Debates of May 30th, 2008

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

There are 20 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-50. The motions will be grouped for debate as follows.

Group No. 1 includes Motions Nos. 1 to 5.

Group No. 2 includes Motions Nos. 6 to 20.

The voting patterns for the motions within each group are available at the table. The Chair will remind the House of each pattern at the time of voting.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 to 5 in Group No. 1 to the House.

Motions in Amendment

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-50 be amended by deleting Clause 116.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-50 be amended by deleting Clause 117.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-50 be amended by deleting Clause 118.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-50 be amended by deleting Clause 119.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-50 be amended by deleting Clause 120.

He said—Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to the bill before us and the amendments I made to that bill.

First of all, I must apologize if my voice is a bit hoarse today. I am so shocked at the provisions in part 6 of Bill C-50 that I can hardly speak, which explains why I am having some trouble today.

But seriously, since this is a serious matter, part 6 of this budget implementation bill deals with immigration and will cause a major change in Canada's immigration system. We condemn the fact that this part has been included in a budget implementation bill when its clauses have nothing to do with financial considerations.

This is just a government trick to limit the debate on this major reform of immigration by burying these changes in a sort of omnibus bill that pertains to a number of completely different subjects. From a parliamentary point of view, we could see the absurdity of this manoeuvre by the government and how the work had to be done in committee. Since Bill C-50 is a budget implementation bill, obviously the Standing Committee on Finance was analyzing its content. But that committee did not have the necessary expertise, knowledge or time to study the immigration clauses.

We received a letter asking the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to study that part of the bill. We hastily looked at part 6 of the bill, but in the end, we had only a week to hear witnesses and make recommendations. We then had to forward everything to the Standing Committee on Finance, which did not take our recommendations into account because the Liberals abstained once again.

This shows that there was no debate across Quebec and Canada. When the witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, what we heard most commonly and systematically was criticism of making such a major reform without taking the time to properly debate or look at the consequences this could have on the immigration system and on Canada's image abroad.

The committee concluded that part 6, the entire part on immigration, should be removed from the bill. That is the focus of the amendments I am proposing this morning in this House. It is the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I hope that all the parties will agree with this recommendation, especially since the committee stated in its report that it was available to sit down with the government and the minister to examine the issue and work with them to develop a real document. A consensus might even be found if we took the time to work together.

The committee did this with Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act, which had to do with Canadians who had lost their Canadian citizenship. There were talks and debates. Everyone worked together, a unanimous report was written, and then came the bill. It was passed very quickly in Parliament and everything went smoothly. I do not see why we could not do the same thing for such an important immigration reform. Obviously, the short term solution is to remove this part of the bill. The proposed measures will be detrimental to our system.

Basically, the bill provides that the minister may decide of his or her own accord and with the consent of cabinet, to change the order in which immigration applications are processed. The minister may even decide which categories of applications will be processed and which will not. Currently, although there are a number of priorities, the general principle—which is about to disappear—is first come, first served.

Under our existing immigration system, those who apply can be sure that their applications will be processed eventually. Valid applications will be accepted. Even though wait times are too long because not enough money is being invested in case processing, the system is predictable. Applicants know that they will eventually get an answer. Under the new system, people will submit applications that may never be processed though they wait their entire lives.

Naturally, that is unacceptable. The minister says that the new system was created to prioritize certain categories of workers in fields in which Canada has trouble finding workers.

On the one hand, the current points system for applications takes into account post-secondary study, master's degrees, and doctorates—which are all worth extra points—but does not put enough emphasis on the technical skills and trades where more workers are needed now. Even though the department processes these cases, people can be no more certain than before that they will be accepted.

On the other hand, there are already so many priorities in the system that nothing will really be a priority after this. I have compiled a little list, which I would like to share with you. With respect to vertical priorities, we have inadmissibility, application of the law, refugees, visitors, students, work visas, spouses, children, and the provincial nominee program. Now we are going to have another priority. Clearly, this system is not working. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority in the end. We need something much better than this to fix the system.

