Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that we share the government's concern about serious crimes committed by individuals who are not Canadian citizens.
As a result of this principle, we support this bill at second reading. However, we still have some concerns about this bill, which we feel casts too wide a net over immigrants.
I would like to use a simple analogy to explain the situation to Canadians watching today. When I was young, one of Greenpeace's big campaigns in the 1980s was to save the dolphins. The problem at the time was that tuna fishers were catching dolphins in their nets because the nets were too big. As a result of a campaign against this action and pressure on the processing companies, they changed their way of doing things. That is why we see the “Dolphin Friendly” logo on cans of tuna.
I hope that, as a result of the concerns we voice about this bill and the work done in committee, the Conservatives will make sensible changes to improve this bill so that it becomes “Immigrant Friendly.”
With this story, I want to illustrate two things: first, Bill C-43 is a big net, perhaps too big, and in our desire to catch criminals, innocent immigrants are going to get caught in this large net and get hurt in the process. We have some suggestions for improving this bill.
Like most Canadians, we are concerned about criminals and crime, but we want to proceed responsibly and not engage in demagoguery, as the members on the government side often do.
Before explaining what we want to improve, I would like to point out that the opposition's priorities are the economy and the quality of services, such as health care, provided to Canadians. It is sad to see the government fuel stereotypes by focusing on bills that target immigrants and establishing a link between criminal behaviour and immigration.
As many of my colleagues have mentioned, the vast majority of immigrants are honest. They work hard if we let them.
I would also like to mention that crime is a complex process. One of the causes of criminal behaviour is poverty, and not a person's country of origin.
We know that, historically, immigrants have often been targeted and seen as a threat to the well-being of a population during periods of economic crisis.
I hope that the government is not trying to fuel stereotypes. Crime is not really widespread in the immigrant communities, but the government is dwelling on the extreme cases. As we say in English:
It is just a few bad apples.
Keeping with my focus on the economy, I would like to address immigration and our economy and point out where the government's priorities should lie, in general, regarding immigration issues. Then, after talking about where the priorities should be, I would like to look at this particular piece of legislation and point out its useful elements and perhaps where some of the weaknesses lie.
The reason I would like to emphasize this, in a more general sense at first, is that criminality is so often the result of social marginalization and the economic difficulty of individuals and their communities. As I mentioned before, it is not linked to their country of origin or where they come from in the world but to much more complex factors, which I will get into.
First of all, instead of focusing on the few bad apples as the government has, the government should instead focus on the lost economic opportunities of our immigrant communities.
In a study by the University of Ottawa Research Group on the Economics of Immigration, the researchers found that if we found better ways to integrate our permanent residents, such as if their salary scale were similar to that of domestic labourers—in other words, if they were on a more even playing field with domestic workers—we would see a net increase in real GDP. We would also see better labour productivity and an improved federal fiscal balance. If the government is serious about the economy—and it says its priority is on the economy and jobs—focusing on those elements of our immigration system would offer far better benefits than putting the priority on the criminalization aspects of immigration law.
The study further found that immigration can help solve the issue of population aging. It was an interesting factoid in this research. We often hear from the government that OAS is not sustainable, which first of all, is patently false; we have shown the government at many stages that OAS is sustainable in the long term. Certainly, the immigration community could improve the sustainability of old age security. That was studied by this group just last year.
Instead of focusing on minority criminal elements, the government should instead use the power of the federal government for good, by doing such things as encouraging the benefits of employing immigrants in professional spheres, encouraging employers to be proactive by making arranged employment offers and using the federal government to help businesses find quality overseas labour, not to cut costs as it appears the government is doing by offering 15% less to workers but to improve the quality of our workforce.
If we emphasized that as an immigration policy and cast out a net in the world to catch the most qualified and brilliant people from other countries, enticed them to come here and enticed employers to start giving arranged employment offers to these people, we would see great benefits to our immigrant communities. It has been shown that immigrants with arranged employment offers earn 74% more than those who do not have them. There is a systemic problem of underemployment. The problem in the immigrant community of not being able to be employed to their full potential has serious economic effects and drags on our economy, which we could improve if we took action and leadership.
The government could improve funding to language programs. My colleague from York South—Weston pointed out many of the cuts made to settlement programs. Researchers and experts in the field know that language ability is one of the key factors in the full employability of permanent residents. If we improved funding to language programs offered by the provinces and gave guarantees and benchmarking, we would see net improvements. We have seen that the government is willing to offer piecemeal, half measures of giving loans to professionals wishing to improve their credentials in Canada. We believe the government is not doing enough to recognize fully the contributions that professionals trained abroad could offer to our country.
The Conservatives have talked a lot about this, but instead of focusing on this problem of recognizing foreign credentials, they choose to make these few bad apples a priority, the few criminals who have abused the system. If they are truly concerned about Canada's economy and it is truly their number one priority, as they say day in and day out, then they should look at the economic aspects of immigration, rather than the few criminals who cheat the system. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, my suspicion is that they are playing a political game and are being demagogic in their approach to immigration. I do not think their true priority is the economy. Rather, it is keeping their base close to them.
