House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 41% of the vote.
Canada-United States Relations September 21st, 2011
I did not know knuckle grazing could cause so much noise, Mr. Speaker.
I wonder if the minister could tell us, in negotiating with respect to perimeter security, why, when faced with the buy American problem, why, when faced with the labelling problem, would ending trade discrimination not be part and parcel of those negotiations?
Canada-United States Relations September 21st, 2011
I think most of the noise was coming from the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker.
I wonder if the minister could now explain--
Government Spending September 21st, 2011
Mr. Speaker, a review of public accounts shows that the government spending on professional and special services, including the use of consultants, has gone up from $7.24 billion to well over $10 billion, a cumulative increase of over $7 billion.
I would like to ask the Minister of Finance what he thinks the chances are that the $20 million consultants he just hired will come back and say, “Do you know what is a good way to save money? Cut the use of consultants”.
The Economy September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the love in that response, but let us just look at the facts of what the government is doing.
It says that it is focusing on the economy and jobs. We have just been faced with two pieces of legislation that have already dramatically increased the size of the debt and deficit in Canada, and according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, they are going to increase Canada's debt by $15 billion over the next five years. That is the agenda is being foisted upon the country by a government that claims to be worried about the economy.
The government has to show some flexibility and leadership in the face of these changed circumstances.
The Economy September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the love in the minister's answer.
What I would like to say to the minister is very simple: circumstances have changed. The circumstances relevant to the minister's budget are no longer relevant today. That is the problem. That is the challenge facing Canada. Yes, we have some flexibility. We do have some leeway, but will the minister take advantage of that leeway? That is the important question we are asking him.
The Economy September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the warm applause from the Conservative Party.
The Minister of Finance has to face the harsh fact that the IMF report today, which he has quoted very selectively from, states very clearly that the IMF is changing its growth projections for Canada. He has to recognize very clearly that the IMF said something else quite significant at the end of its report and he said that it is precisely because Canada has the fiscal room to move that it is important for Canada to look hard at the need for flexibility in the face of changed circumstances. This is where we part company with the government. Will the minister not admit that the world is--
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I wish we had more time to discuss that.
The question of the member for Papineau is a sign of the health of our caucus that these questions and answers are quite unrehearsed.
If we look at the pattern around the world, what creates a demand for refugee asylum are desperate circumstances in the countries in question. We can see a pattern in many parts of the world of profound hardship and deep problems, political oppression and other challenges.
The number of people who will claim asylum and get there in the most desperate of circumstances will grow all the time. That is what makes it important for us as a country to be clear on what we are about. As a country, we are about treating people fairly. The whole refugee structure is all about that.
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, the government will obviously not be referring this to the Supreme Court. And if it does not refer it, there will be years of persistent appeals.
I have no doubt that the Supreme Court would clearly state that asylum seekers must be treated fairly and that they cannot be told that they have no right to appeal. That clearly goes against every fundamental trial opportunity in our justice system.
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I would not agree with a single sentence that the member has spoken.
I am really astounded that somebody of his experience would make that kind of a comment. It is proof that the red Tories are gone. I do not know where they once were, but they certainly are not over on the other side anymore. He has become a Reformer, just like the others.
The member says that there is a legal vacuum. There is no legal vacuum. This is a myth which is perpetrated by the other side. There is no crisis. People are not sitting on the edge of their chairs because of this issue. It is astonishing to me. What the Conservatives are doing is trying to whip something up and are responding in that way.
No, I do not agree with his point of view that we are abdicating responsibility. We are taking our responsibilities as members, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do.
Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act September 20th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île who gave, not only a passionate discussion of the issue, but also a very thoughtful one. I congratulate my colleague from Vancouver Quadra for her statements this morning, as well as the member for Laurentides—Labelle and the speech from the member for Scarborough—Rouge River which I had a chance to listen to yesterday.
I have also had a chance to listen to the interventions from the minister who took some exception to some of the statements made in the House and insisted that what Canada was doing was in the finest traditions of Canadian respect for the law. I want to take some time to ask how the minister can actually say that in good conscience.
He said that after the arrival of the boat from Sri Lanka, polls showed that the Canadian public wanted to refuse people all right of entry and that this measure was very modest in comparison to what the public were demanding.
