Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to say a few words on Bill C-50 , and I will frame my remarks in three sections.
First, I have a few comments to make on part of my hon. colleague's speech across, which he covered off in one sentence at the end of his presentation. Obviously the government is somewhat embarrassed about how it has tried to bring in crowbar changes to the immigration act.
Second, I asked a number of Canadians if they would like to participate with me in this talk this morning. I have a few comments from people across the country, which I am very happy to read into the record.
Third, I have a few comments as well on the financial implications of the budget and Bill C-50 and where the government and the sad excuse for a finance minister seems to be taking us today.
I stand in the House to speak on behalf of all Canadians on the issue of immigration. Canada is a great nation. We have a reputation around the world for openness and compassion. People want to live here, and I do not blame them. I have a constituency that is literally teeming with new Canadians. They are so welcome in our community all the time.
The Conservative government wants to change the attitude that Canadians have had toward immigration for a long period of time. I do not think the government really wants people to come here, at least in the quantities they have been. I believe Conservatives want to roll the clock back to a sad time of what I would call Reform Party isolationism. They want to change our immigration policy, not make it more efficient, and that is clear, not fund it properly and reform it to make it less effective.
I think the Conservatives want to limit the number of immigrants who are accepted into our country and slam the door on the rest. Shame on them. It is slamming the door on families that wish to be reunited. It is shutting the door on people seeking a better life for themselves and for their children. It is shutting the door on people who love our country and legitimately want to be part of it. Canada is a beacon that is held up to people around the world.
Canada has a proud history of immigration. Our country was built on it. Perhaps we all saw the report on television last night that more than 5 million Canadians are now visible minorities. That has doubled the number in the last decade or so.
Conservatives now want to wipe out this proud tradition. Not only that, they are trying to force the bill through, placing these measures in a budget bill. That makes it a matter of confidence. It is a bunch of bullies across the way saying that they want us to make their day once again, that they are going to roll everything into a bill and make the opposition members roll the dice. To the Conservatives, it is all or nothing. We cannot debate this or have a proper discussion on it.
That is typical, it is sad and its shameful. These immigration reforms should be removed from Bill C-50, taken out, stripped away, brought into the light of day where we can examine them, as we are supposed to in this place, go through the proper channels so they can get the appropriate amount of due diligence needed to ensure that the interests of all Canadians current and those who look to come here and be Canadians will be met.
We on this side of the House have made it clear. There is nothing in the budget which is even worth defeating. Right now we do not think this is the issue on which Canadians really want to be pushed into an election. There are many, but the budget is not it. It is so tepid, so worthless and so inconsequential that it is not worth it.
However, the immigration issue is something of more substance. It was brought in at the last minute, and that concerns us a lot. Should these reforms remain in the bill, it really is incumbent upon Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Finance to review the measures within the budget implementation bill, hear from Canadians, have hearings, call witnesses and understand it in more detail and explain to Canadians why this is bad legislation.
The Liberal Party has always promoted a progressive immigration policy. We see Canada as a country that welcomes immigrants of all backgrounds and abilities. It is a cornerstone of our party's policy and I believe it represents the feelings of most Canadians. As such, any review of this will have to be looked at in detail and in perspective. We need to ensure that any change to immigration reflects our collective Canadian values and not just those of the governing Conservative Party.
One of the reforms would put unprecedented power into the hands of a single minister, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. She would be able to pick and choose immigrants she would deem worthy of being accepted, according to the current beliefs of the Conservative Party. The minister would be given the right to establish categories of applicants and then use these categories or other means to play with the order in which applications would be processed. Does that not strike members as being dangerous? It certainly strikes me and my colleagues that way.
I see my hon. colleague across the way agrees. This is a dangerous precedent. We no longer give people the protection of our laws of Canada. This effectively gives the minister free reign to decide which applications will get processed and even which ones can be returned without even having been processed. Of particular concern to Canadians should be the ability of these reforms to adversely affect categories such as family class and permanent resident status that are made on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
I said a minute ago, I have a riding that teems with new Canadians. Many constituents in my riding and ridings across the country have families abroad, families that hope one day they will be united with their loved ones. However, the Conservatives do not think reuniting families is good for Canada. They believe these classes do not contribute to our economic growth. If we listen to the pronouncements of the Conservative Party, it is clear it plans to focus resources on the economic class of immigration to the expense of other classes and at the expense of families and those that need our help and our compassion.
This should be of great concern to us in the House and to all Canadians. I, for one, do not trust the Conservatives to use these new powers without a little of their ideological Reform Party ideals.
