Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Ajax.
I appreciate this opportunity to have an important debate on Canada's approach to addressing irregular migration. The world is facing an unprecedented movement of people, with 65 million children, women, and men on the move. Canada is not immune to the challenges presented by a rise in displaced people, nor must we turn our backs on our humanitarian tradition.
I am proud of our government's record and leadership on this file. Most of all, I am proud of Canadians' kindness, generosity, and commitment to human rights both at home and abroad.
At the same time, our government believes in an orderly rules-based and efficient immigration system. Make no mistake. We are steadfast in our commitment to protecting the safety and security of Canadians and our border.
That is precisely why we are investing the appropriate resources into our border security agencies, with a further investment of $173.2 million announced in budget 2018.
While the Conservatives like to talk a good game on border security, their record is abysmal. In fact, the Harper Conservatives cut nearly $400 million from the Canada Border Services Agency. They devastated the asylum system and left asylum claimants waiting for years to get a hearing and a decision on their cases. They callously cut off refugee health care. Refugees, including pregnant women and victims of torture, were told they had no access to health care. This was a practice that Canadian courts ruled as cruel and unusual treatment.
All of those policies failed to provide timely protection to vulnerable people. The Conservatives' policies failed to ensure well-supported border operations. Their policies failed to minimize the impact on provincial health and social services. They failed to live up to what Canadians expect of their government, which is courage, strength, leadership, and compassion.
Now the Conservatives are arguing against our investments in border security and against our investments in faster decision-making processes of asylum claims. Instead, at various times, they have proposed to deploy the military against families fleeing conflict and persecution. They have suggested that we break international law by preventing people from making asylum claims.
They have incredulously suggested that we turn the entire 9,000 kilometre stretch of the border into one continuous official border crossing. I am eager to hear my colleague from across the way explain how she intends to have enough border agents stationed continuously along 9,000 kilometres, while at the same time eliminating the additional funding that we have invested into our border security agencies.
Designating the entire border as an official border crossing would also mean that all legitimate travel, such as business travellers, tourists, and trucks carrying goods, would be allowed at any point along the border. The Conservatives cannot decide if they want to close down our borders completely or open a 9,000 kilometre border.
These are not real solutions. This is throwing everything against the wall and hoping something sticks.
Even more irresponsibly, the Conservatives are now trying to pit immigrants against refugees. The asylum system, as they should know, is fundamentally different from all other areas of our immigration system. There is a completely separate process in place for asylum claims, one that has absolutely no bearing on wait times for immigrants.
This is especially rich coming from a party whose failed immigration policies kept families apart for years, forced vulnerable women to stay in abusive relationships, refused to act in the face of the world's largest refugee crisis, and failed to secure and rescue Yazidi women and girls.
Our government is laser-focused on protecting the safety and security of Canadians, securing our border, upholding our humanitarian obligations, treating people with dignity and compassion, and following the law. I will explain how our government is doing just that.
Our primary priority is the safety and security of Canadians, and we are making investments into strengthening border security. Let me be clear. Every individual is carefully screened, and no one is released into our communities until the individual has cleared security checks.
Canada is a signatory to international conventions and we have legal as well as moral obligations to assess asylum claims and not turn away people who have legitimate fears of persecution, violence, and risk to their lives. However, irregular crossings do not provide a free ticket to Canada. We have gone to great lengths to ensure that asylum seekers are well informed about the robust assessment process in place. We have undertaken an extensive outreach program to reach potential migrant communities to ensure they understand Canadian immigration laws and the consequences of crossing the border irregularly.
We also know that quick decision-making on asylum claims is vital for minimizing pressure on social services, while ensuring that asylum claims are not in limbo for years. That is why we are investing an additional $74 million into the Immigration and Refugee Board to speed up asylum claims.
We have worked with the provinces and other partners to take what we learned last summer and develop a national operations plan to manage possible scenarios and any fluctuations at the border. We have established an intergovernmental working group of federal and provincial ministers to address emerging issues quickly and ensure a coordinated approach.
We have reviewed our operations and developed more flexible and nimble procedures that can adapt to shifting movements. This includes cutting processing times for work permits from three months to three weeks, deploying mobile processing teams to the border, expanding our footprint in locations such as Montreal, and working with our partners in Quebec and Ontario on innovative solutions.
Finally, we have continuously engaged with our U.S. colleagues, including a meeting just yesterday between my colleague the Minister of Public Safety and the U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security, to ensure seamless co-operation in managing our common border. This includes working together to understand movements, share information, and address issues such as visa granting in source countries.
I would like to emphasize that all of our actions to date underscore our commitment to a well-functioning process that protects Canadians. Independent observers such as the UN refugee agencies have praised Canada's handling of the situation. Just last week the head of the UNHCR in Canada said that Canada's border is secure, that Canada is very well equipped to respond to any increased number of asylum seekers in Canada, and that the Government of Canada adapted to the increase with measures that reduced congestions at land ports of entry and strengthened asylum processing capacity.
Our government is unwavering in its commitment to protect Canadians while supporting a strong asylum system and meeting its obligations to provide due process to persons seeking protection.
I have appreciated the opportunity to participate in this important debate.
