Ted White

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify something the member brought up earlier about the Canadian Alliance attitude to refugees.

It has been very well established in our policy position for many years that we support the idea of Canada bringing its refugees from the established refugee camps which are run by the United Nations around the world. There are literally millions of people there.

I wonder if the hon. member knows that there are millions of pre-screened refugee claimants in United Nations' camps waiting for a safe haven. Why then would we just accept queue jumpers who arrive here with no documents? If we are going to be tolerant and open our arms to genuine refugees, we should be taking genuine refugees and rejecting those who want to jump the queue and just get here by choice.

For example, she mentioned refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan. Does she know they had to change their planes in either Amsterdam, Heathrow or Frankfurt? Surely that makes them choose Canada. They are not looking for a refugee haven. They are looking to come to Canada as immigrants.

Finally, does the member know that up to 50% of all the arrests on any night in downtown Vancouver are refugee claimants?

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, in the last few weeks the minister has been telling us how we detain people who could be any type of risk to or problem for our society. Of course I have been taking the minister at face value on this.

Last Thursday, with the member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast, I visited the immigration facilities at the Vancouver International Airport. To my shock and horror I discovered that never, ever, is a person put back on an airplane and sent back to his or her destination when he or she arrives and claims refugee status with no documents. Nobody is ever detained unless it is so obvious that there is an international warrant for their arrest. Virtually everybody is released into society with no medical check and without fingerprints being checked, because that takes 10 months and then they are only checked in Canada any way.

I discovered that the minister has obviously never been on a tour because she does not know what is actually happening at the border.

I would ask the Leader of the Opposition whether he is aware that this is happening at the borders, that virtually every single person who enters and claims refugee status is immediately released. Yet when we had boatloads of Chinese claimants arrive here and detained them and processed them in detention, more than 90% were rejected. Has the Leader of the Opposition been aware of what is actually happening at our borders?

[Privilege, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member reminded me of numerous cases in my riding as well. I could read off a list, but I will point to a particular case which highlights another area of the existing rules which creates problems.

A refugee claimant in my riding was forging passports from his home. It took about three years to finally get the case to court. The guy claimed he had no means of support, but he was driving a brand new Explorer and living in the British Properties in Vancouver.

The judge gave him a six month suspended sentence. On the very day that he was in the court getting a suspended sentence for forging passports someone else was standing in for him downtown at the citizenship court and getting his Canadian citizenship.

There is another example of existing rules which create problems that terrorists use. Because our citizenship process does not properly identify the person coming down to the court house, anybody can stand in and get citizenship for people like the person I just mentioned.

Is the hon. member aware of that problem in the citizenship office? Has he experienced similar problems in his riding?

[Privilege, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, before asking a question I wish to advise the House that October 30 is prostate cancer blood testing day. The speech by the hon. member was quite interesting because he mentioned the case that was widely reported in the newspapers of refugee claimants who were released at Pearson airport, supposedly without proper background checks.

I am a bit puzzled because he claimed that none of them were released without the proper CSIS checks, fingerprints and so on. Yet immigration officials told me that it takes up to 12 months to check the fingerprints that are taken at the point of entry when refugees come into the country. The Ottawa Sun reported on Tuesday, October 9:

Some 50 refugee claimants who arrived at Pearson airport on Sunday after fighting began in Afghanistan were released without proper background security checks and despite an FBI alert that terrorists could retaliate in North America, immigration officers say.

Immigration officers said they were released without proper checks. Frontline officers said the claimants, some of whom were Afghani and Pakistani nationals with no identification, arrived at Pearson on European flights hours after the attacks began. From where did the member get his information that they were not released without proper checks?

[Courts Administration Service Act, October 3rd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I got the feeling from the member's speech that he had two major concerns. First, while consolidation of the various court administrations might make things more efficient and less costly, the bureaucratic aspect to all this and the fact that the jobs will probably be preserved means we might only be transferring costs to another area of government without cutting them at all. Is that one of the member's concerns?

Second, while perhaps making the administration of the courts more efficient the act would do nothing to improve the judgments coming out of them. The member used as an example the current terrorist threat and a recent court ruling that has made it virtually impossible to deport terrorists.

It brought to mind a case from North Vancouver. I received a fax a moment ago from one of my constituents. Mr. Alastair Ritchie called to remind me about the case of a man who was forging passports in North Vancouver. We wanted to see the man deported but he still lives there. I just remembered the case. The man was convicted in North Vancouver three years ago of forging passports and the judge gave him a six month suspended sentence.

We must ask ourselves what on earth goes through the mind of a judge who would do that. I criticized the judge openly. The hon. member talked about accountability. I criticized the judge openly. The judge called me and said we should have lunch because he wanted to talk with me about what happens in courts and so on.

We went to lunch together and he tried to justify giving a six month suspended sentence to someone who forges passports. I said to him in the end that he had become jaded and insensitive and was no longer in touch with the values of the community.

Does the hon. member get the sense, as I do, that the bill would not change court judgments? Does he feel the government should be tabling meaningful legislation that gets on top of the problems instead of twiddling around the edges as it usually does with administrative matters?

[Prostate Cancer, October 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on June 24 of this year I was one of several hundred participants in Vancouver's annual run to raise money for prostate cancer research. For the second year in a row I was sponsored by members of this place and for the second year in a row the total amount contributed by MPs, almost $2,300, was the single largest lump sum donated to the cause.

The organizers of the event wanted me to place on the record their thanks to those members of parliament from the Liberal Party, the Canadian Alliance and the NDP who helped fund the research effort to find a cure for prostate cancer.

On October 30 there will be a PSA testing day on the Hill, an opportunity for the men who work here to attend an information session and have the blood test which will check them for the presence of prostate cancer.

An invitation will be in the mail in the next few days but members should mark the date on their calendars now. Prostate cancer information and PSA testing day will be here on the Hill on Tuesday, October 30.

[Canada—Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be recorded as voting yea to this motion.

[Questions On The Order Paper, June 11th, 2001]

With respect to finalized claims as a result of hearings at the Immigration and Refugee Board: ( a ) what is the average approval rate resulting from the hearings for the years 1995 to 2000; ( b ) are there any differences between Canada's approval rate and those of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom; and ( c ) if so, why?

[Privilege, June 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, as somebody who has made requests for access to information on a number of occasions, I am shocked to hear what the member had to say about the paragraph that was deleted in this document and his later discovery that the reasons given for the deletion were not actually fact. It raises the question as to whether the documents that I and my colleagues have received over the past few years have the same problem.

I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to take serious consideration of the complaint of the hon. member and to thoroughly investigate whether in fact there has been a question of privilege here.

[Petitions, June 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today from Elizabeth Crowther and 111 other residents of North Vancouver. They urge the Government of Canada to enact legislation explicitly recognizing the freedom of conscience of health care workers.

They call upon parliament to prohibit the coercion of and unjust discrimination against health care workers because of their refusal to participate in matters contrary to the dictates of their consciences and to establish penalties for such coercion and unjust discrimination.