Debates of March 2nd, 2001

Right Of Landing Fee

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Madam Speaker, he can read Hansard to find out what he said.

I would like to congratulate my colleague from the NDP, whom I personally know. I know of his compassion for this issue. I would like to congratulate him for bringing forward this motion. He can count on my full support. He very eloquently stated his reasons for bringing forward the motion.

However, when I listened to the parliamentary secretary I started shaking my head. What he fails to realize is that I also happen to be an immigrant who came to this country, so I can relate to what he is trying to talk about.

Let me first make one thing very clear, one thing the parliamentary secretary neglected to say, and that is that every potential immigrant pays over $500 as a processing fee. The government is already charging every immigrant a processing fee of approximately $545, so when he says that this fee is for speeding up the system, he is wrong. It is not. It is a head tax. It is a tax that goes into general revenue.

Second, the parliamentary secretary said that this tax has not harmed people coming into this country. I would like to remind him of something. When a country has a law and a system that starts discriminating one way or another, is that right just because other people are taking advantage of it? It is not right.

Let me tell the House why I say the system discriminates against others. I will speak about a family of four who have to pay $975 each. That is close to over $3,000 for that family to immigrate to Canada. Add the $575 processing fee to that amount and each individual is paying approximately $1,500 to get into this country, and the parliamentary secretary wants to tell me that those who arrive with their family cannot afford to pay.

There are good people from all parts of world who want to immigrate to this country. Do they need to have money to be good people, to be skilled people? No, they do not. They can come from any part of the world, but if they do not have money, how will they come here?

The government of course says it has a loan program. Yahoo. So before people arrive here they are in debt. They can come to Canada but they will be in debt. The government will say it is giving them money. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary should tell us how much interest the government is charging and how much money it makes out of this.

When the government introduced the bill in 1995, I think, it was for everybody, including refugees. In 1997 I brought forward a private member's bill asking for this tax to be removed for refugees. Now the member stands up very proudly and says that the government removed the tax.

Let me tell members what compelled them to remove it, because I happened to be here in the House. The tax was removed because of the 5,000 Kosovo refugees who were brought to Canada. I am glad they were brought here. Five thousand refugees suddenly came into the country and suddenly the government knew this was the wrong system. The government could not charge 5,000 people who were refugee war victims the right of landing fee. All of a sudden a bright light went on, and the government said it couldn't charge it. That is when it was abolished. It was not abolished out of compassion but because the right of landing fee could not be implemented.

The parliamentary secretary has stated that the government has listened to Canadians. This surprises me. How has it listened? By a poll. What that means to me is that the government is run by polls. It is interesting how the government is run by polls. The government takes a poll and justifies its actions by saying that Canadians have said this, so it applies a fee.

The parliamentary secretary says the government is assisting immigrants. I would like to ask him a question based on my own experience when I came to this country and on the experience of thousands of others who have come here. How many people who come to this country actually use the so-called settlement services he is talking about? I did not when I came here and I can tell the House that the majority of immigrants who come to Canada do not use settlement services. Why is it, then, that the money is going into general revenues?

Something is wrong when the government wants to justify this by saying that this is a service provided to every immigrant. That is absolutely wrong. Does the parliamentary secretary have the figures? I would love to have figures from the department to see what percentage of the total number of immigrants uses the settlement services for which the government is justifying this right of landing fee.

The argument the government has made in justifying this does not hold water. Every immigrant group in the country has stated that this is a discriminatory tax. It is a head tax, despite what the government says. It is hated. The fact of the matter is that it is a tax because immigrants are already being charged a processing fee. We are not talking about a processing fee. We are talking about a head tax.

This head tax is wrong. It gives money to the government for general revenue. There are thousands of applications coming in and despite the member's claim that the government wants to improve and speed up the processing system with this extra money it is getting, that has not happened. I can tell the House that any member of parliament here who deals with immigration is seeing longer and longer delays. The government's argument for having this tax does not hold water.

In conclusion, I would like to thank my colleague in the NDP for bringing out this issue. Although this is non-votable, it has given us an opportunity to show the weakness of the government's argument as to why it has this head tax.

