Debates of Oct. 21st, 2025

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Scarborough—Woburn, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member said this was a historical moment, and it is a historical moment.

That is one of the most positive speeches I have heard from the opposition in a long time, with a constructive approach to building good government policies and strengthening bills. He talked about the police being effective. He talked about being very supportive of many of the measures. It is a huge contrast to what we usually hear in the House, where Conservatives are trying to disrupt and divide, not bring Canadians together.

I am very thankful for the member's speech. I think it was a positive speech. I think the member opposite has a bright future in his riding as a very positive Conservative. It is exactly what Canadians are looking for.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Scarborough—Woburn for his genuinely nice comments about my comportment in the House of Commons.

I will note and re-emphasize that, in this Parliament, Conservatives have heard what Canadians had to say, and we are working to improve the lives of all Canadians. We ran on a platform that included strong taxation measures. We ran on a platform to improve public safety. We ran on a platform to improve border security.

Imitation is often the best form of flattery, and I am thankful the Liberals have listened to the Conservatives and adopted many of our sound policies to improve the lives of Canadians. That is what collaboration in the House is all about.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

I know that my colleague comes to the House with great passion and a very rich sense of a desire to do well by his constituents, and Canadians for that matter.

The bill we are debating here today is a rehashing of Bill C-2. I wonder if my colleague could comment on what he saw as the issues of Bill C-2, as well as how we got here and why.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola on his incredible work and his adopting some of the greatest parts of Canada into his new riding, especially the Fraser Canyon.

The member has been working incredibly hard, and he was leading the charge in many respects on getting to Bill C-12. Why did we need to get to Bill C-12? Bill C-2 included provisions that would allow our law enforcement agencies to look at our Internet data, our Internet traffic and our mail without a judicial order. For many people in Canada, that was a step too far.

As I mentioned in my speech, we need to improve public trust in our institutions. Bill C-2 did not do that. Bill C-12 is a step in the right direction.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we talked a little bit today about part 8 of the bill, which includes some of the demands that the Bloc Québécois has repeatedly made concerning asylum seekers. However, there is something missing from the bill, and I would like to know where my colleague and the Conservative Party stand on it.

Do the Conservatives agree that Quebec has welcomed more than its share of asylum seekers and that there should be a mechanism to ensure a better distribution of asylum seekers across Canada?

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member from the Bloc Québécois raises a very valid point on asylum seekers.

Many Liberals were celebrating 10 years of Justin Trudeau the other day. One of the worst legacies of Justin Trudeau was his policies on the border. Justin Trudeau said to the world, “Hey, come to Canada.” Frankly, we had a de facto open border policy under his reign. It destroyed public trust in immigration, and Quebec was burdened with the brunt of that.

That is why Canadians do not trust our institutions as much as they did. We were not operating under an orderly and fair system. It was a free-for-all, and people were abusing the generosity of Canadians. That has to stop. The province of Quebec, and the rest of Canada where we saw this, has legitimate concerns with the poor failures of—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Markham—Unionville.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals say that they want to secure our border, but they have filled Bill C-12 with nothing but half measures that fail to target the core issues. They will be unable to combat transnational organized crime when they value the well-being of repeat offenders over law-abiding citizens. They will be unable to get a handle on our asylum system when they value economic migrants with bogus asylum claims over legitimately vulnerable people.

The Liberal half measures in Bill C-12 stem from their continued inability to both set up and enforce disincentives against bad actors. Fundamentally, the Liberals take the maxim of the three wise monkeys to heart: See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. The Liberals do not see the criminals. They do not hear the vulnerable. When they choose not to see the bad actors and not to hear the downtrodden, they by all means speak half measures into being.

Let us first address how Bill C-12 would fail to secure our borders, from a crime angle. I have a simple question: Do hard drugs like fentanyl just magically appear in our country? No, of course they do not. Some group has to produce them, and some group has to distribute them. The drug dealers should not be the only central target for the legislation.

The problem is that lax Liberal laws have altered our Criminal Code to put criminals first. Law-abiding Canadians live in fear, while repeat offenders serially reoffend against Canadian society, knowing there will be no consequences for their crimes.

The Liberals cannot just paper everything over with Bill C-12 while we still live in the madness legislated into being by Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. They are building bridges to nowhere, upheld by pillars of sand. How much longer must the Conservatives bring up the failures of these two bills?

Bill C-75 forces judges to apply a principle of restraint that puts repeat offenders back on the streets. Bill C-5 repealed mandatory jail time for serious offences, like extortion with a firearm or trafficking hard drugs like fentanyl. Thus, not only are we letting criminals with many offences roam free; we are also letting the ones who have performed the most serious offences at the highest frequency roam free. This is the pro-criminal world that the Liberals have legislated into being.

