Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg Centre who has served as the NDP critic for immigration and citizenship over the past year. He has played a very important role in providing insight into the forerunner of the bill. He will continue to play a role in ensuring that we get the best possible legislation out of this process.
I am very proud to be here today as the new NDP critic for immigration and citizenship. I have much to learn as we begin this process. I am sure the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and other colleagues in the House will understand if I make any errors of fact, or if I have not clearly understood all of the issues at hand. I trust that there will be understanding and patience as we work on it together.
I want to indicate what drives me and what perspective I bring to this debate. It is a perspective that I share very much with the member for Winnipeg Centre partly, because of the kinds of constituencies we represent. It is fair to say, if we look at the ridings of Winnipeg Centre and Winnipeg North Centre, that together we represent two of the probably most diverse areas in the country with a very high number of ethnocultural groups represented in our communities.
Winnipeg North Centre has an incredible diversity of ethnocultural groups. It is an area with very strong multicultural roots that has always welcomed immigrants from every continent. Historically it experienced a large influx of people of Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish and German heritage. More recently immigrants have come in large numbers from the Philippines, India, Portugal and from many Asian, Latin American, African and Eastern European countries.
My constituency is home to many ethnocultural groups, many multicultural organizations, and many services involved in the preservation and the celebration of our rich and diverse heritage.
Together, those kinds of contributions, that kind of makeup, make for a very active, very vibrant community working to ensure an understanding of the differences among us and a respect for one another. There are many churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, service groups and volunteer associations, all devoted to immigrant settlement, refugee sponsorship and anti-racism programs. I very much value the contributions of those organizations to my community and I value what they have taught me in terms of understanding the broad parameters of policies pertaining to citizenship and immigration.
In the course of this debate and the committee meetings to follow, I hope I will be able to reflect and represent the values of my constituents, which I believe are the values of Canadians everywhere. Having listened carefully to the critic for the Alliance, who was very careful in his choice of words around the policy issue, I would dare to say that if there is one thing that unites us in the House today it is that we all very much believe in the value of multiculturalism in the country today. We all want to continue the tradition that Canada has established for itself around the world in terms of being a country that is open to new citizens and that operates on the basis of humanitarian principles, offering refuge for people seeking asylum, for people in need and for people wanting to be reunited with family.
I also bring to this debate a personal conviction from my own background. Many of us in the Chamber today have a makeup of many ethnocultural backgrounds, each and every one of us. In my own case, I am proud to say that my mother is Dutch, married to a Ukrainian Canadian, and that I am married to an Amish Mennonite. I say that because for me it is part of who I am and part of what I bring to this debate and what I hope to transmit to other members in the Chamber. It is something I value and cherish.
I raise this also because I get concerned when I hear members of the media or even members of the House suggesting that we have to be watchful and mindful of all the different pockets of ethnocultural groups in the country today because that can lead to a patchwork of groups across the country and take away from the goal of national unity.
I look at it from another perspective. I think this is where my colleague, the critic from the Alliance, and I will have to disagree. I tend to believe that the richness of my background and of so many other Canadians in terms of ethnocultural diversity is a positive, an added benefit, something to be celebrated, not worried about. In fact I feel I am doubly endowed as a Canadian with the kind of background I have.
Rather than worrying about pockets of ethnocultural groups, I think we need to reflect on the value of diversity. We then need to work to ensure that our policies encourage the celebration of that diversity so that we, as a nation, gain strength from it and are able to meet challenges we would not otherwise be able to meet.
I say all of that because my biggest worry about Bill C-11 is the same worry that my colleague for Winnipeg Centre raised with respect to Bill C-31, that is, it seems to be more preoccupied with keeping people out of the country and protecting Canada from the world as opposed to reuniting families here in this country and ensuring that we respect our humanitarian traditions.
I know some changes have been made by the minister. I know she has made some improvements to the bill based on suggestions by members of the House and representations from various groups, but there is an overriding concern that we all share, at least those of us in the NDP caucus, about the tone and tenor of the bill and its focus on protecting Canada from the world as opposed to reuniting families in Canada today.
Sometimes that happens, in fact, when members in the House, as has happened quite regularly with the Alliance, tend to focus on the exceptions to the rule, on those few examples where a criminal element has entered our society or where people may have brought a disease into this country, as opposed to looking at the benefits from the thousands and thousands of immigrants and refugees who have helped to make this country what it is today.
Because of that focus and that kind of dominant thrust the minister is facing daily from the Alliance and other extreme elements in our society today, I worry that we will in fact lose sight of the important humanitarian role Canada has played on the world stage and of the extent to which those who have received sanctuary have contributed to our country's economic, social and cultural development.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe I have only two minutes left to give some opening remarks on the bill. I do want to say that there are a number of concerns which have to be addressed in the process surrounding the bill. I hope the committee process for receiving the bill will in fact be open to the many organizations and groups that have great knowledge and enormous interest and expertise in this area.
The NDP will be looking for some answers on issues not addressed by the bill. For example, there is the whole question of visitors' visas, an issue we deal with on a daily basis in our constituency offices. There is the issue of the ongoing head tax. Although the government has lifted it in regard to refugees, it still is an ongoing concern in terms of it being a barrier to people who want to come to Canada and settle here.
We will be raising concerns about the live-in caregiver program. We will be raising concerns about the adherence of this country to the Geneva convention around refugees in ensuring that our country provides the appropriate travel documentation for and acceptance of refugees here in Canada.
We will be raising concerns about the family class issue, acknowledging that the minister has moved parents into this group. This is a concern we have raised before and we appreciate the change. However, given the need in this country for a significant increase in immigrants, we still wonder why this government is not looking at a broader definition of family class and why we are not taking more steps to reduce the barriers to immigrants and refugees, to ensure that in fact this country is respectful of our past and is prepared to celebrate the diversity that makes it so strong.