Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my NDP colleague for his excellent speech, which provided a great opening to today's debate on a subject that is so fundamental to our Canadian values of humanitarianism, solidarity and compassion.
I would like to come back to the fact that, once again, the Conservative government is showing its nasty tendency to give its ministers additional discretionary powers. I find it worrisome that the Conservatives always seem to head in this direction. These additional powers will be used to prevent people from entering Canada, to deny them entry and to impose periods of ineligibility in which people cannot apply for temporary residence. I find it particularly worrisome that the government wants to put even more power in the hands of a single minister who can block entry into Canada, especially since the bill also removes the minister's obligation to assess and review humanitarian grounds.
For instance, if someone had fought a dictatorship like Pinochet's in Chile because of the importance of fighting oppression, why should the minister be free of the obligation to take into account the context and circumstances surrounding that individual's application for temporary residence?