Mr. Speaker, when I heard what the government members want to do, I said to myself that if that is the kind of country they want, let them go ahead. However, that is not my kind of country; it is not what the Bloc wants. We do not want to go down that road. We do not want to be extraordinarily tough on crime, as they say, just because that is their inclination.
The purpose of this bill is to crack down on human smugglers. However, the Conservatives are aiming at the wrong target; they are completely misguided. The people who are exploited and vulnerable, who are fleeing because of political, economic or social conditions, are the ones arriving here, and the Conservatives are targeting them. They are taking aim with a really big gun, one that is too big. Instead of clamping down on the smugglers, they are clamping down on the vulnerable. Have the members who spoke seen the conditions in which these people live in their countries of origin? I use “live” loosely in this case. These people survive. They are used to living in fear, hiding, being secretive. They are hunted down in their own country. Some say that they go into hiding when they arrive here. That is what they have been taught to do. It is their survival instinct. These people have come here and should not be subject to different measures simply because they arrived in a group of 49 or 50 others.
These people sometimes leave behind children, relatives, perhaps even spouses. And now they are told that if they come here with 50 others they will be put in prison for 12 months and they must not ask why as the answer will be “because”. The government has cause to spend more and more money on prisons. At the rate they are going, the Conservatives will need more prisons. They take the people who arrive in Canada and tell them that they will immediately go straight to the Hilton prison without asking any questions. Instead of targeting the smugglers, they are targeting the victims.
They are creating categories of refugees not on the basis of their status or where they come from, or the relative danger of their place of origin, but based on how and with whom they arrive.
Clause 17, which amends section 117 of the act and adds subsections, very clearly states that when the offence involves fewer than 50 people, the smuggler will be sentenced to five years in prison, but if it involves 50 or more people, the sentence will be 10 years. So what happens if there are only 50 people? Will they throw one person overboard? Pardon the expression, but when smugglers know that if there are 50 or more people, they risk one sentence if caught, and if there are fewer than 50 it is another matter, what will they do? Will they draw straws? Will they ask themselves which one to get rid of? It makes no sense.
The government has introduced a muddled, convoluted bill because a boat arrived one day with about 500 people on board. It created quite a frenzy, as if the 500 people were armed to the teeth and were suddenly going to threaten 30 million people. Come on. The government reacted strongly, too strongly, based on presumptions.
The government says these people can be imprisoned for up to 12 months with no recourse to challenge that. These people are being told that they are now in Canada, which they chose for its freedom, and now they are being introduced to our kind of freedom. If that is the kind of freedom they want, then fine, but that is not Quebec's idea of freedom. If we needed another reason to fight for what is fundamentally right, the Bloc Quebecois's raison d'être—Quebec sovereignty—there is it. Canada puts refugees in prison when more than 50 arrive together on one boat.
This flies in the face of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and many international obligations, including the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which Canada has signed. This infamous bill also flies in the face of that convention. It also goes against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It lumps men, women and children together and says “thank you, good-bye”. One has to read it to believe it. The Conservatives really did this.
It is not for nothing that Canada lost its seat on the United Nations Security Council. It was this type of disgraceful policy that caused the seat to be lost. Why did the other countries vote against Canada? It is not because they did not receive their goodies, but because they wondered whether Canada was suited for the Security Council. It is too bad, but they said no. It is unfortunate, but such bills are shameful.
With the government putting these people in jail and telling them, when they hide somewhere and are caught, that they will not be entitled to bring over their loved ones for five years, even though they are refugees, we wonder about the new foreign policy. The hon. member who spoke before me listed all the prohibitions. Under this new policy, Canada is telling people to stay home, it is no longer going to help them, and it is cutting off international aid. Canada is closing more and more embassies, which are a reflection of how we live in Canada.
Canada's foreign policy is to cut international aid, and it is becoming more and more right-leaning. Canada is closing more and more embassies and becoming increasingly militarized. It is telling refugees that if they dare come here by boat with more than 50 people aboard, when they reach their destination, they will be shot, or almost.
This bill flies in the face of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We need to secure our borders, but there needs to be an appropriate balance between security, openness, welcome and diversity. In Quebec, we understand that. If Canada wants to adopt this type of policy, then so be it, but as long as we are here in the House, we will vote vigorously against such policies.