Debates of Oct. 20th, 2025

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, the debates we have here can help us develop and draft the best bill possible, but if we fail to ensure it is effective in the real world, it becomes a bad law. The Customs and Immigration Union tells us that we need somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 more border officers to keep the borders secure.

Will my colleague join us in our efforts to make this happen and ensure that this bill rises above mere lip service?

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we were first elected over 10 years ago. My 10-year anniversary was yesterday and it continues to be the honour of my life to represent the amazing Davenport residents. When we were first elected, the Conservatives had decreased the amount of money that was going to our border officers by about $1 billion. Over the course of a number of years, we brought that money back and, on top of that, there is $1.3 billion in additional money.

We have introduced bills like Bill C-12, and we have done it in collaboration with a number of stakeholders, including CBSA officers. This bill is formed with much of their feedback in mind. We have every intention of continuing to support them so we can ensure that, if this bill is passed, it is enforced properly.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, to pick up on the last question, the legislation is one very important aspect in terms of what the new Prime Minister has brought forward, but another important component is the budgetary issue. There is close to a $1-billion commitment and 1,000 new border security officers, not to mention the 1,000 new RCMP officers.

I am wondering if the member could provide her thoughts regarding why it is important, as a new government and Prime Minister, to provide not only legislation but also a budgetary response to the need.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate this afternoon. One of the things we have to remind ourselves is that it is like the whole world has completely shifted. There is a new global environment. There are now increasingly sophisticated criminal organizations. There is now a renewed international focus on irregular migration and cross-border crime. There are a lot of new things happening. In these days when there are so many changes happening around the world, we have to be very effective with the dollars we have.

I am very proud that our government, over the last 10 years, has not only invested about $1 billion in the border but has now made a number of legislative proposals to ensure the right legislation is in place to allow CBSA and RCMP officers to do their work. They have provided input into this bill. We have invested another $1.3 billion to ensure they have the resources they need. This is good value for money and we are working very closely with our international partners.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to stand here today on behalf of the citizens of Saskatoon West and speak to this bill, Bill C-12. I am going to speak mainly about the immigration aspects of this bill today.

The first thing that comes to mind when I look at this bill is to question why we are here. What is it that has caused all this to happen? The member who just spoke mentioned changes that she thought happened. In reality, they were not things imposed upon us so much as they were created by the Liberal government. There are many things happening in our immigration system, at our borders and with crime in our country that can be traced directly to actions by the Liberal government over the last 10 years.

If we go back to the previous Harper government, there were some very strong measures in place, such as mandatory minimums and consecutive police sentences. Police had the power to actually give consequences to criminals. Colleagues should know that crime was down. If they picture a V, when the Conservatives were in power before, violent crime was dropping, just like this side of the V. It was dropping significantly.

Mysteriously, when the Liberals took over, violent crime went back up. Why? It was due to all of the changes they made to the laws that were lenient on criminals. Those were some of the things that were done. It was not that they were imposed on us from an outside force. Those changes had real consequences for the people of Saskatoon West. Now here we are with the government trying to fix something that it created in the first place, so do not be fooled by what we are hearing today. This is a cleanup of a mess that was made by the government.

I want to talk about immigration. As I start, I want to just highlight something I have noticed online and in communications I have had with people, Canadian voters, which is a bit of a disturbing trend of attitude toward newcomers, immigrants, in our country. As I said, there are a lot of problems, for sure. Everybody knows that our immigration system has many problems. We have a lot of crime in our country in general. We also have problems at our borders. There are lots of problems in Canada.

Our immigration system is quite broken at the moment, for sure, but that does not mean it is the fault of newcomers to our country. I think that all of us in this room and anyone watching need to be reminded that unless someone is an indigenous person in this country, that they are an immigrant. We all come from that background. My grandparents were immigrants to this country, so I guess I would be a second-generation born in Canada, which makes me a third-generation immigrant in Canada. I am sure many of us have the same story.

