Debates of Feb. 27th, 2001

Immigration And Refugee Protection Act

[Mark Assad, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, the member has presented the very negative down side. Undoubtedly there were difficulties in the past. I am not denying it, but these are extreme cases.

Last year, more than 8,600 people who entered the country illegally were deported. The system is not perfect, but it is working. Since 1995, not that long ago, 45,000 people have been deported.

What our colleague has brought before us, unfortunately, does happen. They are extreme cases. Nobody in the House wants to see people abuse the system like that. We know it can happen, and I am sure it has happened in other countries, but we are coming in with new legislation. We will be much more efficient and we will try to eliminate the extreme cases, but we cannot think that it will be done overnight and that we will have a completely flawless system. No one in the world has a flawless system.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is the answer. They should write that down because that is all those members say. This is not about extremes. It is about law abiding Canadian citizens becoming victims of individuals who come into our country. In my area it is not an extreme. I cannot dream up those cases. Is the member saying that this case and dozens of other cases in my immediate area are extremes or isolated incidents? They are not.

The difficulty I have is that when legislation comes into the House that we do not like we are called extremists, bigots or whatever. Those kinds of comments filter out the reality of legislation. The reality of legislation to a victim is much different. What happens in the House of Commons is a lot different from what happens on the street. I know because I spend a fair amount of time on the street, and I would suggest that perhaps the member should as well.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague from Langley—Abbotsford for his heartfelt and passionate work on the issue and his advocacy of victims' rights and reform of this system, which continues to grind away with the Liberal government being utterly indifferent to the impact it has on people's real lives. The government says extremes, but I say that they are real people, not extremes.

The most frequent comment we hear in the debate from members opposite and from members of other parties on the problems in the system and the enormous holes that exist, for instance, in the refugee system, is to discredit all immigration and therefore to create, they suggest, a kind of hysterical anti-immigration attitude.

Would my colleague not agree that is a completely irresponsible argument and that, if anything, what diminishes Canadians' attitude of generosity and openness toward new immigrants is precisely the abuses of the system to which he has referred? Would he not agree that it is by correcting such injustices and inequities in the system that we can best create an attitude of openness and tolerance toward the many hundreds of thousands of new Canadians who come to this place lawfully and contribute to our prosperity?

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely correct. The other side of the House believes that if we do not address the issues precisely the way they do then there is something irresponsible in the way we talk to issues.

I am reminded of the last election and the comments by the immigration minister who basically said that people associated with the Canadian Alliance were holocaust deniers, racists and bigots. That would include my mother who lost her first husband in Italy during the war.

The perpetuation of that kind of thought leads to mistrust on the part of all Canadians, not just some Canadians. I think those words coming from the immigration minister were perhaps even more noticeable since the individual who said them is a minister of our country.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

She should be fired.

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

My colleague from Calgary states it quite plainly. Most people in the country thought she should have been fired or at least when cabinet was reorganized she should not have been given the job. She represents a thought process that should not exist but which is perpetuated by the other side.

When we talk about real life gut issues that affect people on the street and victims in the country, we are treated with a wall, a barrage, like Holocaust deniers. Where the heck did that ever come from other than from the mouth of the immigration minister? I thought it was really disgusting.

My colleague is absolutely correct when he says that the promotion of those kinds of words leads only to degrade our nation not just a political party. When we talk about words like extreme, there is nothing extreme in anything I said here today. I guarantee my colleagues in the House that if the victims I talked about today were in the House we would hear one heck of a lot more from them than from me about how badly the system is operating.

Sometimes the reflection, as my colleague says, of a whole system gets tainted by smaller problems within the whole. I was suggesting that to make the whole system work well, look well and operate well, we have to fix all parts of it not just some of it.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Madam Speaker, I just cannot resist the observation that it really does not further the tone of this debate to have the member opposite preach to the converted, the member who questioned him, and repeat all these things about the unfortunate remarks that were attributed to the minister of immigration. We should leave that behind. Whoever brings it up, we should leave it behind.

