Debates of Oct. 28th, 2010

Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague opposite is very interested in a number of immigration issues, and I respect him for that.

Let us be honest, we are not talking about 50 or 60 years ago, or even 80 years ago. These are different circumstances, different people. These are human smugglers who are doing it purely for profit. That is what we are talking about here, human smugglers who are doing this purely for profit. The intention behind this legislation is to take that issue out.

We understand the need for legitimate refugees to be able to come to this country. We have processes that are able to handle that.

In this situation, these are human smugglers. Large sums of money are being expended by these folks to come here. We also hear a lot of things are occurring after the fact, after some of the folks come here, about their returning to their country of origin.

I think my friend has to recognize that these are different circumstances, different times. We are not talking about something that happened 60 years ago. We are talking about something that happened in the last few months.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the point raised by the previous member is a very important one. Will the government acknowledge that a ship can be leased to transport legitimate refugees, and that these refugees may agree to pay a reasonable amount of money so that the ship can reach foreign shores? Will it also recognize the fact that the captain would be remunerated?

How do we make a distinction between a captain who receives reasonable remuneration for the risks he is taking and the expenses he is incurring, as opposed to a captain who is doing it for profit? An investigation would have to be done after the fact. I think that the government member knows very well that in the past our welcome for refugees has been an example for the world. We have had no complaints about the refugees, because they have truly enriched our country.

Now, in different circumstances that may appear similar, how will we distinguish between those who are charging a fair price and those who are exploiting refugees? The second kind has neither the government's sympathy nor ours, I should add.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my friend is interested in immigration issues and I respect him likewise for that. But these are different circumstances. I do not think we can deal with the what-ifs and all those other things. We do know certain things are occurring in our world, and Canadians expect members of Parliament to take a stand.

I hear in my riding, and I am sure my colleagues do, from people who have legitimately followed all of the rules and have immigrated to this country or have come as refugees in the normal sense of how these things occur. What they are not happy about is people who are paying huge sums of money, lining up on foreign shores and coming here in ships. Seemingly, in their minds, the ship owners and the captains have been immune from any prosecution. This is just putting it on the table that all of these people need to recognize before they leave their shores, if they are paying large sums of money, that the captain is going to face sanctions when he gets here, and those people who are buying their way, so to speak, into this country are going to face this process of dealing with the refugee system. It is a fair process, quite honestly.

Canadians do not want Canada to be seen as a welcome mat for everyone who wants to come here and uses this as a reason for getting into the country.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the current law in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, in section 117, provides for punishment of 10 years if people are smuggling in 10 or fewer people, and it provides life imprisonment if they are smuggling in more than 10 people. A life sentence is very severe. Why are those terms already in the immigration act not enough to deal with smugglers? I can see that if Conservatives want to amend the Marine Transportation Security Act, that could be possible. Why is it not introduced separately, and why is it mixed in with the immigration act, because the immigration act already has severe punishment in that section?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, again, my colleague is another member of the House who has immigration files she is interested in. I think she has a private member's bill before the House that would allow additional immigration to this country.

If what the member is saying is in fact what she believes, she should support the bill because typically the NDP supports less in terms of sentencing than other parties. The bill is fair and reasonable, but it sends a clear message around the world to those who would engage in human smuggling for profit that they are going to be sanctioned and there are opportunities when they get to this country to face Canadian laws that deal with this. So I would ask all members to talk to their constituents. I think they will find that most of their constituents find this fair and reasonable and they expect Canada to stand up for some of these principles.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the government attempts to create fairness, and one of the great mediators of fairness is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Would the parliamentary secretary be prepared to table in the House an opinion by the Department of Justice as to whether or not all provisions within this bill will meet the test of the charter or a charter challenge?

Would he provide that to members of the House, so that we can review as to whether or not these provisions do indeed meet the test of fairness as prescribed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the floor would know that I do not have such a document with me. Whether it exists or not, I do not know, but that is frequently an argument we hear from the opposite side, that it will not pass the test of the charter.

We can always stand back and say it will not pass the test of the charter, and we will not know that until a court has ruled on it. However, as he knows from when his party was in power, the drafters of these bills come from within the legal branches of Justice and other branches. They have vetted it. They have brought it forward. This bill was not written on the back of a napkin or anything of that nature. It has been drafted properly, and I am sure my colleague is quite well aware of that.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate. I want to do so by concentrating really on two aspects of the legislation and on the situation that the member who has just spoken and others have talked to.

This bill causes me a great deal of concern, not because it is illegitimate or inappropriate for governments to be concerned about the security of Canada. In fact that is a primary responsibility of the federal government and a responsibility that all of us take very seriously. However, I am concerned because the methods and definitions used in this bill would significantly impact a number of people who are not smugglers, the term used by the government, but people fleeing for their lives from difficult situations.