It is really important to remember that what is happening in our country right now in immigration is not the fault of newcomers who have come here. It all started back in 2017 when then prime minister Justin Trudeau made his famous tweet that basically said, “Welcome to Canada”. That told people all around the world that Canada wanted everybody to come here. Guess what happened? People responded. Many people came. They responded by selling their homes and leaving their families, by leaving everything behind and coming to Canada because Canada wanted them. The prime minister himself said that Canada wanted them. In reality, former prime minister Justin Trudeau did that without having any clue as to how he was going to deal with that, how many people were going to respond and what would happen to those who responded.

I come back to the broken system that we have now. If a person is feeling anger toward immigration in our country, that anger needs to be directed where it belongs, to the Liberal government that was in power and still is in power. The Liberal government had the chance to set the rules. In some cases it chose to not make rules. It set the numbers. It decided how many millions of people could come in as temporary residents. The government invited people in peril, like people from Hong Kong, Ukraine and Sudan, to come to Canada.

In fact, just this morning I was reading a story about a family from Ukraine who has been here for a number of years through the CUAET program and now the family members are having trouble getting their visas, getting anything moving forward. In the story it says the humanitarian and compassionate stream, which is where Ukrainian people would fit in, faces waits of up to 50 years. It also says that for caregivers it is up to nine years, for the agri-food stream it is 19 years and for entrepreneurs under the start-up visa stream it is 35 years. These are ridiculous numbers. How can somebody who was invited to come to our country expect to wait 50 years to get permanent residency in our country? That is part of the brokenness that we see in this system.

Of course, the Liberal government created this mixed up immigration system. It used to be a very clean system in which we were looking for people with skills to bring to our country, in addition to family members and in addition to asylum seekers and refugee claimants. It was based on skills primarily, and now that has been changed to include all kinds of other political things in the numbers, so that people are admitted to Canada not just because of their skills but also because of other reasons that have nothing to do with their talents or their skills.

Of course we all know what has happened in our temporary resident population, whether it is temporary foreign workers or students. There were absolutely no checks on the number of students coming into our country, and as a result, people took advantage of the system. Colleges took advantage of the system. There were many unscrupulous immigration consultants who took advantage of the system.

Ultimately, regarding refugees and asylum seekers, the system collapsed. There were so many people coming in that the system just could not handle it. Even with some increases that were made by the government, we ended up with ridiculous wait times of four years or longer for asylum claimants in Canada. This is the system that the Liberals created in Canada, so anyone who feels any negativity toward immigration in our country needs to put that on the Liberal government. The Liberals are the ones who created it.

Michael Barutciski from the MacDonald-Laurier Institute said this: “The explosion in asylum claims post-Roxham is the result of two simultaneous policy decisions: (1) loosening the criteria for visa issuance and (2) allowing visa-free travel for potential asylum seekers...our quiet asylum crisis is largely a self-inflicted problem.”

Of course, right on cue, the people looking to profit from these kinds of situations marched right in. There are fake immigration consultants or immigration consultants who bent the rules to make a lot of money from the situation. Human traffickers are literally bringing people into our country to work, to make money off their backs. That is human trafficking. Employers are taking advantage of temporary workers, and people were able to set up fake colleges and make lots of money off the backs of people coming into our country. At the end of the day, it was all about money. There was a lot of money to be made through the messed up system that was created by the government.

Now here we are with Bill C-12, which is trying to fix some of this, and it would fix the big mess that was created by the government.

Similarly, border security has become a big problem in our country. Everybody remembers Roxham Road. Roxham Road should have been a wall. People should not have been able to cross at Roxham Road, but instead it was convenient, because there was a road from New York and a road from Quebec, so people started crossing at Roxham Road, and the government could have simply stopped that. It could have put up a little fence. It could have discouraged people from coming across, but instead it put RCMP and CBSA officers there and essentially asked them to help people come into Canada.

They had a strange thing to say to them: “You are not allowed to cross here, but may I help you come into Canada?” How did that make any sense? They were literally helping people, carrying their luggage and bringing them across the border. Once in Canada, they were given pretty good treatment as asylum seekers. In fact, in that area it became very common for taxis to drop people off. They would come across the road, and a whole industry popped up on the Canadian side of the border related to newcomers coming into our country.

