Randy White

[Immigration Act, September 19th, 1994]

I am just an MP.

I had our immigration critic come to the refugee hearing but he was not allowed in. He was told to get out. When I got into the meeting at nine o'clock in the morning a summons was tabled to make me a witness to that hearing and future hearings.

I found out that if I was a witness I could not attend the whole hearing. Therefore they got me out. I said that I needed some counsel. I was given 20 minutes in Vancouver to get it. This is a federally constituted refugee board. I went outside and gave our critic 25 cents and he was then my counsel inside. They were now stuck with the two of us in there and we were not moving out of there.

These hearings went on three times and there is another one coming up. We thought we would have one hearing to determine whether the next hearing could be in public but we found that we had three separate hearings. One, the minister of immigration filed an appeal on the decision that one of the second immigration adjudicators allowed this fellow out on the streets. That is going to occur September 28.

There is another one on November 3. That is a criminal court case for the sexual assault of the young lady. It is a separate one. On November 14 our Reform critic and myself will still be battling to get the public involved in the exercise.

The members on the other side sanctimoniously talk about how good the system is working, how well it is working. These people are a very small minority. Is this accurate? The members over there had better wake up.

[Immigration Act, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to speak on this bill today. This subject has been of interest to me over the last several months. Today I am going to speak about a particular case I have been involved with, a fellow by the name of José Salinas Mendoza and when I am through I think everyone will be quite appalled at what goes on in this country. Prior to talking about Mr. Mendoza, I should comment on some of the previous statements I have heard today.

Once again I am hearing comments that this is a very small minority of the intake into this country and of course it is. This Liberal government has taken in 250,000 to 280,000 immigrants a year. While we disagree with that high a number, we do not disagree with the basic fundamentals of immigration in our society. It seems every time we raise this kind of issue the government comes up with statistics and demographics to show it is such a small minority so why bother with it.

It reminds me of a discussion I had with a parole board member not too long ago. I actually called for the resignations of several parole board members after they let an individual out on the streets when he was supposed to be incarcerated for six

years. He was released after about 16 months and then proceeded to bludgeon somebody to death in our community.

On calling for these resignations I received a phone call from an individual whose response was that in that region there was an 83 per cent success rate. I told him that was commendable but the facts were that I deal with the failure rate. The victims come to my office. There are victims all over this country. I wish we could get off the discussion of the success rate and the rest of it is a minor issue because that is not the case.

Today the minister said we have a good system. We do not have a good system. It has flaws in it. So fix it.

Today the minister said that we have a tiny minority, a handful of criminals. The problem is that we have a serious, serious problem with that tiny minority of individuals who are disrupting law-abiding Canadian citizens. The minister said he is listening to his constituents. I think he is listening to the Reform Party because we are going to push and push and push again until it is changed.

Today the minister asked why this system was not in place before now. We should ask the Liberal government. It brought it in. Wake up over there.

We also have to ask where this legislation deals with the independence of the immigration adjudicators and how we deal with the independence of the refugee board. As I go through the José Salinas Mendoza case they are going to find they are too independent for their own good and they are going to have to be held accountable. It is the same as parole boards.

When we talk about the deportation of individuals, where does the legislation address the fact that people like Charles Dennis Martin were deported and escorted out of Canada nine times? Does the legislation address that? There are a lot more of them. This is only one and again he was in my community.

What about cases that are currently under way? Is this retroactive? There are many people in this system who are going through time and time again, hearing after hearing. We will cover that again in a moment.

While it is nice to talk about immigration and its positive influence on Canada I want to talk about the negative influence. One of those negative influences is José Salinas Mendoza who arrived in Canada from El Salvador in 1988. From February 22, 1989 until November 1992 he had 12 serious criminal convictions in this country including assault, resisting arrest, sexual assault, and on and on the list goes.

On September 23, 1993 a 19-year old young lady in my riding was raped. This young lady was convinced to have the charges stayed on the condition that Mr. Mendoza be deported and he was. He was escorted out of Canada. End of story?-not quite. On April 18, 1994, just a few short months later, Mr. Mendoza was back at the Douglas border crossing just outside Vancouver. He announced himself as a refugee into Canada this time around. The immigration officials processed his application and the story starts again.

Unfortunately the young lady in my neighbourhood virtually bumped into this fellow in a grocery store shortly afterward. She had not even been given the courtesy by immigration officials or anybody else of being notified that he was back in Canada after being deported. Why is he even back in Canada after being deported? Why do we not say: "Get out. We have already deported you once"? Maybe it is going to be like Charles Dennis Martin who was escorted out nine times.

Mr. Mendoza was arrested. His first hearing was on May 13 this year. He was told to report for another hearing on June 17.

By the way, all taxpayers should know that the people at the hearings are immigration adjudicators, an interpreter for Mr. Mendoza, a lawyer who I believe is paid by legal aid, a refugee hearing officer at refugee hearings and, at the request of the criminal, an individual from the United Nations as an observer. They are all paid with taxpayers' dollars.

Two days after his arrival and two days after this young lady saw him again in a grocery store, the RCMP advised her that he is back in the country. A friend of mine asked me to help. On June 17 I attended an immigration hearing at which Mr. Mendoza from El Salvador was considered a danger to the public. He was incarcerated pending a refugee hearing on August 18. This is a fellow who had already been booted out of the country. However, his lawyer appealed that decision to have him incarcerated as a danger to the public and brought in a new immigration adjudicator who seven days later let him out on the street.

