Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a number of very important points. I will just deal with one of them.
Canadians witness the spectre of gross hypocrisy when the government tries to be tough on crime, talking about deporting permanent residents who do not have Canadian citizenship. In some cases it is denying them a right of appeal if they have been convicted of a sentence of more than six months.
However, we watched Conrad Black, who is not a Canadian citizen because he renounced his citizenship, come back to this country after serving a four-year sentence for fraud. I find it interesting that the minister said that on hearing about Conrad Black's application, he immediately contacted immigration officials and advised them that they should be handling that at arm's length. Why was there a need to make that phone call? Would we not expect that to be the case?