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today on Motion No. 231 tabled by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, which reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should eliminate the Right of Landing Fee (ROLF) on all classes of immigrants to Canada.

We all know in this House that Quebec and Canada are the number one destination for many immigrants. Thousands of immigrants choose Canada or Quebec as their adopted country to improve their lives and reach their full potential.

As we know, Quebec and Canada both need immigration to at least maintain their current population. Therefore, the government regularly sets targets regarding the number of immigrants to be received. Last year Canada received 226,837 immigrants and refugees.

For 2001 we should be receiving 200,000 to 225,000 immigrants and refugees and these numbers will increase by 10,000 for 2002.

However these people must pay certain fees which we think limit the possibility of immigrating to Canada and constitute an undisguised form of discrimination for some.

We also think that the right of landing fee, or ROLF, also known as head tax, is an unacceptable constraint.

It is interesting to note that the term head tax comes from a tax imposed on Chinese immigrants by the Canadian government at the end of the 19th century.

Starting in 1880, many Chinese workers took part in the building of the CPR. Once the railroad was built, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. Between 1885 and 1923, Chinese immigrants, unlike European immigrants, had to pay quite a substantial head tax to come to Canada. From $50 per person in 1885, the head tax increased to $100 to finally reach the astronomical amount of $500 by 1903.

To say it was a staggering amount of money at that time is an understatement. In fact, it is estimated that by 1923 that awful tax had generated $23 million for the Canadian government, which would translate into about $1 billion nowadays.

The current landing fee of $975 per adult immigrant coming to Canada was set by the current Liberal government in 1995. At the time, the fee applied to both immigrants and refugees. Public outcry prompted the government to stop collecting that fee from refugees in February 2000.

However it still applies to other immigrants who have other expenses to pay when they come to Canada. Besides the landing fee set at $975 per immigrant over 19 years of age, the permanent residence application costs $500 per immigrant over 19 years of age and $100 for anyone younger.

Everyone agrees that this tax is clearly unfair and prohibitive. While the government is raking in surplus after surplus by diverting the surplus of the employment insurance fund, it is still collecting a landing fee from immigrants. Two thousand immigrants at $975 each make for a lot of money. It comes to about $200 million a year.

These actions by the government show once again its insensitivity toward the poor in our society. Indeed, many people want to immigrate here but do not necessarily have much money. This tax does not at all take into account the economic resources of individuals or the economic conditions in their country of origin. In the end, the door is wide open but only for those who have the means to pay.

While the federal Liberal government is accumulating surplus upon surplus, Quebec is welcoming some 12,000 refugees annually. The slowness in the processing of claims by the federal government results in staggering costs for Quebec. It is estimated that it costs about $100 million annually to take charge of people waiting for a ruling by the Immigration and Refugee Board and the federal government will not consider reimbursing Quebec for these costs. It is too poor. Clearly, the only reason for this landing fee is to put money in the federal treasury.

Another worrisome thing about this tax is that it is an impediment to what the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration considers one of her priorities: the reunification of families.

We know that many immigrants are not necessarily rolling in money. For those who apply to sponsor a member of their family, this tax is a major obstacle.

It is clear that Bill C-11, which is now before the committee, would allow us to examine this tax and the government's real objectives. It is essential that the federal government significantly lower this tax or, better yet, abolish it.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Motion No. 231, which suggests that the government should remove the right of landing fee for all classes of immigrants. I am more than happy to support the motion brought forward by the member for Winnipeg Centre and to speak on behalf of our member for Fundy—Royal, our immigration critic, who also supports the motion.

A number of issues have been discussed today, but a couple of more statements need to be made. It would behoove us all to realize that we are all immigrants to this land. Some of us have been here for a few hundred years and some of us have been here for a few days, but all of us came from another place at one time or another to make our home and to try to raise our families in Canada. Whether one is first generation, fifteenth generation or one thousandth generation, it really does not make any difference. We are all equal before the law. We all stand to benefit from good government and to continue to live here and enjoy the freedoms Canada offers.

There is a bit of background to the head tax that should be mentioned. The previous speaker started to go into that background, but she did not get into the details. The head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act remain two of the worst examples of legalized racism in Canadian history. I do not think we can move forward unless we are willing to look at our history, understand the mistakes that were made in the past, and hopefully try not to make the same mistakes again.

