Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity, especially at this point in time, to speak to Bill C-11 at report stage.
I have concerns with respect to the legislation which we are discussing at report stage. The Liberal Party of Canada has had a very strong reputation with respect to new Canadians throughout its history. After all, this is the party of Wilfrid Laurier, Mike Pearson and indeed Pierre Trudeau. From what we saw at committee for the most part, the irony was the Liberal Party of Canada was most reticent to support the rights of permanent residents and immigrants and moreover, the human responsibility with respect to refugee protection. As we go through report stage we will flesh out a couple of those issues on which clearly we should have spent more time.
I want to compliment the hon. member for London North Centre. He was very welcoming and collaborated in putting our debate together. The two immigration critics for the Canadian Alliance, who represent ridings in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, provided first class representation. I saw that across the board with the Bloc and very much with the NDP. We had an opportunity to have a very pioneering piece of legislation.
The reality is this the bill falls short of that particular mark. These days the government of this multicultural, multilingual land built on immigration sounds disappointingly less welcoming than it should. The minister of immigration's proposed reform of the 25 year immigration act, Bill C-11, falls far short of the standards which Canada should use in treating immigrants and refugees to this country.
As Progressive Conservative opposition critic on the immigration committee, I sat and listened to the testimony of over 150 witnesses and groups. They almost all repeated the very same serious concerns. They were concerned that parts of the bill were draconian and even un-Canadian. Even Liberal members on occasion referred to the bill as being un-Liberal. That was the result of the testimony which we heard.
We had a myriad of caring Canadians, who embraced human diversity and human rights, say that this bill missed the mark to protect refugees to the degree that we should. I would like to add quite clearly and succinctly that refugee rights are in fact human rights. Our inability to protect refugees in need, and by perhaps not having the appropriate checks of due process in place, can result in the torture, injury and even death of individuals. That is why due process is a fundamental aspect of our judicial system. That is why due process is something we believe this particular piece of legislation is short on. I will have more to say as we proceed toward the next days.
I will refer to the particular motions in play that we have.
The first motion, Motion No. 1, by the government is somewhat technical and replaces lines 1 to 7 on page 3 of the bill. The original legislation stated “to promote international justice, respect for human rights and security”. The government is advocating a reversal of that. It is saying that we would, in co-operation with the provinces and territories, and of course we would agree with that part of it, secure better recognition of foreign credentials of new Canadians to make their integration more accessible.
Essentially the first motion, by reversing the language, speaks to the potential security risks as opposed to the well-being and the good fortune the country has with respect to immigration.
The second motion, proposed by the Bloc, refers to lines 1 to 4 on page 5, clause 5. The motion calls for the Government of Canada, parliamentarians and particularly the immigration committee to have far more input and a much larger opportunity to participate with respect to reviewing the regulations.
Members may be aware that this piece of legislation is framework legislation. This means that it is not necessarily what is in the act that governs the bill, it is the regulations themselves. If these issues were done order in council and not scrutinized by the committee, the role of parliament would be usurped.
I commend the chair, and the immigration minister who is doing something that is quite uncommon. She is willing to provide the regulations to the committee for scrutiny before they are implemented and published in the Canada Gazette . That is not very common. I must give proper credit to her for what I consider a very progressive, yet conservative initiative.
I would like to refer to Motion No. 3 which is also a Bloc motion. It is an amendment to clause 19 on page 11, at line 11, which is the right of entry of permanent residents. This initiative actually dovetails with an amendment passed at committee which was introduced by the Progressive Conservative Party. I want to thank all members of the committee who supported that initiative.
Essentially it would provide a status document to all permanent residents. Once they obtain that particular position it would ensure that they could travel, work and make a valuable contribution, and their children could go to school in certain circumstances. As we know, there are a number of individuals who are sometimes caught in limbo and do not have the capacity to work or to educate their children and so on.
The Bloc motion refers to the right of entry for refugees in addition to permanent residents so that they would have a status card, a travel card so that they could actually have the capacity to re-enter Canada. This recognizes that in this global world people do travel. Those people are protected. Those refugees clearly need to be able to get on with their lives after they have escaped persecution.
The fourth motion is quite simple. It is a technical amendment on an issue related to translation.
The wording must be consistent in both official languages, which is why the Progressive Conservative Party is in favour of this amendment.
I thank the House for the opportunity to participate in debate on Group No. 1. There are two more groups to go. We look forward to the debate.