Art Hanger

[Immigration, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Yesterday in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration the minister revealed that he wants to attract more immigrants from Europe. I ask the minister to assure this House he has no intention of introducing ethnic or racial criteria into the government's immigration policy.

[Police Memorial, March 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the gallery. In our presence today are family members of police officers who have been tragically killed in the line of duty.

They have come to Ottawa to take part in the unveiling of a memorial dedicated to those officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice during the service and protection of their communities.

Names like Van der Wiel, Sonnenberg and King may not be widely known but they should be universally respected. It is that respect that I am expressing to the families assembled here today.

The dedication will take place at the Summer Pavilion on the Hill at 5 p.m.

I encourage all members to take a moment today to remember those officers who have been our most noble and brave public servants. May their legacies be a reminder to all of us of the need to reform our criminal justice system so that no more lives are needlessly lost to those elements of society who have not learned to respect the laws of our land.

[Immigration Act, March 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to speak on the subject of immigration for the second time today.

I am going to be taking another side to this debate. I should point out this House has not been active in the promotion or discussion of legislation dealing with immigration and I applaud my hon. colleague for breaking ground.

Our current Immigration Act despite its enormous length has the appearance of having no teeth as its enforcement is sorely lacking. This also applies in the area of visitor visas. In the minds of many Canadians it fails to ensure that Canada is adequately protected from abuse.

Canada needless to say is a nation with a sterling reputation for compassion and openness. However when that openness is abused the result can be a backlash and a decline in Canadians' tolerance for newcomers or even more so directed toward the legislation that does not seem to fit the abuse. Polls indicate that this is precisely what is happening now.

Canadians see example after example of abuse in the system. They fail to see that immigrants are not to blame per se since those immigrants or visitors who are abusing the system are only taking advantage of the incentives for abuse that our present immigration law provides.

One area of abuse that may not make the headlines frequently but that is nevertheless a growing strain on our immigration system is the failure of many to leave the country after the expiration of their visitor visas. As a result of this abuse, immigration officials have been tightening up the requirements needed for visitors to enter Canada on visitor visas.

Currently one of the determining factors in whether or not a visitor visa will be granted to an applicant is if the applicant poses a risk for non-compliance with the terms of departure from Canada. This security is especially hard on young males and unattached people who it is often determined may have little reason to return to their native land. This is especially so when Canadian immigration is unable in most cases to undertake the process of apprehension and deportation of people who have overstayed their visas.

However if family members who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada were able to post a bond and the posting of that bond were allowed to influence the decision making of the immigration official, then not only would the possibility of overstaying be reduced but so would the likelihood of unjust rejection for visitor visas. At least that is how it should work in theory.

In reality however this legislation may have the effect of actually encouraging more abuse of the system. This legislation if passed, may result in even more people coming to Canada with no intention of leaving and then staying on without ever being apprehended. Allow me to explain why.

This bill makes no mention of the size or the type of bond, whether it is cash or security. Therefore we must assume that the bond will not be overly sizeable. If that is the case then citizens or permanent residents of Canada who desire to bring to Canada a family member may well end up making a rational, economic decision to buy a family member into Canada using a bonded visitor visa rather than going through the long and complicated process of sponsoring under the family class.

Further, when one sponsors a relative there is an obligation to support the individual for a lengthy period of time. I know this requirement has been ignored by many and is also rife with abuse. Nonetheless it is a requirement that presents an obligation which could be enforced, if this government would only demonstrate the political will necessary to enforce it and to support its enforcement officers and divisions.

Were one to sponsor a visitor visa by posting a bond, there could be at most the loss of a couple of thousand dollars. No further financial or more important, legal obligation would be pending. Instead of accomplishing what this bill on its face seems to, this bill would in fact open the doors for further abuse.

I have brought the text of this bill to the attention of individuals with far more knowledge than I possess in the field of immigration. After review, the response I received from them was that while this bill could help to make the visa process somewhat less discriminatory, the price could very well be a flood of visitors who intend to take up residence in Canada by overstaying those visas.

