Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the member for Dauphin—Swan River on his speech. I can tell him that the legal issues we are dealing with are fairly difficult and it took a while to get through them. At some point when I saw the charts and was trying to put them all together I identified the lack of appeal process that is available everywhere else ends at the Supreme Court of Canada. We make that available to visitors who come to this country and commit a serious offence because we believe in due process.
The member and I have had some similar experiences coming from different countries. No one argues that if someone commits serious offences coming to this country, or is a war criminal, or has told major lies to get here, we recognize that people who apply for refugee status to get to Canada often have to do it by stealth. We recognized that when we had the policy of none is too many for Jews. People had to misinform to get into this country. We applaud that they got through and wish that more had.
It seems to me the member had it right. The charter of rights, the due process of law and the presumption of innocence should apply to everyone. What scares me in this whole process is that we can slander people by saying they are guilty of this or that and then fail to prove it in court. If someone is being accused, we have a due process for defending the accusation which should apply to everyone, certainly to citizens by choice.