I would like to take the debate on to a point for the member that perhaps puts us back on track.

Does the member see any merit in perhaps revisiting some of the charter decisions that had such a profound effect on Canadian immigration policy? I am thinking specifically of the Singh decision of 1984 which, as members may not be aware, was a split decision. Only three justices ruled that a person who lands in this country should be entitled to all due process, ruled in terms of the charter, and the other three justices ruled in terms of the Human Rights Act.

So in fact there was no majority under any single legislation, much less the charter, that supported the supreme court's decision that was later interpreted as a fundamental charter decision.

I wonder what the member's thoughts are on that. Is this something that perhaps we should encourage the government to revisit and to test before the supreme court once again?

[Randy White, Canadian Alliance, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague brought that up because the Singh decision in 1984 was the benchmark for immigration. To a large extent, I think it tends to discredit the whole immigration system because of that one aspect of it.

Individuals coming into the country should have certain rights and privileges but not the same rights, privileges and freedoms as Canadians. I do not think it applies.

For instance, I was sitting in an immigration office one day when some individuals jumped ship. Without regard to their background, and because of the Singh decision on all their rights and privileges, a medical person was there, two lawyers jumped on it as fast as they could, and three or four other people were there saying that they would help them. There was an individual there from the welfare office promising to pay right away. I thought wait a minute, slow down a bit.

The charter of rights and privileges must be revisited. I agree with the member. I would be open to a long discussion on that subject. It is very timely and necessary. Society has taken the charter of rights much too far today.

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will start by congratulating you on your appointment to the chair. It is a real honour for me to be able to speak to this piece of legislation, Bill C-11.

I will first talk about what Canadians want from an immigration system. Second, I will address what they do not want. Then I will go through the legislation and point out 28 different areas that must be focused on and seriously looked at, at committee level. Those areas must be examined and in many cases modified through amendments to make the legislation something which serves what Canadians want and helps prevent what they do not want.

What do Canadians want? They want a system that works first for economic and independent immigrants. The current system clearly does not work well. Any one of us as members of parliament could point to individual cases and lots of them. In each constituency across the country there are hundreds of cases where the system has failed people and where it has taken them too long to work their way through it. The result has not made sense. These are not isolated cases. They are very common.

Our system in the past worked extremely well. I think about my constituency. I think about the immigrants who developed the area of Lakeland constituency. In the latter part of the 19th century immigration to Canada began with immigrants from Britain and then expanded to include Germany and almost every country in western Europe.

In the late part of the 19th century we had a Lebanese settlement which is still prominent in Lac La Biche and in parts of our constituency. They are a well established part of the community. They have helped build the community. In the late 19th century and in two other instances, after the first world war and the second world war, we had Ukrainian immigration from eastern Europe.

These immigrants have built our country. I think we all recognize this point. Every member of parliament could point to his or her constituency and to how immigration has worked in the past.

Why do we not learn from what has happened and what has worked in the past so that we can build a system that will work better in the future? That is what Canadians want in terms of independent categories.

Canadians also want a system which will reunite families quickly. When families are separated, either because family members have come as refugee claimants or have come under the independent categories, Canadians want a system which will reunite families quickly.

Again, every member of parliament in his or her constituency can point to dozens of situations where a member of a family came to the country and where a spouse or dependent children have not been allowed to come. The process has taken months and even years in many cases.

I can point to situations in my own constituency where husbands and wives have been waiting to be reunited for more than three years. Canadians want a system which will allow that to happen much more quickly and in a fashion that is expected from a well developed country like Canada.

Canadians also want a system which will accept genuine refugees. There is no doubt that Canadians support accepting genuine refugees. I have heard nothing but support for that from people from across the country. They want it right now. They know our system is failing genuine refugees.