Furthermore I was told that it is virtually impossible due to manpower shortages and legal limitations to track down, apprehend and deport illegals who have overstayed their visas. A huge percentage of illegal immigrants to Canada have used this route to enter the country. This legislation, by making the process of acquiring a visitor visa easier for those individuals who pose a high flight risk could make the number of illegals that much higher.

Further this legislation could make it impossible to charge a citizen or permanent resident of Canada with aiding or harbouring an illegal immigrant. After all if one has posted a bond and then forfeited the funds then legal recourse may be exhausted.

There is also the issue of fraud to consider. Fraud permeates the immigration process in Canada in the form of faulty travel documents, falsified visas and the transfer of documents. It is regrettable that this bill does not address this issue. Rather this bill seeks to make the acquisition of visas even easier and ignores the rampant abuse of the visitor visa system that currently exists.

One other point should be made regarding this bill. This bill assumes there is some mechanism to determine if and when a visitor on a visa leaves the country. How else could the forfeiture of a bond occur? However there is no such process. While visa visitors do have their date of entry logged with Immigration Canada, their date of departure is not. Thus this bill is premised upon an enforcement mechanism which by all rights should exist but does not.

In short, I applaud my hon. colleague for having introduced this bill and to attempt the beginnings of a badly needed restructuring of immigration law. However this bill is shortsighted and suffers from the same malady that reflects so much of the legislation that comes into this House.

In theory we have a good idea here. I know the intentions of my colleague are laudable, but this bill would make a presently existing problem even worse. To make our immigration system function any worse than it does now would be to be jeopardize the future of all immigration into Canada by further raising the level of intolerance that this failed system has begun to create.

I respectfully oppose this bill.

[Business Of Supply, March 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I made general comments about more than just murder. If the member would recall, in my statement I was referring to drug pushers who have come illegally into this country although I am aware of other situations certainly. In several of them illegals have committed violent crimes as the member speaks of such as murder, robbery or assault.

It is not a question of directing our attention elsewhere. We have many problems in enforcement. There should be a deterrent to those with any serious negative intentions as far as our laws are concerned when individuals come into this country.

What I am expressing here is that they are not adequately being dealt with when they are perpetrating acts of this kind. We have laws. They should be enforced.

The opinion among the judiciary seems to be that aliens should be handled in a different way. People are fed up with that kind of thinking. They are looking for action. If you commit crime in this country, I do not care what your background is, you should be dealt with. You should be placed on the same plane as the individual who lives here and is breaking the law, the only difference being with the outsider is he should be immediately deported upon serving his sentence.

[Business Of Supply, March 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to be able to address the House on an issue of such importance. I only hope that my colleagues on the other side of the Chamber will look upon this motion seriously and thoughtfully.

In the minds of a vast number of Canadians there is no more important issue than crime and the failure of the justice system to deal adequately with crime.

During the course of my campaign I had the opportunity to unscientifically poll the mood of the public in my constituency to find out which issues held their attention the most. In my riding perhaps no other issue touched people as directly as crime.

There is no more glaring and headline generating problem than that of crimes committed by non-citizens, especially those who have come to this open country. Some of them have actually abused Canada's generosity and to make matters even worse, are coddled by our justice system.

I know that given our present levels of immigration the number of immigrant offenders is relatively low. Certainly immigrants are overwhelmingly committed to living peacefully and making a better life for themselves in Canada. Nonetheless there is a broad opinion that the rights of criminals who are not citizens or legal residents of Canada are being given precedence over the rights of law abiding members of society, both citizens and non-citizens alike.

As I mentioned before, there have been numerous examples of criminal activity on the part of illegal residents and new residents of Canada. The focus of these headlines and the subsequent public outcry over these examples has not been on the crimes per se, but on the fact that those criminals have been cycled through the Canadian justice system rather than simply removed.