Another provision in this bill is extremely problematic and involves people applying for permanent resident status on humanitarian grounds. Under the current legislation, the department absolutely must review those applications and if the person is eligible, he or she can obtain that status. If they are not eligible, they will be refused, obviously.

The bill is intended to change the word “shall” to “may”. In other words, the department “may”, if it feels like it, if it is interested, review an application on humanitarian grounds. It is hard to understand how a right could become conditional on the will of the department. A right is a right and if, under the law, one is eligible for such an application on humanitarian grounds, one should have the right to have one's file reviewed.

If not, if the right is subject to the arbitrary decision of immigration officers, then it is not really a right. What is more, a permanent resident application on humanitarian grounds is often used by a refugee status claimant whose case has been dismissed with no chance of appeal before the refugee appeal division—since neither the Liberal nor the Conservative governments have ever implemented it.

The Bloc Québécois has introduced a bill to that effect in order to correct the situation. The bill is currently before the Senate. We hope the Conservatives will stop obstructing it. They always complain about the Liberal senators obstructing work in the Senate; now they are doing it.

Nonetheless, I hope this bill will pass quickly in order to correct this shortcoming. In the meantime, people have been using this process to protect their lives, to be welcomed into Canada on humanitarian grounds, but the government is in the process of closing another door in their faces.

In closing, I hope at least that the parties who supported the report in committee will be logical and consistent and vote in favour of these amendments. Obviously I am counting on the support of the NDP, but more specifically of the Liberals who have been utterly inconsistent on this. They supported withdrawing this reform in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, but in the Standing Committee on Finance, they kept mum on the matter.

I hope they will have the courage to stand up and vote in this House.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the government, I am pleased to rise to speak in absolute and sincere opposition to the proposed amendments to Bill C-50, amendments that would seek to effectively delete the government's proposed improvements, and I emphasize improvements, to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which are contained in part 6 of Bill C-50.

I note that the amendments originate with my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, but they are supported by my colleagues down the way in the NDP. Sadly, this is yet another occasion where the NDP, despite its rhetoric, will vote against crucial measures proposed by this Conservative government to help immigrants.

The NDP's track record on immigration is a sorry one at best. In this Parliament alone, the NDP has voted against $1.3 billion for settlement funding, after a funding freeze of 10 years under the previous government. The NDP also voted against the establishment of a foreign credentials referral office. It voted against cutting the immigrant head tax, which our government cut in half, despite the NDP.

The NDP has even voted against providing increased protections for vulnerable foreign workers. Its continued opposition to Bill C-17 is preventing vulnerable foreign workers, who could be subject to abuse and exploitation, from getting protection that they need and deserve.

Despite their talk, the New Democrats do not step up to help newcomers to Canada. This Conservative government, however, does and continues to do so with our immigration changes proposed in Bill C-50.

Our proposed amendments in part 6 of the budget implementation act addressed the legislative roots of Canada's broken and overloaded immigration system. Neither Canadians nor prospective newcomers to our country benefit from an immigration system that, due to its systemic deficiencies, forces prospective immigrants to wait for up to six years before their applications are looked at, let alone processed.

The current system is especially problematic, since by 2012 fully 100% of our net labour growth will come from immigration. The systemic flaws in the current immigration system continue to hinder our country's ability to meet the needs of newcomers and the social and economic needs of our country. Urgent action is required. That is why changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act were included in budget 2008.

“Advantage Canada” 2006 identified that Canada needed the most flexible workforce in the world, an issue that is critical to Canada's future. Without our proposed legislative changes, the uncontrolled growth of the immigration backlog will continue, the backlog we inherited, by the way, from the previous Liberal government, which currently stands at over 900,000 people waiting in line to come to Canada.

This backlog is unacceptable. Urgent action must be taken so the backlog can be reduced. A new and more efficient processing system is desperately needed, a system that is both responsive to the needs of the newcomers and the needs of Canada.

