Ted White

[Immigration, November 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration minister is once again creating a false impression. Access to information documents show that her own officials have warned her that thousands of people should not have got into Canada without documentation, yet she repeats every day that everyone who is a security concern is detained. This is simply not true.

I would like the minister to tell the House, if arrivals have destroyed their documents, how can an immigration official be expected to work out whether they are a security concern?

[Prostate Cancer, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, today is PSA day on the Hill so there are bowls of walnuts in the opposition and government lobbies, a reminder to male MPs, senators, staff and the media that they can go to room 200 in the West Block until 4 p.m. today for a PSA blood test which can detect prostate cancer.

I remind the front benches on both sides of the House that ministers, critics and leaders of the opposition parties, including the Bloc Quebecois, are not immune to prostate cancer. This cancer which affects one man in eight does not care which party we belong to or where we are in the pecking order.

Thanks to Abbott Diagnostics which is supplying the staff and materials for the PSA testing, and to internationally recognized prostate cancer researcher Dr. Yves Fradet who gave today's seminar, we have had a unique opportunity to become better informed about this life threatening disease.

Mr. Speaker, do not let me find out tomorrow that you did not go for your test today. It is in room 200 in the West Block until 4 p.m.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I must say that the member who just spoke asked one of the most pointed questions of the entire debate today. He asked why the Americans were set to impose this new rule at the Canadian border. That is one of the most telling questions asked today.

I heard members on the government side say that if the U.S.A.'s rules were that great it should have prevented the terrorists from getting in. Has the member thought of this?

If I were a terrorist coming from another country and I wanted to go to the United States I would come to Canada first. I would receive free welfare, medical and dental benefits as well as a free apartment in which to live while going through all the appeal processes with my legal aid counsellor. I would be able to get good forgeries of Canadian documents from the print shop in Toronto so that I could get across the border into the United States and no one would even know that I was there illegally. Has the member thought that through as well?

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the speech given by my colleague, when he was talking about crime it made me think about B.C.'s Liberal premier Gordon Campbell who is not very popular with members on the government side. I wonder if the member has noticed that they never use his name. They never talk about the Liberal premier from B.C. because of course Gordon's positions are completely in common with the Canadian Alliance policies and in fact could even be called reform policies.

One of the things that Gordon Campbell has been talking about in the last few days in connection with crime is the outrageous release on bail of a suspected terrorist in Vancouver. The U.S. law that has been introduced on terrorism restricts the bail that can be granted to people who are suspected of terrorism. The judge in Vancouver took the position that because the person had not run away before September 11 he therefore would not skip the country now. That is totally ludicrous. Anyone knows the whole situation has changed now. Gordon Campbell criticized the judge and then the judge criticized Gordon, and Gordon said he was sticking by his guns, that it was a bad, stupid decision.

I wonder if the member could comment on the need to restrict bail, perhaps in the bill that is being run through the House now.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, while the member was giving his presentation it reminded me of an editorial that appeared in the Vancouver Sun recently, from which I will quote directly:

The Liberal party, which vigorously courts the ethnic vote, has also been in favour of affording potential refugees the same rights as Canadians. But we're in a new war against terror, and this is no longer tenable...Ottawa should invoke the notwithstanding clause to stop foolish court decisions from jeopardizing our safety.

I wonder if it struck the member as it certainly struck me. He mentioned the Pollyanna attitude, the constant denial from the Liberal side of the House that there is any problem. The Minister of Finance went to a fundraising deal. CSIS warned him it was a problem but he still went. Now we have denial. They will not even mention CSIS warnings about the number of terrorists in our country. They are in a state of denial.

Has the member noticed the constant state of denial on the opposite side?

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I know that in the riding of the member from the Liberal side there is a high percentage of immigrants from Hong Kong, from China and from Taiwan. I have certainly heard the broadcasts on Fairchild radio and have been for interviews myself in the Vancouver area.

I would like her to confirm that immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan, that is, genuine immigrants, are just as concerned as the rest of the Vancouver population with abuse of the immigration system and that there are just as many people pushing from the genuine immigrant community of Chinese for changes to the law as there are in the rest of the community in Vancouver.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing up that point which I should have mentioned when I stood on the intervention previously.

He is absolutely correct. Our immigration department has a huge amount of refugee claims which no doubt take resources away from genuine immigrants. I have had refugee claimants call me up to say that their files are taking a long time.