In particular I want to discuss, at this point in time, the situation in Sri Lanka because we would not be having this discussion if two boats had not arrived over the last several years on which a number of Sri Lankans of Tamil origin came to Canada. It is important for us to stop dancing around the issue and understand that, were it not for that particular circumstance, we would not be having this debate, we would not be having this discussion and the government would not be presenting this legislation.

To talk about this legislation without talking about what happened in Sri Lanka and what is taking place there today would be a bit like talking about Moby Dick without mentioning a white whale.

As members know, I have spent many months in Sri Lanka over the last several years. Together with a number of other Canadians and international constitutional experts, I was involved in advising in the negotiating process that came out of the ceasefire in Sri Lanka that took place in 2001 and was negotiated by the Norwegians.

In the course of that work, I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time in that country. I met on several occasions with political leaders on all sides and have had an opportunity since then to follow on a regular basis the events that are taking place in the country.

I am not going to go over the entire political history of Sri Lanka except to say that the period in which I was there, the period of the ceasefire, was a brief interregnum of non-violence during a 25-to-30 year, very difficult and violent civil war in which literally tens of thousands of people were killed, mainly in the north but including civilians in the south. Yes, acts of terrorism were carried out against civilians. Very significant bombing and damage and destruction and death occurred as a result of the war carried out by the government of Sri Lanka as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as they are called, better known as the Tamil Tigers.

The ending of that war was a subject of considerable debate in this House. Many questions were raised in question period about it, not only in this House but in parliaments and legislatures around the world.

There are questions about what actually happened at the end of that conflict. Certainly by any estimation, several thousand people were killed in the last few days. Estimates range anywhere from a few thousand to as high as 30,000 or 40,000. Those numbers are contested and debated by all sides, but nevertheless, it is clear that there was a significant loss of life at the very end of the war.

It is also interesting that as recently as the last few days, Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom called for an investigation into possible war crimes that may or may not have taken place at the end of that war.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, has appointed a panel of experts to advise him. It is to look into the question of what happened and what the possible consequences would be with respect to the conduct of the government of Sri Lanka as well as the conduct of the LTTE. That panel has not been welcomed by the government of Sri Lanka. In fact, its very existence has been challenged. It is the subject of considerable debate in Sri Lanka. The government of Sri Lanka has also appointed a commission that is supposed to look into the question of what happened in those last days.

From the perspective of the government of Sri Lanka, the war is simply over. The conflict is at an end. There are still several thousand people in large refugee camps, but many of them have been rehoused and moved out, away from the 300,000 people who were in the camp at the end of the conflict.

At the same time, it is fair to say that political power is being consolidated at the central level. As colleagues will certainly know, the government of Sri Lanka not only has not been particularly enthusiastic about allowing in the members of the panel from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, it also, despite the fact I had a valid visa issued by the High Commission of Sri Lanka, did not permit me to enter the country when I arrived at Colombo airport some several months ago. I am sure other members perhaps in other parties have since been allowed to go, but I regret very much I was unable to go last June.

I must confess, I do not say these words with even a degree of personal resentment at the fact that this took place. Rather it was the fact that when I was not allowed in, it was because I was deemed to be a threat to the security of the country. When I hear others described as a threat to the security of the country, that is what I was called.

I hope people will think through very carefully in trying to understand some of the motivation, some of the issues, the human problems, the suffering, the sense of threat to life and limb that has historically led people to flee a country and to seek refuge and harbour somewhere else.

The minister is sitting in the House. I respect the fact that he is here listening to the debate. I have always respected that approach—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. I want to bring to the attention of the member for Toronto Centre and others that it is not a practice to draw attention to whether members are or are not in the chamber.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I certainly know that, Mr. Speaker. One would think that after 32 years I would have figured out how to do this.

I simply wanted to point out the fact that I appreciated there were some people who were here. In my experience, other ministers are not always here when we discuss matters of a bill. I appreciate the minister's respect for parliamentary tradition.

However, I want to emphasize that it is not possible for the House to debate the question of the appropriateness of this legislation unless we understand what exactly is taking place in the country from which people are fleeing and which are now the subject of the sanctions in the bill. This is why we are discussing the legislation.

It is not possible to have a serious discussion about the bill without understanding that in Europe, in the United Nations, in the United States, in virtually every country in the western world significant concerns have been expressed, and are being expressed, about the human rights situation, historically, in Sri Lanka, and even today in Sri Lanka. It is an illusion to think that this is not a problem or it is something we should not discuss.

The Conservative government has remained significantly silent on this topic. We have not heard anything from it with respect to the circumstances surrounding the end of the war. We have not heard anything from it with respect to whether or not it is fully supportive of the decision of Ban Ki-moon to name a panel. We have not heard any response to the call from the British prime minister with respect to the need for war crimes investigation.