The original head tax was introduced in 1885 and finally repealed in 1923. It was only levied on Chinese immigrants. When it was repealed in 1923 it was replaced by the Chinese Exclusion Act which remained in place until 1947. That act prohibited Chinese from immigrating to Canada.

Can we imagine today picking one race or one group of people and saying they cannot immigrate to this country? It is quite unheard of. The original head tax was also an entrance fee. It was set at $50 per person in 1885. It rose to $100 in 1900 and was raised to $500 in 1905. The Chinese community continues today to seek redress for these acts.

While not to be confused with the original head tax of 1885, many immigrant communities refer to Canada's $975 entrance fee as a head tax, and rightfully so. It was introduced in the 1995 budget of the Minister of Finance and remains in place today. Additional to this fee, which was mentioned by the Canadian Alliance member who spoke previously, is a $500 per person processing fee. The $975 is not for processing the paperwork or looking after the fees associated with immigration. The $500 supposedly looks after that and the $975 is a tax on immigrants who quite often can least afford to pay it. We are looking at $1,500.

As the Alliance member mentioned earlier, it starts to add up for a family of four, five, or six. It is a considerable amount of money that could be well spent to allow new Canadians to become accustomed to the country, perhaps to learn the language or to give them a bit of a cushion as they integrate into the community.

It is important to look at some of the statements made on the government side of the House in the past. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration made a clear commitment to a fair, affordable and well enforced immigration policy. Therefore, a form of financial guarantee would ensure that sponsors of immigrants met their obligations. In addition, a $975 fee would be charged all adults immigrating to Canada to offset the costs of immigrant services, said the Minister of Finance, as reported in Hansard of February 27, 1995. It could not be any further from reality. As reported in Hansard of March 13, 1995, Mary Clancy said that the cost of programs was $271 million a year.

Even though the statements by the immigration department would imply otherwise, that the $975 would offset fees, that is not the case. The $975 goes directly into general revenue. The general revenue is kind of nefarious: the money goes in there but we are not quite certain what happens to it after. Even the auditor general has a very difficult job to trace the money through all the loops and the rabbit warren of general revenue. It is like Alice in Wonderland.

To help handle criticism of the fee the same government provided for loans to be made available to help pay the costs. The fee is set out in typical Liberal fashion as a so-called caring and compassionate government to ensure that no one is turned away as a result. Loan programs and other ways of assisting are also included in the process, according to the hon. member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore on March 2, 1995.

Now comes the kicker. On April 3, 1995, Anna Terrana indicated that the loan option was said to be based on one's ability to repay the loan within a certain time period. She asked how these individuals could, without the necessary tools to acquire meaningful employment, be realistically expected to repay the loans within a three year period. They contradicted one another.

Everyone in the House is aware that the government has since abolished the head tax on convention refugees. It has kind of come part way. What we need is a commitment from the government to come the rest of the way. It needs to take a look at what it has done in the past and say that it does not work, that it interferes with immigration, and that it is really a penalty against future Canadians and immigrants to the country. The government should say that enough is enough and simply get rid of it. What a novel idea.

Perhaps the day has come when as parliamentarians we should look at the things that work and applaud them. We should look at the things that do not work and ask how they could be changed. Let us get rid of them and put them on the chopping block.

[An hon. member]

It is common sense.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

I agree with the member who just said “It is common sense”. A little common sense goes a long way. I would like to do an overview of the PC stance on immigration. We recognize that immigration in Canada will continue. We certainly support it. We also recognize further that it is an economic necessity. We need to have more confidence in and respect for human diversity so that we do not get sucked into the debate.

I will quote the words of our immigration critic, the member for Fundy Royal, “so that we do not get sucked into the debate of always having to add the word criminal in a statement related to immigration. That is a very slippery slope”.

In conclusion, the PC Party supports the bill. We support the abolition of the $975 head tax and the $500 tax that is added on top of that. In other words, we support the abolition of the $1,475 tax that immigrants are forced to pay when they come into Canada.