How do we stop the Liberal madness? The first step is clear: Put law-abiding Canadians above the well-being of repeat offenders. When we put hard-working, law-abiding and tax-paying Canadians first, at the top of our hierarchy, the policy suite to serve them unfolds naturally. We must disincentivize the crime that harms our law-abiding society, by locking up the repeat offenders rather than letting them roam free.

It is not hard to understand how disincentives work. When a toddler touches a hot stove and burns their hand, they will learn not to touch the stove again. Through this feedback loop, the child will learn not to repeat the mistake. Human behaviour is like a river flowing down a mountain. We can either dig grooves to enhance the flow down one path, or we can build dams to block the flow down another. The Liberals have been allowing the river of crime to flow unimpeded. We Conservatives plan on setting up some more dams.

Having addressed the failure of Bill C-12 to secure our borders on the drug front, let me redirect attention to how Bill C-12 would fail to do so on the asylum front as well.

Canada's asylum system was set up to protect truly vulnerable people, like those from Hong Kong or Ukraine. We cannot resettle every economic migrant claiming asylum to get a free hotel stay. However, this is our current state of affairs. We have made the asylum route a lucrative one and have incentivized it. We give hotel rooms to people with bogus asylum claims, while hard-working Canadians struggle with housing, health care and jobs amidst a general cost of living crisis, and while legitimately vulnerable people from Hong Kong and Ukraine have been left in limbo on their path to permanent residence, despite already being in Canada.

All that Bill C-12 would accomplish is to shift the burden to the courts, which is another half measure among half measures, as the Liberals choose not to see the bad actors and choose not to hear the vulnerable.

Let me bring my Liberal colleagues the voices of the vulnerable. I was shocked to discover that on October 9, the estimated time for processing individuals under the Hong Kong pathways to permanent residence was revised to being upwards of 10 years. My constituency staff have seen the processing times for cases of applications that have been situated in the IRCC pipeline for years jump from 25 months to 48 months after the October 9 threshold. For those who submitted their application this summer, processing times went from 25 months at submission to 10 years after October 9 . In the best of cases, it is a doubling of processing, and in the worst of cases, it is a quintupling of processing. In all cases, there are lives ruined and families put in peril.

Hong Kongers are a case study of a people that has integrated into our society. They do not take handouts. They are taxpayers who contribute to the system instead of getting free hotel stays on the backs of hard-working Canadians.

The Liberals can secure our borders from their out-of-control asylum system by removing all the benefits. A single action like this would have sweeping effects, and yet the Liberals have chosen the path of half measures.

In conclusion, my message today about Bill C-12 can be expressed in two concepts: incentives and disincentives. All we have to do is to stop incentivizing behaviours we no longer wish to see and to start disincentivizing behaviours we want to end. We cannot secure our borders with half measures that dance around the core problem.

People are the actors; people do things, so to stop bad actors from doing bad things, we must build systems of incentives and disincentives around the bad actors themselves. This is only impossible to do when we actually love and esteem the bad actors above the hard-working, law-abiding and taxpaying Canadians. As it stands, structurally, Bill C-12 does not see the bad actors and does not hear the legitimately vulnerable. Bill C-12 is a bundle of half measures that would not secure our borders.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on some comments made by a Conservative who spoke previously. Before I do that, let me share a quote from a Winnipeg Free Press article referring to the leader of the Conservative Party's calling the leadership of the RCMP “despicable”. I believe that the leader of the Conservative Party needs to apologize to Canadians for the reputational harm that has been caused to the RCMP.

When I raised the question with the member for Bow River, the member said that it was just management weakness of the RCMP. He is literally doubling down on what the leader of the Conservative Party is saying. Does the member across the way agree with the leader of the Conservative Party, and with his colleague from Bow River who says it it just management weakness? Do they believe in the RCMP—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. member for Markham—Unionville has the floor.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just asked a question that is irrelevant to what I just talked about.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.

If we want to talk about relevance, I would remind the member for Winnipeg North that yesterday, when I introduced a bill on intimate partner violence, a bill that has been widely accepted by so many and is about as non-partisan a bill as we can get, he talked about its being “American-style” politics and performative. I question the member's talking about other people doing such things, when he did that very thing.

My colleague, on the other hand, outlined what he called half measures, areas we need to improve. I wonder whether he could expand on that.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the half measures are not addressing the issues—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Order. Let us end the side conversation.