I do not know why there is that reluctance. I do not know why a government, which in many respects from insignificant moments in the life of the House has spoken clearly about democracy and has spoken clearly about human rights, would have such difficulty in this situation. It cannot be that there was a violent conflict and because one party to that conflict was the LTTE. It cannot be that the standard to which we hold the Sri Lankan government can be any less or any lower. It cannot be that we have appropriately designated the LTTE as a group that practised terror, that believed in violence, that believed in the appropriateness of killing civilians or of using civilians as targets and as shields in the course of a war, a group that believed it was appropriate to strap bombs on the backs of young 13-year-old women and send them into a market or into a bazaar. There never can be an apology or an expression of support for that kind of tactic or approach to life. We should be very clear about that. Speaking as someone who has lost dear friends to these acts of terror, I have no hesitation in being critical of that.

However, that is never an excuse for repression. That is never an excuse for oppression. It is not an excuse for the killing of civilians. We would not be seeing the numbers of people who get on those boats if there was not a problem in Sri Lanka. Anybody who says that we are not worried about that or we will not express a concern about that or that is not part of what we need to discuss is simply not facing up to the reality of the situation.

I would ask the government to use its offices of investigation and its capacity. I would like the government to remain deeply sensitive to the challenge that the Tamil community still faces in Sri Lanka and to be aware of some of those circumstances and the pattern of increasing the political power at the centre. Every sensible observer from the International Crisis Group to Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch to the United Nations has expressed concern about the underlying challenge of the problem of human rights in Sri Lanka.

If there were no civil rights problems in Sri Lanka, we would not be having this problem with refugees right now. We cannot discuss this bill in the House of Commons without discussing the situation in Sri Lanka. We must discuss it honestly and openly. That is essential.

The second point I want to make is the government has told us, and the member who just spoke referred to this very directly, that the purpose of the bill is to increase the severity of punishment for what it calls human smuggling. In the history of immigration and in the history of the movement of populations, it is very important for the Government of Canada and the people of Canada to express a strong view about people being paid money in order to bring many others to Canada and to portray them as refugees.

My colleague from Etobicoke Centre mentioned two of the most dramatic examples of the arrival of boats in the country. The member who was asked about it simply dismissed by saying, “well that is history”. Well, not exactly. It was pointed out that when the Komagata Maru was posted outside of Vancouver, it was not allowed in, people were not allowed to disembark and stay here. Eventually the boat went back and when they arrived in India, hundreds were killed. We know from the plight of the S.S. St. Louis that of the 900 people who were not allowed to land in Havana, or in Miami or in Halifax, probably as many as 300 were killed in the Holocaust. A lot of studies have done on both of these experiences.

When the member says that we should ask our constituents how they feel, I have to ask how Canadians felt in 1914 and in 1939.

We always have to say to ourselves that these are not easy issues. I have no doubt at all in my mind that there are a great many of my constituents who, if they were told about this legislation, would say that it is good. It is only when we think it through that we ask ourselves if this is really what we should do. This is where I have a problem.

I have a problem because the law is not just about smuggling; the law is also about refugees. It creates two classes of refugees. That is the weakness of the law and, in my view, it is the flaw of the law. In my view, it is a flaw which the courts will attack front and centre. It is not just about the charter; it is also about our international obligations.

We have signed covenants with respect to the rights of children and with respect to the rights of refugees. We cannot simply say that because refugees came over in a certain boat that we will put them in a different category. They would be designated by the minister and they would be unable to do what other refugees could do, or what other people who applied for refugee status could do, or those who sought to be refugees could do.

It is this creation of two classes that is the central weakness and flaw of the bill. In addition, the legislation as a whole and the discussion as a whole does not in fact deal with where the problem lies.

It is equally important for us to deal with the issue of queue jumping. There is nothing more basic to a Canadian's sense of fairness than to say that we do not want people jumping the queue, that those people are trying to come in as immigrants when there are other people who are patiently waiting in their countries of origin.

It has to be understood that there is no queue line for refugees. These are two different things. Again, that is where I think the government has used language, quite creatively I might add, which is intended to tell Canadians that we have to create a situation that is fair to everyone.

I agree we have to create a situation that is fair to everyone, but I question legislation that creates two separate categories of refugees, that treats people who come over in certain boats in a certain way and people who come over by plane or in another boat in another way. The government is not being upfront with the people of Canada when it suggests that what is taking place is any form of queue jumping.

If there is a refugee process that is well managed and that has enough people to manage the flow of people who are coming in and asking to be refugees, if people are not accepted as refugees they go back to their country of origin, and that is it.

