with various offences regarding the obtaining of citizenship. They include making false representation, committing fraud or knowingly concealing material circumstances. They include obtaining or using another person's certificate. They include knowingly permitting one's certificate to be used by someone else so the person will be identified as a Canadian citizen. We can all understand the kinds of problems that would cause. They include offences of trafficking and offering to traffic in citizenship documents.
These are extremely serious offences. Yet what types of punishment has the government put forth in its legislation to deal with these offences? It has put in place fines of not more than $10,000 and/or five years in jail. Hon. members will know that the maximum penalty is five years in jail. We can certainly see with sentences handed out under the immigration act and under the citizenship act that the penalty which is usually imposed by the courts is very weak and often includes no prison time and a very minor fine.
It is extremely important to increase the penalties which could be imposed to demonstrate clearly that it is a serious offence when one traffics in documents, falsifies documents or gets into the country fraudulently in some way and is recognized as a citizen of Canada fraudulently. Yet the government does not take it seriously enough to put in place appropriate punishments.
One area in particular that I find really offensive is the area of citizenship officials, people who are put into a position of trust in the citizenship department and break citizenship laws by doing things like issuing false documents or false statements that apply to citizenship issues, or commit offences like accepting bribes or encouraging someone else to accept a bribe so that citizenship can be obtained falsely and fraudulently.
Offences such as contravening various provisions of the act by dealing with people who try to bribe citizenship officials and those who impersonate citizenship officials are dealt with in Motions Nos. 13 and 14. I find it surprising that under the bill, the way the government has presented it, that it would impose exactly the same penalty, no more, for departmental officials in that position of trust who break the law as it does for anyone else who is not in a position of trust and is breaking the law. I cannot understand the reasoning of a government that thinks like that. It is completely beyond me.
If we want to deter people who are in a position which lends itself to making a lot of money accepting bribes and handing out citizenship falsely and fraudulently, we have to put in place very serious penalties. They certainly should be more serious than the penalties given to anyone else for the same type of activity. Yet that is not what has happened. I believe what is proposed in here is unacceptable.
Let us think of this in terms of the way the real world is operating right now and in terms of people wanting to enter Canada illegally. If people wanting to enter our country illegally pay to obtain the services of a people smuggler or a people trafficker, they will have to pay between $20,000 and $70,000 to do that. It is a lot of money. That is the going rate for people, depending from which country they are coming, to come into our country illegally with the help of people smugglers or people traffickers. Yet because of the way the government has dealt with that in this law, for a few thousand dollars a person can bribe an official, get a false citizenship document and not only be allowed to come into the country, but become a citizen of the country in the eyes of the officials, if it is done properly, because the person will have the appropriate citizenship documents to be recognized as a citizen.
In any government department, in any business, there will be those people who, for some reason or another, are willing to break the law to make money. There are usually not very many. I would suggest that in the citizenship and immigration departments there would be very few people who would be willing to do that, but they are there.
If given the opportunity, and if the penalties are weak, then the temptation increases. For people so inclined, I believe that a weak penalty would encourage them to become involved in this illicit activity whereby people would become recognized as Canadian citizens by obtaining false documents.
For that reason my motion calls for increasing the fines. The government is proposing a maximum fine of $10,000 and/or not more than five years in jail. What a joke that is. A person could make $10,000 in a good day's work of issuing a couple of false documents.
We know how these things work in the immigration department, and I assume it would be the same in the citizenship department. When cases like this come up they are swept under the rug. The person may or may not be dismissed. Seldom will people ever actually end up in court, but when they do the courts view these things lightly. They look at a five year maximum jail sentence and they do not think it really means that. The courts seem to think that means maybe a suspended sentence or some type of probation.
I think it is important, because of all these factors, that the maximum penalty be increased substantially. We are proposing that when it comes to citizenship officials there should be a maximum fine of $150,000, which is a real threat, a maximum jail sentence of 10 years and/or both.
I think a higher maximum penalty would cause officials working in the department to think twice. Of course, that in itself would not solve the problem. I recognize that, but we have to have a department which is administered and managed properly. That is up to the minister to ensure. The minister has failed miserably, as did the previous minister, as did the one before. The three Liberal ministers of immigration have failed miserably in terms of improving management and administration in the departments. It is not me saying that; it is the auditor general.
The auditor general issued, just a couple of weeks ago, the most damning report he has ever issued, to the immigration department. He said that management was absolutely in shambles, that administration was not working and that enforcement was weak. Many people have said it is the most damning report the auditor general has ever issued.
Putting these more serious penalties in place may cause people to think twice about committing the very serious offence of allowing people to become Canadian citizens when the law would not allow it.
It is shameful that the government is so weak in terms of protecting the security of our country.
How do organized crime figures get into this country? They are the first ones who would be willing to bribe officials. They have done it and they will do it again. They are the first ones who would use people smugglers to get into the country. The top individuals of course have other ways to get in, but certainly they would not hesitate to bribe officials. It happens all the time. It is a sad commentary on the government that it takes this issue so lightly.
Through these weak penalties that the government has put in the bill, it is accommodating organized crime and terrorists, and in a way encouraging them to bribe officials to become citizens of our country completely fraudulently.
Before I end my remarks I want to mention that the member for Wentworth—Burlington spoke to his proposal for a new citizenship oath, and although I did speak out against his oath, there is one aspect of the oath that I really did appreciate, and that is including the reference to God in the oath. God of course is the term that many religions, in fact I would suggest all religions, could consider to be pretty much a generic term. Recognizing that supreme being is extremely important. I think that should be in the oath.
I regret that I did not put an amendment forward myself to do that. I talked about this and I have proposed this several times throughout this two year process which the bill has gone through. It is something that I would like to see changed.
I have talked to members from all parties in the House and I would ask for unanimous consent to make a very minor change. I believe it is a typographical error either on my part or on the part of the clerks. I wish to amend Motion No. 15, which now reads:
“(b) subject to alternative resolution of the House of Commons...”
I wish to change “alternative” to “affirmative”. Therefore, I move:
That Bill C-16, in Clause 43, be amended by replacing line 40 on page 21 with the following:
“(b) subject to affirmative resolution of the House of Commons, specifying who may make an applica—”
That is completely consistent with the other motions. Clearly it is a little typographical error. I think, Mr. Speaker, you would find unanimous consent to make that change.