The hon. member for Markham—Unionville can resume his answer, briefly.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the half-measures in Bill C-12 would not address anything apart from what we already have. It would just be patching up bills that should have been repealed, Bill C-5 and Bill C-75, to truly attack the roots of the problems.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Scarborough—Woburn, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to re-approach the question asked by one of the members on this side.

We think the first line of defence for mitigating crime in this country is building a relationship with law enforcement. The Leader of the Opposition clearly showed huge disrespect towards some of the top RCMP and police officials in this country.

Does the member opposite think that in order for us to move forward as a country, as a government and as members we need to have a respectful relationship with our top law enforcement?

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the root of the problem is at the bill level and the policy level. The execution of bills is dependent on the proper set of policies that the government will have to table in order to fix all our issues. Right now, Bill C-12 is not addressing them.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill is being brought forward at a time when the Liberals are trying to address a lot of failures that are a result of their 10 years in government.

I am wondering whether the member wants to speak more to the Liberal failure to address crime and to the policies they brought forward that have made crime worse.

[Michael Ma, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the bill, as I said earlier, would do only half the job. It should be addressing the fundamentals of fixing up the borders, fixing up the Criminal Code and repealing Bill C-75 and Bill C-5 to really discourage criminal acts. We need to fix all these issues fundamentally, not just do a half-assed job.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I will just caution members about language in this place. Certain words would be considered unparliamentary.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Niagara South.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to participate in the debate on this split border bill, Bill C-12.

My riding of Niagara South is a border riding. The town of Fort Erie borders the city of Buffalo. The connection between Canada and the United States in my riding runs deep in our DNA. Everyone I know in every part of my riding has ties to western New York. Crossing the Peace Bridge was like simply crossing the street. Relationships and, indeed, every aspect of our region are, or were, tied to something or someone in the Buffalo or Niagara Falls, New York area. We cheered for the Sabres, of course, unless the Leafs were in town, in which case the KeyBank Center in Buffalo was often filled with a majority of Canadians. We were part of the Bills Mafia and lined up to cross the bridge to tailgate with our American friends.

We do not so much anymore. I am incredibly saddened by the current issues we are facing: trade disputes, tariffs and the strain and stress those are placing on literally thousands of people employed in my riding because we are a border community. Our cross-border business ties have become part of the very bone structure of Niagara South. Niagara South is a great example of what can be built with strong trade links and binational and international commerce.

I spent a lifetime in the local business community helping people grow their enterprises, commercialize their products and find markets in and outside Canada. We have struggled over the past 10 years with the brain drain of ideas flowing south to where capital is more readily available. Recent market machinations mean that our already-weakened innovation sector is at even greater risk. We are in a kind of economic purgatory right now. We have caved to Donald Trump after a decade of missed opportunities, failed industrial and innovation policy and declining productivity. We are now watching the Stellantis deal literally implode before our eyes, losing a long-term key investment and 3,000 jobs. This is a massive failure. There are repercussions to our trade failure, which the Prime Minister said is a rupture. It is an interesting case study in economic impotence.

Canadians want solutions, but the government has proposed none. The silence on the file, outside of platitudes and bold but meaningless political hyperbole, tells me that the guy who said he could deal with Trump is appeasing him or simply hoping to wait him out. The guy who said he would engage in nation-building projects simply announced old ones.

In my riding, the Peace Bridge is one of the most critical border crossings in Canada, facilitating over $50 billion in trade every year. Tourism from our American friends also drove our local economy.

An issue that came up during the election relates again, to the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie. Transport Canada invested $5 million, and the Peace Bridge authority also invested $5 million, to build new infrastructure to scan commercial vehicles leaving Canada. This is called the Peace Bridge pre-arrival readiness evaluation project, or PARE.

Multi-energy portal technology exists to scan the contents of trailers, containers and vehicles while the vehicle continues to move at around 10 kilometres an hour through the scanning lanes. It identifies what is actually inside these vehicles. We know that only a small percentage of containers in the major ports in Canada are actually inspected. This is why thousands of stolen cars are being exported to distant criminal markets.

This MEP technology is universally used in southern U.S. ports of entry and exit and can provide a full inventory of contents within a minute or two. This technology is not new, but for some reason Canada has dropped the ball on this in the most egregious way. Canada and taxpayers invested $10 million to build the infrastructure for this scanning equipment at the base of the Peace Bridge on the Canadian side two years ago. Guess what. The United States government invested $30 million, literally giving us this technology here in Canada. All we had to do was build the infrastructure, and we did.

Unfortunately, Canadian bureaucracy has held this project up because we cannot seem to get the Canadian nuclear regulatory authority to green-light the technology, a technology already safely and widely deployed around the world.

