Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Eglinton—Lawrence.
Today a motion was moved to concur in the report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration entitled, “Migrant Workers and Ghost Consultants”. I wanted to take the opportunity to at least briefly participate in this debate from the standpoint that, having read the report and considering the seventh report, as well as the recommendations in this report, there are some very substantive issues that have been raised by a standing committee of this place whose mandate is laid out in the Standing Orders quite precisely.
Our experience with regard to committee work has been that it often falls on deaf ears.
The members of the committee work very hard. We rely upon expert witnesses. We rely upon the experience and expertise of all hon. members from all parties. We try to understand what the issues are, what the problems are, what the opportunities are and what the threats are.
When we do that work at committee, we come to a certain consensus on key issues that we believe would make eminent sense in terms of regulatory reform or legislative reform. These are reported in the report. This is an excellent report. It is very reflective of the quality of work that committees can do. It does not always represent a unanimity, but it represents a reference document with recommendations and reasons therefore, and, in some cases, sometimes often, even minority reports from one or more parties who feel that there are certain aspects of the report with which they have a divergent view.
Those reports come to this place, are tabled in the House by the chair of the committee and hon. members have an opportunity, should they wish, to move what is called a concurrence motion on a particular report so we can have a debate in the House, broaden that input and that reflection on the work that has been done, and maybe to actually enhance the debate based on the reaction of stakeholders, whether they be parliamentarians or, even beyond this place, in the public at large. This report is one that has received a lot of public attention.
With that input, it calls for and almost demands that there be a comprehensive departmental response, not only to Parliament but to the committee with regard to the work and the recommendations that it made. When committees have reports produced and tabled in the House, we can specifically ask for a formal response from the government within 120 days.
In the committee, which I chair, which is the Standing Committee for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we recently did a report on what we believed would be commentary on 12 particular recommendations, 5 or 6 of which the committee was very supportive and which recommended amendments to the Access to Information Act. The other recommendations we felt would require further consideration but were worthy of being brought to the attention of the minister. We heard a great number of witnesses. We also had a comprehensive consideration of the recommendations and there was a unanimous report on behalf of all parties.
After producing this report, very similar in size and certainly with substantive recommendations, the response from the government at the end of 120 days, after we eliminate the non-specific commentary in it, represented some 300 words, according to the information commissioner of the day, Robert Marleau, who came before us and expressed his concern and his regret.
The committee passed a motion that was presented to us by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. The motion, which was reported to this place, was first, to express the sincere and profound disappointment of the committee in the dismissive response of the minister; second, to report that the committee recommends strongly that a completely new access to information act be presented to Parliament by March 31, 2010; and finally, that the minister responsible, who had only appeared before us for one hour throughout this entire process, be required to again appear before committee by November 30, 2009. We are waiting for that response.
I raise that because my fear is that we are facing the same kind of a dismissive attitude by the government to many committee reports to Parliament. I think that represents another reflection of the dysfunction in the operations of Parliament. Parliament must be responsive to the work of parliamentarians. The government must be respectful of the work done by committees. It must be seriously considered and, when it disagrees, it must give informative, constructive responses to the recommendations and the work that has been done by the committee members based on expert testimony and consultations, as broadly as is necessary. Those are the kinds of things that matter.
There is a minority report in this and it comes from the Liberal Party. That minority report was spawned by the view that the government of the day does not have immigration priorities that reflect the priorities and the needs of Canadians. We believe the government has not only embraced and enhanced its attitude and its legislation on immigration, but it has contracted its view toward immigration to Canada.
I recall that the phrase most often heard from the government back at the beginning of my tenure was, “Why are you letting all those criminals in?” The starting point of its attitude toward immigration was that people who were coming here were substantively criminals. The Conservatives had to justify themselves for coming into this place rather than to understand that with a declining birthrate and with the demand for skilled labour and for the compassion of family reunification, a vibrant immigration policy was vital to Canada in terms of the health and well-being of its people.
The minority report expresses that the government does not share those values. If it does not share those values, then it certainly does not share the enthusiasm of the committee with regard to these important recommendations that have been made in this report.
I am sure all hon. members know that some of the most difficult, challenging and demanding but rewarding work that we do as parliamentarians in our constituency offices is to deal with immigration and citizenship matters, whether it be visas and the like, or family reunification and sponsorship.
Canadians are very reliant on members of Parliament but too often it is the case that we have people coming to us who have a problem with officials at Citizenship and Immigration. The reason they have the problem is because somebody told them that there was a consultant they could talk to who would give them all the nice ways to fast-track their situation. Every member in this chamber has had the experience of where someone has run afoul of the officials at Citizenship and Immigration because they followed the advice of so-called immigration consultants who told them not to bother giving that information.
My contribution is simply to ask all hon. members to look very carefully at getting a response from the government.