I have the advantage of having been around for quite a while and I was present in the House during the debate on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I was present in the House when we voted in favour of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I think I am correct in saying that I am the only member here who can point to that. That debate focused on the question of what we should do to protect to minorities even when it is unpopular, because at that moment we were reflecting on our history as a country.
We were reflecting on the fact that if a poll were taken on the decision of the government of the day, which was a Liberal government, supported strongly by the official opposition, the Conservative Party at the time, to intern Japanese Canadians without trial, without right of appeal, simply on the basis of their race and on the basis of the minister having designated someone as a person of Japanese origin and who, therefore, would be incarcerated. If we had taken a poll that would have been very popular.
Is this something where we hold a finger in our mouth and hold up the finger to see which way the wind is blowing? That is not the issue here. This is an issue about the substance of Canadian law, the process that we must follow as a country in order to uphold our obligations to ourselves under the charter and our obligations to other countries. I will go back to the basics. i will use the words of my good friend from Crowfoot, the former chair of the House foreign affairs committee, with whom I had the great pleasure of working for a period of time. He said that everybody was an asylum seeker, that they are not necessarily a refugee. That is correct.
However, this law would give the minister the power, in effect, the obligation, to designate someone in a particular category so that person would be treated differently than another asylum seeker who is also claiming refugee status. The minister uses his power to designate an individual and, as a result of that power, that person is put in detention. That separates out different kinds of refugees depending on the circumstances under which he or she comes to Canada.
Let us be clear: the popularity of the bill is not the issue here. The Conservatives are telling us that they are concerned about the economy, but that is not evident in the debate. They are addressing the issue of refugees and introducing crime bills. The Reform Party is still there; it has not disappeared. The name of the party has changed, but the Conservatives have not changed their stripes. They are not concerned about the economy. They are concerned about something else.
For us, the issue is very clear: is it legal for the government to treat people who are trying to obtain refugee status differently, based on the way in which they arrive in Canada? I do not think that that is in line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter clearly states that everyone has the same rights and must be treated the same way. People cannot be treated differently based on the way in which they arrived in Canada, because this can be unfair to an individual.
Let us take our responsibility as members seriously. If the government were serious about this, it would refer the legislation to the Supreme Court of Canada. It would say that reasonable people, and that includes about every law professor and a former chair of the Immigration Appeal Board who I spoken to, have said that they do not consider this goes outside the framework of the law.
However, the government has chosen not to do that. It has not changed the legislation. It is the same bill it produced the last time the House would not have passed in its formation at that time, because the government did not have a majority. Now that it has a majority, it has said that it will go ahead and push the law forward.
For the members opposite, let me clearly make the position of the Liberal Party. We do not care whether the legislation is popular or not. The question is whether it is legal, constitutional and, therefore, the right thing to do.
I probably have spent as much time as anyone, with very few exceptions, particularly my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River who has lived with this issue, looking at the situation in Sri Lanka. If the government were to say that it wants to get tough on the people who are smuggling, we would say that smuggling is already illegal, that it is already against the law. It is not as if we have no legal structure in our country to deal with people trafficking in persons. It is not as if we have no laws to deal with this question. It is not as if we do not have the ability, if we can get the proof, to actually arrest people, charge people and have a trial. However, the purpose of the legislation, and the minister said it yesterday, is to ensure that people who might consider trying to come to Canada under these circumstances think long and hard before they do it.
Therefore, contrary to what the Conservative member from Musquodoboit said earlier, this is not about treating people who come by this means more fairly, which was an absurd argument, This is about actually discriminating against people who were coming in this circumstance.
The government may win all kinds of kudos from people who say that this is right on, that we should lock those people up and throw away the key. Frankly, it is important for a political party to say that this is not the issue here. The issue here is the law of Canada, which includes the charter, which is the Constitution of Canada, and that is the weakness of this bill. I can take members hammer and tongs through every piece of sentence in this law and say that, in its most simple form, it creates two classes of refugees. If people come by plane, they are one class. If they come by car, they are in another class. However, if they come in a boat, we do not want to have anything to do with them. That is wrong. Like cases, people who are applying for refugee status, should be treated fairly and squarely, according to the fundamental principles of Canadian justice.