Mr. Speaker, it behooves me to suggest that the opposition take one step back into the past instead of taking one step into the future. They should take one step into the past and recognized that there are individuals around the world who are fleeing for their lives. Those people can seek and obtain refugee status in our country to protect themselves, when they flee for their lives from a country that offers them nothing other than torture or death. They come here and within a very short period of time they receive an answer to the question as to whether or not they are true refugees. Under the bill, somewhere in the future, all of them would have an opportunity to have their families come to our country. Their families, if they are fleeing persecution, would also have the opportunity to seek refugee status in our country.
We are going to set in place, with the bill, a process and laws that say to human smugglers, “Not here. Not in this country”.