To move toward accomplishing these goals, the legislative changes contained in part 6 of Bill C-50 are absolutely essential. The fact is Canada faces serious international competition in attracting people with the talents and the skills we need to ensure our country's continued growth and prosperity.

Compared to the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, we are the only country that does not use some kind of occupational filter to screen, code or prioritize skilled worker applications. Compared to other countries, Canada's system is simply not flexible enough. While Australia and New Zealand are processing applications in six to twelve months, if nothing is done, processing times in Canada will reach ten years by 2012. As more people submit applications and our current obligation to process every application to completion remains, the backlog continues to grow and Canada's labour shortages worsen.

If we do nothing to address the problem, we risk having families wait even longer to be reunited with their loved ones and we risk losing the people our country needs from other countries. Because those countries are in fierce competition with us for the skills and talents that newcomers bring, our government believes that without this legislative intervention the system is destined to collapse under its own weight.

It is important to note that the legislative changes contained within Bill C-50 are but one aspect of the government's approach to addressing the backlog problem. These legislative changes would prevent the backlog from growing, but let me be crystal clear on two key points about these proposals.

Contrary to the misinformation that is out there, we will not be placing any limits on the number of applicants that we will accept. Canada remains open to immigration and anyone can still apply.

However, under the proposed legislative changes, we will not have to process every application. Those applications not processed in a given year can be held for future consideration or returned to the applicant with a refund of their application fee. Individuals in this category would be welcome to reapply. The result would be that the backlog will stop growing and actually start to come down.

This flexibility in managing the backlog would accomplish three things. It would help reduce the backlog and ensure that immigrants have the jobs they need to succeed and allow our country to continue to grow and prosper.

Once these changes are implemented, the immigration backlog will stop growing and will begin to decrease the long lineup waiting news on entry to Canada through other important measures our government is taking.

Among other things we have committed over $109 million over five years to bring down the backlog.

Other steps that would be taken include: organizing visa officer “SWAT teams” to speed up processing in parts of the world where wait times are the longest; providing additional resources to these busy missions; helping build capacity to meet future levels and increasing demand; and coding applications in the existing backlog with the appropriate national occupational classification code and destination province where they are requesting to reside, so applicants with the skills we need can be referred to provinces for possible selection by provincial nominee programs.

Part 6 of Bill C-50, when combined with these non-legislative measures funded in budget 2008 and beyond, would act to control and reduce the backlog and speed up processing. Because immigration is so important to Canada's future, we need a modern and renewed vision for immigration.

These proposed changes are part of a vision that involves creating a more responsive immigration system, one that allows us to welcome more immigrants while helping them get the jobs they need and building better lives for themselves and their families, because their success is our success.

Urgent action is required. Part 6 of Bill C-50 and all of budget 2008 would deliver this much needed action.

I end by expressing my gratitude to my colleagues opposite in the Liberal Party who have so graciously helped our Conservative government ensure speedy passage of our budget legislation through the House. I am pleased the Liberal Party supports our proposed immigration measures and budget 2008. I am pleased the Liberal Party recognizes that budget 2008 and Bill C-50 are full of positive measures for all Canadians, those present now and those soon to be here as well.

I encourage all members of the House, especially my colleagues in the Liberal Party, to defeat these detrimental amendments to Bill C-50 and continue to work toward its speedy passage unamended.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of the member opposite.

I have a fairly blunt question for him. What is his response to the many Canadians who are talking about the new immigration component of the bill and saying that it is tantamount to saying to the world, “You're good enough to work here in Canada, but you're not good enough to live here and your family members are not good enough to live here?” Canadians interpret this provision as essentially an overemphasis on inviting workers, arguably whom we need, and de-emphasizing our responsibility to keep our doors open to family members.

Simply put, what does the member opposite say with respect to, “You're good enough to work here, but you're not good enough to live here and your family members are not good enough to live here?”