We send back hundreds, if not thousands of people. No one should be under any illusions about that. This legislation is more about politics than it is about dealing with a real problem.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Toronto Centre for his comments. He is always a thoughtful member. In particular, let me say that I agree with many of his comments with respect the conflict in Sri Lanka and the need for a just and durable settlement that respects the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil people and that responds to the many serious concerns about human and civil rights violations.

I spoke to that at the beginning of my speech in introducing this bill yesterday, and I did discuss the ongoing efforts of Canadian diplomats and members of this government's executive branch to do everything we can to ask the Sri Lankan authorities to deal with these issues in a transparent and serious manner. I entirely agree with the member.

Having said that, I think it is important to underscore that the bill does not deal with any particular source country.

Second, in dealing with that issue, I wonder if the member would care to comment or reflect on the fact that, since the cessation of hostilities last year, more than 100,000 Tamil Sri Lankan refugees who were under the protection of India, principally in Tamil Nadu, have since returned to Sri Lanka. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said that Tamil refugee claimants can no longer be presumed to have a bona fide claim. The UNHCR has also facilitated the return to Sri Lanka of many Tamil asylum claimants who were under temporary protection in southeast Asia.

Similarly, a CBC report last week indicated that Tamils living in India had paid smugglers to come to Canada, in part for economic reasons, in their words. Finally, according to a CBSA survey, a significant majority of successful Tamil asylum claimants in Canada have subsequently returned to the country from which they claimed to flee for reasons of fear of persecution.

Could the member comment on the fact that the situation according to the UN and other international observers has improved appreciably from the point of view of safety? However, I agree with him that there continue to be very serious issues that must be dealt with.

Finally and very briefly, the analogies to the St. Louis and Komagata Maru quite frankly border on demagoguery. Neither of those situations has any relevance to this. We would—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order. The hon. member for Toronto Centre.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is very kind. At one point in his speech he says how thoughtful I am and at the end of his speech he calls me a demagogue, so I am not sure which it is. I wish the minister would make up his mind. I can handle the praise and the criticism, either one, but I just wish he would make up his mind. A thoughtful demagogue, I guess, is the average.

On the first point the minister is absolutely correct, that of course the situation has changed, but let us be candid. The situation has changed because there has been a considerable consolidation of power in Sri Lanka, significant centralization of power and continued repression. It is still a very dangerous place to be a journalist. It is a very dangerous place to express opposition and differing views, but it is also a constantly evolving situation.

I am not suggesting for a moment that there is an automatic presumption that any one of the people, who came over in the circumstances of the last 18 months in two boats that are the subject of this legislation, is a refugee. I am simply saying there is a need to consider their claim. There is a need to make sure we have a sufficient number of officers and people who can review the case in time to get it done. That is the approach that needs to be taken to regulate that situation.

We can debate the question of the other boats in our history. The one thing I would not want the minister to ignore is the comment that was made by former Prime Minister Mulroney at the time that the boat came to Newfoundland. At that point the government of the day decided it would grant almost immediate resident status to the people who claimed, and Mr. Mulroney said it was done in a spirit of generosity, realizing and remembering the historic traditions of the country. If I may say so, this was quite a significantly different tone than the one struck by the current Prime Minister.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his thoughtful commentary on a very important bill. He made a couple of points, which I hope all members will recall, that we cannot paint all refugees and refugees' circumstances in countries with the same brush.

I listened carefully to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, and I was a little disturbed that he invoked a number of images of gun crime, violent offenders, profits and funds used for illicit criminal activities. He tended to paint a picture that what we are talking about in the bill is about refugees and all of these terrible things that are associated with refugees.

The member read that speech, and that means it comes from the minister's office, which means it comes from the Prime Minister's Office. Is there a sense that maybe the government is not being totally forthright with the House with regard to its attitude toward refugees generally?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the central flaw in the bill, as I have tried to suggest, is this. First of all, the government did not invent the offence of human smuggling. Human smuggling is an offence that is now punishable by up to life imprisonment. We have not had many convictions of it, but nevertheless to suggest that this is some new law, some new crackdown that is taking place, is more illusion than reality. The reality is that we already have a law in place.

The other flaw is that the bill has much more to do with how refugee applicants who come over in boats of this kind are treated, that is to say detention for up to a year and being treated in a separate channel, a separate class. It creates a new class of people who have been designated by a minister because of the circumstances in which they have come. It gives extraordinary power and discretion to the minister to label a group or to label a particular circumstance, and it then puts those people in a separate stream and they are treated in a completely separate way that is entirely discriminatory in comparison to how other refugee applicants are to be treated. That is why I do not believe this meets the test. It does not meet the test.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are 18,000 internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka and 89,000 widows in the north and the east. They are in a desperate situation. They talk about struggling to live each day. They have no jobs and no men to help them out.

Would this be one of the definitions of refugees, people who have no livelihood, who live in camps and who are stuck in a desperate situation with respect to food and shelter?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not here to give a definition of who is or is not a refugee. That is a determination that is made in law.

