Madam Speaker, I figured I would get interrupted a few times. I am ready for the right-wing troller trash to be unleashed on me as well as a result of my comments. I am completely ready for that, because what this motion would do has nothing to do with facts or how we can perhaps reform a system. It completely has to do with dividing Canadians, trying to use the Trumpian sentiments that we are seeing south of the border to bring that level of debate to our country.
Frankly, I find this motion to be irresponsible. I find this motion to be dangerous. In fact, I find this motion and debate to be lazy on the part of the official opposition. They can do better with their time. There is enough to debate and criticize the government on, there always is, to help build our economy, but to bring forward a motion that picks on refugees, immigrants and those seeking asylum because they are facing hardships and political persecution in the countries they come from is wrong. That is absolutely dead wrong.
I sometimes wonder if there is some sort of Conservative ChatGPT that exists out there and if, whenever they are having problems, they just ask for five ways they can pick on immigrants to solve the problems. That is exactly what we see from Conservatives time and time again. They never learned the lesson that dividing Canadians the way they are doing right now through this motion is not going to help build a strong country. It is not going to help build a strong health care system for all Canadians.
We saw the same thing from the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, for the challenges she is facing and the mismanagement that she is responsible for. What is she doing? She is going to have a referendum on immigrants. How lazy must one be to think that is the way to solve the problems? That is not healthy debate. That is not looking at the facts.
Why do we not, then, look at the facts? Yes, the amount of money that goes into the interim federal health program has gone up. There is a very simple reason for that. It has gone up because the number of refugees who have come here seeking asylum has gone up as well. Of course, correspondingly speaking, more money is going to get spent to help those individuals receive health care services while they are in Canada and working through the system. For the official opposition to make these claims now, without any proof or data as to how many of those people are asylum claimants versus refugees, how many of their cases have been rejected or not or what stage of the process they are in, is absolutely trying to cloud the entire topic and not looking, factually, at what is happening and perhaps coming up with concrete, thoughtful solutions as to how to improve the system.
In fact, the government is looking into ways to improve the system, but we are not using language like “fake refugees” or “deport foreign nationals” or “bogus refugees”. That is, purely and simply, Trumpian language. I know so many members of the opposition personally. I know they do not believe in that. They should please not fall for that or take the bait of this below-the-belt conversation by going for the easiest thing. We have worked hard to build this country for everyone. All of us, with the exception of indigenous people, have come from some part of the world. People have come because life in the place they lived was not good. They wanted to come to this country to build a better life. So many of the ancestors in this place came through war-torn Europe. Why did they leave? They came as refugees on boats, because they wanted to build a better life. Were we going to deny them the kind of care they needed so they could rebuild their lives? Absolutely not, so why is there a double standard now? Why do we want to change our position now? Why is it so easy to call them bogus and fake?
We are better than that; we can be better than that. We can have better conversations and better debates in this chamber. What are we going to talk about next, remigration? Is that the next eventual debate we are going to have, where we start talking about somebody like me, who came here 37 years ago, and say that it is time for me to leave? Is that what we will be talking about next? This is where the conversation will go if we do not stand up today to have a thoughtful conversation.
I am not suggesting that the program being debated is perfect, but then let us talk about solutions. Let us not talk about bogus refugees, fake refugees or deporting non-nationals.
