Mr. Speaker, I actually was not going to say much here this morning but I feel I must respond to the comments of the two previous speakers to the bill, the critic for the NDP and the critic for the Conservative Party.
When they talk about the fact that the government is not living up to its charter of rights obligations and that it is taking away appeals from people, I think there are a couple of things that are conveniently left out. One of them is who it is we are talking about here in terms of permanent residents who are facing deportation. A permanent resident is a landed immigrant. I am sure everyone knows that no government would in any kind of a light fashion institute deportation proceedings against someone who has attained landed immigrant status. It would have to be pretty serious, and what exactly does it mean?
There is a rule in the bill that we refer to as the 10 and 2 rule. The people we are talking about who could, may or might face deportation proceedings in this instance are people who have committed a crime for which they have been charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. The sentence must be a minimum of 2 years and the crime must allow for a maximum of 10 years. It is the 10 and 2 rule.
If the crime is serious enough to have at least a 10 year sentence applied and the decision by the judge is that the person who has been convicted, and that is very important, must serve at least 2 years out of a possible 10, then the person has committed a crime that the ministry would see as serious enough, possibly, to institute deportation proceedings. It is not automatic. A notice would have to be sent.
The suggestion that people do not have a right of appeal is just patently false. What they do not have a right to do is jam up our federal courts in appealing. They do not have a right to come out after their sentence is over and they are facing deportation proceedings and then jam up the judicial system while they continue to stay in the country, avoiding the deportation order and perhaps reoffending.
Members opposite say the government has not listened to Canadians. I am sorry, but I represent a riding, Mississauga West, where immigration is one of the hottest issues. I can tell members that Canadians have told me loud and clear that they do not want Canada to be seen as a safe haven for criminals, convicted felons, violent perpetrators, terrorists or subversives.
Some would say this is against the charter of rights. Come on. There is a right within the bill for people who have been convicted and sentenced. By the way, they would most likely have appealed it, so they would have gone through the criminal justice system appealing everything all the way. If the appeal did not set them free, they would have been incarcerated. When they get out this government wants the right to say that it no longer wants those people in the country continuing with those kinds of offences. That is number one. Let us be clear about that. The government has done the test on whether or not the bill will stand up to charter challenges and it is absolutely convinced it will.
Canadian people have a right to feel safe in their communities. One of the arguments I hear from the Progressive Conservative critic is that people who come to this country could be here for 20 to 30 years and then the government would turn around and deport them because they have committed a serious crime. If they have been in the country for 20 or 30 years and have not sought Canadian citizenship that clearly is their option. There is no obligation on them to become citizens, but if they want to become citizens and a productive part of our society then we welcome them to do that. If they choose not to do that and they simply maintain the status of being landed immigrants or permanent residents, as it is referred to in the bill, then they run the risk, and they should know they run the risk, following a conviction on a 10 and 2 crime, a serious enough crime, that they may well be deported.
They can appeal that decision to an independent adjudicator, who will make a decision as to whether or not that deportation order should be upheld. The decision of the independent adjudicator is judicially reviewable in the courts. If the order continues to be upheld, it can be appealed under humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which is also judicially reviewable in the courts. I count that as four reviews.
Members opposite would paint some kind of a clandestine approach to this, as if we are simply saying, no, they are out of here, they get the boot and they do not get a chance to have their cases reviewed. That is simply not the case.
Yes, the Canadian Bar Association did come before the committee and appealed to it to allow for continued extensive use of the court system. Frankly, in the bill we have listened to Canadians. They do not want these people abusing our court system while they are free to reoffend. We as a government must have the right to make sure our citizens are safe.
I have one final point with regard to refugees. The member for Fundy—Royal, the Progressive Conservative critic, wrote an article that was published in one of the Toronto dailies on Friday, wherein he said that refugees only get to apply once in a lifetime. I do not know why he would say that when he knows that in fact is not the case, that if there are changed circumstances a person can reapply every six months, not just once in six months but every six months. With new evidence, new information, with changed circumstances, refugees can apply again and again.
For people who have applied for refugee status and have no change in their circumstances, the bill does not allow appeal after appeal. We have all seen and heard of the abuse and we know about such situations. In fact there have been some recently mentioned in the media, about people who have stayed in the country illegally for five, six or seven years while they abused the system and used the appeal system.
To suggest that the bill is flawed because we have stripped people who are on Canadian soil of their rights is just fundamentally inaccurate, in my view, and is not a fair portrayal of the bill. Canadians have told us that they want our immigration system to be open and welcoming to immigrants and refugees who need our protection and who will come here and help build a greater Canada, but they no longer want to tolerate the kinds of abuses they have seen where people have been free in our society to reoffend, to commit additional crimes. We have lost some of our best young people to such tragedies as the Just Desserts file and many others. We will simply not tolerate it. That is what Canadians have told us and that is what the government intends to do.