Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time.
The official opposition has moved:
That, as part of a continental perimeter initiative to secure Canada's borders and protect the security of Canadians and our neighbours, and to protect our trading relationships, the House calls on the government to:
(a) provide both immigration and Customs officers enhanced training and full peace officer status to allow them to detain and arrest suspected criminals or terrorists at the border;
(b) move Customs border officers out of the tax collection agency and into a law enforcement agency;
(c) detain all spontaneous refugee claimants appearing without proper documentation until their identities are confirmed and they have cleared proper health and security checks; and
(d) create a list of safe third countries, including the United States and member states of the European Union, from which Canada will no longer accept refugee claimants.
These basic requests arise from government employees on the line and are reasonably modest.
Since September 11, two changes have occurred that have put increased demand on our national leadership in politics and in business. First, is our declaration to respond to terrorism. Second, is the economic recession. The Liberals have left us unprepared for both. The Liberals cannot manage.
On the economic front, while there is a vital need to increase spending on national security, federal revenues are starting to shrink. The opportunity for the wise choice of reducing taxes and debt to competitive levels, while our economy was being lifted along by a buoyant U.S. economy, has passed us by. It can be said, in view of today's motion before the House, that the Canadian Alliance was right and the Liberals were wrong.
The government is also mean-spirited and dishonest when it claims that we are anti-immigrant or hard-hearted about genuine refugees, for we want an orderly and safe immigration and refugee system that operates with the highest possible level of integrity and reliability.
The government announced up to $250 million, generally for security matters, some of which might help immigration screening. However,100 immigration officer positions is only a start, not a solution. Resources must be utilized in the areas of increased staff deployment and training, enhanced security and background checks and aggressive deportation of failed refugee claimants and others. The immigration system likely needs 500 additional employees in its system around the world to meet our national security needs.
In respect of the citizenship and immigration minister, staff in her department at the lower levels, who have to carry out the system on the line, talked to me of their utter frustration and even disdain of the public relations game played by the minister since the September 11 attack. There is system-wide snickering from immigration officers when the minister oversells the improvements from Bill C-11 or the benefits of the maple leaf card. Although necessary, it is only one of the many holes that must be plugged if Canada has any hope of exercising basic sovereignty of its borders and protecting its people.
The majority of persons who attempt to swamp our protections enter Canada illegally by using passports of countries which do not require a Canadian visitor visa or they use someone else's passport who has obtained a visa. The passports are photo substituted and the person freely boards a plane to Canada.
Capacity creates its own demand and the ability to get through with low risk invites repeated testing of the system. Smugglers enjoy their lucrative business without a care of being caught as they receive only an insignificant punishment if ever prosecuted. The government does not have the political will to make people smuggling unprofitable.
Then there is the trump card played by thousands of people who declare themselves refugee claimants upon landing or a few days later after having disposed of their legitimate looking documents and having been carefully coached by their handlers as they arrive with a request for legal aid, welfare and the medical plan. Most refugee claimants are released into the community without Canada having knowledge about who they really are and what their backgrounds are.
We need to detain all surprise arrivals for whom we have any concern. It should be reverse onus and the burden should be on the claimants to demonstrate that they are indeed refugees and not something else, if they are using that particular category. The evidence for such a need is the high percentage who disappear once they are released into the community.
It is likely that most persons who arrive uninvited at our borders are not true refugees. They are those who do not wish to apply through the proper channels because they know they will not qualify due to a past they want to cover up or they are in groups that we as a nation have said we will not take, which is the policy assumption of the point-merit system of immigration.
Some may be fleeing prosecution and not persecution. Some use the refugee claim as a ruse to enter Canada to cross into the U.S.A. Most true refugees do not even have the means to get to Canada in that way.
In respect to the societal costs of the consequences, it is likely more cost efficient and a lot safer to first detain all refugee claimants. If all questionable people were routinely placed in holding centres pending necessary investigations and hearings, they would receive housing, meals, health monitoring and care. Their stories and the international reputation would be deterrents to the pressures on the system, just like the deportation of the British Columbia boat people which took the pressure off that type of activity.
If detained, claimants could not go on to another province if denied and under another identity begin a second and third refugee claim, as we have seen. Criminal checks could be completed while the person is in custody, if the government ever got serious about access to databases from all available countries rather than just within our own lists.
The voice of one immigration officer says it for many. He said recently:
I could no longer tolerate the frustration of seeing the fraud being perpetrated on the naive taxpayers of this country and which I was impotent to prevent. I have never been more certain of my decision to leave this department as I have since September 11. You have absolutely no idea of the extent of fraud within the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. Immigration officers must be able to do their jobs with confidence and without political influence or interference. A plastic card will not eliminate the fraud-- I'm sure someone is already working on reproducing it. I could easily write a book on this subject. I am certain that 99% of front line immigration officers echo my sentiments, but of course are not permitted to speak their minds and tell the truth.
Canada is a nation of immigrants and has always been enriched by new arrivals to our shores. A Canadian Alliance government would facilitate the current levels of immigration and make improvements to the security, fairness and integrity of the system. The system must meet the high expectations of average Canadians and enhance the welfare of new arrivals. We must ensure Canadian sovereignty on the borders.
We appreciate that Canada is a society built by successive waves of immigration from all sectors of the globe. We need to create a positive immigration policy that is merit based. Administration should take into account primarily Canada' s economic needs. We must introduce greater security and reliability into the system, including enforcement of sponsorship obligations. The federal government must work more co-operatively with the provinces on national policy and settlement costs. We must also affirm the independence of immigration administration from multiculturalism.
Non-citizens of Canada who are convicted of an indictable crime or who are known to engage in serious criminal activity must be deported quickly. By more careful screening of the criminal element, we can protect the integrity and security of immigrants and enhance community crime prevention. Canada should no longer be called a safe haven for international operatives.
We affirm Canada's international humanitarian obligation to receive its fair share of genuine refugees. Refugee status must be determined expeditiously under the rule of law and beyond political interference. To ensure fairness, we should deport failed refugee claimants and illegal entrants quickly, and prosecute those who organize and profit from abuse of the system. To accomplish those reasonable administrative goals, we must reallocate resources to reduce the thousands within Canada who are without legal status or who are on the deportation list.
We also need to review the extra ministerial permit category by seeking to provide transparency and public accountability within the context of the Privacy Act to eliminate government vote buying, patronage and cronyism.
To accomplish anything less is to fail our nation and breaks faith with our young people, for their hope in a bright and prosperous future.
