Bill Siksay

[Security Certificates, February 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah and Hassan Almrei, three security certificate detainees, have been on a hunger strike protesting the inhumane conditions at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre. It is now day 83 of their hunger strike.

Will the Minister of Public Safety appoint the Correctional Investigator of Canada as an ombudsperson to investigate their grievances immediately and before someone dies on this hunger strike? Is the minister prepared to start negotiations on conditions of release for all of these men?

[Security Certificates, February 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that security certificates violate the charter and principles of fundamental justice.

One alternative, the special advocate model used in the U.K., is unfair and inadequate. Prominent advocates have resigned because they know it prevents the right to a fair hearing and the accused are still deprived access to the case against them.

What solution does the Minister of Public Safety propose to ensure a fair and transparent process, in line with the charter and principles of fundamental justice?

[Foreign Affairs, February 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Norwegian government opened talks yesterday to ban cluster bombs throughout the world. Cluster bombs have a history of causing mass civilian casualties and indiscriminate death. At this meeting, the Conservative government prevented setting a timeline for the negotiations.

In the past, Canada has taken a lead on disarmament. Now we are throwing up roadblocks. Will the Minister of Foreign Affairs today commit to show leadership on this issue and agree to a moratorium? Will Canada destroy any cluster bombs in Canadian stockpiles?

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her kind words.

Earlier in the debate this afternoon, we heard from the Conservatives that they were making progress, they claimed, on dealing with the backlog of applications and the problems in the immigration system. However, as a member of Parliament from an urban area that has a large immigrant population, I have not noticed that.

I think every urban member of Parliament here has found that their offices are under considerable strain from the sheer volume of casework associated with problems with the immigration and refugee system. We are inundated with immigration casework. In fact in most of our offices, we have had to hire one person to do nothing but immigration casework. For many of us, it feels as though the department has offloaded a lot of the services that it should be offering people who have problems with immigration applications onto MPs' offices. We found this in all parties; it is not just a phenomenon for New Democrat members.

One of the solutions we came up with, in discussing this with my colleague from Hamilton Centre, was to propose the institution of an office of an immigration ombudsperson. It would be modelled on the office of the worker advocate in Ontario, which dealt with a similar situation around worker compensation claims in Ontario. MPPs' offices were inundated with those kinds of casework issues and found that the work they did in their offices was overwhelming, so this was hived off into an advocacy situation in an ombudsperson's office.

I know the member has had experience as a constituency assistant and has an office up and running. I wonder if she could comment on that situation.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the minister. I appreciate that she has taken the time to speak on this motion.

My first question is also one of great interest to the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam. Is the minister or the government prepared to institute a special program to receive refugees from North Korea? We know of the very difficult circumstances the North Korean people find themselves in, both with regard to human rights and social conditions in that country. Often they escape to China. Would the Government of Canada be prepared to take special measures to ensure they can leave China and come to Canada and receive sanctuary here?

My second question is around settlement funding. I acknowledge the Conservatives have increased settlement funding to match the agreement that was made with Ontario by the previous government. That is good news for provinces like British Columbia, which was far behind other provinces in the level of settlement funding they receive.

However, one of the problems is the Government of British Columbia takes that money and puts half of it into general revenue. It says that money goes for fee for service ESL training, which in my understanding is a violation of the agreement between Canada and British Columbia on settlement and ESL.

Is the minister prepared to take action to ensure that all the money transferred from the federal government to British Columbia for settlement work and for ESL goes into those kinds of programs, and that half of it is not skimmed off by the Government of British Columbia and put into general revenue?

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kitchener—Waterloo for his speech and his ongoing work in this area. He is passionate about citizenship issues. I am sure that everybody watching appreciates that passion this afternoon.

The member has just alluded to the controversy about the numbers of people who might be involved in this as lost Canadians. The minister reported that there were 450 cases being considered currently. The member has just outlined the fact that he thinks there are many more people who are directly affected by this.

I wonder if he could comment on one of the groups that is affected: the children born to Canadian military personnel who were serving overseas during the cold war period, serving on Canadian military bases in France. One of the things we have discovered about those folks is that often they were issued Department of National Defence birth certificates, which now have been determined not to be acceptable proof of their birth to Canadian parents overseas. When some of these people apply for a passport now, they are finding out that this identification, which has been acceptable in the past, is no longer acceptable. Could he comment on that situation?

[Chinese Canadians, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, after the 1886 great fire razed Vancouver, 60 hectares of land near Main Street north of False Creek was leased to some 100 Chinese immigrants. They were given the land rent free for 10 years provided they worked it. This was the origin of today's Vancouver Chinatown.