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the member's question does nothing but emphasize some of the false statements that have been made in and outside the House.

I have spoken to many people who sincerely want to come to this country, people who recognize that the system is broken and that these improvements, through this legislation, would help reunify families.

In fact, I was in Cairo just last weekend. On Sunday morning I drove by the Canadian embassy. There was a huge lineup of Egyptians who wanted to come to Canada. This is just one example. Nobody was standing at the front door, but we have a special immigration door. That is how seriously people want to come to Canada. They recognize the strength of our country. They recognize the opportunities in our country.

However, what have we done to them in the past? We have stuck them at the end of a line of almost a billion people long, I should say a million. When I listen to the opposition suggestions of what the carbon tax is going to cost Canadians, that is where my billions come from.

Many people want to come to Canada. The legislation before us would actually break the back of a broken system and bring us to a system that would help.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary's response demonstrates why this component should not be included in the bill. Despite his good intentions, he is not informed about this file and says whatever comes to mind.

Family reunification applications are obviously treated separately from the regular immigration applications that these provisions would apply to. Family reunifications would not be affected, quite the opposite. If we bring the people who were at the back of the line to the front, that will only slow down the process for the others at the back of the line.

It was clear in committee. Official government representatives even came to explain to us that taking someone from the back of the line and putting them at the front would not shorten the line.

Is the minister at least conscious of the fact that these provisions will not affect the back of the line?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, these provisions look to the future of how we can improve the system. We have put in measures. We are increasing the number of people in the field who can process the backlog. It is very unfortunate that our government inherited such an incredibly large backlog of almost a million.

The improvements that we would make will process for new applications to help us give time to focus on the backlog that the Liberals left with us.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Vancouver East. We have less than a minute for both the question and the answer.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if these changes are so important, why are they buried in a budget bill? It is quite scandalous that when Bill C-50, the budget bill, came in, we suddenly found there were—

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker. the hon. member used the term “scandalous”. I referred to the scandalous voting record of the members of the NDP, how they have voted against anything that this Conservative government has wanted to put in place to help immigrants, to welcome them to our country. We put funding in place to bring them—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Markham—Unionville.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the report stage debate on Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget.

What concerns me a great deal about the budget is its forecast. As recently as two days ago, the finance minister stood in this House and told us that he stood by the government's forecast for GDP growth this year of 1.7%. Never mind that exports are falling and manufacturing jobs are disappearing daily and never mind that the Bank of Canada revised, dramatically downwards, its own forecast. The finance minister is just going to bury his head in the sand and pretend the economy is doing just fine.

The finance minister is no Pierre Trudeau but he does have one thing in common with Pierre Trudeau. In 1972 some members may remember that Pierre Trudeau ran an election campaign on the theme “The Land is Strong” but he did not do that well. Now, the finance minister, in a similar vein, is saying that we should not worry because the economy is sound and the fundamentals are sound.

That does not surprise me because the finance minister is a person who is out of touch with Canadians. I imagine he could attend a news conference about a factory closure, puff up his chest and say that the Canadian economy is strong without batting an eye.

The problem is that while the finance minister can repeat that the economy is strong a thousand times, it just does not make it true.

Do members know what happened this morning? Statistics Canada released a growth estimate for the first quarter of 2008 which shows that the Canadian economy shrank by 0.3%. This is the first time we have had a quarter of negative growth in Canada since, I believe, five years ago during the SARS crisis.

We have the finance minister saying that the economy is strong and that we should not worry, but we get numbers showing that for the first time in five years, in the first quarter of this year, the Canadian economy shrank.

Do members know what else is interesting about that? The U.S. economy, in the first quarter, grew. The Canadian economy shrank by 0.3%, while the U.S. economy expanded by 0.9%. What does that do to the finance minister's story that his policies are so wonderful and his stewardship is so great that Canada is doing so much better than the United States? It is simply not true according to the numbers we saw this morning.

