Mr. Speaker, I rise here this evening to follow up on a question I asked the Prime Minister back in April of this year on the subject of illegal border crossers.
For nearly two years, the Conservatives have been asking the Prime Minister and his Liberal government to take action to address the influx of illegal migrants. It is profoundly disappointing that instead of putting forward a plan to resolve the problem, the Liberals have allowed a trickle of illegal crossings to grow into a stream and to now grow into a flood. Because of their inaction, a minor problem that could have been addressed early on has become a crisis. Do not take my word for it. Recent polls have indicated that two-thirds of Canadians consider this situation of illegal migrants a crisis.
When I realized that Canada was experiencing a concerning increase in the influx of illegal border crossings at the beginning of 2017, nearly two years ago, I called on the Liberal government to take swift action. Instead what we got was tweets from the Prime Minister saying, “Welcome to Canada” and “Regardless of who you are or where you come from, there's always a place for you in Canada.” Here we are, 19 months later, and it is clear that the Liberals are either unwilling or unable to fix this mess of their own making.
We are not just talking about some abstract concept here, we are talking about the lives of real people. Under the current Prime Minister, large numbers of refugees are not receiving the support they need to successfully integrate into the Canadian economic and social fabric.
In addition to that, asylum seekers are facing backlogs that are years long to have their asylum claims heard. In the meantime, they are being housed in hotels or moved from shelter to shelter, drawing welfare payments and struggling to access language training services. All of this is costing taxpayers excessive amounts of money, yet it is not delivering the desired results.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister has normalized the policy of allowing people to use Canada's asylum system as a means to immigrate to Canada for economic reasons. Asylum is for those who are facing violence, persecution and war. When we treat economic migrants as refugees, resources that ought to be reserved for those in dire need are instead redirected to individuals who were already safe. This is not compassionate. In fact, it is downright unfair to those who are languishing in refugee camps around the world waiting for their chance to come to Canada, for their chance to be free from war, persecution and violence.
We recently learned that more than 65% of illegal migrants from 2017 to 2018 had legal status in the United States prior to illegally entering Canada. Despite the border security minister's false claims over the weekend that the “overwhelming majority of those people have left”, we know that only six of 900 illegal migrants under U.S. deportation orders have been removed. Though he later retracted it, it is concerning that the minister appears to be unaware of just how bad the situation actually is. Since early 2017, more than 34,000 illegal migrants have entered Canada. Only about 400, about 1%, have been removed. These are facts the minister should know well. I will go a step further there. These are facts that should have led the Liberal government to develop and implement a plan to address this crisis a long time ago.
I continue to await an answer from the Liberal government. Will it put a stop to illegal border crossings? Will it restore order and fairness to our immigration and refugee system? Will it defend the integrity of our borders? Will it stand up for the thousands of vulnerable individuals who want to come to Canada the right way?