Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate today to this concurrence motion in the first report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I want to thank the member for Trinity—Spadina for giving us this opportunity to talk about this important issue today.
The key part of the committee's report is a recommendation that the government allow any applicant, unless he or she has serious criminality, who has filed his or her first in Canada spousal or common-law sponsorship application, accompanied by a permanent residency application, to be entitled to a temporary work permit and an automatic stay of removal until a decision is rendered on his or her application. It is a very straightforward recommendation that tries to address a very difficult situation that all too often arises in dealing with immigration policy here in Canada.
I want to go over some of the key parts of this. The committee clearly understood that criminality was an issue that had to be taken into consideration in these circumstances, which is something we want to take very seriously. The committee said that serious criminality still must be considered in these circumstances and that there was often a reason to proceed to deportation and removal when there was an issue of criminality. The committee has been careful. It has not said that we excuse criminality if we are going to change and make this policy clear.
The committee also made it clear that this deals with first in Canada spousal or common-law sponsorship applications. Therefore, we are not talking about attempts to drag out the process or delay the imminent decision on a file by successive applications and appeals. We are talking about the first application for a spousal or common-law sponsorship application. This is not down the chain somewhere. This is at the very beginning of that process. The committee was very wise to include that and has been very careful to include that language in its recommendation in the report.
The committee report also talks about an in Canada spousal or common-law sponsorship application accompanied by a permanent residency application. In effect, we are getting the whole thing at once. We are not doing a separate spousal application and a later application for permanent residency. It was very prudent of the committee to ensure that it was saying that everything had to be in order about the application, that it had to be a serious application and that all aspects of the application needed to be complete and part of what was being considered by the department.
It was very wise of the committee to do that because we want to ensure the system has integrity and we want to ensure that people engaging this new policy are very serious about that engagement and very serious about their situation.
The committee was also wise to talk about entitlement to a temporary work permit until the decision has been reached on the application. I think everyone in the country knows the importance of work and how many families have struggled with the requirement that both spouses work to maintain a reasonable standard of living in this country.
I think that was a very wise inclusion. We know the financial stress that many families who are going through the immigration process are under and especially those who have gone through a difficult immigration process often face that. It was very wise of the committee to include the entitlement to a temporary work permit until a decision is rendered on the application.
The automatic stay of removal is also very important. We know that removal is a serious issue that involves the need for legal representation and a new level of engagement with the law in Canada. To get to that point, it is always very difficult to stop that process once it has begun. The seriousness of deportation has ongoing ramifications. It will ultimately take the direct intervention of the minister, I believe, to allow someone to return to Canada after the person has been removed and deported. It is a serious level of engagement of our immigration laws to consider removal and deportation. The committee was wise to say that should not be needed until a decision is made on the application.
This is a very prudent recommendation, a conservative recommendation in the small “c” sense. The fact that it gained a majority support at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration is an indication of how carefully crafted it was to deal with very serious situations. Some of the most difficult situations that any member of Parliament can face is dealing with a family that is about to be separated because of some aspect of our immigration law. The committee was wise to be very careful in how it crafted this recommendation. I would hope the government would take it more seriously than it seems to be doing this morning.
What we also must remember, when we look at this situation, is that we are talking about but a Canadian sponsoring his or her spouse or partner. We are not talking about people who are trying to come into Canada who have no connection to Canada. We are talking about someone who is related to a Canadian in the most direct way as his or her spouse or partner. It is important to keep in mind that we are talking about Canadians who want their spouse to be with them here in Canada and that is a crucial piece of this recommendation from the committee.
Overall, it is a very prudent, important and carefully constructed recommendation from the standing committee.
I want to pay tribute to my colleague from Trinity—Spadina. Like me, she was a constituency assistant to a member of Parliament for many years. She has had, like I, the experience of sitting with constituents who find themselves in these kinds of difficulties and has sat with them as they faced the possibility of their family being split and a family member, a spouse, being removed from Canada. I am sure members can imagine that there is not a more difficult situation than to sit with people and try to advocate for them when they find themselves in that circumstance.
My constituency staff and my case workers, Ayesha Haider, Caren Yu and Jane Ireland, have had the same experience in recent months of having to sit with constituents who are on the verge of their family being split up and have sat with them through that experience of seeing a spouse removed from Canada. It is one of the most difficult situations that they can deal with. I want to thank them for taking that responsibility and working with those folks to try to find every avenue that would make it possible for that family to stay together.
I believe families need to be the key principle behind our immigration laws and policy. Family reunification must be a fundamental principle of Canada's immigration law and for many years it was always seen as the key aspect. Keeping families together and reuniting families here in Canada was crucial to a successful immigration policy. I think it is one of the reasons why Canada, around the world, is seen as having a very successful immigration policy. If we were to look at the history of immigrants to Canada, the ones who have been most successful have been those who have had family here in Canada and have been reunited with them because it gives them a built-in support committee or a built-in settlement committee that allows them to adapt more quickly and more happily to life in Canada. We are loath to forget that family reunification has been the most successful part of our immigration program, which is good cause for continuing a bias in favour of families when it comes to our immigration policies, For me, that is a no-brainer. When we look at the immigration program, we will see that success. Most of us know from our own families that family reunification was an important aspect of immigration for many of our families. Successful immigrants come out of family reunification and we need to maintain that.
We heard concerns this morning that the Conservatives may be moving away from that emphasis in our immigration policy.
