Debates of May 16th, 2012

Veterans

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member of the opposition for the opportunity she has given me to set the record straight, since our government has been very clear. We are determined to protect the privacy of our veterans.

There is no other way to say it. Our government will not tolerate any violation of our veterans' privacy. Any inappropriate access of a veteran's file is completely unacceptable, and our actions to protect personal information speak as loudly as our words.

That is why, more than a year ago, we took decisive action to strengthen the protection of each individual veteran's privacy. That is why we went beyond the four recommendations in an October 2010 report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and implemented an aggressive 10-point privacy action plan.

Just last week we announced additional measures under privacy action plan 2.0 to build an even stronger culture of privacy at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Our government will continue to act to protect the private information of our veterans. We have delivered by developing stringent new controls for employees accessing veterans electronic files, closely monitoring employee activity on our electronic network and strictly enforcing corrective and disciplinary measures for those who violate our veterans' privacy.

The measures in privacy action plan 2.0 go even further, providing targeted training on privacy principles, streamlining consent forms and ensuring new initiatives are compliant with privacy requirements.

Simply put, while the department conducts more than 20 million transactions with veterans' files each year, even one breach is unacceptable.

Our government remains committed to ensuring our processes meet the highest possible standards. We are doing all this because it is the right thing to do. All veterans deserve to know that the personal information they provide to the Department of Veterans Affairs is safe and secure and that it will not be inappropriately accessed. That is what our veterans want, what Canadians expect and what our Conservative government demands.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, enough is enough. We gave this government enough time to reform the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and make the changes that are needed in order to truly put its action plan in place. And what do we find? We find that it did not work.

My hon. colleague has referred to action that was taken in 2010 or last year, but Harold Leduc's case dates from February 2012. The fact is that we see that it did not work. The ombudsman’s most recent report, which he has just tabled, shows the extent to which it did not work.

We have given enough in this situation. If the government really wants to make cuts, it will make cuts to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, because it is ineffective, and this is money that could be put back into veterans’ benefits, because they genuinely need them. This is a real way to help them out.

Now, we see that our veterans are going to have to dial a telephone number and wait on the line for hours so they can explain their situation and what benefits and services they need. That will not help them at all.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, our government believes that any violation of our veterans’ privacy is unacceptable.

We took action over a year ago and put in place a 10 point privacy action plan to ensure that strict disciplinary measures are there for those who violate the law while strengthening access controls and monitoring.

We continue to build on the successes of the privacy action plan to ensure that the private information of our veterans remains protected. The recently introduced privacy action plan 2.0 includes providing targeted training on privacy principles, streamlining consent forms and ensuring new initiatives are compliant with privacy requirements. We are taking action to ensure our processes meet the highest possible standards. Our veterans' privacy is paramount.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, a few short months ago, I rose in this House following the introduction Bill C-31, the so-called protecting Canada's immigration system act. I say “so-called” because it quickly became apparent that the bill would do little to protect Canada's immigration system. At that time, the entire immigration stakeholder community was shocked that the government was reversing the prudent measures of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, and just months before that act was supposed to come into force.

The bill has become a symbol of all that is wrong with the Conservative government. It was born out of fear, ideology and a complete distaste for evidence and input from opposition parties and stakeholders. In fact, the bill stands alone in its total lack of support from every conceivable part of the immigration community: churches, lawyers, pediatricians, settlement services, immigration consultants, immigrants and refugees themselves have all roundly condemned the bill as imbalanced, misguided and ineffective.

The parts of the bill that deal with human smuggling came from a fearmongering political opportunism practised by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and the Minister of Public Safety following the arrival of two boats on our shores carrying bona fide refugees from war-torn Sri Lanka.

The rest of the bill is simply a comprehensive dismantling of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which was passed with all-party support in the minority Parliament of 2010 in a spirit of co-operation and a mutual recognition that the system needed to be streamlined.

Indeed, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism praised that bill, saying the opposition amendments made our refugee determination system “fairer and faster”, words he now disavows and contradicts.

The laundry list of things that are wrong with the bill is long and serious. They includes mandatory detention of refugees, including children; ministerial power to designate safe countries without any independent oversight; denial of appeal to designated refugee claimants, which is a fundamental part of natural justice; unacceptably short timelines for filing refugee claims, a measure that would lead to more rejections; and denying family reunification for over five years to many refugees.

Ultimately the bill is about accepting fewer refugees. It goes against decades of tradition of welcoming the most vulnerable people in the world to our country. I think of the vibrant Vietnamese community in my riding of Vancouver Kingsway, almost all of whom came here on boats in the 1970s. I think also of the Jewish community, Somali Canadians, Roma. These groups, and others like them, embody the tradition of refugee resettlement in Canada, a tradition that the government is shunning.

I would like to highlight how the bill was handled and what it says about the government.

Once again, the bill illustrates the omnibus approach to legislation that we see repeatedly. Measures that on their own are distasteful to most Canadians are bundled together in one bill and rammed through Parliament.