What do we have now? We are into our third hearing on this fellow after he has been ordered deported. He is allowed to roam our streets. He has 12 prior convictions and an outstanding charge of sexual assault or rape.

On June 22 of this year he appeared in Matsqui court on relayed sexual assault charges. He was not ordered into custody. On June 24, I say again, he was released. On June 17 the hon. minister of immigration came out on his white horse to Vancouver and said: "I'll intervene in this. We'll take charge". We have not seen hide nor hair of him since. This is a question he will be asked here this month.

On July 5 we did a little research on this fellow. We found that a person involved in last year's election campaign of the failed Liberal candidate of North Vancouver who donated money to the Liberal Party was appointed by the minister of immigration to the refugee board. This individual is a past lawyer for José Mendoza.

What is happening here? Who gets appointed to refugee boards? Who gets appointed as immigration adjudicators? Liberal political hacks are the people who get appointed. What are their qualifications? Are the qualifications that we give money or we help the party? What are the qualifications? Is it who you know or how good you are at it? It happens all the time. Look at the last three senators, senators until age 75. It is who you know in the Liberal Party, is it not?

Let's move along. We had amendments to the Immigration Act in direct response to the issues that Reform has been bringing out. The presentation of the Liberal Party is: "Listen, don't worry too too much about this small issue over here. We have to think about the big picture of immigration. You have to think about both issues, the good people and the bad people".

August 18 was the date for the refugee hearing for Mr. Mendoza.

I found out that an application is going forth to have it closed to the public. I filed an application to have it open to the public. Instead of having a refugee hearing on August 18, we have a hearing to determine whether the public should be allowed in the hearing. Now we are getting ridiculous. We are already into the third hearing and this will be the fourth for this fellow.

The meeting again had eight people involved in it who were paid by the taxpayer. Before I was allowed into this hearing, I had to sign a document that said that I would not tell anything about what was going on on the inside. I signed it to get in. Once I signed the document, I got some documents back. One was a complaint from Mr. Mendoza and his lawyer that I had some information on him that I should not. It was a complaint to the privacy commissioner. Now I am under investigation by the very person who should not be in the country in the first place.

I checked with the privacy commissioner's office and was told yes, I would be investigated. I said: "Yes, maybe I will but you will do it in public, not behind closed doors". Then I checked with the refugee board and said this. "I got these documents after I signed the gag order. Can I show this to people? Can I show them what the charges are?" "No, you cannot". No, I cannot. I am not allowed to defend myself but he can. Why should I not be able to?

[Immigration Act, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have several questions for my colleague. In particular I have several quotes that I picked up from her speech.

In this day and age when we talk about immigration we sometimes get confused about what the intent of the issue is. Many sources in the Reform Party have said that we are not adverse to immigration, albeit we think there should be lower levels. That is a good issue for debate at any time in any country.

However, in many cases we are talking about the problems-and I will speak a little later on this-that we are having with refugee boards and so on. I hear the hon. member say we are dealing with petty hoods. The Liberal party has this tendency to downplay what are the problems with the criminal element in the refugee system that are getting through the bureaucracy and coming into Canada. These are not petty hoods we are talking about. These are hard core criminals in some cases.

When this party talks about how to deal with these individuals we are told things like: "Well, it's only a few. It's only a minority". We have to look at the Canadian victim, the Canadian citizen.

I would like the member to comment on how many criminal element refugees we get in this country. What makes it a majority? What makes it a significant number? When is the government going to start dealing with that problem? There are a lot of victims in the wake of some of these individuals. The government has to look at this. I would like a comment on what constitutes something serious.

[Petitions, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to present this petition from people in my constituency of Fraser Valley West. They request that Parliament not amend the Human Rights Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or of homosexuality, including amending the human rights code to include in the prohibited grounds of discrimination the undefined phrase sexual orientation.

[Points Of Order, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, earlier I asked the minister of immigration a question about his department and whether or not his own officials see his policies as out of touch. When he responded in kind the comments I believe he said were: "It is better than being out of your mind". I would like clarification as to whether that was intended as an insult.

[Immigration, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, poll after poll shows overwhelmingly that the majority of Canadians agree with the minister's department that immigration is out of control. Another document from the minister's department released earlier this summer actually agrees with that position.

When will the minister stop holding out as one of the last lone defenders of a policy that a vast majority of Canadians and even his own officials see as being out of touch?

[Immigration, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, last week a confidential document was released by the minister of immigration's department outlining plans to cut the number of immigrants coming into Canada, to restrict family class immigration, to require security bonds from sponsors of relatives and eliminate automatic citizenship for the children of refugees.

We would like to acknowledge that the minister has recognized the merits of our party's initiatives and we would like to ask him when these very good ideas will be put into place.

[Young Offenders Act, June 20th, 1994]

I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I say to the hon. member across the way that I too was running to the House to try to speak on the last debate so I think if we are not here in our seats we are not here in our seats. If such is not the case then I would like to rise to speak to the motion.

[Petitions, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition from residents of Fraser Valley West with which I wholeheartedly concur.

The petition asks that Parliament act immediately to extend protection to the unborn child by amending the Criminal Code to extend the same protection enjoyed by born human beings to unborn human beings.

[Immigration, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is going to have a good opportunity today to show how well he backs that up. This young lady agreed to drop the sexual

assault charges on the condition that this repeat offender was deported which he was in November last year.

Now I find this chronic sex offender, this failed refugee claimant is back in my community to appear, by invitation from this minister's officials, at a second hearing to be allowed to stay in Canada.

Why is this man even getting a hearing in the first place? Why has the government reneged on its promise to keep this criminal out of Canada?