Essentially, our RCMP and CBSA officers became “welcome to Canada” greeters, and more and more people came. This is what happens when we have a broken system.

Even on other parts of our border, there is a tremendous lack of technology. There is technology today that can scan containers and find what is in them; it can see exactly what is there, yet we have very little of this technology. We have not invested where we need to invest, and we do not have the people to do the checks that need to be done. As a result, a lot of stolen vehicles are coming into our country through container loads. There are a lot of drugs, and also the precursor chemicals that are used to make drugs, coming in unchecked, because we are doing a very poor job of checking what is coming into our country.

Of course, there are guns. There are a lot of illegal guns coming across the border that are used in crimes in Canada, and we should be checking more of those things, which we are not doing, so there is a gap in our system that has not been corrected by the government but needs to be.

There is fairly unorganized enforcement of our border. There are a lot of agencies. There is the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA; the RCMP; the immigration department, IRCC; the Immigration and Refugee Board, IRB; and the Coast Guard, among others, that patrol and monitor our border. It is not the members, the hard-working men and women who work for these organizations, who are the problem, but there is a lot of disorganization in these organizations. There is a lack of resources and even a lack of information sharing. These groups are not really allowed, because of privacy legislation, to share information from one organization to another, so we end up with a lot of duplicated work that is needed in order to solve crimes.

These are just some of the things that are missing in the system that we currently have, which is the system that has been created and fine-tuned by the Liberal government.

Last week, there was a very funny tweet, I thought. With all the problems of drugs and all the other things that are going on at the border, such as the illegal guns coming across and even human trafficking, what the Canada Border Services Agency is focused on, or at least last week was focused on, is this: “We’re taking action to protect our economy. CBSA is investigating whether certain imports of disposable paper plates, bowls, and platters from China are being sold at unfair prices in Canada (dumped) or subsidized.” This is the priority of CBSA today, with all the other things that are happening. It is embarrassing for me as a Canadian to see that.

Of course, surveillance at the border is not happening to any significant degree. The government made a big story about buying a couple of helicopters. Well, a couple of helicopters on a 7,000-kilometre border does not do a whole lot, and there is so much more than could be done with surveillance.

What happens? Organized criminals step in, which is the really negative aspect, because they see an opportunity to make money. International crime rings and cartels are using Canada as a base of operations for them to do all their nasty things and make a lot of money off us, and not just us, but off the U.S. as well. Drug smugglers are smuggling drugs into Canada and then into other countries from here. I spoke about gun smuggling, which is a huge market that happens at our border, as well as human trafficking. We should be severely focused on curtailing and stopping all of these things.

RCMP chief superintendent and director general, serious and organized crime and border integrity, Mathieu Bertrand, said, “We are aware that they [cartels] are a source of a lot of the illicit goods coming into Canada. These organized crime groups, whether they be in Canada or abroad, are using Canada as a trans-shipment point. Those groups…are very much involved in crime impacting Canada.” I think that says it all, which is that a lot of the source of the crime comes from our lack of properly defending our border.

Of course, money laundering is another thing that happens in Canada regularly because we lack the tools and the ability to really see what is happening in that world.

As a result of all that, there is surging crime in Canada. We have heard this story many times. I spoke at the beginning about violent crime's decreasing over the Harper years, and then, in the Liberal years, it has gone right back up again because of the actions the Liberals have taken. Crime is up significantly under the Liberal government. Gang murders have doubled, and violent crime is up over 39%. The actions taken by the government have weakened the laws and effectively protected the criminal.

For example, Bill C-5 eliminated mandatory minimum sentences. As we look at the crimes that are being committed in our cities, and I see it in Saskatoon all the time, we see that there are very few consequences, if any, anymore for committing crimes. This has emboldened criminals. It has emboldened gangs to get young people involved in crime, because they know there are no consequences for committing those crimes.

This is partly because of Bill C-5 where the mandatory minimums were taken away for significant offences such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, car theft and assault with a weapon. The list goes on. These are things for which the Liberal government chose to take away mandatory sentences, and as a result, there have been increases in these kinds of crimes. I guess the Liberals wanted to put criminals first and not put Canadians first. We need to restore mandatory sentences to put consequences for criminals back into the system.