For example, fewer than 5,000 of the 23,000 refugees that we accept each year are actually chosen from camps overseas where they have been designated as refugees by the United Nations. We bring in fewer than 5,000 of those people a year, and most of the people we bring in are not actually from camps. They are brought in from overseas, but they have been rejected by the system in another country. Very few actually come in from camps each year. Canadians want the system to focus on genuine refugees, and it is not doing that.

Canadians do not want a system which would allow abuse of our immigration system. Canadians do not want that. They do not want queue jumpers abusing the goodwill of our country and pushing aside others who would go through the system properly. That happens all too often. We all know that and I do not think there is any real doubt about it.

Canadians do not want people, who are not genuine refugees and who have been rejected by the system, to be allowed to stay in our country. Yet that happens. While our official acceptance rate for refugees is something like 50%, which is many times higher than the rate of most other countries, only 15% of all people who come to Canada claiming to be refugees are ever known to leave the country. That is what makes Canadians angry about our system and about the way the government allowed our system to fail. That is what Canadians do not want.

I want to read into the record the Canadian Alliance policy on immigration. The Canadian Alliance is a new political party. We are only slightly over a year old, so we do not have policy that is completely fleshed out in a lot of areas. There is a lot of work to be done. We are looking forward to our convention about a year from now where we will have a lot of policy fleshed out in a lot more detail.

Here is exactly what the Canadian Alliance policy book says about immigration. I am proud of it and I want Canadians to know about it. I do not want the misinterpretations and the false statements made by members of other political parties, by the media or anyone else to be allowed to stand, because they should not stand. Here is our policy:

We see Canada as a land built by immigrants and will continue to welcome new immigrants. We support sponsorship for immediate family members. Our immigration policy will take into account Canada's economic needs and we will introduce greater fairness and security into the system, including enforcement of sponsorship obligations. We will work co-operatively with the provinces on the settlement of immigrants.

We want to protect the integrity of the valuable contribution made to the fabric of Canada by millions of law abiding immigrants. We will not allow their good reputation to be jeopardized by non-citizens who engage in criminal activity and will speedily deport such individuals once their sentence has been served.

We affirm Canada's humanitarian obligation to welcome genuine refugees and are proud that our country has provided a safe haven for distressed people from across the world. To ensure fairness and end queue jumping, we will immediately deport bogus refugees and other illegal entrants, and will severely penalize those who organize abuse of the system.

That refers to people smugglers, people traffickers and that kind of thing. It continues:

We will ensure that refugee status is arbitrated expeditiously, consistently and professionally. We will end the abuse of refugee claims as a fast track to gain the benefits of landed immigrant status.

That is the Canadian Alliance policy on immigration, and I am proud of it. This policy came from the membership and all our members support it. I think we had the support of roughly three million Canadians in the last election. I am not sure of the numbers but 25% of all Canadians supported us in the last election. I think every one of them would be proud of our immigration policy. It is something we should all be proud of and I do take pride in it.

I will now get a little more specific. There are 28 areas of the bill that I believe require careful scrutiny by the committee. Now 28 is a large number, and every one of them is important, but I have only targeted the ones that I feel are important. As my time allows, I will quickly go through and point out the areas that must be carefully scrutinized by the committee. The committee must also have expert witnesses come in to present their views. This information will be valuable to make the legislation better.

First, the objective section of the bill, which is at the very beginning, says, in general terms, that what the immigration act is based on is new. That is one of the things that is new about the legislation. It is important that it is carefully discussed and scrutinized by the committee.

Some of the aspects of the new bill concern some very specific areas while other areas are very general and cover many different clauses of the bill. I wanted people to understand that as they are listening to these comments.

Second, I will deal with charter considerations. Clause 33(d), without much doubt, seems to be offering Canadian charter protection to non-citizens. No other country in the world does that. People who are not Canadian citizens and who do not even live in our country would be granted protection under our charter. How could a country do that? That protection is in the bill and it needs to be carefully scrutinized and changed as required. I encourage the committee to look at that.

A third very broad aspect of the legislation deals with what is actually in the legislation and what is left to regulation. A regulation can be changed by a minister or by department officials who tell the minister to change it. It can also be changed through order in council at any time without ever passing through the House.