Mr. Speaker, you and I were on the immigration committee in the last Parliament when the then minister of citizenship and immigration, Mr. Monte Solberg, made his first visit to that committee and made his presentation entitled, “Minister's Vision for Citizenship and Immigration”. I remember being quite shocked listening to the minister's statement to the committee when he talked about the principles behind Canada's immigration program, the needs of the Canadian economy, the protection of vulnerable people and the refugee program. He did not talk about family reunification.
For years, Canada has had sort of a mantra. When we talk about the goals and principles of the immigration program, we talk about family reunification, the needs of the Canadian economy, the protection of vulnerable people and nation building.
The former minister, Mr. Solberg, however, left out nation building and family reunification. I thought those were very serious omissions. When it came to my time to question the minister, I said that he had listed the important principles behind immigration but that for the first time, I suspect, in many years, a minister has left out family reunification and I asked him why he did that. The minister replied that he was trying to keep his remarks short so he had not included everything but that he did see it as important.
I think the first time the immigration minister in a new government visits the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration his statement is very carefully drawn out. It is not something that is done carelessly. The words are chosen very carefully.
As it turns out, that was our first indication that for the Conservative government family reunification had literally dropped off the list of key principles around immigration. We have seen that with the emphasis on temporary foreign workers. We have seen that with the emphasizing of economic immigration over family reunification that has come with the Conservative government.
That is a very sad situation because family reunification and family immigration has been the strongest part of our immigration program and it is what has built this nation. To turn our backs on that success story is a serious problem indeed.
When I hear a Conservative standing today to criticize this recommendation from the standing committee, I worry that this is another example of the Conservatives failing to support families in Canada and failing to support Canadians as they build their families. I want to ensure we have a clear debate and that the government is forced to take a very clear position on this because it is something that I think is very important.
In my own constituency in recent months we have had a number of serious cases where families have suffered through this kind of situation where a spouse has been removed from Canada. I must say that these are very traumatic situations. One of them involved a spouse who was here in Canada on a visitor's visa. She had overextended her visitor's visa, forgot to renew it and, unfortunately, that left her out of status. She and her spouse realized the mistake but it did not change the fact that she was married to a Canadian and that she was pregnant with their first child. Unfortunately, we could not convince the government to cut them any slack to ensure this family would not be separated, especially at such a crucial time in their life when they were expecting the arrival of their first child.
The woman was placed on an airplane at the Vancouver airport. It was very difficult and traumatic getting her to that point of being on the plane. On the plane, she took ill before it took off. The flight had to be delayed and she had to be taken to the hospital where I believe she remained for about a week just because of the stress of what was happening to her at that point.
I think we can all agree that this is not a good situation for a pregnant woman. Needless to say, she and her husband were most distraught with what was going on. The husband was often denied visits with her during her hospitalization. Later, when she recovered from that immediate episode, she was removed from Canada. Here we have a family separated from their means of support, a father separated from the imminent birth of his child and a family separated by thousands and thousands of miles.
The father had to take an unpaid leave of absence from his job to be with his wife when their child was born. Having to take that time inflicted significant financial difficulties on the family. It affected his ability to maintain his position where he worked as well. This was all totally unnecessary.
This was a bona fide relationship. The spouse was pregnant. Yet, somehow we could not find it in our immigration process or in our hearts as Canadians to make sure this family stayed united in Canada.
We felt very strongly that the government failed this family at an important time for them. It will take some time to rebuild their confidence in this country. All of us who had anything to do with this particular case were very shaken because we could not get any minister to intervene directly in this case. This is one example of an issue that my constituency staff and constituents has experienced recently.
There are other complicated ones, and I do not deny that there are complications in all of these situations.
Recently, another constituent of mine was deported. He came here as a 10 year old. He did not know that his family had not made the appropriate arrangements to have him granted status in Canada. He had a wife and a child in Canada. He also had a criminality issue, but that was taken care of. He did his time in Canada, and he was released. As a result of that criminal conviction it came to light that he did not have status in Canada, and the government moved to remove him.
I take criminal issues very seriously, but this individual had been in Canada for over 20 years, I believe. He did his time, so I think that was resolved. But at that point he was our criminal, because he was a Canadian, by all intents and purposes, if not by direct legal definition, who had been raised in this country.
To say that he should have to leave this country and not be able to support his family and not see his child grow is a serious issue. Again, we failed another Canadian family by not having a more generous and clear policy around this kind of situation.
I would also be remiss if I did not mention the situation of the Lennikov family in Burnaby. They live in the riding of my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster. This family is about to be separated, within the coming week, I believe.
Mikhail Lennikov, his wife Irina, and Dmitri, his son, came to Canada 11 years ago. They made refugee claims and they were found to be refugees, although Mr. Lennikov's claim was complicated by the fact that he had worked for the KGB in Russia. He was forced to work for the KGB. He quit the KGB after five years, and then he came to Canada. He did not hide that information when he made his refugee claim. We were not able to accept that someone could be forced to do that kind of work, turn their back on that work and be a legitimate refugee.
Dmitri Lennikov, the son, is graduating from high school this week. Mr. Lennikov has been granted a temporary stay of his deportation so he can attend his son's graduation.
What will the situation be after that? There will be another separated Canadian family, because Irina and Dmitri have been accepted to stay in Canada but Mikhail will be forced to leave. Another family will be in terrible distress.
This family has huge community support. Four thousand people went on their Facebook site, and letters and petitions have come from Dmitri's school and from the community in support of them.
This is a very simple matter. We need to support families. We need to make sure they have a successful life in Canada. We need to be careful before we engage in a removal process when it involves the spouse of a Canadian.
This recommendation from the standing committee is very carefully constructed to deal with the important situations that families face. It merits the full support of the House.