The other bill that made a big change is Bill C-75. Bill C-75 basically promoted house arrest. It essentially made it very difficult to put someone in jail. As a result, people are out on bail. That is why we talk about people getting bail instead of jail. We want to make sure that people actually go to jail and not always get bail. This is part of the catch-and-release problem that we have in our country, where people get arrested for a crime, are charged with a crime, get out on bail and can repeat an offence. We see it very often in many cities in our country.

Repeat offenders simply walk free. They do not have any consequences. As I said, it just encourages them to keep doing what they are doing. It encourages gangs to keep recruiting new members, and it does not stop new members of gangs from committing crimes. That is why we want to bring back jail, not bail. We want to make sure that, particularly for repeat offenders, there are consequences to those crimes and that the offenders actually do spend some time in jail to slow the process of crime that is happening.

I just want to mention that we often hear the term “bail reform” from the government. I want to talk about that for a minute. We have to go back to what actually happened. Bail reform happened about 10 years ago, when the Liberal government came in. It implemented bail reform, and these are things I just described. Now, all of a sudden, the Liberals have finally woken up and realized that this is not working. Canadians have been telling them that for years, and they are finally realizing it. Now the Liberals want to do so-called bail reform.

Really what the Liberals are doing is fixing the mess they made with bail reform in the first place. What we are doing now is not bail reform; it is correcting the system, taking it back to the way it was, to actually having consequences for people who are committing crimes.

Of course drugs fuel crime, and that is part of the problem at our border. As I mentioned, drugs are flowing across the border shockingly freely. This has caused a big drug problem in our country. We all see it in our cities. I see it in Saskatoon. I am sure other members see it in their own cities.

Part of that is from the permissive harm reduction regime that has been promoted by the government. In fact, from what I have seen, it creates a cycle of dependence. In many ways, it is best compared to a palliative care kind of approach to dealing with people who have addiction issues, and it is not working. Safe supply has resulted in more deaths and more crime. The number of people on the streets who are involved in illicit drug use and in crime is just going up.

Instead of encouraging drug use by providing free needles, free hard drugs and all the other government programs, Conservatives believe drug users need a recovery-based system of care. We need to be compassionate with these people. They need help. We need to move them forward on the continuum of care so that they can actually get out of the situation they are in, not just allow them to remain there.

We need to bring home safe streets, schools and communities.

Just to sum up, we are talking about this today because of the failure of the Liberal government over the last 10 years. It is now trying to fix the mess it has created. It is trying to fix the broken immigration system, where we have backlogs that have exploded, where the focus on skilled workers has been lost, where the loopholes are wide open and where we have consultants, colleges and employers taking advantage of the system we have. There have been seven immigration ministers in 10 years. That is crazy.

The government is also trying to fix the chaos at the border. It has lost control of our borders. Illegal crossings are up, and enforcement is down. There are more shipments of stolen vehicles. Drugs and precursors to drugs are coming across the borders, and firearms are coming across the borders illegally. There is a surge of crime in our country, with violent crime and gang activity rising, and the soft-on-crime laws are allowing offenders to walk free.

We have a plan to fix immigration and to speed up processing for skilled workers. We want to secure the border by closing illegal crossings and restoring order to the border. We want to crack down on crime by reintroducing mandatory jail time, ending catch-and-release and backing our police to make sure that we keep our communities safe. That is our plan.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, International Trade; the hon. member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, Justice; and the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan, Housing.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to pick up on the immigration issue because now we have had two Conservative members stand in this place and be somewhat critical of the government on immigration policy.

It was not that long ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. Canada opened its doors, and I believe the Conservative party, at that time, supported us doing that. There were approximately 300,000 people of Ukrainian heritage who came to Canada because of the war in Ukraine.

Does the member believe that the federal government, or immigration, should allow for the extension of the work permits of those people who came from Ukraine?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged that the member for Winnipeg North recognized that I was being very critical of the government, so he is listening. That is good.

