Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank and congratulate my hon. colleague from Vancouver East for a passionate, brilliant, and long-overdue proposal that ought to be supported by every member of this House.
Canadians would be shocked to know that we still have embedded in our official immigration law a provision that is so discriminatory, so outmoded, so stereotypical, that no modern democracy that exists in a pluralistic society could possibly justify it. That is a section of our Immigration Act that says that when people come to Canada, work, and fulfill their obligations under a program such the temporary foreign worker program, and then seek to sponsor their families, they and all of their family members can all be rejected if one of the family members has a certain condition, such as Down syndrome, deafness, or an intellectual disability. Underpinning that is the outmoded notion that these people are somehow a burden. People with Down syndrome, people who are deaf, and people with intellectual deficits are not burdens. These people have every ability to be fine citizens and contributing members of our society.
This typically arises when a live-in caregiver comes here. Does the member agree that we could perhaps have a system whereby caregivers are allowed to bring their spouses and children with them when they first come here so that families can be left intact? We could get rid of this outmoded system under which they are separated from their families, only to find two, three, four, five, or six years later that they and their families are no longer admissible to Canada after doing everything they were obligated to do under this system. Would she agree with that policy?