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.