With respect to the Ukrainian situation and the people who were invited to Canada from Ukraine, this is, I think, the core message. Canada said to people from Ukraine, “Come here. We will give you a safe place to stay and options”, so they came. Now, the government is saying that it does not know what to do with them. It does not know what to do, and they are going to be here, in some cases, 50 years to get the paperwork through because it did not plan this properly. Even though it knew there were going to be 300,000 people, it did not actually think there were going to be 300,000 people. That is basically what the government is saying: It does not know what to do with people. They are here, and that is great.

I think we need to be fair and compassionate with these people. We invited them to come to our country, yet the government has not made a pathway for them to process their paperwork. Now they are stuck in limbo for potentially 50 years.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the practical implementation of these measures.

We all agree on the principle of strengthening border security. We may differ on how to achieve it, but we agree that it must be done.

However, border officers who testified before House committees repeatedly told us that there are not enough staff to carry out the necessary searches. For example, at the Port of Montreal, barely one container out of every hundred is searched.

I agree with the principles of the bill, but how are we going to implement it? Would my colleague support the government in investing more to increase border services personnel at ports and airports?

I also have a follow-up question: If his party wins the next election, can we expect additional funding to be allocated to border services?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one of the problems I have seen over the years from the government is that, when there is a problem, the solution is to throw money at it. It will add $1 billion for this and $100 million for that. We hear this all the time, over and over again. If there is a problem, the solution is money.

Yes, we do need more money. To hire more border guards takes more money, this is true. I would be in support of doing what we need to get our security up to where it needs to be, but that has to also come with the ability to train and hire people. That is not just about money. There are other factors at play there.

We also have to ensure that the laws in place are actually helping to achieve the goals we are trying to achieve. Having laws is great, but if we are letting offenders out on bail all the time, that does not help.

We need to have a cohesive system. We need the money, the training ability and the laws to work together.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, over the last very short period of time, I think it is three years, the Liberals have allowed three million temporary residents to come into the country, which is over 7% of Canada's population. We are hearing about the potential abuse of the asylum system by people who are on these visas. Their visas are expiring, and they are being counselled by unscrupulous immigration consultants to abuse the asylum system and make false asylum claims.

Can the member talk about whether he thinks the measures in the bill would be adequate enough to fix the mess the Liberals have made after the disastrous #WelcomeToCanada tweet in 2017?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is very right that there has been a big mess created with temporary residence. There are over three million temporary residents in our country right now.

The bill would absolutely not solve that problem. There are fundamental issues with the way the immigration system is being run in this country. There are fundamental errors that have been made by the government in not monitoring certain numbers, for example, the number of students who were permitted to come into our country.

As a result, we have the problems that we all know about, including a lack of housing, difficulty in accessing health care and problems with jobs. Our youth unemployment rate is very high. These are all things that are connected together, and these are things that the government could have managed. It could have seen the implications and the consequences of the decisions it was making and worked together to mitigate some of those things. The government has not done that. As a result, we have this problem in our country today. No, this bill will not solve that problem.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, probing the problem that this is an omnibus bill, most of the debate this afternoon on Bill C-12 was related to its immigration and refugee parts, but there are multiple parts on different acts. I am hoping my hon. colleague from Saskatoon West would agree with me that it would be far preferable, given the complexity of immigration and refugee issues, if the bill were to be split apart and only the committee on immigration and refugees would study the sections about immigration and refugees, not the sections on the Coast Guard, the Oceans Act, trafficking drugs, and so on. What does he think?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, I do not think Canadians really care who studies what. They want to see fixes. They want to see changes. They want to see improvements. From a technical perspective, the member is probably correct that how we deal with it in the House should be done according to who knows what about which area, but ultimately, the government needs to propose solutions that actually fix the messes it created.

While the bill would fix some of those messes, it certainly does not fix them all, so I am looking for more from the government. Canadians are looking for more. They want to see changes and improvements that would solve the problems they are seeing every day in their lives.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member sidestepped the question on Ukraine. I am a little confused as to whether or not the Conservatives actually supported Ukrainians coming from Ukraine during the war. Maybe he can provide a very succinct explanation. Did he support that number coming to Canada? I think it is a reasonable question.

