Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to once again be on my feet to talk about some of the government's latest legislation. As a refresher from high school civics, the bill is now at third reading. This means it has been introduced in the House, debated, sent to a committee, amended and is now being debated a final time before we vote on whether to pass it. At every stage of this process, Conservatives have stood up to make the legislation better, to fix many of the glaring flaws in the bill and to be the voices of the people who sent us here. At every stage, it has also been made stunningly clear just how much the Liberal government has broken our immigration system after only 10 years in power.
Let us look at the facts. We know that immigration levels were too high for too many years in this country. We know that senior public servants in Ottawa knew that, too. We know they told the then immigration minister, who has also been the housing minister and is now the Attorney General. We know the Liberal government continued with the unsustainable, out-of-control immigration numbers anyway. It let in over a million people in just one year.
There are many reasons the Liberals and their bureaucrats would want to continue with high levels of immigration. Maybe it is to cover up for a declining GDP per capita, for cheap temporary labour or for other reasons, but the Liberal government did not pay the price for its bad decision-making. That has been paid by people in communities such as Cambridge.
In the last few years, Cambridge has been growing so quickly that it now feels like a metropolis instead of the small town we still see ourselves as. The demand for housing increased so quickly, and the prices went up so fast, that many people cannot afford a home in the neighbourhoods where they grew up. Our schools are bursting at the seams, and good luck trying to find a family doctor or getting into the ER if needed. Crime in the community is also rising. We know repeat violent offenders are often the culprits, but multinational gangs and criminals are also to blame.
The Liberal government literally allowed somebody who appeared in an ISIS video to come to this country. The new immigration minister herself still cannot say if the current process is sufficient or describe any of the steps in the process whatsoever. Those violent terrorists are in addition to the gangsters and gunrunners who have been taking advantage of our lax laws and security for years. These are people like Arjun Sahnan, who came here at just 19 years old, committed drive-by shootings and extortion and got arrested, but he hopped on a plane and fled to India for two years until he felt brave enough to come back to Canada last month when, luckily, he was arrested.
It was so infuriating to see the Liberals propose Bill C-3 in its original form because it was simply a rehashing of the same failed Liberal policies that got us here in the first place. It would allow unlimited chain migration to Canada in amounts that the government could not even properly estimate. It would have let people in with no security screening and without having to demonstrate proper language skills. Almost no substantial connection to Canada would have been required. This is the wrong way to go about fixing our immigration system. It is like leaving the front door of our house wide open and trusting that anybody who walks in is only going to sit down in the living room to watch TV. It just does not work like that, and Canadians know better.
However, the bill in its new form could go much further, and that is thanks to the advocacy and hard work of Conservative MPs here in Ottawa. There are amendments on the table to now include residency requirements, meaning those who want to be a citizen should demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada. That is common sense. There are also amendments to include language requirements, meaning people should be able to fluently speak English or French to become a citizen here. There is also a citizenship test, because everybody who becomes a Canadian should know about our country and its history.
The amendments also include a mandated security screening, so we can make sure that everybody who gets citizenship is somebody we can trust. Finally, there are requirements mandating that the minister reports to Parliament each year about the number of people who get Canadian citizenship. These are the kinds of things that people expect from our immigration system. It should meet our needs, keep us safe and preserve the value and honour of citizenship.
That is the main point of distinction. The Liberal government, frankly, has degraded the value of Canadian citizenship. It has made it easier for people who have committed crimes to stay here in Canada instead of deporting them. It abandoned all sense of restraint or reasonable immigration level targets. It even wanted to let people take their oath of citizenship, a solemn and dignified honour, online. It literally wanted to allow people to get their citizenship with a click of a button.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, want to protect the honour in citizenship and make our system stronger. That is why we put forward these amendments. It is why we worked with advocates and stakeholders to make the bill stronger.
I am noticing a trend in this place. Last week, I got up to speak to a similar bill, Bill C-12, and on that piece of legislation too, it was Conservatives who stood up to make a bad law better. That is exactly what we have done here with Bill C-3, and it is what we are going to do day in and day out with other proposals too.
I am really proud when I can go back to Cambridge every weekend and point to accomplishments like this as proof that our Conservative team is united, strong and working hard for the people we serve. If it was not for us working with other parties and stakeholders, a bad bill would not have just been proposed; it also would have become law by now.
I call on all members of this House to support these amendments. If it is not common sense to perform security screenings, if it is not common sense to have a citizenship test and if it is not common sense to make sure the people we welcome here have a substantial connection to Canada, then I really do not know what it would be.
The Liberals have not even fixed the mess they made of the immigration system over the last 10 years, and they already want to expand it. The Liberals' own ministers have said they cannot account for all the people they have lost in Canada who should not be here. With this many people currently undocumented and lost in Canada, it puts everyone in danger, especially those vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking and exploitation.
This is a widespread modern-day slavery crisis happening right here in Canada. It is well known that just last year, the UN put out a report that referred to Canada's temporary foreign worker program as a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery”. The report came out last year and is entitled “Visit to Canada”. It is only 22 pages long, and I highly recommend that all Canadians, but especially my colleagues across the aisle, read it to properly understand the Liberals' failures, which must be addressed before opening up Canada to even more exploitation.
The cheap, inhumane labour that the Liberals refuse to address is also further pricing young Canadians out of their future here in Canada. With the dream of home ownership already taken away by the Liberal housing crisis and so many of our youth struggling to put food on the table and living paycheque to paycheque, they are now having their jobs taken away by the Liberals. With the labour market becoming oversaturated, youth unemployment reached 15% in September according to Statistics Canada.
What future is the government leaving for the next generation when they cannot find jobs, afford food or look for a place to live? If the Liberals cannot even offer a future to current Canadians, what is left to offer new Canadians? Instead of trying to address the problems the Liberal government has made, it is already moving on to find new ways to expand the problem with bills like Bill C-3.
I will close by saying this. Canada is a proud country and we are all proud to be Canadians. This place was built by people who came here from places all around the world to contribute their talents and achieve their dreams. If we did not have immigration, we would not have a country, plain and simple. It is up to us now to make sure that this system and the immigration structure work for everyone. That is what we want to do here in Ottawa, and that is what we will always keep fighting for on Parliament Hill.