Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise to debate Bill C-11 at the report stage. Let me begin by complimenting the members of the committee for doing a great job during the public hearings. We heard from over 150 witnesses. We travelled from Vancouver to Montreal and received excellent presentations from a very broad spectrum of witnesses.
When we came back to the House and the committee met, we spent three long days going over the amendments. I must say that it was an atmosphere of co-operation on all sides of the House. Government members as well as opposition members worked on this bill. That is about the amount of positive input that I will make today.
Unfortunately the good work of the committee through the hearing process is not reflected in the bill.
It is so unfortunate that House committees spend so much time and effort on the road at the expense of taxpayers and then find that other than a few cosmetic changes to the bill, the bill has basically remained intact.
I must say at this point that these are the kinds of public responses that we received from the 150 plus witnesses who represented various organizations throughout the country. Witnesses stated that they felt the language of the bill placed undue emphasis on enforcement and criminality, as opposed to language that highlights the waffly nature of Canada's immigration and refugee program. That is very true.
The irony is in the amendment put forth in this first group of amendments. The minister wants to amend clause 3 by replacing lines 1 to 7 with:
(i) to promote international justice and security by fostering respect for human rights and by denying access to Canadian territory to persons who are criminals or security risks; and
We certainly agree with that. In fact we know that is what needs to be done. The minister could do the same thing without the legislation. She could do it by putting more people in the field and putting in a good front end screening vehicle so that we keep out criminals.
The minister always talks about closing the back door. Maybe the government needs to close the front door a little so that we let in people who we think will become positive contributors to the country. The irony is that the system creates its own problems.
This is a good time to reflect on the Sklarzyk case that happened during the past couple of weeks. The Sklarzyk family had its visitor visa extended three times. That makes absolutely no sense. If Canada did not want the family here in the first place back in 1994, it makes sense that the family should have been told to leave and go home.
Why did the government extend the visa? At that time two of the children had been born in Poland. By extending the visitor visa three times the government was extending a sign of welcome. It makes absolutely no sense. The government creates a lot of these problems. After the family had two children here and had been here from 1994 to 2001, close to seven years, the government asked the family to leave.
Through the public hearings we have heard many witnesses say they were stateless. In other words, they had no status. Some have been in Canada upwards of 10 to 15 years. They came here as refugees. They have had children here. Their children are in school and they still have no status.
One of the points raised continuously throughout the hearings was the whole issue of permanent residence. People who have permanent resident status are referred to in the bill as foreign nationals. Many witnesses who came before the committee were offended by that approach. It is unwelcoming and un-Canadian. We should not be doing it.
I will tell the House what the changes were to the definition section. Under interpretation a foreign national will be changed to mean:
—a person who is not a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident, and includes a stateless person.
The irony is that throughout the bill permanent resident and foreign national are printed side by side. This is worse than leaving it the way it was. I cannot understand it.
One amendment that members of the opposition all agreed with was that changes needed to be made and in a positive manner. They should be made in a manner that deals with different classes. A member on the government bench indicated that if a person lands in Canada we should perhaps give him or her landed status as in the old days. However that has not happened in the bill.
Another concern raised was the whole issue that this was framework legislation. As framework legislation much of the authority to carry out immigration and refugee objectives would be found in the regulations. The regulations would therefore be substantial and would contain much of the detail regarding implementation of the act. Many witnesses supported the idea of all new regulations being reviewed by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
Even government members agreed. They agreed that the regulations should come before the standing committee and be reviewed. I compliment the chairman of the committee for the good work he did throughout the hearing process. He stated that the committee should be scrutinizing the regulations.
What do we see in the new bill? We see nothing, absolutely nothing in terms of the amendments. I think many members of the opposition were led down the garden path with the clause by clause exercise we went through.
Ten minutes does not give anyone a lot of time to deal with the complexity of the bill. I will close by again noting that a number of witnesses suggested creating and including in the bill a mechanism whereby members of the general public could submit complaints about any aspect of the new legislation. Several witnesses suggested creating an ombudsman to organize and centralize submissions and report regularly to CIC and to parliament.
I did that very task. The Canadian Alliance put together an amendment to allow the minister to create an ombudsman vehicle for people with complaints. We need oversight for the department and I look forward to speaking to the second group of amendments.