The other thing is this: In the province of Manitoba, whether it be the chamber of commerce or the provincial government, many different stakeholders want to keep all the temporary workers currently in the province. I wonder if the member could provide a comment on that, if he does not know what to say about Ukraine.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of Ukraine, these are people who are fleeing war. Their houses may not even exist anymore. We invited them to come to Canada. They are here. They came here. Part of that deal, at least in their minds, was that there would be a path to permanent residency. That has not been offered by the government. I think that, yes, absolutely, those people need to be treated fairly.

With respect to temporary people in general, we need to be very careful about how we manage temporary residents in our country. We have to make sure that the policies we have in place are good for our country and for the residents we invite to our country.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that we need just a few more moments to touch on the fact that, as I watched this over the years, the Liberals are very good at creating chaos and then pretending, by throwing money at it, that they are fixing what they created. We are supposed to trust them after they created the problem in the first place.

I wonder if the member could touch on the matter of trust.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague said it very well. The government creates problems and then fans out money to try to solve them. Often those solutions do not happen. I think that is one of the reasons why Canadians have grown very weary of the government over the last 10 years. It is why there are such high levels of angst in our country. It is why there is a lack of trust in government in general. We all feel that. It is, I believe, because of the actions taken by the Liberal government.

It is important that we act well and make changes that are going to improve the lives of people. While the bill would do some of that, there is still much more to be done.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to stand in this place to speak on behalf of the great people of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. I also speak as the shadow minister of national defence to reflect the concerns of the defence community, including the brave women and men who serve in uniform. I want to speak about some of the changes taking place because of the Liberals, as well as the lack of interest and investment in the Canadian Armed Forces.

I will be splitting my time with the great member for Oxford.

I want to give a big shout-out to the member of Parliament for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, the shadow minister of public safety; the member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill, our shadow minister of immigration; and the member for Saskatoon West, who just spoke. They have really put a lot of work into Bill C-12 on the immigration side, on public safety issues and on border security.

It is through their good work and the amount of exposure we, as Conservatives, have been able to give that we were able to mobilize citizens and civil society on Bill C-2 and look at all the violations of civil liberties being done by the Liberals. That bill was a big power grab that would erode charter rights, including the search and seizure to be done by Canada Post employees and the invasion of privacy rights online, through telecoms and banking changes. They would all violate the civil liberties of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

The Privacy Commissioner himself said that he was never consulted by the Liberals on the drafting of Bill C-2 and had a number of concerns about it. We should never bring forward bills that erode the civil liberties of law-abiding Canadians, and that is what the Liberals continue to do time and time again. They go after people, like law-abiding firearms owners, rather than going after the gun smugglers and those using guns in illicit crime. They always do the easy thing and make it sound like they are doing something, but at the end of the day, all they are doing is targeting law-abiding Canadians.

On Bill C-12, as Conservatives, we will do our homework. We will continue to look through this bill to make sure that Canadians' rights are protected, that the Liberals are not bringing forward any sneaky new laws trying to breach the rights of Canadians through this bill, especially civil liberties and privacy rights. We are concerned that there are things in here that are not going to do anything to improve immigration, improve public safety or strengthen our borders.

There is nothing in the bill on bail reform. There is nothing in the bill to give the Canada Border Services Agency the ability to police the entire border, not just ports of entry. There is an increase in sentencing provisions for those who are either smuggling in guns or trafficking fentanyl, and for other crimes that are being committed by transnational organizations. With the Liberals, house arrest is still allowed for some of the most serious crimes and offences, including for those who have breached the border.

I am going to spend the rest of my time talking about the Canadian Coast Guard, which is part 4 of the bill. We support the great people at the Canadian Coast Guard for the work they have been doing for a long time. We believe we should expand their national security and defence mandate. We do support the idea of bringing them in under national defence, but we want to make sure it is being done for the right reasons and that the Coast Guard is given the right tools to do the job that we are going to be asking of it.

