Mr. Speaker, on November 27, the Prime Minister avoided my question and tried to deflect the failures of his immigration minister to protect Canadians and secure our borders.
The Prime Minister should worry less about the opposition leader and concentrate more on his ongoing refusal to name the individuals implicated in working on behalf of Chinese foreign interests and bring them to justice. What is motivating the Prime Minister to not provide those names? Is he afraid that on that list are members of his own party or cabinet, people who have benefited from Chinese foreign interference? Treason is a serious offence, as is being bought off by foreign influencers in being in receipt of electoral and financial benefits, as reported by NSICOP. These are all very serious matters that require full investigation by the appropriate authorities.
The Prime Minister does not have the legal authority to determine if traitors get shielded from our laws. The Prime Minister knows the damage and the danger caused by his weak and ineffectual immigration minister and the precarious position his failures are posing to the Canadian economy in light of the 25% tariff threat issued by President-elect Trump. How is it possible that the Prime Minister would shelter people and permit a porous border, where terrorists and those out to betray our democracy and our country are given free entry passes? Are we now to see another influx of extremists like we have seen with the IRGC, but this time from potential extremists exiting Syria?
At least 14 countries have already frozen Syrian asylum applications, four of which, by the way, are fellow G7 members. What about Canada? Is the immigration minister going to let even more extremists waltz into Canada under the pretext of being bona fide refugees, eager to exploit our compassion as Canadians and our refugee program as a cover to avoid detection or persecution? What kind of immigration and refugee system do we have under the government? It seems more interested in letting in terrorists rather than acting to defend our borders and protect Canadians.
The Prime Minister must come clean and explain why he is so reluctant to bring those names forward for investigation and prosecution. This entire mess cannot be the product of some misguided personal or twisted interpretation by the Prime Minister of some form of executive privilege. It is the Prime Minister's duty to protect Canadians, our democracy and our economy. While he is at it, he must find a new immigration minister who is actually capable of doing the job.
It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister did not bring the immigration minister with him to Mar-a-Lago, despite one of the core issues being the fact that there were 350 people on the U.S. terror watch-list stopped from crossing into the United States from Canada. First and foremost, how did these people enter Canada in the first place? For the same period, 52 people were stopped on the U.S.-Mexico border. That is nearly one-seventh of the terror suspects stopped at the Canada-U.S. border. Before the parliamentary secretary accuses me of talking down our country, I am focusing on the safety of Canadians, the dangers of the government and the worst immigration minister in our nation's 157-year history.
My question to the parliamentary secretary is simple. If someone who worked for him messed up this badly, putting his team, his staff and his customers at risk, would he not fire them?