I am here to say that we all have to understand how serious the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka remains for a great many people. One should not forget that, and one should not ignore the nature of that circumstance.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour and a pleasure for me to rise and speak in favour of Bill C-49, Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, and I would certainly like to commend the hon. Ministers of Citizenship and Immigration and of Public Safety for the good and timely work they have done in getting this legislation before the House.

Hon. members will know that in recent years the smuggling of human beings across international borders has become a multi-million dollar activity that is actually global in scope. Some estimates place the number of people who are smuggled across borders every year at 800,000. The United Nations notes that it is one of the fastest growing areas of international criminal activity.

The precise number of people who are smuggled across international borders is difficult to confirm, given the clandestine nature of these operations, but there is no doubt that human smuggling is big, big business. People can be smuggled by land, by sea or by air. Human smuggling may be perpetrated by organized crime groups or by individuals with links to terrorist organizations. This fact in itself should spur us all into action. Like many of our international allies and partners, Canada today is a target for the global activities of organized criminal enterprises that engage in this reprehensible act of human smuggling.

Canadians have recently witnessed the arrival of 492 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the MV Sun Sea, less than one year after the arrival of 76 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the boat the Ocean Lady.

Earlier this month, a number of people were discovered in a container at the Port of Montreal in a possible case of human smuggling or human trafficking.

Last year, the RCMP's Atlantic region immigration and passport section, working with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team in New Brunswick, arrested four people alleged to have facilitated illegal migration. Two of these individuals have since pleaded guilty and were convicted of offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including human smuggling and misrepresentation.

Finally, Canadians previously witnessed the seizure of four cargo ships that appeared in remote west coast waters, carrying nearly 600 migrants from southern China. Many of these individuals were children and teenagers whose parents had paid sums equivalent to 10 years of their salaries to so-called snakeheads that specialize in human smuggling.

Human smuggling is a serious crime. I think all members of the House would agree with that, and the international community has taken decisive action to respond to it. The UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplemental Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air provide a broad international framework to respond to the varied threats posed by organized crime and their smuggling ventures.

Canada was among the first countries to sign and ratify these important international crime treaties, and the tabling of this bill today reflects Canada's ongoing commitment to strengthening our responses to migrant smuggling.

Human smuggling undermines the integrity of Canada's borders and our immigration and refugee programs and system. It poses a threat to public safety, since the identities of smuggled individuals are often hard to establish, and in many cases, it poses a threat to national security or public safety, since human smuggling ventures are also being used to traffic narcotics and/or arms, to secure safe haven for criminals and terrorists, and to raise funds for a wide range of illicit activities, including the aforementioned terrorism.

Bill C-49 will give law enforcement officials much needed and additional tools to investigate and prosecute these individuals who organize and engage in human smuggling ventures. It will also enhance law enforcement's ability to investigate the potential national security and public safety risks posed by unidentified migrants who come to Canada as part of an irregular arrival, among whom there may be individuals with criminal and/or terrorist links.

More specifically, Bill C-49 will amend the current human smuggling offence, about which the last speaker spoke, in section 117 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The proposed amendments would make it an offence to organize, induce, aid or abet someone to enter Canada, knowing that or being reckless as to whether that entry would be in contravention of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Currently, only situations where the smuggler knew that the smuggled person did not possess the documents necessary to enter Canada are captured as an offence under the act.

It is clear, at least it is clear to the members on this side of the House, that by broadening the offence in this fashion our laws will now better reflect the different methods that smugglers utilize to bring persons into Canada.

In addition to amending the offence, the bill also proposes tough mandatory minimum penalties of imprisonment ranging from 3 to 10 years, depending on the particular facts that are proven in court. This sends the clear message to smugglers, criminals who have little concern for smuggled persons and immigration laws, that Canada will no longer tolerate these illegal activities.

The bill also proposes increasing the penalties for the operator of any vessel who fails to comply with ministerial direction to leave or not enter Canadian waters or who fails to provide required pre-arrival information, and who provides false or misleading information to officials.

Today, vessels of 300 gross registered tons or more that are bound for Canada must fill out a pre-arrival information report at least 96 hours before arriving at a Canadian port. The Minister of Transport has the authority to direct any vessel to not enter Canadian coastal waters or to travel to another area in Canadian waters when and if there are reasonable grounds to believe the vessel in question may pose a security threat.

It is an offence under the Marine Transportation Security Act to knowingly make a false or misleading statement or to provide false or misleading information. Currently there are fines and a maximum one-year prison term for failure to comply with the ministerial direction or for making false or misleading statements and a maximum six-month prison term for not filing the requisite pre-arrival information report.