Indeed, Canada ought to be doing better and, in some respects, Canada is doing better. We have a large resource sector and oil prices are very high. We have people who are somewhat less risk-taking in the financial sector than down south. We do not have the subprime mortgage crisis. We should be doing better, and we are, in some respects, doing better, and yet the news this morning that the Canadian economy has shrank while the U.S. economy has expanded, sends a message to the finance minister--

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe the debate at the present time is on the amendments and I think it would be good if the hon. member made his comments based on what is germane to the debate.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I am sure the hon. member for Markham—Unionville appreciates that advice and he now has the floor.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that advice. I will not necessarily follow it but I will come to the subject of immigration shortly.

Since the news of the morning is so timely, I thought the House might wish to know some of the headlines from this morning's Statistics Canada report: “Exports fall”, “Business investment slows”, “Personal spending moderates”, “Housing investment declines”, “Prices move upward”. Those are the things that real Canadians are dealing with right now. The last thing they want to hear is the finance minister telling them that they have never had it so good.

What they do want is an explanation from the government as to how it squandered the $13 billion surplus that it inherited just over two years ago and how it has taken this country to the brink of deficit. The fiscal cupboard is bare right now. Some experts are saying that we are already in deficit. It would not be the first time the finance minister hit a deficit and pretended he was in surplus.

Whether we are in deficit or just a SARS crisis away from deficit, the fact is that the government overspent when times were good, leaving nothing in the cupboard, as the Statistics Canada report this morning suggests, for when times are bad. A prudent finance minister would have spent less when times were good, leaving more money available right now when times are bad with which to support the economy.

The finance minister's stewardship has been so bad that at this moment, when the Canadian economy needs support, he has no money unless he wants to go back into deficit. I would not be terribly surprised if he did go back into deficit. That is what the Ontario government did when he was a senior minister. Indeed, the Ontario government pretended it had a balanced budget and ran an election on a balanced budget. However, when the Conservatives lost that election in 2003 and Dalton McGuinty called in the auditors, lo and behold, the auditors discovered that there was in fact a $5.6 billion deficit.

Since the government acknowledges that it is right on the brink of deficit, I wonder whether the experience of Ontario might be repeated and, indeed, we might already be in deficit but a deficit hidden by the government.

On the question of immigration, the parliamentary secretary is entirely wrong when he says that the Liberal Party supports the government amendments on immigration. As my colleague pointed out recently, the government is changing the picture of an immigrant from a person to a commodity. The fact is that if substantial new resources are not put into immigration, which the government is not doing, that implies that if one group is fast-tracked, by definition another group is slow-tracked.

The parliamentary secretary can talk all he likes about people lining up in Egypt to come to Canada but fewer of those people will be able to come to Canada under the government's rules than would have been able to come to Canada under the previous rules. It is fast-tracking economic immigrants and, given that the resources are pretty well constant or at a very modest increase, that implies that it is slow-tracking family reunification.

I believe it is important that we choose immigrants who are needed in the economy but I do not believe that should be at the expense of family reunification, which is precisely the price the government is imposing on family reunification by its proposals.

Indeed, we do not even know where these proposals will lead because they provide enormous additional powers to the immigration minister. The government is asking Canadians to trust it but it will tell them what it is going to do. Why should Canadians trust the government in light of all of the unfolding scandals that we have been experiencing in recent months?

Whether it is the security problems associated with the former foreign affairs minister, whether it is the in and out Elections Canada scandal, whether it is the emerging new scandal on NAFTA-gate, or whether it is broken promises on anything from income trusts to the Atlantic accord, Canadians have no reason to trust the government.

Therefore, when the government asks Canadians to trust it to do the right thing on the immigration provisions, I do not think Canadians will accept the government's proposition.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my first thought is, God help us if the Liberals were in government at this time when this country is facing some economic challenges from outside the country and throughout the global marketplace.