This piece of legislation is very general and leaves far too much to regulation. There would be a void of accountability resulting from the legislation. That will become very obvious as I move ahead in my comments.

The fourth general area is the federal-provincial agreements and the consultations with the provinces. The agreements are referred to in the bill but there are no assurances that the provinces will have to go along with what the federal government proposes and what is put forth in regulation. The government only says that it will listen to the provinces on these issues. It will not necessarily demand the approval of the provinces. I think that is a concern. When we have an issue such as this, which has such a profound and direct impact on each province, the provinces should have a real say in what is in the immigration law.

The fifth point is the whole area of economic immigration which is the backbone of our immigration system. The independent categories of immigration consist of people who can very quickly add to our economy and make our country a stronger and better place to live. It is the guiding principle in the selection process that I will refer to first.

I find it of great concern that the single most important and a valuable component of Canadian immigration, the economic category, is only dealt with by a single sentence in the bill. It is hard to believe that there is only one sentence.

The single sentence in clause 12(1) would be the guiding principle on which countless regulations would be developed. The law in fact would be created through regulation. It is not in the bill. This is a real concern to me. How can we hold departmental officials, the minister and the cabinet accountable if there is no assurance that changes will be made by passing them through parliament?

I fully understand and accept that certain aspects of any legislation have to be left to regulation, but the balance in this legislation is way out of line.

The sixth area deals with the attempts made to streamline the immigration process. I have listened to new immigrants from one end of the country to the other, particularly from the greater Toronto area. Half of all immigrants settle in the greater Toronto area.

I actually set up a task force there over the past few years and had input from hundreds of new immigrants. Having listened to them, I found there was a recurring theme. People said that immigrating to Canada takes a painfully long time; the system does not work well; it is bureaucratic; and the people they deal with just do not seem to care. These were common sentiments. I am sure every member has heard these sentiments from people they have met or helped who had gone through the system.

The bill does not address in any way the effectiveness of the immigration department. It places no legislative requirement for setting or meeting stated immigration goals. How do we know whether we are succeeding if we do not have the goals clearly laid out in the legislation? It is not here and I think that certainly creates a real problem.

Guiding principles on family class immigration is the seventh point. The bill is excessively vague on who could be considered family. Only clause 12 actually defines family. The details are left to regulation through clause 14. That is the fact of the bill. As with the economic class, there are a few guiding principles regarding the family, which are laid out pretty much in one sentence in the legislation. Subsequently everything else would be left to the interpretation of the bureaucrats, the minister and the cabinet of the day.

Relying on regulation to guide Canada's immigration policy has failed thus far. It has failed Canadians and the people applying to come to our country alike. We must change the system so that we have clear principles laid out in the legislation which define the family, and I would encourage the committee to ensure that happens.

The eighth point is family class immigration reunification. It is important and goes along with defining a family and family reunification. It is important to determine whether a situation is actually a case of family reunification. If grandparents are brought to Canada, for example, when the majority of the family still lives in the country of origin or in another country, is it family reunification to bring the grandparents over to live with one child in Canada? That question has to be examined very carefully. It will be important for the committee to look at it and determine that.

The ninth point is a more narrow one. It is the issue of the common law spouse provision. In keeping with the first draft of the bill, Bill C-23, and this is the third draft, the minister has included a provision to define a family member as a common law spouse. This raises more questions than it answers.

Presently the immigration department has a very difficult time verifying a legitimate marriage. The department cannot deal with the huge problem of verifying whether a marriage is a marriage of convenience to accommodate immigration or whether it is a genuine marriage. How on earth would we deal with that when we allow a common law marriage to be used under the bill? It is an administrative impossibility and an administrative nightmare.

The tenth point is the authorization to enter and remain in Canada, the dual intent as it is laid out in the bill or the in Canada landing class. The legislation outlines a provision which would allow for that depending on the regulation. We do not know how wide or narrow it might be. It would allow a foreign national to enter Canada with the dual intent of visiting and then immigrating later.

