Madame Speaker, we are in the dying days of this Parliament. We have talked a lot about immigration policy and the Liberal government's allowing the abuse of Canada's asylum system. That is really the core of Canada's immigration system.
I am going to ask a question of my colleague opposite who ends up answering all the questions at this time of day. For the last two years, instead of addressing a really serious issue with a definitive answer or a definitive position on whether people should be allowed to enter into Canada from the United States through an illegal point of entry and then claim asylum, the Liberals have kind of just allowed this to happen. It has cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. There are all sorts of problems with it.
However, what is really egregious to me is that we are in the dying days of this Parliament and, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister woke up, started to look at the polls and thought that maybe he should talk about the issue. Maybe; however, he never apologized for something he did that was really serious. That is cheapening the debate on the term “racism”.
I would think that one thing all of us could agree on in this House is that racism is a serious problem in Canada. I am assuming that my colleague opposite, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, will be answering. We both grew up in Winnipeg. Racism is a serious problem in Winnipeg. There are a lot of first nations people who suffer tremendously because of racist attitudes. There are minority communities across Canada for whom we need to do more to prevent racism.
Racism is not questioning the government's policies with regard to how people enter the country and under what circumstances. Instead of doing something about the issue at the border or just even taking a policy position on it one way or the other, first it was “irregular”, then it was this and then it was that, and then it was that the safe third country agreement applies but it does not, and on and on. Instead of taking a position that the Liberals could defend either way, they just kind of spent all this money.
More importantly, the Prime Minister stood up, over and over again, and sort of labelled anybody from any political party or any Canadian as racist for asking questions about whether this was the best policy for protecting the world's most vulnerable in Canada. The immigration minister was in our hometown of Winnipeg, and stood up and said people are being “not Canadian” and got really angry and yelled proclamations. I think that is really disappointing. It cheapens the term. It prevents us from looking at issues that we could all be talking about.
It is not racist or un-Canadian to question the government, especially the current Liberal government, on policies related to how we manage the integrity of Canada's border and the potential abuse of Canada's asylum system.
I would just say this. In a hand extended in the spirit of bipartisanship, I wonder if my colleague opposite would say that perhaps that is not the best approach, calling somebody racist or un-Canadian for questioning policy related to whether somebody should be allowed to illegally enter the country and then claim asylum after having already reached the safety of upstate New York.