House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2019, with 41% of the vote.
Citizenship and Immigration June 11th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, what is clear is that this bill proposes new powers to deport a Canadian-born citizen to a country to which they have no connection. This is nonsensical, and it is most likely unconstitutional.
The hon. member knows there is a public outcry and he knows people are asking to compromise, yet he stubbornly steams ahead, ignoring all criticism.
Why did the government turn down every single suggestion put forward to try to fix this bill?
Citizenship and Immigration June 11th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took evasive action after being asked about the constitutionality of his immigration bill. He refused to answer the question, but he did manage to make an unrelated reference to the “disgraced ideological former lawyer of the Khadr family”.
Could the minister tell us how his latest smear job is even remotely relevant to the constitutionality of Bill C-24?
Citizenship and Immigration June 10th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, how much bad legislation can one government draft? It seems that for these Conservatives, the sky is the limit.
Let us enumerate: a Supreme Court pick, rejected; the crime bill is overturned; the Senate reform proposal, ruled unconstitutional, and that was just the spring session.
Now the Conservatives are stubbornly forging ahead with another unconstitutional bill. Will the Conservatives listen to Canadians, start respecting Canadians' rights, and withdraw this bill?
Citizenship and Immigration June 10th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, that is a pretty liberal definition of the word “unanimous”.
The Canadian Bar Association, UNICEF, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council for Refugees have all raised concerns about this bill. Now the Constitutional Rghts Centre says that it will challenge this in court if the Conservatives let this stand. Will Conservatives stop ramming through a bill that they know is going to be dragged through Canadian courts for years?
Portugal Day June 10th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, today, as Portugal honours its greatest poet, Luís de Camões, it is a privilege for me to honour the Luso Canadian community as we celebrate Portugal Day.
Canada provided a home for many early immigrants from Portugal who left behind decades of fascist rule. They came with next to nothing, but their pockets were full with the desire to contribute and to succeed, not just for their own families and for their own community, but for Canada as a whole. Because of their experience, they wanted to help build a Canada that was fair for all, where everyone had access to opportunity, to health care, and to education.
Today, that very same community's contribution to our cultural, commercial, and social life is one of Canada's great success stories. Portugal Day provides us with an opportunity to reflect not only on those accomplishments but on who we are as Canadians and the Luso Canadian community's vital role in shaping the Canadian identity.
I invite my colleagues and Canadians from coast to coast to coast to celebrate and to congratulate the Portuguese-Canadian community. We wish Portugal good luck in the World Cup.
Viva Portugal. Viva Canadá.
Citizenship and Immigration June 9th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, according to the UN, over 2.8 million Syrians are seeking refugee protection. The Canadian Immigration Settlement Sector Alliance has called on the government to take in more refugees. It says that Canada is uniquely positioned to do more and to accept more.
Now, the minister has so far dragged his feet, but he has the opportunity to finally listen to experts, acknowledge that he has mishandled refugee protection, and agree to reassess Canada's role in Syrian aid.
Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act June 9th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place on behalf of the good people of Davenport in the great city of Toronto to speak to Bill C-24. It is of vital interest to the people in my community of Davenport, in fact to people right across the greater Toronto area, because over half the people in the GTA were born outside of Canada, so any changes to our citizenship and immigration rules, laws, or structures are of vital interest to the people I represent.
What we have here is a gross failure on the part of the government to address the fundamental issue facing so many of our immigrant families in Canada, and that is the failure of the government, in this legislation and in other pieces of legislation it has brought forward, to deal with the growing wait times, not just for citizenship but for family reunification. The bill does not address those issues. In fact, it makes those issues worse.
Right now we have about 360,000 people waiting for their citizenship applications to be processed. What we would have liked to have seen is the government expedite this, bring this issue forward, in a way that would actually get some resolution for so many families who are in sort of suspended animation. They are doing the work. In every other way they are Canadian citizens, except that they have not had their applications processed. They are waiting and waiting.
The bill also underlines a strategy the government employs time and time again, and that is to pick the outlier problem and use it as the justification for massive changes that would maybe appease some of its base but that would not address the fundamental issues immigrants in Canada face today.
I would like to bring the attention of the House to the issue of fraud in the system. We have over 300,000 applicants for citizenship right now. The other day the minister admitted that only 3,000 of those over 300,000 are being investigated by the RCMP for potential fraud. Fewer than 1% are being investigated, and we do not know what those investigations will glean. Of that fewer than 1%, they may find some fraud. I am not saying that there is not some, but the government and the minister are using this fraction of abuse in the system as a rationale for sweeping changes, changes that would, as they do so often on the government side, amass more power in the hands of the minister, power that would allow the minister to retroactively change someone's citizenship status.