Furthermore, the same section of the bill would create an in Canada landing class. This was taken out several years back because when it was in place it created a nightmare. It is exactly the same as it was 15 or 20 years ago in the old Immigration Act. The last major situation was created about 11 years ago in 1990. This exact situation led to a mass amnesty for anyone who came into the country illegally by the immigration department. These amnesties have not served us well. We are letting everyone in those situations, no matter what their background and without scrutiny, come into the country. This change would lead to the need for another amnesty.

I have only dealt with 10 out of 23, but I know I will have a chance to deal with the legislation in the future. I will close with a 30 second comment which has to do with the suitability of the current immigration minister to remain as minister.

She made comments about three million or more Canadians who supported the Canadian Alliance. She referred to Canadian Alliance members as racists, bigots and Holocaust deniers. I question whether that person has any right to remain as a minister of the crown, particularly the minister of immigration. I want her fired. I expect nothing less.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member. In his speech he mentioned immigration based on economic requirements. I believe those were his words. Years ago his former leader raised that issue and it caused a lot of concern throughout the country about what it basically meant.

Could the hon. member clarify again exactly what it means when he stands and says that immigration should be based on either economic levels or economic requirements? I just wanted to give him the chance to clarify. Is he saying, and I do not think he is, that we should base immigration levels on our economic requirements or a wider parameter?

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member asking this question. It gives me a chance to clarify a large misunderstanding that I left in place.

I am talking about having a system which targets people who can add very quickly to our system and to our economy. This is one of the stated goals of the current immigration system. It is a stated goal in the new bill. There is nothing there to indicate that anything would be improved.

In answering the question I refer to the ninth recommendation of the immigration task force report. The information came from people who came to Canada over the last 20 or 30 years and some who came in the last year or less. They are the people who have dealt with the system in a way that leads them to understand what some of the problems are.

They put forth a specific recommendation which I think would be of huge benefit. I see nothing innovative in the legislation that reflects what these people put forth. They described the following common problem.

Immigration consultants, be they lawyers or non-lawyer consultants, go to Pakistan or India, two major countries from which we accept immigrants, and put on a seminar for maybe 300 or 400 people. They tell people that Canada is a great country, which is true, and they also say some things that are not quite as true. They say, for example, that engineers in Pakistan or in India can just come over to Canada and immediately become engineers. That is simply not true.

I will never forget as long as I live an experience I had. Three or four people told me that if they could find the consultant who told them that, they would do serious damage to the individual because it had made their lives hell.

It would improve the system if people coming to Canada knew what they were coming to. They should understand the workplace in Canada and what is expected there. The task force recommended that as part of the immigration act there should be a requirement that people immigrating to Canada in economic categories, not as refugees, which is another issue, be tested on their knowledge of the Canadian workplace. I suggest this would save a lot of heartache and would actually increase the economic benefits that we receive from immigrants. This is one of the recommendations that would have a huge impact. We would not have people coming here expecting to be engineers and finding out that they have to work at Future Shop and, in many cases, never becoming engineers.

Many of us who have made a point of talking to cab drivers in Ottawa and in the greater Toronto area have heard a lot of stories about people who came to Canada expecting to take a top end job but ended up driving cabs. There is nothing wrong with driving a cab but when one expects to be an engineer or in another profession and one is forced to drive a cab to make a living, it is very painful. It often tears the family apart.

Once people have immigrated to Canada or to any other country, there is no going home. They have cut their ties and often have sold their properties. They have told the people around them, their family and friends, that what they have is not good enough and that they want better.

If we ensure that people have a clear understanding and can accept what they are coming to then I think we will have a much better immigration system and one which will lead to maximum economic benefits for the country, but we need to make that one change. There are many other innovative changes that could have been made but none are in the legislation.

