Sergio Marchi

[Refugees, June 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, no, I am not going to have an inquiry for something that this member throws very loosely across the floor. If he has information that anyone has perpetrated illegal acts then he has the duty and the obligation as a member of Parliament to provide me with that information.

Second, under no circumstances does any medical application get administered to any individual routinely for removals. When I put in perspective the 9,000 who were removed, approximately 12 last year received some medical application. It was on the recommendation of doctors for individuals who for the most part were on medicine or had an ailment or a disease of some sort in order to take precautions during the flight.

In addition, the member also failed to say that a Canadian nurse accompanied the woman from Zaire in order to make sure her ailment would not aggravate the situation.

[Refugees, June 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. It is very crucial to keep in mind that no immigration officials administer or are permitted to administer medical assistance or prescribe any medicine for those who are being removed or deported.

The only individuals who are permitted to do that, to recommend it, and to implement it are medical practitioners.

In the particular case of the woman the member raises, it was a medical practitioner and for medical reasons that administered medical attention, not immigration officials.

Second, at the time that this issue came to the fore approximately 9,000 individuals were removed from Canada last year.

I asked my officials to give me an approximate number very quickly so that I could respond to the member and the officials told me that 12 of the 9,000 individuals who were removed necessitated some medical attention on the advice and recommendation of medical practitioners and not immigration officials.

[Immigration, May 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this government's red book was very clear. It places a great deal of evidence on overseas selection. As the hon. member alludes to, it is cost efficient but more important goes precisely to the matter of those who are in the refugee camps who are true refugees.

The reality of the 1980s and 1990s is that all over the world, not only Canada, these migrants are on the move. Refugees are no longer waiting in the camps for our visa officers and so they are coming to our country. That has necessitated the international community and all its member states to try and have an inland determination system. You cannot move the clock back and

pretend that in this day and age of technology and transportation people will not move.

We are trying to make that system the best we can so that we can give sanctuary to the true refugee, and the false has no business applying as a refugee.

[Immigration, May 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, upon becoming Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, one of the first things I asked NGO representatives to do on a non-remunerative basis, on a very quick basis, was try to put together a report of recommendations on how we can better deal with the automatic review and the humanitarian and compassionate review under the immigration refugee board. There was concern because it lacked clarification and it lacked definition. I have accepted the premise of the report.

Upon accepting the premise of the report I believe it is logical in the interim to allow those individuals since 1993 when the automatic review started to have a review of their cases to ensure that through that lack of clarity those individuals did receive a fair determination.

That has absolutely nothing to do with those cases of criminality that do not deserve the compassion or the tolerance of our system.

We will have a bill in this House before we leave for the summer to deal with precisely that issue.

[Immigration, May 25th, 1994]

Very clearly, yes. I forgot the question.

[Immigration, May 25th, 1994]

I have no problems withdrawing. It was a slip from the lip right from the hip.

I'm on a roll, Mr. Speaker.

[Immigration, May 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, talking tough and talking straight is a hell of a lot better than talking nonsense.

[Immigration, May 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the hon. member is getting this amnesty agenda. The government did no such thing. She is obviously twisting the facts of what we did last week, which was to impose a number of interim measures, because I believe that the agency and the automatic review after failed claims were not well defined and that discretion rested solely with the minister. What we had were end runs around the system to try to get to members of Parliament, to ministers, to NGOs, to the media, to church sanctuary.

Rather than having something undefined I chose instead to put discretion back into the system, define what it means to have an automatic review and what it means to have a humanitarian and compassionate review so that the people and the council know the rules by which they have to appeal. I think that makes sense, rather than having the system overtaxed.

The hon. member should be careful in how she uses the word amnesty because first, it is not an amnesty; second, the people who can apply for that are post-93; and third, those with criminal records are not eligible.

[Immigration, May 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the number that I referred to some time ago in the House was the number of overturned cases. The cases that the hon. member talks about include a large number of cases that were stayed. There is a difference between overturning and staying.

I have also said that I do not look kindly on those individuals who clearly poke fun at our system, who abuse our system. We will have a bill in the House of Commons before we go home in the summer and I look forward to the hon. member's support as well as that of her party to deal with it.

[Immigration, May 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yes, the government is sensitive to that. We should also say with some degree of pride that our country is the only country that has offered gender persecution guidelines within the IRB. It is the only country in the world. During my discussion with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees I learned that they are now in the process of trying to export those gender persecution guidelines around the world.

In the international context we have also raised the reality of there being some 20 million refugees around the world, the majority of whom are women and young children. Regrettably the majority of refugees selected from camps are men. We have spoken about that publicly. We need to redress some realities that have stared the world in the face for far too long.