I have had many conversations with permanent residents in my riding and in other ridings, frankly. I have talked to an engineer who was trained abroad, and he spent up to two years looking for a job in his field. After landing, he was still searching for employment in the engineering field. We know Canada needs engineers in certain sectors, yet he could not find a job. This just should not be happening.
There are 1.5 million permanent residents who could contribute to our economic success if they were allowed to do so and if the government got behind them. Unfortunately, the government's priority seems to be looking at the criminal elements of our immigration community.
In a study, Bonikowska, Green and Riddell found that immigrants have more years of education and experience than Canadian-born individuals. Bastien, Bélanger and Ledent, in their study, found that having a degree from a western country increases the chances of finding a skilled job. There are some very complex questions that arise in these findings that I think the government should begin to tackle, to dismantle, but instead it is focusing on the criminal aspects of permanent residents, as I said.
To summarize, improving the economic situation of our permanent residents may actually decrease the rates of criminality, which are already incredibly low and not a serious demographic problem.
After addressing where our true priorities should lie, let us look at this particular piece of legislation and the positive and negative aspects of it.
I would like to start with the short title of the bill, faster removal of foreign criminals.
Certainly, people who have come to Canada as tourists and commit a crime, I would have no problem calling them foreign. If they are here on a trip and commit a crime, they are “foreigners”, in common parlance. However, someone who has undergone the years necessary to come to our country as a permanent resident, has undergone all the steps to acquire permanent residency, I would say is not a person who is foreign to us. I would never characterize such a person as a foreigner. Therefore, first of all, I take issue with the short title of the bill.
Someone who has been here for 20 years, does not take citizenship and screws up would be treated the same as someone who has been here for just one month. There is no discretion in the bill to differentiate these two individuals. I would be very uncomfortable treating these two people in the same fashion. That is something, if it comes up in committee, that I would urge the government side to tighten.
I do not think most Canadians would call somebody who has been here for 20 years a foreigner. I personally never use the term and I am uncomfortable with it. When I lived overseas, I was uncomfortable being called a foreigner. It immediately sets a distinction between somebody who belongs in the country and somebody who does not.
In the proposed section 22.1, the government's amendment would allow the minister to prevent someone from becoming a temporary resident if he feels it is justified by public policy considerations. That statement is much too vague. The English version of the bill uses “public policy” and the French version uses “intérêt public”. Those are not at all the same. There are nuances between the two. That statement is much too vague.
Legislators from all parties often base their decisions on morality. We often see in the immigration system that children are judged based on offences committed by their parents. We can find many examples in many moral systems where judging children for their parents' crimes is not a fair way of doing things.
It worries me that this bill gives the minister a new discretionary power to grant an exemption for a family member of a foreigner deemed inadmissible.
At the request of the individual or on the initiative of the minister, the minister may ignore the inadmissibility of a family member of someone who is inadmissible for reasons of security, human rights or international law violations, or organized crime, if he is satisfied that it is not contrary to the national interest.
National interest requires the minister to specifically take into account national security and public safety. Why not completely remove the section that concerns the children of the guilty party instead of giving the minister a discretionary power? Instead of giving the minister a discretionary power, the bill could state that children will not be found guilty like their parents.
What I agree with is that serious, violent criminals and war criminals should not receive a safe haven in Canada. That is why we are supporting the bill in principle at second reading. The principle of the bill is not misplaced, but it needs serious improvements.
Likewise, we believe that the priority should be placed on bettering the condition of the vast majority of law-abiding immigrants rather than targeting the tiny minority of law breakers. Maybe improving the condition of permanent residents would also have the effect of lessening the incidents of criminal activity, which is already very low, as I mentioned before.
We will be voting in support of this bill at second reading in order to clean up the sloppy elements of this obtusely written bill, because even though Maclean's may have named him the hardest working minister, something I do not deny, it obviously does not read his legislation and may confuse press conferences with hard work. Perhaps the minister should spend more time on the legislation and less time on the media prep for it.
Like the association of police chiefs, we think we need to close the loopholes in immigration legislation, and we support the principle of the bill. However, we believe the bill needs tightening up in committee.
In addition to the association of police chiefs, here are other validators of our position.
Mario Bellissimo, lawyer and executive member of the Canadian Bar Association, is one of the nation's top lawyers and part of an immigrant community that has often been tarred with the criminal epithet. He said referring to permanent residents as foreigners is misleading.
They are casting the net too wide... People make one mistake—even if it's a non-violent crime—they will be removed.
Furthermore, he thinks the bill reflects the government's lack of confidence in the immigration tribunal and the Canadian judiciary. We believe in the power of the Canadian judiciary and the tribunals to take care of these cases and to offer fair judgment. We do not believe that the minister necessarily needs discretionary powers.
As a member of Parliament, I personally help my constituents with the immigration process, but I have never once gone to the immigration minister to lobby a case that has already been dealt with by the judiciary and the tribunals. I simply have trust in the system. I believe in that system and I believe it needs support and leadership. However, taking the discretionary element away from the tribunals and judiciaries and giving it to the minister is not the right way to go.
In terms of dealing with violent criminals and war criminals, we certainly agree with the approach of the government. That is why we would support this bill in principle at second reading, to give the government time to do its homework and tighten up the bill.
Just as the tuna canners of old created dolphin-friendly tuna, we hope the government will make this legislation permanent resident friendly.