[Werner Schmidt, Canadian Alliance, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, I commend my hon. colleague for his comments and the passion with which he addressed the question. It was excellent. He has obviously done some very serious study of the bill. He has 28 or 30 different items that should be addressed by the committee.

Understanding that he has such a complete knowledge and an intimate recognition of what is involved in the legislation, I wonder if he could address three issues. He has touched on all of them but I do not think he has gone far enough and I would like to give him the opportunity to expand further.

One of the issues has to do with the abuse of the system by people who immigrate to Canada. Another issue has to do with the abuse of the loopholes in the legislation by people in our embassies, in foreign countries or perhaps in Canada who are abusing the consulting services they provide and the good faith people place in them. They are supposed to have superior knowledge and they sort of mislead people.

The final issue, which really gets to the heart of the issue, is the question of where the accountability is in the legislation when the minister of immigration can make the kinds of statements that were made in the last election campaign. I would like the member to address those three issues.

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member is too kind in his comments but, believe me, I always appreciate that.

In terms of accountability, when the minister referred to the three or four million people who supported the Canadian Alliance as racists, bigots and Holocaust deniers, she lost her credibility, and it is clear that she should not be in this position.

In terms of the system, the auditor general made some interesting comments less than a year ago in his report on the immigration system. He made a lot of statements that were profound, but I will quote from one. He said:

On the whole, we are very concerned about the Department's ability to ensure compliance with legislative requirements in this area. We noted serious deficiencies in the way it applies admissibility criteria related to health, criminality and security. It is somewhat disappointing to note the limited progress it has made since our 1990 Report.

The auditor general made almost an identical report in many areas back in 1990 and he noted in his 2000 report that many of the same problems are still there.

The accountability is not there in legislation, it is not there in practice and it is not there in the way the department administers it. It is one my biggest concerns. Even if it were a good piece of legislation, if the administration does not improve and if the accountability does not improve then our immigration system will not be any better. That answers the first question.

In terms of abuse of the system, it was interesting to hear an NDP member refer earlier to the roughly 6,000 people who came from China by boat the summer before last. She said they were economic refugees, that they had come here to better their situation. If they wanted to come as economic immigrants they should have come through our immigration system, but she seemed to think it was fine that they came claiming to be refugees when they clearly were not.

The UN convention definition of a refugee says clearly that someone coming to improve his or her economic situation is not a refugee. I was shocked to hear the member's statement. If a person comes here claiming to be a refugee he or she should be a refugee as laid out in the UN convention. Canada has expanded that quite broadly.

These people did not fall under any definition and the member seemed to think that was fine. I have a huge problem with that. I call that abuse of the system.

To the third question on the loopholes in our foreign offices and so on, there was a document leaked to me about a year ago when I was immigration critic that made it very clear that there were many problems in our foreign offices that have to be dealt with, and the auditor general agreed.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will begin my speech at the point where my colleague from Lakeland left off, and that is the comments made by the immigration minister during the election. I do not think they are worth repeating, but I think it is worth repeating that the minister has done the House, the level of political discourse and herself a disservice. I hope that not only members on this side disavow themselves of such comments but that government members would say publicly the things they are saying in private about their colleague's comments.

I had the opportunity to work for approximately two years on the citizenship and immigration committee. It was a very rewarding experience. We did a lot of things together, had a lot of heated debates and challenges about different things. Madam Speaker was a part of those debates for some of that period of time. My colleague from Lakeland was our immigration critic for a great deal of that time and brought a lot of salient points to the table in discussing immigration matters.

I will focus on the bill and some of the shortcomings I have noticed in my examination of it, some of which will be expanded upon by my colleagues and some of which have already been noted in debate today.

Of course there are some things in the bill with which we do agree. I give credit where credit is due. There are very few things in any piece of legislation on which we would have wholehearted agreement among all members in the House. In looking at clause 3 in the overall objectives of the bill, we support immigration and the purposes that are set out in terms of enhancing our country and allowing individuals to come from other countries. Canada is built upon the framework and foundation of people coming from other countries and other jurisdictions to make their homes here. We acknowledge that and we want to continue in that vein.