At committee, we heard from lawyers who spoke about how the bill would violate our Constitution. They spoke about how the bill would violate our international obligations. They detailed how the bill would mandate timelines that would be impossible to meet while protecting people's rights to a fair hearing at the same time.

People on the front lines spoke about how the bill would further traumatize already traumatized people by imposing detention upon them and separating them from their families.

We heard Roma Canadians talk about the real persecution they face and how insulting and misguided it is of the minister to constantly refer to European refugee claimants as “bogus”.

Evidence of similar legislation from countries like Australia that shows that these types of policies just do not work was flatly ignored.

People who work with refugees every day told us how the bill would hurt refugees, their families and our communities.

Throughout the whole process, the government and the minister have ignored, belittled and chastised experts and stakeholders with a level of ignorance and arrogance that is unworthy of public office-holders.

The bill remains punitive, mean-spirited and ineffective.

Why is the government moving forward with Bill C-31?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I heard more of an election speech and an ideological perspective from the member. He is certainly allowed to do that. That is what late shows are all about.

However, for many on the opposition benches, the truth merely gets in the way of a good speech or a good story, and I think that is what has happened here. I do not think there is any problem with the way our Westminster model of Parliament works in Canada. It is a government's responsibility to introduce legislation; it is the opposition's responsibility to ensure that legislation is put to the scrutiny of the parliamentary process.

In fact, the member failed to reveal two very important facts.

The first is with regard to Bill C-11. That bill, the refugee reform act, indeed passed through this House with unanimous support. Today 80% to 90% of that bill is still in effect, and in fact was included in Bill C-31. However, in terms of refugee applications, the problem is that there was not enough to do what would be necessary to make the system successful, proper, prudent and fair.

The steps implemented in Bill C-11 included, and still include, an additional 2,500 refugees here in Canada on a yearly basis. My friend across the way mentioned that we are going to have fewer refugees in Canada now; I can tell him, and he knows, that there will be 2,500 more refugees in Canada yearly. He also knows that over 60% of the refugee applications that come forward in this country actually fail. Our overburdened system has a number of individuals in the backlog, and many more people fail through the system than succeed.

Our purpose in bringing Bill C-31 forward is to repair a very broken system. Bill C-11 goes a long way to repairing that system; Bill C-31would complete what needs to happen.

My friend across the way talks a lot about fairness, but there were 5,800 more refugee claims from the European Union in 2011 than there were from Africa or Asia. The total percentage of applications for refugee status in our country from the EU, which is made up of democratic states, democratic countries, is 23% more than from Africa and Asia. What is really interesting is that 95% of those European Union applications are either withdrawn or rejected, while virtually all that come forward are unsuccessful.

Bill C-11 does not address this specific issue in a way that would fix this broken system.That is what Bill C-31 has to do.

My colleague across the way and I have worked together very closely for the last year in a very positive way. We have our differences, but we worked very closely together. If he and his party are suggesting that the current system and this opportunity for people to take advantage of our system are somehow acceptable, that will not happen in this country. That is because one thing Canadians understand is fairness. Canadians want to help refugees. They want to bring them to this country and they want to give them another opportunity. However, the one thing Canadians will not have is people taking advantage of our system, which would not only hurt Canadians but also hurt those who are truly trying to come to this country to seek refugee status.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the problem that my hon. friend has is that it was not I who said that Bill C-11, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, fixed the system, it was the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stood in this very House and praised Bill C-11. He said that the amendments that were worked out by all parties in this House made the system faster and fairer. He called that legislation a “monumental achievement”.

When my hon. friend says that C-31 would take 80% to 85% of that bill and preserve it, that may be true in content but not in substance. The previous bill, Bill C-11, forced the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism to run decisions about designating a safe country by an independent panel of experts. The government took that out of this bill.

The previous bill allowed all refugees an appeal on merits to the Refugee Appeal Division. Bill C-31 would remove that and applicants from so-called safe countries picked solely the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism would be denied access of appeal to that Refugee Appeal Division.

Bill C-31 is significantly different from the previous bill, Bill C-11. These differences make this bill, Bill C-31, much less fair and do nothing to speed up the system, which Bill C-11 did do.

I would ask my hon. colleague to tell me, if Bill C-11 was not an improvement over the system and was not good enough, why did the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism stand in this House and tell Canadians it was?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, the minister told Canadians the truth. He told Canadians that it was a much better system, that it would be a much better process, that it would work and that it was an amalgamation of all four parties that were in the House in the 40th Parliament.

The fact is that once we understood that the direction, in respect of trying to deal with the European Union, would not have been dealt with under Bill C-11, we took action and brought the bill forward.

Under a majority government, we went to the committee and listened to every witness the hon. member spoke about.

In fact, not because we had to or we could not have rammed the bill through without having to seek approval or changes, we made two very significant amendments to the very issues the hon. member talked about, namely cessation and ensuring that permanent residents do not lose their status.

The other aspect is that there will be the opportunity for a review when an individual is in detention. They will have an opportunity for a review at 14 days and they will have that same opportunity six months later.

This bill is fair and right. I would only ask the hon. member—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:55 p.m.)