Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to be effectively wrapping up this debate.
I also want to thank the member for Provencher for sharing his time with me today. I know this is a situation he has had to deal with directly. I commend him for his efforts, and I commend my colleagues for their efforts in that area, including the opposition House leader for her work in making sure that our borders are secure.
Why are we dealing with this motion? It is because we are effectively in uncharted territory. We are in an unprecedented situation, where we have tens of thousands of people crossing our border illegally. I have sat through most of this debate, and I heard some of the comments this morning about “needlessly alarmist” and “fearmongering”. The fact is that we have a very critical situation at our borders.
Let me remind the House and all Canadians of what we are dealing with here today. Let us take a look at what the motion says.
First, we need to make sure that the CBSA, the RCMP, and other agencies that protect our borders have the resources to do just that.
Second, it needs to be confirmed that an immigration policy should never, ever be expressed in 140 characters. Immigration and all the policies about coming to Canada that are part of it are complicated enough without the efforts of the Prime Minister trying to simply dumb it down or put it in a single tweet.
I will go one step further. What the Prime Minister was trying to do with that single tweet, sending that message around the world, was to one-up Donald Trump. It was on that day that Donald Trump announced restrictions to policies for people coming into the United States. The Prime Minister thought he was going to be smart, and he did not realize the ancillary impact that this single tweet would have and how it would resonate around the world, from here to Nigeria and to other parts of the country. This is why we are in this situation, because of one single, irresponsible tweet, and because our Prime Minister thought he was going to show up the President of the United States.
Third, we need the government to undertake and accept that there is a huge financial responsibility with this. We have had over 20,000 illegal people come into this country, which has cost close to $1 billion that was unplanned for and unaccounted for, and that Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for.
We hear about “fearmongering” and we hear about “needlessly alarmist”, but these are real concerns for real Canadians. This is what the motion is trying to represent today.
Last, let us have a plan in place no later than May 11. The weather is getting better. Better conditions mean that more people will illegally cross the border. There is no reason for them to come in that way. Many of them are in the United States. They have claimed refugee status in the United States, or they are there for other reasons. There are legitimate ways that these people, illegal border crossers, could come into this country.
Again, we hear from the government that it is “irregular”. They are not “irregular” border crossers; they are illegal border crossers. Let us get this straight. Let us stop the charade on the part of the government to try to dumb this down or water it down in a way that suits the Liberals and is more appeasing to Canadians. These are illegal border crossers. There were 20,593 last year and 6,373 this year. This is 400 a day, and it is projected that we are going to get 50,000 to 70,000 people crossing the border this year.
What is the impact? What is the impact on communities like Quebec? What is the impact on communities like Emerson? The fact is that it pushes back a legitimate refugee system. These people are jumping the queue. They are coming to the front of the line. This is not an American Express thing. This speaks to the legitimacy and the rightful immigration and refugee system that we have. These people are using that system, but those who are going through it legally are paying the price. Cases in my constituency office have spiked since this process started. It has pushed back the refugee system by 11 years.
More important, and I said this earlier, it has cost $1 billion to deal with the system that was caused by one person, the Prime Minister of Canada. It should not fall on the back of every single Canadian taxpayer. However, that is the Liberal solution to this whole process.
The Liberals talk about investments. These are not investments. This is money they have to put toward this process because of the impact it is having not just on the refugee system but particularly on the province of Quebec.
There are 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The Prime Minister sent out a tweet that has resonated around the world. If just 5% of the illegal immigrants in the United States decide to cross into Canada because of this singular tweet, we could potentially face 500,000 more people. We are not prepared for a situation like that, and that $1 billion will seem small by comparison if this happens.
What we are asking the government to do is come up with a plan to secure the border. The member for Calgary Nose Hill said that there is a solution. It is a solution that we have been calling for during the last nine months, which is to make these legitimate border crossings so that the safe third country agreement comes into effect. That way, if a refugee who has claimed refugee status in the United States decides to come into Canada, that is not going to happen. The same situation would happen in Niagara Falls, at Pearson airport, or at any other legal and legitimate border crossing in this country. That person would be sent back, and the cost and the burden would not fall on Canadian taxpayers, not just the cost of border security.
God bless the RCMP and the CBSA for the work they have been doing. They have been put in an untenable position. We have tents on the border. Never before has this happened in Canada. There is one singular cause for this, which is the Prime Minister of Canada. He needs to take responsibility for it, come up with a plan, and make sure that he, singularly, stops this process from gaining any more momentum than it already has.