Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to speak to Bill C-11, the immigration and refugee protection act.
This is a very important matter for me. I have been interested in it for a number of years, because I sit on the board of the Greater Montreal United Way. We manage assistance for agencies providing help to refugees and immigrants. We know that each is treated in much the same way. Often problems related to the arrival of refugees impact the way we look at immigration.
As my colleague for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel said, legislation adapted to the new realities of Canada and Quebec and the world as a whole is most welcome. The environment has hugely changed the pressures of population movements that are a part of globalization. It is not said often enough, but the arrival in numbers not only in Canada but in all western countries of persons from southern countries is part of the globalization process we speak of daily.
This is an extremely important bill. It is also a bill that calls on the most fundamental values shared by Quebecers and Canadians and that reflects a commitment to international solidarity.
All members will agree that our primary concern with this bill must be to show extreme generosity toward those who, for reasons having to do with their political opinion, sexual orientation or religion, must leave their country to save their lives and those of their loved ones.
This commitment to international solidarity must transcend our concerns when we review Bill C-11. This is particularly important for Quebec and Quebecers, because, as we know Quebec welcomes more than its fair share of refugees on a per capita basis, and we are proud of that.
At the same time, we must, as members representing Quebec's interests, remind this House that there are major costs involved. Quebec must pay some $80 million to provide the necessary assistance to refugees even though this is a federal jurisdiction.
In this respect, Motion No. 9, to which the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel referred and which was moved by the hon. member for Laval Centre, is an absolute priority for us.
Indeed, the system must be much more efficient, not only for administrative reasons, but also for reasons that relate to international solidarity and to which I referred. We need to create the proper environment to make the system much more efficient.
This brings me to a third point. When we talk about efficiency, we must think about the rigour with which we should deal with refugee and immigration issues in general, to admit to Canada and Quebec people who not only have refugee status, but who also meet immigration requirements. We must be able to prevent undesirables from entering Canada and Quebec. This rigour must not mean that the federal government can get around providing appropriate resources to administer the act.
Motion No. 9 deals with this issue.
The proposed legislation could be extremely rigorous, extremely comprehensive with respect to this obligation to show solidarity, this obligation to ensure the safety of residents of Canada and of Quebec, but the government's primary concern in introducing Bill C-11 must not be to make this bill as repressive as possible in order to keep refugees out of Canada and to try to economize on the necessary resources.
In this regard, I think it is extremely important to remind the federal government, the Liberal government, that additional resources are needed to implement any legislation, although I do agree that this legislation must be rigorously enforced.
There is one final point I wish to make before looking at the individual motions. It is clear that the government's wish to introduce this bill is also motivated by a certain pressure from our neighbours to the south, whose view of this obligation to show solidarity towards refugees perhaps differs from that of Canadians and Quebecers.
I would not want decisions taken in the House to be coloured by this desire to comply with our American neighbours, as has unfortunately been the case in various connections in recent months.
In fact, we have noticed a certain anxiousness on the part of the government to comply with pressures that had less to do with public opinion in Canada or in Quebec than they had to do with public opinion in the United States or with what the U.S. government wanted. The missile defence shield, the energy agreement, and so forth, are just a few examples that come to mind.
I therefore think it extremely important that our concerns not be allowed to overshadow our obligation to show solidarity, that the necessary resources be made available to enforce the legislation, and that the toughness of the legislation reflect our values and needs, not those of our neighbours to the south.
It is in that context that the Bloc Quebecois views Motion No. 5, for example, as extremely important in order to better define what constitutes a threat to the security of Canada. As we have mentioned already, we feel that section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act would be a good basis for defining what is a threat to the security of Canada.
In that law, the definition includes espionage, sabotage, activities detrimental to the interests of Canada, activities in support of the threat of acts of serious violence and activities intended ultimately to lead to the destruction or overthrow of the constitutionally established system of government in Canada.
It is clear that those activities would indeed constitute threats to the security of Canada. However, it is also clear that people who defend causes in their countries, who protest or show their disagreement with policy directions, who are doing it democratically whenever possible and with a will to resolve problems peacefully, should not be covered by that definition. In our opinion, the universal charter of human rights should be respected in the spirit of the legislation.
Therefore, we feel that a much clearer and more specific definition of the concept of threat to the security of Canada is absolutely necessary for this legislation to be applied to the fullest extent, but without arbitrariness and most of all without injustice toward people who, in all good faith, defend a cause with which we sometimes are in agreement.
In the same spirit, while we agree with the motion and the amendment to more clearly define through the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act the concept of threat against the security of Canada, we disagree with the idea that the Security Intelligence Review Committee would be the organization that should make recommendations to this effect. We question the appropriateness of involving the SIRC review committee in this regard.
I would like to focus mostly on Motion No. 7, proposed by my colleague from Laval Centre. Its purpose is to maintain a level of appeal for people who have been refused refugee status or admission into Canada on grounds of serious crime, security, violation of human rights or organized crime.
As we know, the present act provides for two stages. When the adjudication division takes expulsion proceedings, an appeal division can hear the arguments that the refugee or the permanent resident might make to challenge the decision. In our opinion, it is very important that this level of appeal be maintained. In this sense, clause 64 of the bill must be removed entirely. Once again, I feel that through clause 64 the government is trying to hide the lack of resources to apply the bill that will eventually be passed by invoking administrative reasons and removing a level of appeal.
In conclusion, the Bloc Quebecois hopes that Bill C-11 will be amended to respond to the real values of Quebecers and Canadians.