Mr. Speaker, I would like to make it very clear that we supported a couple of amendments that were brought forward by the government side because they mitigated the extensive damage that we see in the bill.
One of them was an unintended consequence, as the minister said. I felt good that once he realized there was an unintended consequence whereby people could be deported after many years of living in Canada because the country they had fled from would become considered safe, the government side actually addressed that unintended consequence. I acknowledge that there was some movement.
However, I want to get back to the detention issue. I absolutely cannot, as a mother, a parliamentarian and a teacher, stand here and say that being kept in detention would be okay and would not have a devastating impact on young children, no matter whether they were 3 or 9 or 16 or 17 years old.
Once again, these are the reasons we are so adamant that the bill goes way beyond. It is not only we who see the bill as draconian; expert witnesses agree. It is actually a “punishing refugees bill”, because there is nothing more in it that would punish smugglers than there already is in Bill C-11.