My colleague says it is the Reform Party isolationism and anti-immigration bias, which we all have seen and we know is there, Fifteen years ago I was a Progressive Conservative. In the 1993 I campaigned hard against exactly the kind of principles that sadly are now instilled in the new Conservative Reform Party.
These will effectively destroy the right of every applicant to be given a fair review and to be considered regardless of background, country, ethnicity, origin, skill-set. The amendments put no limit on these discretionary powers and make them consistent with existing federal-provincial immigration agreements. In fact, it might be a big problem in the province of Quebec, considering its unique jurisdictional authority over immigrant selection.
The Conservatives are saying that these measures with help with the backlog of applications. However, I noted the parliamentary secretary did not even try to justify anything about the inclusion of these changes in the budgetary bill. I think he is probably pretty ashamed at the fact they tried to shoehorn these things in at the last minute, hoping Canadians would not notice. However, they have, they will and they will speak out against them.
The reforms reduce any incentive the government has to do what it should do, which is to increase the immigration department's capacity to process the number of applications it receives each year. The Conservatives say that they are not trying to decrease the number of immigrants into Canada, but the record tells a different story. They throw around numbers in their press releases, media releases, scrums and in those horrible 10 percenters that they flood the country with, which are completely illegally and break every rule we have in this place, and they should be ashamed that. In those messages they say that they have increased the number of immigrants, but that is not the case.
Last year and the year before the Conservatives issued approximately 251,000 permanent resident visas. Of those issued in 2007, only 236,000 visa holders had arrived by year's end. In comparison, more than 262,000 permanent residents were actively admitted to Canada by the previous Liberal government in 2005.
Canada obviously needs more immigrants, not fewer. We are already facing critical labour shortages that will rise to an alarming rate unless we find new people to help us, people who will put their shoulders to the wheel to build this country. We have an aging population. We have a demographic time bomb in our midst. We need immigrants. We need people who want to be in Canada to build this place.
I said a moment ago that I think my hon. colleague opposite and his fellow Conservatives want this to go through without people noticing. It is not going to happen. I would like to read into the record a couple of comments from some of the people from across the country who overnight last night asked me to read some of their comments into the record. I said I would.
David Bakody from Nova Scotia said:
This is the prime example of “Do as we say not as we do”. It was just a week ago or so [the Minister of Finance] stood [and] stated to the media that the RESP [the passage of it by Parliament] was an American style tactic. (untrue) It was as have many before and will be “A Budget Amendment” fully open to debate. This Immigration Bill is a long time Reform idea hatched by [the Reform Party] and now about to be forced down the throats of Canadians that is truly a classic case of...Republican Style in your face plans to remove all rights that democracy has achieved in lives of brave soldiers and peoples in two world wars.... Even all those ungrateful Reformers now hidden in Conservative uniforms who sit and plot behind closed doors. Shame--
I asked him to make his remarks addressed to you, Mr. Speaker. He has great respect for your position. David from Nova Scotia said:
Shame Mr. Speaker, please ask each and every MP to look to the right, look to the left, look across the aisle and ask yourself what did mine and your family bring to Canada a couple of hundred or so years ago? Most will say hope? Hope for a better future for our children, and now that hope is about to be removed.
I asked another commenter, a fellow from Toronto, what I should say when I stand to speak to the bill in the House of Commons. He suggested:
I would [use] this quote from an April 2, 2008...article with respect to its latest polls that demonstrates a waning momentum for the Conservatives and by contrast, a building for the Liberals, as more and more citizens are awakening to the deceptive methodology that seems [to] underlie every single movement taken by this [Conservative] government, with questionable “ends-justifies-the-means” ethics employed right back to the birth of that party.
He said:
I would draw a parallel to the unprecedented powers that Republicans gave their President to overrule Congress and [the] long history of habeas corpus in the accumulated foundation of the Common Law, and how this new Conservative law too would short-circuit existing checks and balances [that we have in our government]. Then identify where such subversion of the checks and balances has been a general theme of this government through such things as dismantling of [the] Court Challenges Program, this being a further progression of that theme.
He recommended that I should conclude this speech by saying:
...that when the momentum has built for the Liberals to return to leading government, contrary to the Conservative government where words and action with respect to accountability and ethics do not jive--word will be [the] bond--they will rescind the subversive travesty against honest and proper procedure. Along with the rescinding of tactics will be a rescinding of the unprecedented ministerial power that is so open to abuse.
K. Murphy of Alberta said:
I recall a comment made by Stephen Harper sometime prior to the 2006--
