Mr. Speaker, I agree with the minister that there may be some confusion because I heard a number of members of the opposition yesterday suggest that the threshold for serious criminality for us to remove a foreign national criminal was two years.
I have the Immigration Act right here. The Immigration Refugee Protection Act was adopted in 2002. The threshold for removing convicted foreign criminals from Canada is that of serious criminality, which has been defined as cases where the convict has received a custodial sentence of six months or more.
Only 10% of custodial sentences in Canada are between six months and two years. We are talking about very serious offences, like those mentioned by the hon. minister. Canadians do not understand why we would keep people like that in our country one day longer than we have to. The point of the bill is once they are done their sentence, they will be taken to the airport and removed. I will not tolerate further delays that jeopardize the safety of Canadians.