Madam Speaker, the member is completely within reason. The fact is this legislation would have the effect of institutionalizing racism in our refugee system.
When I listened to the media reports during the 1979-80 arrival of the boat people from Vietnam, people on call-in shows said that those people did not belong here, that they were not Canadian, that they should wait their turn and that they were jumping the queue. The government of Joe Clark showed courage and compassion. It showed great values of welcoming these refugees. It even put resources overseas in Vietnam to process people coming here within a two-week period, not a five-year period or a one-year period. We are talking about 50,000 people who were processed in a period of two years and the government of the day processed them within two weeks, with limited resources and staff. Yet the current government says that it cannot do it and that it will not let queue-jumpers come here.
In effect, what it is doing is institutionalizing racism in our country, and I find that extremely disserving.