We would like to see the bill made votable. Perhaps in the future it will become votable. In the meantime, it is through the continuation of efforts like this that hopefully some day we will see the abolition of the tax.

In summary, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make the motion votable.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak in support of Motion No. 231, that the government should eliminate the right of landing fee on all classes of immigrants to Canada.

I congratulate the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for moving the motion. I would point out that in 1998 I moved a similar motion in the immigration committee, which would have eliminated the head tax, but the Liberal members on the committee unanimously opposed it. Today, when the hon. member from the PC Party asked for unanimous consent, it was again the Liberal members, not opposition party members, including the Canadian Alliance, who were opposed to making the motion votable.

I am convinced that the right of landing fee is a cash cow for the Liberal government. The government is hungry to increase taxes whenever it gets the opportunity to balance its budget on the backs of taxpayers. In this case, it is raising taxes on the backs of refugees and prospective new immigrants. The tax has been in place for six years. The government has raked in about $1.2 billion from new immigrants. That is about $1,000 per immigrant per year.

Where does all the money go? It does not go for resettlement purposes or into the departmental budget. It goes to the general revenues of the government, this big, bulky government.

The head tax is not based on need. It is not based on the income of the people or the educational level. For example, people teaching English or French in another country may still have to pay for English as a second language when they come to Canada. The tax does not take into consideration the ability to settle in Canada. It is a very unfair head tax on prospective immigrants.

When we speak about the historical perspective, the head tax has connotations of the discriminatory past of our country. The government imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants to Canada from 1885 to 1923 to discourage them from coming here.

It started at $50 per head and then rose to $500 per head. This head tax, which continues into the 21st century, reminds us of the Chinese exclusion act. It also reminds us of the discriminatory practices with respect to the Komagata Maru ship which came to Canada. Based on race and country of origin, the passengers of that ship, most of whom were refugees, were not allowed to land on this great land. After many days, the ship was forced out of Canadian waters. When it arrived back in India, many of the passengers were gunned down by the government at that time.

It also reminds us of the discriminatory practices followed in the old age security benefits, commonly called a pension for seniors. It is discriminatory because it is not needs based.

This head tax discriminates against the poor and people of colour from Third World countries. Those prospective immigrants who come from developed countries have to pay that fee which is equivalent to about 15 days of wages in developed countries. Fifteen hundred dollars is about 15 days wages. For many of the developing countries, it takes about 15 months to save that $1,500. Then we translate or convert that currency into the local currency of that country.

In the underdeveloped countries, or the backward countries I should say, like Zaire, it takes 15 years for people to save $1,500 Canadian per person. When a family of four or more people plan to come to Canada, this head tax acts as a deterrent for those individuals.

In many other countries, the immigration visa fee is adjusted according to the cost of living in those countries. For example, if one applies for a British visa, the fee depends on from which country one is applying. In certain countries, the fees are lowered because the cost of living is lower and the cost of processing that application is lower.

I also want to make it very clear that I talked to many immigrants in my constituency and all over the country. Immigrants want to pay a fee, but a reasonable fee, whether it is a processing fee or whatever name we give it. However this fee becomes unreasonable and acts as a deterrent, particularly so when the minister wants to open the front door, as I have been saying for a long time, and close the back door. When the fees are discriminatory, it does not encourage the immigrants to come through the front door but probably through the revolving door.

There are many individuals and groups who oppose this head tax. Among them are the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Council for Refugees. They came up with a document called “Impact of the Right of Landing Fee” in 1997. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women noted that it has a disproportionate impact on women. The Caledon Institute of Social Policy, the Canadian Ethnocultural Council and the Canadian Labour Congress and many more oppose this head tax. They oppose it because it is too much. It is double the fee in the U.S.A., for instance, for a family of four entering that country.

Originally in 1995 when the right of landing fee was imposed, the finance minister proposed a fee of $1,700 to $1,800. Due to some good negotiations probably, it came down to $975, even though the former immigration minister wanted it less than $300.

I would also like to mention that the Liberal Party at its 1996 convention passed a resolution for the government to review the head tax. I believe the government has come up with all kinds of lame excuses. If it was a grassroots party, it would have listened to its members.