Bill C-49 also proposes significantly stiffer fines as a further deterrent to those considering mounting marine human smuggling ventures into Canada. Indeed, the amendments the government is proposing will mean that the operator of any vessel who fails to comply with a ministerial directive to leave Canadian waters or one who provides false or misleading information to officials will be hit much harder in the pocketbook and will face a longer prison term.

The proposed penalties for failing to comply with certain requirements of the Marine Transportation Security Act will be raised from $10,000 to $200,000 in the case of an individual on conviction on indictment. In case of a corporation, on conviction on indictment the penalties will be raised from $200,000 to $500,000.

The penalties will be even higher in the event of subsequent offences. Again, in the case of individuals, maximum potential prison terms will be raised from six months to a maximum of one year for those who fail to file the pre-arrival information report.

Stiffer consequences, stiffer fines and stiffer sentences will all send a signal to human smugglers that Canada will not tolerate their illegal and highly dangerous activities. Canada will not sit still while human smugglers calmly sail into our waters, travel across our borders or even land at our airports.

We will take action. We will work with our international partners to deter, detect and prevent these illegal activities. If they do get to Canada, we will take every step possible to hold these persons accountable.

In addition, Bill C-49 will ensure that border officials and police have the time to properly identify and investigate the organizers of human smuggling operations, as well as smuggled individuals who may pose a threat to our safety and to our security.

In particular, the bill that the government has put forward will provide for the mandatory detention of persons who arrive in Canada as part of a designated arrival until such time as they have been determined to be refugees by the Immigration and Refugee Board or 12 months have passed since they were initially detained, with exceptions for cases that involve exceptional circumstances.

This measure will prevent potentially dangerous or inadmissible persons from being released into Canada before their identity and the level of risk they present to Canadians can firmly be established. As the minister has mentioned, these amendments proposed are tough but they are also fair. They will help to make Canada a much less attractive target for human smugglers. They will help to make sure that the organizers of human smuggling operations are better held to account for this reprehensible crime.

I therefore urge all hon. members to support this legislation before us today and to work with the government to ensure its speedy passage.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation is so broadly drafted that it does not differentiate between those who would smuggle humans for humanitarian reasons and those who would do it for profit.

Also, it does not differentiate between those who smuggle people and land them in Canada and the individuals smuggled are determined to have been genuine refugees and those who are strictly economic migrants.

Would the member not agree that there should be a different approach for these various categories of people, and would the government be amenable to see amendments to the legislation that would differentiate between those who are involved with human smuggling of genuine refugees and those who are strictly just economic migrants?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I do not agree, Mr. Speaker.

Recently there have been high-profile cases of human smuggling, and Canadians are rightly outraged by these incidents and are demanding action.

The legislation is aimed at the smugglers. If individuals are legitimate refugees and are determined to be such by the Immigration and Refugee Board, they will be dealt with according to law, but this legislation is aimed directly at the smugglers. We know that too often it is a profitable enterprise to smuggle people into Canada.

With these measures and the increased fines and the added mandatory aspect of jail time, individuals will have to calculate that in their business plans before they decide that this is an appropriate venture to smuggle people into Canada.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I notice in clause 4, proposed subsection 117(3.2) says:

A person who is convicted of an offence under subsection (3) with respect to a group of 50 persons or more is...liable to a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of

(b) 10 years, if both

(i) the person, in committing the offence, endangered the life or safety of, or caused bodily harm or death to, any of the persons with respect to whom the offence was committed, and

(ii) the commission of the offence was for profit, or was for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a criminal organization or terrorist group.

I wonder if the member would agree with me that obviously the bill seeks to protect the individuals who are preyed upon by individuals for profit, as such simply to earn some money and take advantage of these people. Would the member agree with me that this sends a very big message to anybody who would do something like this, that if they come to Canada they are going to be treated very severely. Finally the Government of Canada is taking steps to go after these people who would profit on the backs of these poor individuals who are trying to come to this country.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for all the good work that he does on this file and others.

Certainly I would agree with his supposition. Similar to my response to the last question, this legislation is aimed directly at the human smugglers, those who are involved in this enterprise, individuals who own the boats that are used to operate these types of enterprises.

There are many victims and it is conceivable that the people who are actually being smuggled in under certain circumstances are victims. This legislation allows the department to assess who are legitimate refugees and who are part of either criminal enterprises or perhaps individuals who are trying to masquerade under the pretense of refugees to try to gain entry into Canada.

In any event, the hon. member is correct. This legislation will make it easier to prosecute human smugglers and will impose mandatory prison sentences for those convicted of human smuggling. That is the target of the bill and I think it is very much needed and timely legislation.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find the discussion interesting. There is some concern about the time it takes to process persons.

The member will know that people coming on boats would not expose themselves to that kind of situation unless they were, and believed that they were, legitimate refugee claimants in dire straits.