We do notice there are some shortcomings in the bill. We are hoping that the minister would acknowledge those shortcomings in committee. Those of us who have been around the House for a great deal of time are somewhat disheartened when we know from past experience that the suggestions we bring forward have been dismissed out of hand. In some ways we are a little discouraged that the positive changes being presented by members of the Alliance, by other members and perhaps even by members of the government might simply be dismissed. That is a bad thing. Rather than look at things through a partisan lens, we should work together wherever we can in a non-partisan way to find solutions to problems that are obvious to all of us.

The minister has acknowledged in subclause 3(2)(a) of her bill that the act recognizes the refugee program is in the first instance about saving lives and offering protection to the displaced and persecuted. We would agree with that. We would submit to the minister and to members on the government side that so many individuals have misused the process within the immigration system that it desperately needs to be fixed.

Millions of refugees around the world are in need of our protection. They are refugees and therefore do not need to go through any kind of process. The government needs to recognize that individuals in refugee camps are already refugees due to something that has happened in their home nation and would therefore be candidates for protection in Canada. I do not see that acknowledged in the legislation. There needs to be a proper screening process in place. We have been calling for that for a long time.

In committee a couple of years ago I raised the idea of eliminating the tax on refugees when they came to Canada. It is referred to as the right of landing fee. An interesting process occurred with respect to the idea I brought forward. We had a debate in committee on the idea. It was generally supported by committee members on both sides of the House until it came time for the recorded vote. It was like somebody had taken a hatchet and driven it directly into members of the committee on the government side, severing the good working relationship some of us had for up to two years.

All of a sudden accusations and disparaging remarks were being made toward me and my colleagues for bringing the motion forward to which they had agreed previously in committee and privately announced their support for the elimination of the head tax for refugees. However government members came in and voted the motion down by a vote of eight to seven.

It was an awakening process for me to learn that is how things work around here. A good idea, if it is proposed by members of the opposition or even by a government backbencher, will be trounced and never see the light of day.

Almost a year later the minister made the same change. I am thankful she did. That is why I suggested it in committee and brought it forward. I watched the government vote it down and then watched the minister implement it.

We must get beyond that kind of working relationship in this place if we are to do the people's business. We need to get past the idea that a good idea cannot come from the opposition side or, in the minds of opposition members, that a good idea cannot come from the government side.

[An hon. member]

It rarely does.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

We need to find ways to work together. My colleague says “It rarely does”. In many ways that is true because we have had many years of dysfunctional relationship in terms of how we do business around here. That needs to change.

The Alliance is the advocate of that change. The Alliance is the advocate of positive change in all areas including how we govern ourselves in relation to this bill and other bills, and how we change the way we do business in parliament. We invite others to join us along that journey because we are committed to it and will continue to work hard for it.

The people of Canada are telling us it is time for change. It is time for a change in the way the business of the nation is done. Canadians want to see that reflected in the House of Commons, the place where 301 representatives are sent to debate pieces of legislation and to make the rules and guidelines that will be set in place not only for now but for our future.

There are some very serious difficulties with the bill. Another problem I see with it is one of the principles it is built upon: voluntary compliance.

The minister's bill is framed within the philosophy that we will set a framework in place and encourage people to comply with it. If they do not comply with it there are some outs for people that are not good for the safety of our country or the well-being of those who come here to be new citizens. There needs to be a look at the use of discretion within the Immigration Act and at which individuals and departments are able to use that discretion.

I will talk about discretion in a case I know about personally regarding a man I met from Afghanistan who came to Canada. His name is Sharif Karimzada. The secretary of state has knowledge of the case as well. The individual came here as a refugee. He was deemed to be part of a regime under subsection 19.1 of the old act. There was no right of appeal for him to be able to explain his situation. He was categorically put in that box and determined to be inadmissible to Canada regardless of anything he did.

The minister has attempted to address that in section 25 of the Immigration Act. That is what I am reading between the lines. I would like to find that out from her.