In conclusion, even though the government eliminated the head tax for refugees in the year 2000, for five years it had been milking those people who were forced to leave their homes. With the deficit having turned into a surplus, the government should lower taxes in general and eliminate the head tax. The minister has the authority to eliminate the service charge because it is not a designated tax. The right of landing fee should be based on equity so that we give new immigrants a chance to settle into their new lives.

Therefore I support this motion and I would ask the other members of the House to support it.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, let the record show, and I hope all the people who are watching this back home are fully aware of this, that there is only one party in the House of Commons that refuses to allow this motion to go to a vote and that is the Liberal Party. The Liberal MPs are the only ones who are afraid to put this issue to a vote.

I can tell the House why they are afraid. They would lose that vote. There are members of the Liberal backbench to whom I have spoken who feel very passionately about this issue as well, because they represent ridings where there is a strong population of new Canadians who feel abandoned and cheated by their own government by the imposition of this unfair tax.

I know of one Liberal cabinet minister who has spoken very plainly and openly about it and who strongly believes this should be eliminated.

The Liberal Party knows it would lose the vote.

The Liberals had a window of opportunity. I used my very rare opportunity of getting one of my bills or motions put forward. Of all the pieces of private member's business I have, I chose this one in order to give them a graceful exit so that they could get out of a bad situation. They chose not to take advantage or avail themselves of that. I hope they wear that right across the country.

We heard the member for South Shore say that this is not just a head tax but a penalty on new Canadians. They are being penalized for choosing to make Canada their home. What kind of welcoming message does that send around the world as we try to attract the best and the brightest to our country? I should add that we are in competition with other countries. There are a lot of countries people can choose to go to. We want them to come to Canada, yet we throw barriers and roadblocks like this racist head tax in their way.

This head tax is an insult to new Canadians. I have spoken confidentially with people in my riding and they are offended. Their feelings are hurt by the imposition of this tax. The Filipino Association of Manitoba, as my hon. colleague across the way knows very well because he is a former president of that association, has made very public demands. Its members have let their feelings be known very publicly about how offended they are that the government chose to look to them as some kind of a cash cow or revenue generator when all they are trying to do is reunite their families in this country.

Perhaps the most damaging thing about this head tax is not even the financial burden that it puts on families trying to bring family members here. It is the moral indignation they feel. It is in the assault on the morale of new Canadians that this head tax does really almost permanent damage.

The Liberal Party had an opportunity to live up to the resolution it passed at its own convention and to do the honourable thing. The Liberals do not need a legislative directive to change this head tax. They can do it unilaterally by order in council. The minister has the right to impose, raise, lower or eliminate a fee of this nature and it could happen tomorrow.

It would have sent a welcoming message to new Canadians. It would have satisfied the many social justice groups and advocates for immigration who have been saying loud and clear how unfair the imposition of this tax is.

The Liberals missed the opportunity. They did it voluntarily. I see them all looking down at their books. They are hanging their heads in shame, as well they should, because the country is watching, and even for those people who may have missed this little fiasco we are going to remind them. We are going to publish it far and wide that the Liberals willingly and knowingly missed this opportunity. Not only did they miss the opportunity to oppose the head tax, they decided to keep it and keep milking new Canadians like they are some revenue generating cash cow. Even though the government has a $100 billion surplus that it is always crowing about, it decided not to change the practice of picking the pockets of new Canadians.

The NDP caucus believes that immigration is an engine for economic growth. The NDP caucus believes that new Canadians begin contributing to the economy the very day they set foot on our shores and buy their first meals or first articles of clothing or rent their first home and, I might add, start paying taxes for the rest of their lives. They pay ad nauseam. That is how new Canadians make a contribution. We do not have to pick their pockets as soon as they express an interest in coming to our country.

We have missed a window of opportunity to send a valuable message to the rest of the world today. I am sorry in my own heart that members did not see fit to exhibit the kind of compassion and humanitarian reputation Canada is known for.

I am very disappointed and I am sure most new Canadians are as well. As I say, if they do not remember who the architects of this problem were, we will be there to remind them.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. As the motion has not been designated as a votable item, the order is dropped from the order paper.

It being 2.31 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday, March 12 at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2.30 p.m.)