I am concerned that the timeframe seems to be inordinate. Children could be in detention in excess of a year and then every six months thereafter.

The member is well aware that in a number of countries from which people have come, documents either do not exist or are refused. We are not changing this law simply because of the Tamil situation. It would apply to all countries.

Is the member at all concerned that children might be the victims of some unintended consequences?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we should all be concerned and sympathetic about children being smuggled. This legislation takes direct aim at those involved in smuggling. There is often an overlap between human smuggling and trafficking in individuals. We have all heard the horror stories about individuals ending up in the sex industry.

I do not agree with the premise of my hon. colleague's question. Refugee claimants or people on the boats cannot be characterized in one category. The member said that he did not think that people would put themselves in that position unless they believed themselves to be legitimate refugees. Although that is true in some circumstances, it is not universally true. We have heard anecdotes that individuals pay large sums of money to board these ships, and one becomes suspicious about how dire a person's plight can be who is able to pay $50,000. Some individuals are not as bad off as others.

The point is that individuals have to be individually assessed. Some are legitimate refugee claimants, and some are queue-jumpers who are trying to enter our great country without going through the normal process. Detaining them for an appropriate time would allow immigration officials to determine who is legally admissible as a refugee and who is not.

We have to send out the message, to potential refugee claimants as well as those who smuggle them, that Canada will not tolerate this type of activity.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, about Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act.

It is important to clearly understand the objectives of this bill. One of the objectives is to allow the public safety minister to designate as irregular an arrival in Canada of a group of persons, who are categorized as “designated foreign nationals”. Designated foreign nationals who claim refugee or protected person status will be treated differently from other asylum seekers.

That is the reality. My Conservative colleagues are trying to tell us that this bill is meant to crack down on human smugglers, but its real objective is to create two categories of refugees, or rather a new category for designated foreign nationals. That is the reality.

Again, the Bloc Québécois will not support Bill C-49 and will vote against it, because it aims to do more than just crack down on human smugglers. It will punish people who are fleeing persecution, including children. Once again, the Conservatives are using a specific example from recent events—which made headlines in Quebec and Canada—to advance their law and order agenda, even though the measures they are proposing will not change the situation. The reality is that these people have arrived, they are here and the bill will not change anything in terms of the situation that unfolded when the last boat arrived in British Columbia.

The Bloc Québécois therefore opposes any new refugee category that would be justified only by the manner in which refugee claimants arrive. The fact that claimants arrive in a group does not mean they are not legitimate refugees. The Bloc Québécois believes that a new category that puts even heavier burdens on refugees would be prejudicial. We also deplore the fact that this government is backtracking, after a compromise had been reached on refugee reform. For years now, we have been calling for the refugee system to be updated and for the creation of an appeal system. We had nearly reached an agreement with the government, but instead it has decided to push ahead with its agenda rather than a compromise, because of a media event.

We in the Bloc Québécois believe it is simply inconceivable that all refugee claimants who arrive in a group can automatically be imprisoned for a maximum of 12 months, with no possibility of disputing their arrest. Worse still, according to the bill, that period can be extended indefinitely. This is a matter of fundamental human rights and democracy, specifically, the right to liberty. No human being should have to face such a situation.

This bill on illegal immigration goes against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as Canada's international obligations under the 1951 refugee convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Bloc Québécois believes that it would be completely irresponsible to vote in favour of a bill that flies in the face of at least three treaties meant to protect fundamental human rights.

For years, the governments, Liberal and Conservative alike, have allowed the current refugee system to get bogged down without doing anything about it. The thing that should be noted about this alarming statement is that this is not the first time the Conservative government has tried to resolve the problem by tightening the rules around asylum seekers coming to Canada. Take, for instance, the decision to require visas from Mexicans and foreign nationals from the Czech Republic, or the government's unwavering desire to develop a list of safe countries of origin as part of the refugee system reform. We do indeed detect, in the development of immigration policies, a discriminatory tendency to want to close the borders, including to those who are seeking refugee status. The proof is in the targeted range for total protected persons, which went from between 26,000 and 31,800 in 2008 to between 19,600 and 26,000 in 2010, not to mention the growing use of propaganda rhetoric that, in the name of national security, is used to justify taking a hard-line approach to this category of immigrants.

Although the government is saying it wants to punish human smugglers with this bill, it is instead punishing people who are fleeing persecution, including children. Once again, the government is being utterly discriminatory toward these refugees and is putting words into action to separate what it considers to be good refugees from bad refugees, as though their lives were not equally threatened.

The current system is bogged down because no one wanted to modernize it. When refugees arrive in large numbers, the government's tendency, which was solidified under the Liberals and confirmed by the Conservatives, is to tighten the system and prohibit them from entering the country. Under international treaties that Canada has signed, refugees deserve at least to have their file reviewed. Will we keep them all here? Not at all. Far from it. We will offer hospitality to those who truly need it and who are being persecuted in their home country, but we have to develop an effective file analysis system that respects human rights.

