Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, there was a situation where a woman in India wanted to come to Canada to see her first grandchild. She travelled close to 200 kilometres to make her application only to then have it denied. She did not have a record so there was no reason for the denial. It was suggested that she would not return to India even though she had a husband there and they had a business. Once again it was presumed that the person would commit a crime before it was committed. I find that disheartening.
I will take this opportunity to admit to those who are not aware that I am a grandmother. For that reason it was especially upsetting for me to hear that this woman, who wanted to come and see her first born grandchild, was not allowed to. Again, there was no reason for it.
I know of another situation involving a young woman from China who wanted to visit her sister who is married to a Canadian. I am not sure if the woman's sister is working but the husband works in Canada.
This young woman lives on a very low income in China and I understand her family helped out by making sure she had enough money to visit Canada. Once again, she was denied the opportunity to visit Canada just because she might not go back.
In every case that I have seen like this it has always involved women. I have seen issues relating to men wishing to come over but there had always been some reason why they could not come. In most of the cases that I have dealt with dealing with men there was no problem. However, in each of the cases involving women there were no crimes committed but they were not allowed to come to Canada just in case.
The gender issue has to be recognized as a problem. I acknowledge that an amendment was passed that dealt with that issue. I hope when I do have the chance to speak to the minister in more depth about these cases that we are able to sort out some of those issues.
I also want to comment on an amendment that did not pass, which I was quite upset about.
I will talk about another situation involving an older woman from India. However at the age I am at now she is probably not all that much older than I am. The woman had some problems with her knees. We are all getting on and we might have a little bit of arthritis or something like that. She was denied access because of her health problem. As it was not a severe health problem, there was no justification for not letting her in. This was a minor health problem and she was denied entry. The family was willing to sign a form saying that they would look after any medical costs but she was still not allowed in. On those issues alone I have been extremely disappointed with the system.