The member for Markham—Unionville flipped-flopped, not once but at least three times during his speech. The Liberals are being dishonest with the House and with the Canadian people. They criticized our budget and yet voted for it. That is dishonest.

That member, among all the members of the Liberal party, should know that there is a direct correlation between a low tax regime and a buoyant economy and a direct correlation between a high tax regime and a struggling economy.

Our Minister of Finance knows that giving taxes back to families, back to small business, back to low income people and back to seniors is a good formula for making it through times of external challenges to our economy. That is what that member's party did not do. God help us if the Liberals were in power now.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not detect a question in that spew of nonsense coming from my hon. colleague but I will try to respond to what might have been a question.

In terms of competent management of the economy, I would remind the gentleman across the aisle that it is we, the Liberals, who inherited a $42 billion Conservative deficit, and it is we, who within a few years, fixed that deficit, turned it in to a surplus and for 10 years in a row paid down debt.

It is that party that inherited a magnificent $13 billion surplus from the previous Liberal government and proceeded, in the space of just over two years, to spend like crazy when times were good, thereby shrinking that $13 billion surplus to $1 billion or $2 billion, far less than the contingency reserve that Liberals maintained.

To spend like crazy when times are good is incompetent economic management in the extreme. It leaves nothing available to support the economy when times become bad, as we saw in the Statistics Canada report just this morning.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the speech by my colleague across the way. He may have touched, in some ways, on why the Conservatives included the immigration business in the budget.

The budget seems to deal dishonestly with figures. It also deals dishonestly with the figures when it talks about the impact on immigration that it will achieve with this particular set of amendments.

Does the hon. member not agree that we need decisive action to reduce the wait list, not this reconfiguration of the rules to change the basic nature of our immigration system?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not detect a question in those comments.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question. At the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, the Liberals voted against these changes to immigration; at the Standing Committee on Finance, they abstained.

Will they have the courage to stand in this House and vote in favour of my amendments, or will they pathetically stay seated during the vote?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Markham—Unionville has 30 seconds to respond.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, 30 seconds is not enough time to respond to such an important question.

All I can do in these next 30 seconds is repeat that, in our opinion, the government's immigration policy is not at all acceptable for the reasons that I have outlined during—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House today to speak to the report stage amendments of Bill C-50. I thank my colleague from the Bloc for bringing some of them forward because the NDP also supports these motions that would delete clauses 116 to 120 from Bill C-50.

The first point that I want to make is that it is really quite outrageous that here we are debating a budget bill, which of course is a core of any government's agenda, and within that government bill, that budget bill, there are significant changes to our immigration system.

There is no question that the Conservative government tried to quietly slip these major changes through the back door in a budget bill. I think they have been probably quite astounded by the reaction of Canadians and communities across Canada.

In fact, the Conservatives are so worried about the backlash that these proposed changes contain that they have now gone to the extreme of running advertisements in ethnic papers across the country even before this bill has been approved. That is something that is quite unheard of, to put out propaganda and information about a bill that has not even yet been approved.

I think it is very good evidence of the concern that the Conservatives have that the message that they hoped they were getting out there, that they were somehow fixing the immigration system, is very far from the truth. In fact, what we are dealing with in this budget bill are significant changes to the immigration system which will undermine the kind of process that we have had in this country for dealing with immigration and refugees.

One of the deletions that has been put forward for the bill today deals with clause 116. Under the current provision of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, subsection 11(1) currently says:

The visa or document shall be issued if, following an examination, the officer is satisfied that the foreign national is not inadmissible and meets the requirements of this Act.

With the changes in this bill, which we are now hoping to delete, it would now say that the officer “may” issue a visa even if the applicant has met all of the criteria as set out in the immigration regulations.

The same is true for clause 117, where under the existing process in regard to humanitarian and compassionate applications, it says that the minister “shall” examine these applications. Under the proposed changes it would say that the minister “may” examine these applications.