However, mounting discrimination against the Chinese led to a riot on February 23, 1887. An angry mob of 300 assembled to run the Chinese out of town. They destroyed the Coal Harbour shantytown and roughed up its residents, some of whom escaped by jumping into the frigid waters.

Two policemen stood their ground between the mob and the Chinese labourers and ordered the mob to disperse. While the riot ended without serious injuries, it did send a clear message to the Chinese that they were not wanted, and they left for New Westminster, Alberta and Ontario.

At the time of the riot, Chinese residents did not have the vote. This was the beginning of the head tax era, when overt discrimination was legitimized by racist legislation, including the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act, which largely prohibited Chinese immigration until 1947.

We must never forget this difficult history and we must ensure it is never repeated.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the caution that the member for Kitchener—Waterloo raises around diminishing the tragedy of the Chinese head tax. He raises a good point about that, although, in popular parlance, sometimes the right of landing fee is referred in those terms.

I pay tribute to the member Kitchener—Waterloo. He is one of the great experts in this place on citizenship policy. He has made that one of his key interests in his time here as a member of Parliament. I think he raises important points about political control over the awarding of citizenship. He is absolutely right that it should be based in legislation and on the provisions of a Citizenship Act, not left up to the discretion of the minister to make those kinds of ultimate decisions.

The process of revocation should not have any political involvement in it either. That is one of the flaws of the current Citizenship Act, which the standing committee raised in the last Parliament. The minister should not have any involvement in revoking citizenship because of the political implications that has. In fact, in the last Parliament we heard a minister of citizenship hint it might be action that could be taken against another member of Parliament, very inappropriately I have to say.

I think he is right. We need a clear Citizenship Act. We need citizenship judges who have the ability to make decisions based on that legislation. I have always been someone who strongly supported the role of the Citizenship Court judge in the system.

I am very disappointed that the Conservatives have suspended the screening process that was implemented by the senior Citizenship Court judge to review appointments to the Citizenship Court. They have reverted to some nebulous process.

The minister was at committee this Monday. She could not explain the screening process that replaced the senior Citizenship Court judge's process, which was a very detailed process. Her comments on that were very nebulous and very confusing. She was not even clear what process had been undertaken for the screening of the people who had come forward and had already been appointed under the Conservative government to that important position.

This is another area where we need to ensure a rigorous process is in place to get the best people for the job. It is a very important job. It is often the job that represents this nation to people at a very crucial point in their journey of immigration and becoming citizens in Canada. We need to ensure we have the best possible people in there. That screening process needs to be reinstituted immediately.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges raises a crucial point. Our system of refugee determination has taken too long in many cases. To hear of cases that have gone on for five, six, sometimes seven years, or more is absolutely unconscionable. Those people have come to Canada and have become part of our communities. Their children have often been born here. Many of their children have been educated here and integrated into our educational system, and have no contact with their parent's country of origin. At the end of that process, to finally get a decision saying they have to leave Canada is unfair and unjust to those families.

The member for Hamilton Mountain raised exactly one of those situations earlier this morning in debate when she asked about a family in her riding who, after five years, finally had a determination from the refugee process that said they had to leave Canada. This is upsetting the lives of their family to no end. Their children had a possibility of a bright future here in Canada with acceptance at university and acceptance in professional programs. That is all in question now because of the length of time it took to make that decision.

There needs to be some kind of limitation on how long people have to wait for those determinations. If it goes past a certain point, efforts should be made to regularize them here in Canada because of the length of time it has taken for the system to do its job.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start at a more basic point. I believe the Refugee Appeal Division needs to be implemented because that is the law. That is the law that was passed in this place. I do not think there is any excuse for Liberal governments or Conservative governments deciding they are above the law that was passed in this House, especially when it arose out of a compromise in the work that was done in this place.

That is a crucial issue. It should be implemented because it exists in the law. It is a provision in the law that would bring more justice and fairness to the process. It is absolutely necessary because it was passed in this place and also because it is a measure of justice and fairness.

The estimates of the cost of this have not been high. The previous government used to say that it would take $2 million to implement and $8 million a year to run. The current government has bumped that up a little and also said there are provincial costs involved in all of this.

I suppose we could drag it on and make it exponential and all of that, but the reality is that it is a very simple measure that would bring justice and fairness. Every refugee and immigrant-serving agency in the country has called for its implementation. Many international organizations have called for its implementation as well. I do not think there is any excuse for not implementing it.

The other measure that would bring some speed to the process would be to ensure a full complement of members on the Immigration and Refugee Board. There are vacancies on that board. There have been vacancies on the board for many years. Judges who were board members have not been reappointed. If the government would ensure the IRB had a full complement, that would go a significant way in ensuring some speed in the process.