For over a year now, this infrastructure has lain unused at the base of the Peace Bridge and the scanning equipment has sat in storage somewhere in Baltimore, waiting for the Canadian government to live up to its end of the bargain. This technology is pretty amazing. Using state-of-the-art scanning, we can get a full history of the trucks that cross the border, such as driving records, the track record of the company crossing, e-manifest verifications and facial recognition for matching driver identity. We get a complete data package on the vehicle in minutes. This expedites trade and safety. It lowers emissions and commercial congestion. It expedites the identification of contraband and stolen goods.

Last week, I heard a minister across say something about scanning equipment being put into the budget, but I am not sure who it was. If this technology is being considered, my question is this: What took the government so long?

The government is talking big about beefing up our security at borders. This bill is supposed to have a major role in this, but we have been standing on the shoreline of this project and missed the proverbial boat to solve one of the most pressing problems plaguing Canadians right now: the theft and export of stolen vehicles. Even ministers of the Crown are not immune to this, one having had his vehicle stolen twice. The anxiety Canadians feel over the lack of response to this epidemic is palpable. We no longer feel safe in our safe zones and neighbourhoods.

The Prime Minister was in Niagara last week reannouncing old announcements. I would bet a dollar or two that he had no idea this technology was sitting at the base of the Peace Bridge. If he really wanted to look at game-changing opportunities, he would have stood there and fixed the bureaucratic logjam. Instead, he regurgitated old announcements and called it news.

I wrote to the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister of Transport in July urging them to get involved and fast-track this technology out of the bureaucratic logjam. Four months later, it is crickets. Is it any wonder Trump is taking advantage of us? We cannot even launch a project that is already built.

What about those 1,000 new jobs at the border? We have been hearing about these extra 1,000 border officers, a high-profile announcement with zero action. I have qualified constituents who have been waiting for months after applying with no response and no callback. No one at the CBSA has an idea of how this can be done. There is simply not enough training capacity.

There are other issues facing the CBSA that need to be fixed. Suicide rates in the organization have rocked its members. We need to pay attention to the entire cultural structure before making absurd political announcements.

Finally, I need to talk about one very serious issue related to this bill. Proposed section 6 requires operators of international border crossings, like the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, to provide existing, new or significantly expanded assets free of charge to the CBSA upon a simple request.

The Peace Bridge, unlike others in Canada, is owned by and operated through a binational authority, with no taxpayer or public funding. The operations of the bridge are managed through independent revenue streams or, in simple terms, tolls. This legislation imposes a blanket requirement on the Government of Canada to demand investment in new infrastructure without a financial contribution. This is an open-ended and serious flaw in the legislation. What it means directly is that, for non-federally owned or controlled border bridges, the only way to pay for capital expansion for federal freebies is through tolls.

There are federally owned bridges, such as Blue Water Bridge, Thousand Islands Bridge and Seaway International Bridge. Under proposed section 6, the costs would be borne by the government because it owns these border crossings, which is not the case with the Peace Bridge. This is a classic government download on the consumer and a lack of organizational understanding. Worse, it manifestly disregards the interests of local residents. The government needs to look at this unfair provision and make changes to ensure there is a level playing field. The legislation imposes a double standard.

There is so much more I could talk about regarding this bill, but time does not permit. There are serious issues to fix here. I hope the government will pay attention to the points I have raised. My riding's economy, people, businesses and jobs are inextricably linked to Canada and U.S. trade. Please let there be no absurd reannouncements of old projects. We have real problems to fix.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Scarborough—Woburn, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government takes our borders quite seriously, especially strategic borders like Niagara and others in Ontario. There is the largest infrastructure project to build a great bridge out in Windsor. There is investment in these regions because we know it is part of our economic trade and development, and it connects us to our largest trade partner.

However, I want to talk about a serious issue: the Leader of the Opposition and his comments around law enforcement. Recently, he made a comment that really broke down the trust between law enforcement and, I believe, legislators, especially the Conservative opposition.

I want to know if the member believes that a strong relationship with our top law enforcement personnel across this country is essential for building a stronger border. It is yes or no?

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting components of the member's question is that it has nothing to do with this bill.

Let us talk about law enforcement. With respect to the CBSA, we hear about the 1,000 jobs being created. I have talked to people at the CBSA and people who have applied for the jobs. There has just been no response. The people who run the CBSA just point out the actual annual turnover of officers, either through resignation or retirement. Unfortunately, lately, there has also been a series of suicides. That has impacted the ability of the CBSA to operate effectively. There is a personnel issue here.

The CBSA would hire 1,000 new employees every year, given the opportunity. That is the importance of law enforcement at our—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola.