Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-43, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I will be sharing my time.
We are supporting this bill's going forward at second reading, with some very strong reservations. As we have seen throughout the debate here today, the reservations speak to a number of issues in the bill that certainly involve moving further than simply the faster removal of foreign criminals
One issue we have great concern about is the concentration of more power in the hands of the minister, giving him the discretionary ability based on public policy considerations to restrict the entrance of foreign nationals, making them inadmissible for up to 36 months.
We have seen the parliamentary secretary stand up and admit that on the face of it, this is very controversial and really needs a lot of work. I think back to what has happened during my time in Parliament and the minister's actions. At his discretion, he refused entrance into Canada of former British MP George Galloway. In a resulting court case, Mr. Galloway challenged the minister over this. The Ontario supreme court came out with a 60-page decision castigating the minister for exercising this authority in that way that excluded Mr. Galloway based on certain political considerations.
Therefore, we really have to be very careful with this. This is treading into an area that has been a minefield in Canada in the past. I think back to the period before the Second World War, when we refused massive numbers of refugees from Eastern Europe because of political considerations, not because they were bad people or criminals who were going to cause a lot of trouble in Canada. No, it was because political factors were taken into consideration. If we are moving back in a direction of looking at political considerations and opening up that door where we have not been for a while, I think it is something we have to look at very carefully.
We are relieving the minister of the responsibility of looking at humanitarian circumstances in these matters, where human beings' lives are being altered irrevocably by the decisions we are making, and not making the minister look at the situation created by the acts of Canadians officials in expelling people from the country. I think that is really not in the Canadian mould. We tend to say that we believe in the sanctity of families, that we believe in the importance of paying careful attention to children, to the kinds of things that tie people together in a particular instance.
To simply say that we are going to relieve the minister of that responsibility needs some definite explanation. Why should the minister not want to have some ability to deal with this? Why should this not be part of his responsibility? When we have an impact upon people's lives, we need to understand that it is our responsibility and that we need to look at those things in the context they are presented. It is not that simple.
One provision that I find very difficult is the proposed increase in the penalty for misrepresentation. We are all MPs here. We all have offices. We all see people coming in, immigrants, landed immigrants, and people who are looking to get their parents or children into the country. The forms can lend themselves to mistakes.
The difference between a mistake and a misrepresentation is sometimes a very narrow line. When it comes to someone's educational qualifications, he or she may say, “I went to school there. I graduated there”. Is that acceptable? Can he or she prove it? Are there other issues that come into the presentation or the information that may need some clarification?
We need to look very hard at what “misrepresentation” means and what it entails. That can be done in committee. How can we define it carefully so we are not simply shutting people who make a mistake out of the country. We have to be very careful with that. It is something that can lead to all kinds of problems for people.
What constitutes “serious criminality?” This is something we have had a good debate on today. Quite obviously, when we move from a sentence of two years down to a sentence of six months, we are moving the bar pretty low. We are taking that bar right down so the ability of someone to get under it will be much more difficult. We really need to understand it. I assume the committee will go through some statistical analysis of what it will mean, what kind of offences have been generated that produce a sentence of six months in contrast to those that would produce sentences of two years.
Certainly, we have all seen people go to prison for six months for fairly minor offences that do not justify the disruption of their family life or taking them away from employer, if they happen to be good employees, doing all of that for something that is criminal but not necessarily of a serious nature. Therefore, the definition really needs work.
It will be interesting to see how it comes back from committee and what happens with the bill, what kinds of amendments and definitions are struck so we can truly understand how this will impact society.
I trust the Conservatives will follow the example the parliamentary secretary set with the one particular passage in the bill that he clearly stated needed work. We need an understanding of the whole bill in a very careful fashion, which can come through committee. After that, we can see whether the bill will be acceptable to this party. I am sure there will be further consideration of that.
These are important issues which are not to be taken lightly. I trust the government will go into that committee with the good intention of really coming to grips with this bill.