These are only two of many changes that are included in this bill. We think they are very substantive and we think it is quite shocking that these immigration changes would be contained within a budget bill. It should be part of a stand alone bill. It should have gone to the immigration committee. There should have been hearings through the immigration process so that people could comment on it, but none of that has happened because the government, by stealth, is trying to put these changes through in a budget bill.

I must say that I listened with some surprise to the Liberal member for Markham—Unionville when he spoke so vociferously against the budget bill and against these changes, and yet we know the Liberals are going to support it. How does one reconcile this?

The Liberals get out there and they hammer the bill and say how bad it is, and in committee when there is a chance to vote they vote with the government. Here in the House when the Liberals have a chance to vote against the government, they either sit on their hands or they do not show up and they do not bother to vote.

The same will now be true with these immigration changes. Is it any wonder that people feel so disillusioned about the official opposition members as they are about the government? Here they are hand in glove working together to get through these significant changes.

I am very proud that in the NDP we have taken a strong position, not only against the budget bill on the provisions as a budget bill but also because of these immigration changes that are included.

One of the things that we are most concerned about is that in Bill C-50 there is a shift in emphasis from family reunification, from bringing people to Canada on the legitimate process of a point system, to in effect a dramatic increase in the temporary foreign worker program.

We have seen more than a 100% increase in the number of applications and people being processed through this system. We have seen people brought to this country, who come here as temporary foreign workers. They are working in the tar sands. They are working in the agricultural industry. They have been working on the Canada Line in Vancouver.

These are workers who come here and often end up in terribly exploited situations. They have no rights. In some situations we have had cases where workers were being paid less than the minimum wage for the work that they were doing. It is only because of the advocacy within the labour movement that some of these cases have been taken up and brought forward before the B.C. Labour Relations Board.

Therefore, we are very worried that the changes in Bill C-50, including the immigration changes, are basically giving a signal of this very dramatic change in the way immigration will work in Canada.

Historically, we have seen an emphasis on family reunification. In fact, on the Government of Canada immigration website it was always listed as one of the key goals for our immigration policy. Somehow that has disappeared. It is not even on the website anymore, so this should be sending off alarm bells for people.

We know that organizations like the Canadian Bar Association are concerned. Stephen Green of the Canadian Bar Association said:

Bill C-50 would return Canada to a time when visas were given out on a discretionary basis, without sufficient objective criteria.

The YWCA in Toronto has called on the government to not proceed with these dramatic changes for immigration under Bill C-50.

I know in my own community of East Vancouver we have many people who are recent newcomers to Canada. They came through the immigration system. We have many organizations that work as advocates and help people with their processing for immigration. In a forum that we held just a few weeks ago people were very concerned about what these changes will mean and the fact that it will give so much discretion to a single person, and that single person being the minister.

Why would we want to have a system that allows that kind of power to be conferred on one person? This is something that we should be very opposed to and that is why we are standing in the House today making it very clear that we are opposed to these changes.

We have heard from the government today that this bill and the immigration changes will allow more people to come to Canada and it will be a responsive bill, as I think this is what the parliamentary secretary said. We are also told that somehow these changes will deal with the backlog of 900,000 people who are waiting to come to Canada.

However, the fact is the changes that are before us will only affect applications that are submitted after February 27, 2008. Therefore, in actual fact they will have no impact whatsoever on the backlog that the government claims it is trying to deal with.

We agree that the backlog is there and certainly the lack of support and resources for our immigration system and processing in the previous government created that backlog. That is not an issue. What is at issue is that these proposed changes will not deal with that backlog and will give enormous discretion to the minister which we think is patently undemocratic and unfair.

That is why we are supporting these motions today to delete these clauses in the bill. We will have other deletions as well later on today. We hope that the bill will be defeated. I would implore Liberal members across the way to rethink their position. They cannot go out and tell people they are opposed to these changes, they are opposed to the budget, and then come back to the House and vote for it, and give the Conservative government a majority in that regard. This is something that is quite unconscionable, so perhaps they need to rethink their position.