Members would be amazed if they saw some of the files that I see from people asking for assistance. Incidentally, I never act as an advocate for someone trying to get into the country but my office will definitely check the file to make sure it is on track. I had a refugee claimant upset that he was being rejected because he had been back to Iran, the country from which he was claiming refugee status. I asked him how he could be a refugee if he went back? He said “how else am I supposed to look after my business?” There is the problem.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for giving me the opportunity to expand on this topic.

I am an immigrant. When I applied in 1977 to come to this country I was turned down the first time. Some may say that was good but the fact is that I was turned down the first time and I think that was very wise. The first step is to make sure that the people who decide at a party on a Saturday night that they want to go to Canada need to be weeded out right away. I applied again wondering why I did not get in the first time? It took two years for my family to get approval to come here. It was 1979 before we came and we felt we had earned our right to come here. We went through the process and did it properly. We did not try to queue jump.

We should have a similar process for refugees. As I mentioned and as the member knows, there are many refugees waiting in United Nations' camps around the world. I believe those refugees have every right to expect prompt attention to their plight. For every person we accept at our border and use resources and processing time on, it is one or more people who we cannot use resources and processing time on from those United Nations' camps where they have already been proven to be refugees.

I would say that anybody who comes to this country via Heathrow, Amsterdam or Frankfurt is probably not a refugee and is jumping ahead of the proper process, which is to be recognized as a refugee first. That is what is happening at United Nations' camps. We should send the message that nobody is coming to this country pretending to be a refugee when they more properly should come through the correct channels and get in the queue along with all those people who have been waiting patiently for years in refugee camps.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Surrey North. I am pleased to be the next to speak because I can clarify something that was said by the member who just spoke.

I visited the Vancouver airport immigration processing centre last Thursday with the member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast. The hon. member for Chatham--Kent Essex needs to visit an immigration centre to find out what actually happens.

When the member says the people who get off planes are fingerprinted he is correct. They are. However does he know that it takes 10 months to get the fingerprint results back? Does he know that it is only for fingerprint records in Canada and nowhere else in the world? A person can turn up and give any name such as Joe Smith. CSIS will check only that name in its records. The fingerprints take 10 months to check and they are only for Canada. Can the hon. member not see that a criminal can walk into Canada instantly?

There are no medical checks. The member can verify this any place where there is an immigration port. The refugee claimant is given a package of documents, asked to report at a certain time to a certain place, and given an application for a medical check. However there are no medical checks at the airport before the person is released.

As for detention, yes, technically it is true that people can be detained. However last week when we were in Vancouver there were only five people detained and awaiting deportation. They were all international criminals with lengthy international warrants for their arrest who had been identified. For people who are detained because they are uncooperative, the maximum amount of time is two to three days in the Richmond lock-up and then they are released. As soon as they give any name at all they are given the refugee package and dispensed out the door.

I challenge the hon. member or any other person on that side who has been brainwashed with their talking points to go to any port of entry in the country and prove me wrong, because that is what happens.

Everyone in this place knows it is ridiculous to suggest there could be refugee claimants from Amsterdam in Holland, Heathrow in the U.K. or Frankfurt in Germany. That would be ridiculous. These countries do not produce refugees. However for Canada they do. We accept refugees from Heathrow, Amsterdam and Frankfurt every day of the week. These are people who get on planes in countries where they need to change planes. They change planes at Frankfurt, Heathrow or Amsterdam.

The UN charter on refugees allows refugees to claim safety in the first safe country they get to. I challenge anyone on that side of the House to tell me how people can be refugees if they change planes at Heathrow, Amsterdam or Frankfurt and choose to come to Canada. Did they not forgo their opportunity to claim refugee status in the first safe country they reached?

When it comes to refugee producing countries I cannot think of many. The only one from which there is a non-stop flight to Canada is Cuba. There might be others; I could be corrected on this point. However everyone else must change planes somewhere, and that somewhere is always a safe country. When people get on a plane with a $600 U.S. ticket, I want to know where they purchased it, who gave them the money and if they came from Somalia or Afghanistan. I want to know how they got the ticket.

The U.S. takes the attitude that if people arrive with no documents it is a pretty good indication of the type of character they are. It indicates that they trying to hide something. They do not get admitted. They get shipped out right away. Anyone who has no documents does not get into the United States.

In other respects the United States is as weak as us. It detains people for a short time. It has in the past, as we have, released these people for medical examinations and so on. It needs to tighten up its rules as well.

