Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to oppose Bill C-71. I do so wanting to recognize the context that our country finds itself in right now.
Immigration levels are too high. We are now approaching an average of 1.5 million people coming into the country per year. The reason we know that is too high is because population growth is now outpacing the job market. It is outpacing the housing market. It is also outpacing investment in social services like hospitals, schools and child care facilities. The quality of life for the average Canadian is in decline because of the stress being placed on our local economies and on public services. This is a sentiment held not just by people who may have been in Canada for many generations, but also by people who are immigrants themselves, children of immigrants and grandchildren of immigrants.
When we review Bill C-71, the ultimate question we need to ask ourselves is if this is a logical, reasonable, common-sense approach to citizenship and immigration, or is this is a continuation of an approach that has been in place for years now that is actually harming the quality of life for all people in the country, regardless of their backgrounds.
To advance a common-sense approach to immigration, I would put forward a three-part standard that we can evaluate Bill C-71 against.
The first question that any person would ask is how many people would be entering the country under Bill C-71. It is a very reasonable question, one that I imagine any Canadian would ask. It would be imperative for the government advancing this legislation to have an answer to. Unfortunately, we have tried our best to get specific numbers from the Liberal government on this legislation, and we have not gotten that number. We do not know how many more people would be entering the country under Bill C-71. Given the existing constraints we have, that is a very important question for the people of Canada to have an answer to.
The second part of this test, as my colleague, the member for Calgary Heritage mentioned, would be criminal background checks. Any Canadian, whether he or she just got here or has been here for a long time, would say it is common sense to do criminal background checks on who enters the country. It should be a no-brainer for anyone to agree to, yet, we have been advocating for the provision of mandatory criminal background checks in Bill C-71 without the support from the Liberal government or their allies in the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
We are asking very clearly why proper vetting is not done before granting citizenship to people who do not live in our country and are only being granted citizenship through a weak and watered-down substantial connection test. The question becomes, why would anyone be surprised by this? We have seen example after example of the Liberal government not prioritizing criminal background checks in existing immigration policy.
We have seen examples just this summer of the Liberal government admitting into the country someone who is an alleged ISIS terrorist, granting that person citizenship while he plotted a terrorist attack on Toronto, the biggest city in the country. We have seen an example of the Liberal government granting a student visa in another incident to someone who planned a terrorist attack on New York City. It is on brand for the Liberal government to not be concerned about criminal background checks, and this is yet another instance of where Bill C-71 fails to meet a common-sense standard for appropriate immigration and citizenship policy.
The last point I will make in terms of this standard is about its economic impact. We have asked for a mandatory comprehensive economic impact assessment so that the Liberal government would share with the people of Canada what the impact would be of admitting even more people, adding to population growth, into the country. What would the impact be through Bill C-71 on our hospitals, on our schools, on our child care facilities? What would the impact be on young Canadians who aspire to own a home and are pessimistic about whether that dream will ever come true because we are not building enough houses but we are adding more people?
What would happen to the job market, where we are seeing increases in employment, especially youth employment? Would contributing more people to the country have a negative effect on our young people's ability to get a job and start their careers?
This is what a common-sense approach to immigration and citizenship would be seeking to answer and yet with Bill C-71 we are very far from getting answers to these questions.
Many people hearing my words today may have some questions of their own. How did we get to this point? How did we get to a point where a Liberal government can advance legislation that so clearly does not respond to the context that our country is living in? How did we get to a point where we can walk into the House of Commons and have legislation put in front of us that does not address the specific concerns that many Canadians of all backgrounds have about our current immigration levels?
That is fundamentally the result of what has been a concerted effort to stifle debate and criticism of immigration policy in the country. For a long time now, daring to ask a question about how immigration policy affects Canada, daring to criticize the Liberal status quo on immigration has gotten us smeared, labelled, name-called, fingers pointed in our face, people questioning whether we have compassion or concern for people of all sorts of different backgrounds and cultures. The reality is that they can finger-point all they want. They can do all the name-calling they want. They can do all the smearing they like. The reality is that we have a very specific purpose when we enter the House of Commons, which is to ask the fundamental question of what is best for Canada.
In order to apply that lens to Bill C-71, we would need those three critical pieces of information. Number one, how many people are entering the country? Number two, are there appropriate vetting mechanisms in place and background checks? Number three, what is the impact that increasing the population even further will have on our economy?
By not answering these questions, I have a very hard time understanding how any member in the House can say that this legislation is complete and deserving of a vote. In my view, this has failed every single measure of a logical, reasonable, common-sense immigration and citizenship standard, and that is why we must oppose it.
Last, I will say is this. Whether it is immigration policy, housing, citizenship, whatever it might be, it is imperative that we put the Canadian people first, and I do believe that this is a window into how that is not being met. Every time we vote in here, every time we come in here and debate a matter of legislation or policy, we should have at the top of mind the Canadian taxpayer, the Canadian who voted for us to be here to represent our local communities and represent our interests. The immigration status quo in our country is not doing what is best for Canada. With this legislation we are seeing a very clear example of that.
