Madam Speaker, the question I asked of the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration was about why Canada continues to harbour the criminal elements of the world.
Canadians have read in the newspapers throughout these last few years about the illegal criminals entering the country. Canadians are asking why are we allowing these criminals to enter the country?
Canadians have also heard names like Gaetano Amodeo and Lai Changxing. In fact they have become household names in the country over the last few years. We have put a lot of effort into protecting these criminals who enter the country. While we do this, we put other Canadian citizens at risk. We put Canadian visitors at risk. An example is the Sklarzyk family who was recently deported back to Poland. Who is looking after their rights? Who is looking after the rights of Serge Kisluk? This gentleman passed away just recently.
I would like to quote Marsha Skrypuch from a newspaper article. She is a children's author and met Kisluk while researching a novel about a girl whose grandfather was accused of war crimes. She said that she was appalled at the process that had been used to condemn Mr. Kisluk. She stated:
These are 50-year-old cases, and evidence won't hold up in a criminal court, so they use the immigration rules instead. The reality is that there just isn't enough evidence. Innocent people get hurt. You end up with a bunch of little old men trying to defend themselves against the state.
Who is defending his rights? Who is defending the rights of people like Oberlander and Odynsky? How many criminals are there in Canada? I do not think anyone knows. What we do know is that there are at least 15,000 warrants out for people who are in the country who should not be here. They should have left a long time ago.
We are letting too many criminals through the front door. Why? Because the front door is wide open. The Canadian Alliance has said for a long time that there should be necessary screens put in place to screen out the undesirables so they do not enter the country. Certainly with technology that should not be an impossible task. In fact the standing committee recommended that in its last report to the minister.
In closing, I would say that Canadians support an open immigration policy but not at the expense of national security. The minister, as the auditor general has said in his report, can improve the system without Bill C-11. In fact Bill C-11 would do very little. It would basically penalize the legal migrants and refugees to this country. So instead of just talking about doing the job, I would only hope that the immigration minister would walk the talk.