In my own city I recently acquired information about two convicted drug traffickers, both of whom were in Canada illegally, having overstayed their visas. Both were sentenced to significant amounts of jail time. The obvious question to ask is: Why are these two criminals, neither of whom possess legal status in Canada, still in Canada after having committed these criminal acts and have served their time, or at least a part of their time? That is a good question to ask.

That is not the end of the story. These two gentlemen, predictably, did not serve their full sentences in prison. Instead, after a fraction of their sentences had been served they were released on parole. They were released back into the community where they could visit and live and begin to re-establish their lives despite the fact that neither of these men were legal residents of Canada.

The story still is not over. At the time of this case, one of these drug pushers when out on parole acquired the status of whereabouts unknown. In other words, he violated his parole.

The criminal justice system did not have the sense to simply run these two out of the country on a rail. Instead it used tens of thousands of taxpayers' dollars to prosecute and imprison them for a short time. Then the justice system was kind enough to allow these two out on parole, never mind the fact that neither should legally be allowed on Canadian soil in the first place.

When I spoke to the parole officials concerning this case, they informed me that any Parole Board decision imposed on an illegal alien took precedence over deportation proceedings. This particular case is not an isolated one.

Some may interpret this as an attempt on the part of the justice system to dole out just punishment. However, my constituents and many more Canadians across the country see examples like this as a drain on the system and a risk to our communities posed by a justice system that is rule driven, not common sense driven.

When Canadians are forced to support criminal illegal aliens through years of incarceration on our soil and then are forced to live among them when those criminals are released on parole, then all of us become the victims. We are victims not only of crime but also victims of a criminal justice system that does not have the sense to deal expediently and in a common sense way with people who come to Canada and commit crime.

I wonder if this House is aware of the fact that refugee claims are often heard not in the offices of Immigration Canada nor in offices abroad, but rather in Canadian prisons. As hard as it is to believe, current policy allows for refugee claims to be heard in prison. Even more difficult to believe is that refugee board

members are not permitted to take into account the character of the claimant as demonstrated by the fact that the claimant is in prison as they assess the individual's acceptability as a refugee claimant.

There are two issues apparent here. The first is the ridiculous disregard for character inherent in the refugee process. The second is Canada's willingness to house in prison law breakers who have not yet received the right to legally reside in the country.

Canadians are outraged that this government would not only subsidize the trials and incarceration of aliens, illegal or otherwise. They are also outraged that their safety is being jeopardized when instead a speedy deportation order would be the way to go.

One of the guiding principles of the Reform Party is the attention we pay and the regard in which we hold the common sense of the common people of Canada. People outside the justice system, but who nevertheless provide for its funding through their taxes and who are the victims of it when it fails to provide for their protection, have expressed to me and my colleagues that Canada's justice system is in dire need of some common sense reform. That is not just shared by the Reformers on this side of the House, but I hope members on the other side.

My colleagues have pointed out the tragic irresponsibility of a system that promotes and protects the rights of criminals over victims. I stand before this House to report that Canadians have lost faith in the justice system which spends thousands of dollars to harbour illegal aliens when they commit crimes. As I stated before, that victimises every Canadian who either has to foot the bill for such nonsense or is forced to live in a community that must needlessly be the home for criminals from abroad.

Recently the existence of another kind of foreign criminal has been brought to light in Canada. It has been discovered that Ottawa is the home of a former minister of justice in the brutal Barre regime of Somalia.

The existence of this individual in Canada has been known for some time now. Members of the Somali community in Toronto have brought to my attention the fact that they had made this government aware of the presence in Canada of several other members of that regime, people who may also have perpetrated horrible crimes against their own people in Somalia, but to no avail.

After a great deal of correspondence with the government and several pieces of investigative journalism which proved the existence of such people in this country, law abiding Somalis who now call Canada home are still waiting for justice to be done.

So many Somalis have fled Somalia and have come to Canada hoping to find a refuge. They soon discovered that Canada's immigration system seems unable to distinguish between genuine and non-genuine refugees. Also they discovered that Canadian politicians do not have the political will necessary to take action to apprehend and deport political criminals who have followed them to Canada. This is yet another example of the apparent disregard for the rights of the innocent and the law abiding while the rights and privileges of criminals are protected.

