Mr. Speaker, in many ways, I disagree with the motivation that is behind bringing this piece of legislation forward. The member herself even made reference to what is happening with public opinion in regard to immigration in general.
Is it any surprise that the Conservatives like to feed that perception? We see that with a number of actions and statements that they make. Even when I posed a question, the member responded by saying that I laughed and that the Liberal Party laughed. That is just not true. At the end of the day, I suggest they look at what happened. I did not laugh. I take the issue very seriously.
What I see across the way is a Conservative Party that does not take the issue of judicial independence very seriously, nor do its members have any concept of what good, sound public policy is in the best interest of Canadians and permanent residents. They would like to talk about the extremes and then exaggerate them to the degree that they feed anti-immigrant feelings in our country. I say shame on them. I think it does a very strong disservice to Canadians in general.
Let us think of a permanent resident. We could have a permanent resident living in Canada for 40 years. Do members know that permanent residents actually have family members here, some of whom do have citizenship?
Let me give an example of one file I had not that long ago. There was a father who was married, and he had a number of children. I believe he had three, or it could have been four; it might have even been five. It was at least three children. They were all citizens, but he was not. For a number of reasons, he was not. He was a permanent resident. There was an incident that involved drugs. At the end of the day, I believe that at the—