If the Conservatives had listened to stakeholder groups, they would have heard quite resoundingly the deep concern of Canadians, immigrants, and the organizations that support and advocate on behalf of both refugees and newcomers to Canada.
I would like to also underline the fact that the government has changed the language test requirements. It has made it now the rule that anyone between the ages of 14 and 64 needs to undergo a rigorous language test. The minister has never once revealed any data that would back up any reasons for the changes he has made. He says that young people would score great on this test, and it would be great. We know that.
However, he has never brought forward any study that shows that this is indeed the case. The minister has never answered the question regarding what would happen if the child does not pass the language test, but the adult does. What happens then? I believe that one of the reasons that the government moved time allocation on the debate is because it does not want to answer the tough questions that are being raised on this bill. The questions just keep coming.
Today, there are families in my riding who have been waiting eight to nine years for grandparents and parents to come to Canada, and for the government to fulfill the promises that it made to newcomers when they first came that they could bring their parents or grandparents with them. What we have now is a government that says it going to fix the wait times for citizenship by making it much harder. In other words, the government would make the process and the system longer.
Some of it seems to make absolutely no sense. It the government wanted to ensure that those who were seeking Canadian citizenship would forge a real attachment to Canada, why on Earth would it then disqualify all of the time that a person has spent here as a non-permanent resident from their application?
That makes no sense. It sends a huge message to people. It tells them not to attach to us because we are not going to attach to them right now. That is fundamentally the wrong way to go, and it was not the case here in Canada until now, when the government politicized this debate.
The extended times required to stay in Canada are also an issue for many immigrants. In case the government has not realized, Canadians travel abroad for work all the time. We are in a globalized economy. We have Canadians working in the United States and we have Canadians working all across Europe and Asia, looking for opportunities. When they arise, Canadian citizens can take those opportunities, but the changes that are in this bill would make it more difficult for permanent residents who are waiting for citizenship. Indeed, after they are granted citizenship, it would make it harder for them to take the opportunities that are there in the global economy.
This seems incredibly unfair, and it brings up the point that my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River made earlier about the creation of two-tiered citizenship. Making it more difficult for new citizens to take those opportunities elsewhere in the economy is also a way of creating a two-tiered system of citizenship in this country.
People should not be surprised that this is the direction that the government has gone in. After all, when we are giving a message to immigrant families that their grandparents and parents are not as important to Canadians as Canadian-born grandparents and parents, of course, we have a two-tiered system.
We have always had families at the basis of our immigration system. The government, through its policies, whether on refugees or immigration, has moved Canada away from family values. It has seen families being torn apart. Quite frankly, we have to build an immigration that has, at its core and as its central function, the goal of keeping families together and a part of the Canadian community. The New Democrats on this side are committed to that.
Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act June 9th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons the minister wants to close the debate on the bill is because he keeps making stuff up and does not want the scrutiny of Parliament to uncover the fantasy-based facts that he continues to underlie his reasons for the bill.
The bill would increase wait times. It would make citizenship harder to acquire for those who are waiting right now. There are already over 300,000 people waiting, their applications pending. The bill would make it harder. It would make it harder for children and seniors to acquire citizenship because they would have to undergo rigorous language tests. It would extend the wait times, which are already over eight years. It would give the minister unprecedented powers.
Are these the reasons why the current government wants to shut debate, because it does not want Canadians to really understand the fundamental ways in which the government would change the rules for citizenship, which are the cornerstone of who we are as a country?
Energy Safety and Security Act May 29th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, up is down and down is up in this place today. It is either time allocation or it is not time allocation. It is either closure or it is not. If it is not closure, we should be debating the bill, but we are not, because the government has invoked time allocation. This is what is happening, and it has happened time and time again in this place.
When I first arrived here, the government moved a time allocation motion on a bill that it said we had debated in the House in a previous Parliament. That was the government's justification for that time allocation.
There is no justification for this, except to mute debate, to limit the legitimate voices of opposition members—and Canadians—who want to participate in the right process of democracy in this place. That is something the government shows it has little respect for, time and time again.
Petitions May 29th, 2014
Mr. Speaker, a member of my community, Oscar Vigil, is facing deportation by the Government of Canada. Oscar came to Canada in 2001 from El Salvador. His wife and three children are Canadian citizens.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to grant ministerial relief for Oscar Vigil and allow him to remain in Canada with his family as a permanent resident.