Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House on behalf of my constituents of Surrey North.
I am an immigrant to this country and I am thankful for the opportunities I have had here. Many other members in the House are also immigrants to Canada.
I listened to the debate this morning. The member from Winnipeg North is absolutely right. The vast majority of the immigrants who come here, at one point or another, are good citizens. They contribute to the economy, the culture and make good citizens.
I am also a father of a young girl and boy. Therefore, for Conservatives to constantly ask about which side the New Democrats are on when it comes to rapists and murderers, as a father, I know which side I am on.
We agree in principle with Bill C-43, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We agree that there are some good aspects to the bill. However, there are many holes in it and we need to be look at those. Therefore, we will support sending it to committee so it can look at some of these issues.
One issue I have with the bill is it concentrates more power in the hands of the minister by giving him new discretionary authority over the inadmissibility of temporary residents. Basically the minister can declare a foreign national inadmissible for up to 36 months if the minister is of the opinion that it is justified by public consideration. The minister may also at any time revoke or shorten the effective period of declaration of admissibility.
I have trouble with the word “opinion”. What is that opinion? How does the minister form that opinion? Are there criteria set as to how that opinion is formed? It is very troubling.
The second component I also have trouble with is the change to what constitutes a serious criminality for the purposes of access to an appeal of determination of inadmissibility. Previously, a conviction in Canada resulting in a prison sentence of two or more years constituted an automatic stripping of permanent residency or a temporary resident's right to an appeal at the immigration appeal division. However, Bill C-43 would revoke the right to an appeal of a determination of inadmissibility where there would be a conviction of six months or more.
We talked about minor offences and young people this morning. There may be young people who have committed a robbery and are put in prison. Their whole family may be here and they would have no right to appeal to get a fair hearing. They may be able to reform and become productive members of society, yet they will be sent back to a country with which they may not be familiar. Therefore, I have a problem with that.
The bigger issue the Conservatives are trying to avoid is the whole immigration system that we have in place. It was broken before. The Liberals had a chance to fix it for many years. We have seen lineups and wait times being increased for family reunification for spouses and for skilled workers. That was under the Liberals. Then the Conservatives said that they would fix it and make it better. What I have seen in the last six years is the dismantling of the immigration system, which is broken, and that is a bigger issue. They are not fixing the immigration system so it is fair, effective, efficient and serves the needs of Canadians.
We are all familiar with the fact that Canada has an aging population and we do need immigrants to fill the jobs that would help the government bring in revenues so we can provide services such as education, medicare and other services on which Canadians depend. Yet that does not concern the Conservatives. They are avoiding the whole issue of fixing the system so it is effective, efficient and is better for our economy.
I will give some examples. A young husband and a wife came into my office a few months ago and I had a chance to sit down with them. They had gone to another country looking for a caregiver. They interviewed a person who they felt could provide child care for their daughter. They came back to Canada and wanted to submit an application. The husband was a businessperson and the wife was a teacher for the local school board. They wanted their daughter to be taken care of at home by a live-in caregiver from another country who they would sponsor. When they submitted their application, they found out that it would take four years before they could get the application reviewed by our embassy.
Therefore, if one were to have a three or four year old child, he or she would have to wait four years to bring someone to Canada to provide child care services. The couple I spoke of are productive members of our society, a teacher and a businessperson, who are providing jobs in our community, yet one of them will have to stay home to take care of their daughter. That was their predicament. That is not right. The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. That is what they told me.
There is another case of a woman who had stage four breast cancer and was trying to sponsor her mother to come here from Romania to spend the last four or five months with her so she could be surrounded by family. Her mother had come to Canada previously on a temporary visa and had returned. This woman wanted to spend time with her mother. Because of the present rules, her mother was denied a temporary visa. The system is broken. Her mother had already come to Canada and returned, yet she was denied a visa to return to be with her daughter during her last days and take care of her. The daughter was willing to provide financial support and health care insurance for her mother.
Another example is that of a dying father who requested that his son come and visit him during his last days in hospital. He was denied a visa to come to Canada. When the father died, the son again applied for a TRV, a temporary resident visa, to come to Canada to see his father for the last time.
These are the kinds of problems that the government is failing to fix. If there were—