When will this government display the political will necessary to enforce laws that are on the books? I am concerned that we may never see that sort of political will exercised as long as this government is in power. Instead of firm proposals to help protect all Canadians from both Canadian and non-Canadian criminals, we will hear more soft talk about the charter, about the need to be fair, and about the need to protect the rights of the few.

This government will be in grave danger in four years. The unprotected may rise up in anger and demand that the criminal justice system be taken back from the constitutional attorneys. They will demand it be taken back from the special interests and brought back into the hands of those who can listen and respond to the common sense pleas for protection, truth, justice and national security which are being made across the land.

[Business Of Supply, March 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has quite a spirit of debate, undoubtedly obtained through her years in the courtroom. I should point out that to debate an issue such as this, there has to be some basis of fact.

The example of the Marshall affair in Nova Scotia was one where Mr. Marshall had actually contributed to his own demise in the sense that he lied to the police as was evident at the trial.

I would also like to point out the member brings to mind certain things that happen in society that may be contrary to the norm, where mistakes in judgment could be made in court. We do not live in a perfect society. This is one of the reasons we have laws. We also have high expectations for members of Parliament, yet often they have gone awry. MPs should be held accountable and are not above the law, yet it has happened that they seem to have been above the law on occasion.

Justice must not only be done but it must be perceived to be done. I believe the hon. member should get out of the committees she is on and into the society which she talks about. We cannot have deterrence if we do not have punishment. Would the hon. member address that point. How can we have deterrence if we do not have punishment?

[Supply, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his statement. It is certainly one in which many Canadians are interested. They definitely want to see things change in this whole area.

Will the minister clarify a point in reference to the support mechanisms for victims when comparing what is in place already for the offenders.

An individual will commit a crime and immediately he has various people coming to his aid. In fact, he need not even ask. First, he has legal aid and he is represented at the expense of the taxpayer by a lawyer. He has counselling at his disposal. He is placed in a system of incarceration that looks after his every need, health needs included. He has rehabilitation programs offered to him which he has no requirement really to follow through on. There is in effect little or no punishment other than the fact that he is removed from society and cannot move about with any degree of freedom, until he is placed on parole.

Before the end of his sentence of course he is eligible for parole. The Parole Board gives every consideration to him and little consideration of the effect of his presence in society after that decision is made. Again, I am referring to the view that many people in society have of the parole department.

As of late, several Supreme Court rulings have further jeopardized society, creating more victims, due to the fact that they have ruled on cases that have actually inhibited investigators from effectively doing their jobs.

My question to the minister is where are the forces, the established agencies, you might say, rushing to the aid of victims when in fact everything is moving in the opposite direction?

[Immigration, March 15th, 1994]

There is no question, Mr. Speaker, that there is an education process involved here.

The Reform Party is not opposed to immigration. What we oppose is the idea of increasing immigration levels at this time. It would appear that a majority of Canadians support our position and would like to see the minister's policy reversed.

In light of these facts, would the minister care to retract the statement he made to the press that anyone who disagrees with his policy is ignorant and uninformed?

[Immigration, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Recent polls indicate that the vast majority of Canadians are compassionate to immigrants but retain the belief that immigration levels must be reduced.

The minister has repeatedly defended his immigration quotas with references to the red book and the outdated Economic Council of Canada report. In this case it is clear that the red book is not consistent with the wishes of the Canadian people.

Could the minister explain why he continues to pursue this policy when it is clear Canadians do not support it?

[The Budget, March 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member.

The Official Opposition talks about reducing the deficit but continues to seek increases in federal transfer payments. The Official Opposition talks about deficit reduction by cutting government administration, yet federal transfer payments and social programs amount to 60 per cent or 70 per cent of the budget. The books cannot be balanced without cutting federal transfer payments to the provinces.

When will the member realize that his plan falls considerably short of doing any such thing as reducing the deficit when he insists on having lucrative social programs supported by the federal government?