Mr. Speaker, here we go. The NDP has been claiming all along that it knows the current system for removal of foreign criminals is too slow and should be streamlined, but it never supports any specific measure to do so.
Now we have an NDP member saying that foreign nationals who have grown up in Canada should not be subject to deportation if they commit a serious crime. Not only does the NDP oppose our measures to streamline the deportation of convicted serious foreign criminals, it is actually in favour of making it even more difficult or in fact barring the removal from Canada of convicted serious foreign criminals.
The member for Vancouver Kingsway had suggested that under law a serious crime was defined as one that lead to a penal sentence of two years or more. I would point that member and the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel to section 64(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that says, “For the purpose of subsection (1), serious criminality must be with respect to a crime that was punished in Canada by a term of imprisonment of at least six months”.
I just want to clarify. Is the member suggesting that foreign nationals who have been convicted of a serious criminal offence, as defined by the immigration act, should not be deported from Canada?