The Bloc Québécois has repeatedly shown the House that the existing system should be updated. The Liberals did not want to do it. The Conservatives appeared to want to do it—we hoped so, at least—but the Minister of Immigration was rebuffed with this bill, which flatly rejects everything he had put in place through discussions and negotiations to change the existing system. By creating a new class of refugees or foreign nationals requesting asylum, they are rejecting all improvements to the existing system.

I will now turn to security. When the MV Sun Sea arrived, the government issued a barrage of public statements positioning the arrival of boats as a threat to the security of Quebeckers and Canadians. As it turns out, those statements were unfounded. True to their ideology, the Conservatives used a widely reported event to promote their own political law and order agenda. There was no reason to believe that the arrival of the MV Sun Sea posed a threat to the security of Quebeckers and Canadians.

Under the existing law, any asylum seeker arriving by boat must be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed. Canada's waters are under the authority of the Canada Border Services Agency, the CBSA, which has the power to detain asylum seekers if there are any doubts about their identity and to oppose their release before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Immigration Division.

Some of the other 76 Tamils from Sri Lanka who arrived last year aboard the Ocean Lady and requested asylum remained behind bars for more than six months. None of them were found to be members of the Tamil Tigers or any similar organization. They were eventually released once the CBSA found that they were not a threat to national security.

Let us not forget that the 492 passengers aboard the MV Sun Sea accounted for less than 2% of the asylum requests received annually. The record, 5%, occurred in 1999, when four boats arrived carrying 600 asylum seekers. In 2010, the number of requests should be around 25,000, the lowest average in the past 20 years.

Arguments to the effect that the arrival of huge numbers of refugees poses a threat to public safety do not hold up. They certainly do not justify passing a bill that treats refugee claimants so harshly. We are not saying that smugglers should not be punished. However, this bill punishes legitimate refugee claimants. That is the problem. In addition, we feel that the existing act has all the mechanisms required to manage the arrival of these boats.

Why create a new category? The Conservatives simply decided to advance their ideological agenda.

Let us examine the compromise struck by Bill C-11. The Conservative government seems to be obsessed with classifying refugee claimants based on their numbers or origin. Such a measure was widely denounced when Bill C-11 on reform of the asylum system was studied. Initially, the federal government wanted especially to implement the concept of designated countries. Failed claimants from countries deemed to be safe would not have had access to the new refugee appeal division, a measure deemed extremely discriminatory by the Bloc Québécois.

The Conservative government insisted on this country classification. It said that, if this measure was not accepted, it would scuttle its own bill. Imagine. By making a strong case for refugee rights to the government and the other parties, the Bloc Québécois helped members reach a last-minute compromise designed to produce a reform that was truly effective and, even more importantly, fair to all asylum seekers.

Once again, it is important to understand that under international treaties that Canada has signed or recognized—and that Quebec would have signed if it were a country—all refugee claimants are treated with respect and have the right to be treated fairly, no matter their country of origin.

Even though the concept of designated countries still exists, this division will be accessible to everyone, including claimants from the designated countries. To compensate for that, two other expediting mechanisms were put in place. That was the compromise with Bill C-11. If the Refugee Protection Division rejects a claim for refugee protection, it may state in its reasons for the decision that the claim is manifestly unfounded if it is of the opinion that the claim is clearly fraudulent. Unsuccessful claims submitted by claimants from the same country that are referred to the RAD would then be expedited. There will be regulations regarding the processing times for refugee claimants from a designated country. They will be shorter than for regular claims so that claimants who file unfounded claims can be deported as quickly as possible.

The Bloc Québécois cannot believe that the government has decided to take a step backwards, when a compromise had been made regarding the reform of the current refugee system. In fact, with Bill C-49, the government is creating a new category of refugee, based solely on the way the refugee claimant arrives. That is what is unacceptable.

The Bloc Québécois agreed to make compromises on Bill C-11. The government wanted safe countries. For those arriving from these countries, there was no division that applied, while for those not arriving from safe countries, there was a division that did not apply. All the government said was that the same standards apply to everyone, but for certain countries, the processing time would be shorter. Obviously, that was a compromise that the Bloc Québécois could accept, given the Conservatives' intransigence. Now, the government has changed its mind and is ignoring all of the debates and forcing Bill C-49 on us, because there was a story in the news that gave the government the opportunity to advance its ideological agenda, whether it will admit it or not. Once again, I was listening to the Conservative member who spoke before me. He made it clear that the goal was to combat illegal smuggling, but the real goal is to create a system that treats refugee claimants differently when they arrive by that means.

So there is a new category. The Minister of Public Safety, citizens of the world—