We are concerned that the Liberals are only doing this for creative accounting purposes to try to increase their spending to meet the NATO 2% target, which they have to do in the next five months. Here we are in the middle of October, and we still do not have a plan or a budget from the Liberals on how they are going to get to that level. The estimates that we have to date show we are going to spend somewhere around $44 billion on national defence. In reality, to hit the 2% target, the Liberals are going to have to spend $61 billion. Where is that money coming from? What are they going to spend that money on?

We only have five months left, and we know that the Department of National Defence and Public Services and Procurement Canada have always had a hell of a time trying to spend money before the end of the year, and this money cannot just be shovelled out the door. There needs to be a plan on how that is done, and we do not think that is going to happen. That is why we will see some creative accounting through bringing the Coast Guard in under national defence. We are going to get some extra spending but not necessarily any new defence capabilities for Canada.

We would like to see, on every Coast Guard vessel, new sensors and weapon systems, so not only could the personnel do the surveillance that would be asked of them under Bill C-12, but they could also defend themselves if need be. As my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford said earlier today, the only things that are currently on Coast Guard vessels that have any fire power are shotguns for personnel use to protect themselves in case they run up against any predators.

Thinking about icebreaking ships in the Arctic and polar bears, they have a few shotguns with banger shells in them to scare off the polar bears. They have another rifle that shoots beanbags so that they can throw a rope and tether to another ship or come alongside another ship for those purposes. However, there is no actual capability to defend themselves if need be. As the bill says, we would give them some security patrol capabilities, or responsibilities without any new capability. That is something we are really concerned about.

I want to make sure that Canadians and the House understand that the Canadian Coast Guard to date has no interdiction or enforcement capabilities or mandate. Right now, if the Coast Guard vessel operators encounter somebody fishing illegally, they have to contact the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to bring on one of its enforcement officers to make the arrest and levy the fines. We know that if they encountered somebody in our waters who was smuggling guns or involved in human trafficking, they would have to bring on board RCMP officers to make the arrest. They do not have any of those available at sea.

The current Coast Guard budget is about $2.4 billion to date. It has been able to include, in the defence allocation for NATO in the last fiscal year, only $560 million out of that $2.4-billion budget. Again, with a stroke of the pen, the Prime Minister is trying to take money from the Coast Guard and move it under the Department of National Defence without actually meeting the NATO requirement.

I will just read what the NATO requirement is. This is out of one of its fact sheets from June 2024, regarding the definition of NATO expenditures that has been in place since the 1950s. It states:

A major component of defence expenditure is payments for Armed Forces financed from within the Ministry of Defence budget.... They might also include parts of other forces such as Ministry of Interior troops, national police forces, coast guards etc. In such cases, expenditure is included only in proportion to the forces that are trained in military tactics, are equipped as a military force, can operate under direct military authority in deployed operations, and can, realistically, be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force.

The Canadian Coast Guard is a civilian operation that has none of those capabilities or training at this point in time, and that is why we need to make some changes.

Taking aside the creative accounting in trying to find another $20 billion, and the shell game, we look at the order in council that was done by the Prime Minister on September 2. He gave the powers, under the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act, that the Coast Guard would be transferred from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans over to the Department of National Defence. That includes the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard support services group.

As we just heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, the Coast Guard would still maintain its responsibilities under the Oceans Act. Under the Oceans Act, “minister” means the minister of fisheries and oceans, and Coast Guard services are included. This is under paragraphs 41(1)(a) to 41(1)(e):

(a) services for the safe, economical and efficient movement of ships in Canadian waters through the provision of

(i) aids to navigation systems and services,

(ii) marine communications and traffic management services,

(iii) ice breaking and ice management services, and

(iv) channel maintenance;

(b) the marine component of the federal search and rescue program;

(c) response to wrecks and hazardous or dilapidated ships;

(d) marine pollution response; and

(e) the support of departments, boards and agencies of the Government of Canada through the provision of ships, aircraft and other marine services.

We now know that the Coast Guard would have two masters: the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of National Defence. How is that going to work, and how do they capture all of this, with no paramilitary or border security role or mandate, out of the Oceans Act into Department of National Defence spending?