There needs to be some discretion in terms of inadmissibility because this person demonstrates that the system is broken. We allow people into the country who, we find out later, should not have been allowed in and we exclude others. That is why we need to take a close look at the bill. That is why the Alliance will point out options for the minister, hope that she implements them and will continue to be the voice for change not only with this bill but throughout this parliament and for the future of our country.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Madam Speaker, I had not intended to speak to the bill until I had a chance to look at the estimates for this department that just came out today. It is quite interesting that a department with as many problems as this one has had in the past few years has $61 million less in its budget this year than last year. What really scares me is the section that talks about managing access to Canada. I will read that section:

The managing access to Canada business line:

develops policies and programs to prevent abuse of Canada's citizenship, immigration and refugee programs and to protect the safety of Canadians and the security of Canada;

contributes to the management of international migration and travel by combating illegal migration, including trafficking in people, while facilitating the movement of legitimate travellers;

admits to Canada persons who comply with the Immigration Act and regulations; denies admission to those who do not comply, including criminals and terrorists;

detects abuse of the citizenship, immigration and refugee programs;

manages CIC cases before the IRB, Federal Court and other tribunals;

detains persons who pose a serious risk to Canadians or who would not appear for immigration proceedings; and

removes persons not legally entitled to remain in Canada.

The minister and the government have taken heat in the last few days for a mobster who got into Canada and whom we did not find out about for months and months. Now we have him in a jail and we are looking after his welfare and his dental programs and all the other things the average Canadian cannot afford. He got into the country improperly, obviously. We should have caught him at the border. He is one of the most wanted people in the country.

We have the number one Chinese criminal in the world sitting in a jail in Vancouver. He was living here for quite a while and taking the airplane regularly down to Windsor to play in the casino and gamble his money away. He is the number one crook in all of China. Seven of his buddies were executed just the other day. We know he will never leave this country because we now have a law that says we will not deport anybody who will be put to death. There is not much question that he will not last 24 hours if he goes back to China, nor probably should he based on what he has done there.

Now we have an 11 year old girl, somebody's daughter, smuggled across the border in British Columbia with two men and a woman who we knew were crooks. The police knew who they were. What do we have in the budget? We have $61 million for defence, but that is not the important part. The important part is going to the managing access to Canada section of the estimates.

Last year the budget was $171,953,000. This year it is $142,187,000, just about $30 million less for a program that is already a failure. We will have lots of time over the next little while to look at the estimates to see where the government is spending more money but in a country that has a serious problem with people getting into it illegally, the government is spending $30 million less next year on a program that could prevent it.

Members on this side and on the other side have sat on an immigration committee that said we should have scanners at different places around the world. Immigration critics on this side have been saying that since 1993. We even got the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc to agree a few years ago that we should have scanners in some countries. I think, Madam Speaker, you might have been on that committee when we were looking at the issue.

We ran a program in Malaysia at one point with scanners and RCMP and immigration officers. It stopped many people from coming in. We saved millions of dollars because we stopped people at the source instead of waiting until they got to Canada and giving them all these rights.

It is an absolute scandal to hear the story about that 11 year old girl. Prostitution is the most terrible thing that could happen to any of our children. That young girl and those three crooks should have been stopped at the border where she should have been taken aside and handed to the proper authorities to make sure she did not get into that life.

The Chinese Mafia hit man who was in Vancouver would never have got into the country if we had proper checks and balances. The hit man in Quebec City that the minister is getting into so much trouble over would not have got into Canada if we had a proper system of checks and balances in that area. What is the government's solution? It wants to cut $30 million out of the program. Canadians will be outraged.

We do not usually help that minister too much with anything but we will try to help her now to get some money back in her department and get the program fixed. Canadians should not have to put up with this program. They should not have to put up with crooks and criminals coming into the country on a daily basis. Canadians are sick and tired of it. When they hear the news today they will be outraged, and so they should be.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

All those opposed will please say nay.