Mr. Speaker, at this point, I frankly do not understand it. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and Canadian law more broadly, we refer to people who are not Canadian citizens as foreign nationals. Therefore, to say that a foreign national who has been convicted in a Canadian court for having committed a serious crime is a foreign criminal is a normal statement of legal fact. It is a reflection of the legal appellation of a foreign national.
The opposition seems to be suggesting that if foreign criminals are sufficiently sympathetic, then somehow even though they are not citizens, they become Canadians. That is simply not true.
One of the provisions of the bill I would like to ask the member about is the inclusion of so-called negative discretion for the minister to deny the admission into Canada of people on such grounds as those who have promoted terrorist organizations, promoted violence and so forth. In the past we have had situations where, for example, the Quebec National Assembly asked me to prevent the admission of Abdur Raheem Green and Hamza Tzortzis, who were extremist imams promoting anti-Semitism, homophobia and violence against women. There is no current tool within IRPA to prevent the admission of such individuals because the promotion of hate crimes in some foreign jurisdictions is not a crime and therefore is not grounds for inadmissibility to Canada.
Would he not agree that there is a need for some tool to exclude such people, who either promote violent extremism or extreme forms of hatred, from entering into Canada?