Madam Speaker, I have been granted a few minutes to speak to this bill. One of the first things I look at when I see this bill is the grand hyperbole at the beginning of the bill, especially in the summary. In the sections it lays out, in lofty terms, what the bill intends to do, but when I begin to flip through the bill I see that the substance is not there. Certainly the image makers have had a great time.
I wonder if this bill has more to do with advertising or with the writing of a novel rather than with the writing of a statute.
The bill says:
This enactment replaces the Immigration Act, providing clearer, modern legislation to ensure that Canada's immigration and refugee protection system is able to respond to present challenges and opportunities.
Is that the language of legislation? That sounds like the language of a press release, as far as I am concerned.
It goes on to say:
(a) objectives that reflect the values of Canadian society;
(b) effective reporting to Parliament through a complete, consolidated annual report;
(c) agreements that facilitate cooperation with governments of provinces and foreign states;
(d) a description of the major classes of foreign nationals—the economic, family, Convention refugees overseas, Convention refugees in Canada, persons in need of protection and humanitarian classes;
(e) recognition of Canada's commitment to the principle of the “best interest of the child”;
We know that the government has been very poor on legislating under that one, especially under the Divorce Act.
The bill goes on to say:
(f) clear, objective residency requirements for permanent residents;
(g) a strong, effective refugee protection system that allows for decision-making on protection grounds including the Geneva Convention and the Convention Against Torture and on grounds of risk to life or of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment;
(h) a more efficient refugee determination process through greater use of single member panels;
(i) a Refugee Appeal Division within the Immigration and Refugee Board to enhance rigour, fairness and consistency in decision-making;
(j) ineligibility of foreign nationals who are serious criminals, security threats and repeat claimants to the refugee protection process of the Immigration and Refugee Board;
(k) formalization of a pre-removal risk assessment to review changed circumstances related to risk of return;
(l) inadmissibility provisions for foreign nationals who are criminals, security threats, violators of human rights or who should not be allowed into Canada because of fraud and misrepresentation or for health or financial reasons;
(m) clear detention criteria with authority to further clarify detention grounds in regulations;
(n) a security certificate process and an admissibility hearing to deal effectively with threats to security;
(o) offences for human smuggling and trafficking with a maximum penalty of life in prison;
(p) penalties for assisting in obtaining immigration status through fraud or misrepresentation; and
(q) an immigration appeal system that enhances integrity and effectiveness while maintaining fairness and legal safeguards.
When one reads that clause it sounds laudable, does it not? It sounds like a great process.
Last summer the telephone in my riding office was ringing off the hook when those people arrived by boat and our system was unable to deal with them in an expeditious manner. Yet here we find on page 18 of the bill, subparagraph 33(2)(b), that a person will not necessarily be ruled inadmissible. It says:
—does not lead to a determination of inadmissibility by reason only of the fact that the foreign national entered Canada with the assistance of a person who is involved in organized criminal activity.
In other words, that is a neon sign to the world saying that foreign nationals just have to plead their innocence. If they come here on a boat, they will be okay. Canada will say that it may get after the captain of the boat to whom the foreign nationals might have paid money, but the foreign nationals, being so-called innocent passengers, the traffic or the merchandise, it will not necessarily exclude them at all. In fact, come one come all is the essence of what that says.
Then we have the problem with the clause that talks about the charter of rights and freedoms. Certainly we want to deal with processes of decision in an orderly manner with hearings, rights of appeal and so on under the spirit of the charter of rights and freedoms, but there seems to be a difference between the ability of someone who comes to the border in a car and pulls up to the kiosk. At that point the customs person asks a few questions and what an individual says through that car window is later taken into consideration if the person is called into the office. What the individual says to those questions on the statement of purpose: who are you, are you a citizen, and whatnot, are admissible and can be used to further assess the individual's admissibility or whether they should be arrested.
What happens if someone is found on a boat floating on to the western coast of Canada? The statements made to the questions who are you and what are you doing here can be inadmissible because the foreign nationals did not have their charter warning or did not have access to a lawyer who knew what would go on in a later hearing. The ability of officers or anyone to ask or investigate in the beginning to find out what has happened gets struck down because it will be later argued that the person's charter rights were violated.
One of the other clauses that I have a particular problem with is the proceeds of crime section. I notice that clause 123 on page 53 is particularly good. It says:
No person shall possess any property or any proceeds of any property knowing that all or any part of the property or of those proceeds was obtained or derived directly or indirectly as a result of the commission of an offence under subsection—
It then provides the penalty. The penalty of course is a stiff fine or up to 10 years in jail. We have to wonder, by the way, when anybody has ever been significantly prosecuted for trading in people.
The international reputation of Canada is very poor in that regard. The motive is high because the profits are high. It is much safer to deal in people than it is to deal in drugs because the penalties are not there. Of course the act already says that the commodity that they are dealing in will be legal and accepted rather than being contraband, such as drugs.
Canada's reputation on prosecuting and acting as a deterrent to those who are involved in what I call the modern day version of the slave trade really is not there.
When I look at this clause I see that there is a fine and jail, but what about all the proceeds of the crime? We have proceeds of crime legislation under the criminal code but not under the immigration sections. We cannot go after the various houses, lands, vehicles and all the rest of it that may be owned legally through a holding company or whatever, but upon any ordinary investigation could be traced to the proceeds of this type of crime.
In other words, we need to go after more carefully the tremendous financial incentives that cause people to get involved in this kind of business: the human misery of trading in people. This is a great deficiency in the bill itself. I have attempted to deal with that in a private member's bill which is currently in the system to be drawn.
Canadians need to have confidence again in the immigration system. Governments, both through the Conservative years and since 1993 with this administration, have failed to bring anything forward of substance to deal with the tremendous disrepute that our immigration system has fallen into. Average Canadians have observed case after case of how the system has not responded as they want, or as they see their country and how they define themselves as Canadian. They have seen illegals come into the country and abuse the system, which has carried on for ever and ever.
We want to restore confidence in the Canadian immigration system so that when someone says he or she is an immigrant, the person can immediately command respect because of the knowledge of the orderly and high standard system. We know that the person has come through a system which brings great respect to the individual. I hope the government will restore confidence in the immigration system again.