Even though, in part 4 of Bill C-12, on page 11, they would add 41(1)(f), “security, including security patrols and the collection, analysis and disclosure of information or intelligence”, the bill does not provide anything beyond that.

Conservatives support the move of the Coast Guard, but let us make sure that if the Coast Guard is under the Department of National Defence, we give it the tools, the capabilities and the training so that it can do the job that will be accounted for by the Liberals in their budget.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, the member was part of a government that made cutbacks to Canada border control. If we contrast that to Canada's current Prime Minister, not only are we committed to bringing forward legislation that would help in securing our borders, but the Prime Minister and the government have also made it very clear that we are going to provide financial resources. A good example of that is 1,000 new Canada border control agents, people working in CBSA.

Does the member not agree that the contrast between the Conservatives and the Liberals is quite extensive, with the Liberals definitely showing goodwill in getting things done in protecting our borders?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member for Winnipeg North, who has spoken the most words in the House but says the least in every intervention he makes, that it was the Conservative government that moved CBSA officers from being civilian agents to being paramilitary. We trained and armed them.

The former deputy commissioner for operations of the Coast Guard, Chris Henderson, was at the defence committee a few weeks ago. He said that “my strong recommendation is to provide new legislation—the Canadian Coast Guard act—that would enshrine its national security role” and that the Coast Guard “should be given a law enforcement mandate to protect Canada's interests any time and anywhere in our huge expanse of maritime territory.”

The Liberals can talk about the 1,000 new border agents, which need to be given control over the entire border, but let us make sure we turn Coast Guard officials and agents into actual peace officers so that they can do the job of protecting Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member for Winnipeg North, who has spoken the most words in the House but says the least in every intervention he makes, that it was the Conservative government that moved CBSA officers from being civilian agents to being paramilitary. We trained and armed them.

The former deputy commissioner for operations of the Coast Guard, Chris Henderson, was at the defence committee a few weeks ago. He said that “my strong recommendation is to provide new legislation—the Canadian Coast Guard act—that would enshrine its national security role” and that the Coast Guard “should be given a law enforcement mandate to protect Canada's interests any time and anywhere in our huge expanse of maritime territory.”

The Liberals can talk about the 1,000 new border agents, which need to be given control over the entire border, but let us make sure we turn Coast Guard officials and agents into actual peace officers so that they can do the job of protecting Canada.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we all agree that we need better controls at the border and that this requires many new measures.

Bill C‑12 is the new version of Bill C‑2, which created a significant backlash in civil society because many people outside Parliament and in the opposition believed that, in an attempt to strengthen border protections, the government would be infringing on certain rights and trampling on the privacy of many people. It seemed a bit contradictory.

Earlier, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety told us that the government removed from the bill many of the elements that civil society and the opposition found unacceptable in order to table Bill C‑12, on which there is a broader consensus. At the same time, we are being told that all the other measures that were unacceptable are not being removed, that the government is still interested in them and that the government is ultimately going to come back to Parliament with these measures, such as allowing the police to open mail.

Could my colleague please explain which measures were in Bill C‑2 but are not in Bill C‑12 and which ones he would like to see again in another bill?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in Bill C-2, giving the power to employees of Canada Post to seize and search mail without a warrant is a complete violation of our charter rights. Everybody is entitled to jurisprudence, and that was undermined by the Liberals. In Bill C-2, they were also going after the seizure of information through Internet service providers and telecom companies, which we know is also in violation of privacy rights. Finally, under Bill C-2, the Liberals want to limit the use of cash to under $10,000 a year. Undermining our legal tender in this country is ridiculous.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, is the member concerned that our NATO allies will see right through the accounting trickery of shifting a budget for the Coast Guard from a civilian budget to the Canadian Armed Forces without actually improving or enhancing our defence preparedness?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt in my mind that the Liberals are strictly making this change to the Oceans Act in Bill C-12 to make sure they have the ability to declare that they have now given the security and border control mandate to the Coast Guard, which should be counted toward the 2% and now the 5%. They will not fool anyone at NATO with this trickery, as my colleague said. At the end of the day, according to their own definition, they have to have the ability to provide military tactical capabilities, which the Coast Guard currently does not have.