Mr. Speaker, they need to understand the system before they start levelling the allegations that they have.
The Conservatives need to be a bit more understanding in terms of what happens in our communities. There are individuals who make bad decisions. Sometimes it does not necessarily justify a deportation. In some cases, it does not justify it. There could be extenuating circumstances that need to be taken into consideration, yet the Conservatives stand back and say nothing.
Where is that caring attitude for real people who are not committing the types of crimes that have been referenced by the mover of this legislation? At the end of the day, with the types of crime that are being suggested, people are going to be deported anyway. If someone is going out there and raping another individual, do we really believe that they are going to get special treatment from a judge when they go before a court? It is nowhere near the degree to which the Conservatives are trying to put it on the record.
I would suggest that it does two things. It clearly demonstrates that the Conservatives do not have respect for judicial independence. They do not respect judicial discretion. They talk about the rule of law, but let us look at the legislation they have brought before the House. The legislation consistently questions judicial independence and a judge's ability to have judicial discretion. They bring in legislation that is not charter-proof. They are prepared to walk on the rights of Canadians and, I would even suggest, permanent residents. Not everyone gets Canadian citizenship and has been here for 40 years. They do not for a number of different reasons.
It affects all communities. If you stand up and you are going to a multicultural event, tell them to their faces your feelings that even though they are here for 30 years, they should not be treated like a Canadian. Shame on the Conservative Party.
We live in a multicultural society, and there are good reasons for that. Many constituents whom Conservative members represent do not have a Canadian citizenship. There are well over a million plus; I would suggest it is probably over two million people who live in Canada who have been here for years and do not have Canadian citizenship.
At times some of them might fall on the other side of the law, and it does not necessarily mean that they are bad people and have to be deported. In certain situations, yes, but the difference is that Liberals believe in judicial independence. We understand the necessity of having discretion for our judges.
The Conservatives were talking about immigration numbers. The member for Calgary Nose Hill made reference to the “high immigration” numbers. Let me remind the Conservatives that I was in the opposition when Stephen Harper, back in 2014, said that they wanted to increase the number of temporary students and instructors to over 400,000 temporary visas by 2022. That was a Stephen Harper commitment. Following that, we had a pandemic.
There is a reason we have the situation we have today. Yes, there is responsibility on all of us, on all sides, to try to do what we can to stabilize our immigration, temporary visas and so forth, but continually and consistently, we hear from Conservatives who downplay the importance of immigration. They have a lack of respect for permanent residents, and we have seen a good example of that today. I would suggest that the Conservatives need to stop thinking about the far right movement within their caucus and start thinking in terms of what is in the best interests of Canadians.
This is legislation, as you can tell, that I will not be supporting. I do not see the merits of it. I think it is a betrayal of judicial independence and a betrayal of allowing judges to have discretion.
The Conservatives have not demonstrated at all that judges as a whole have not used proper discretion. Yes, there could be individual cases out there, but I have not heard a great amount of detail on those cases. Many of the types of cases we hear today are the same types of cases that would have been told when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the current leader of the Conservative Party sat around the Conservative caucus, but at that time, they did not do a thing.
Today, the Conservatives are so far to the right that they want to appeal and say things that are ultimately, I would suggest, anti-immigrant. That is the reality. That is the type of thing we are seeing from the Conservative Party as it makes that shift even further and further to the right. It is no wonder Joe Clark said that he did not leave the Conservatives; the Conservative Party left him. It is the reason we have Kim Campbell feeling so uncomfortable with today's Conservative Party.
Is it any wonder that, at the end of the day, the Conservative Party needs to start seriously doing some internal review? We will wait and see what happens to the leader of the Conservative Party. I suspect he might get a few bumps, but at the end of the day I suspect he will survive, because the majority of the caucus is far to the right, based on the types of things we have been hearing in terms of not wanting the government to invest in social programs and that there is no role for the Government of Canada to build on social programs, whether it is health care, pharmacare, dental care, food for children, child care programs or supporting our seniors.
The far right and the Conservative Party do not like government. That is the type of thing we are seeing more and more of coming from the Conservative Party of today inside the House of Commons.