The member who just spoke said it is wrong to say Canada is a haven for terrorists. However CSIS has told us there are more than 300 people with terrorist links in the country right now. Can Liberal members deny this? CSIS has identified them for us. In addition, 50 or more organizations with terrorists links are raising money.

If there were no problem why is it the new bill the government has put on the table includes provisions to take away the charitable status of these terrorist organizations? I wonder how many Canadian people know that terrorist organizations at the moment can legally set up a charity in Canada under the umbrella that they are informing people, that it is an information service about terrorism, and all the while they are happily raising money.

The Minister of Finance attended a fundraising dinner that CSIS warned him could be a fundraising dinner for terrorists, the Tamil tigers. There is a lot to answer for on that side of the House. They can wax eloquent on their talking points all day and quote their brainwashed programming from upstairs but it does not alter what is happening at our border crossings.

I asked the NDP member who stood up earlier whether she was aware that on any particular night in downtown Vancouver 50% of the arrests made by police are refugee claimants. Surely that is an indication there is a problem. If that is occurring at every major centre across the country, we have a huge problem on our hands, and that is the amount of resources being consumed because we were careless at the borders.

When we had several boatloads of Chinese migrants arrive here last summer, the immigration minister finally showed some courage and detained those people while we processed their claims, considerably faster than average I might add. What did we do? We rejected more than 90% of those people. More than 90% were found to be cheats, queue jumpers or non-refugees. They were opportunists trying to come in through the back door when they should have been coming through the normal immigration process.

Last Thursday immigration officials told us that for every 63 people arriving at the airport claiming refugee status, 200 people claim refugee status at a downtown immigration office in Vancouver, that is 200 people who have slipped through with forged documents, visitor visas or some other way with the intention of claiming refugee status, getting on our social welfare programs, obtaining free dental care, a free apartment to live in and 12 years of appeals before their refugee status is ruled on.

My riding has probably one of the largest refugee claiming populations in the country. It has been estimated that up to 50% of the people in the Iranian community are refugee claimants. I have had genuine Iranian immigrants call my office identifying some of these people by name and asking me why we let them in. They give me names of certain Iranian individuals who are criminals and wanted for bank robbery or other crimes in Iran. I always report the names to immigration Canada but it never has any record of those names because these criminals do not use their own names when they come to Canada.

The fact is that anyone coming to our border and making a refugee claim when they changed planes in Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Heathrow is a queue jumper because there are millions of genuine refugees in United Nations' camps around the world waiting for us to help them. We should be sending a strong message throughout the world that we want to help genuine refugees and we will take the maximum number we possibly can within our economic constraints, but they will all come prescreened from United Nations' refugee camps. If people want to get into Canada they must go there. They should not bother trying to queue jump into this country because it is not right and we will not tolerate it. The other side loves to talk about tolerance and that Canada is a wonderfully tolerant country, but we will not tolerate queue jumpers, cheats, criminals or anyone else who is taking advantage of our system.

I would like to actually compliment the government for stationing immigration officers in places like Heathrow, Amsterdam and Frankfurt because they do a great job prescreening and assisting the airlines in tracking false documentation, but they are spread too thin. The airlines have told me that they have one of these people on hand who can be called if necessary but it is not for every flight and every passenger. There are still plenty of people sneaking through.

I would put to the other side, who happily quoted that we prevented 6,000 people from getting on planes last year, that figure might have been 60,000 if we had been checking every document and every flight carefully at Frankfurt, Heathrow and Amsterdam.

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the member opposite realizes that we must have good security in North America. I hope that means he is supportive of the idea of a continent-wide shield of security.

The NDP is against it. It claims that it would take away our sovereignty. I do not understand why the NDP cannot see that we have no sovereignty if we do not have security. We need a definite North American-wide approach to the sovereignty issue.

The member made the comments that it was astounding a refugee would arrive at our borders uninvited. Does he not know, and I must believe he does, that refugees must purchase an airline ticket to get to Canada? They cannot just walk across a border. If they are coming from Somalia where the average income per year is maybe less than $60 U.S. and they have to buy an airline ticket for $600 U.S., the first question we want to ask is: Where did they get the money? If it was not theirs, who paid for it and why?

They cannot get into Canada without some sort of documentation to get on the plane. He talks about not being able to apply for a passport and that is fine, but they change planes at Heathrow, Amsterdam or Frankfurt. If they are genuine refugees should they not be claiming refugee status there? If they get back on the plane with their $600 U.S. ticket they are choosing Canada as a destination and we need to be suspicious of that.