Jim Karygiannis

[Citizenship Act, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in committee yesterday, the minister said that the numbers of lost Canadians who are unaware that their status is in jeopardy were exaggerated. She claims that the number is 450 but Statistics Canada figures show that the number is as high as 50,000. Canadians believe Statistics Canada versus the minister.

Will the minister admit that she has no plan to immediately restore the $20 million the government cut to get the much needed review of Canada's Citizenship Act back on track?

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for talking about the chocolate bar. However, during our visit yesterday I am sure he will remember that Mr. Almrei went up and opened the cupboard and took the chocolate bar out. He said, “Here's the chocolate bar that the minister was talking about. How dare he go through my private property”. That is what we heard, for the record.

The men are suffering from all kinds of health problems. Mr. Jaballah has sores on his tongue that are getting worse. Mr. Mahjoub has bad knees and hepatitis C. Mr. Almrei certainly has problems. Mr. Jaballah wants to have a hernia operation. Where I really lost my mind is when I heard that it takes 18 months to have a hernia operation.

The health situation of the detainees certainly has been deteriorating but it is not something that is a priority of the government nor of the minister when he stands up and wants to correct the record.

I would add my voice that health care should be given to these individuals and that a doctor should be visiting these detainees on a daily basis.

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would stand and say that he failed to set protocols on how these men should be dealt with and that he failed in his job to ensure these people were afforded the rights on how they were handled. I wonder if the minister has enough fortitude to stand up and tell the country that he failed.

These people do not have an ombudsman and, therefore, have absolutely no way of having their grievances heard. If the minister will make those statements then I will engage in the other part of the conversation with the minister.

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise on this motion. I want to thank my colleague from the NDP for bringing it forward; however, I want to reassure not only the Canadian public but the detainees who I know are watching right now that all parties together are working on this issue.

A lot of people have referred to the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre as Gitmo North, and it is Guantanamo North, nothing more, nothing less. One of the things that is lacking is a set of protocols, an ordered way to do things. It is a hodgepodge. We borrow some from here, we borrow some from there and we try to put it together.

If the detainees push, then we push back a little bit more. If somebody says anything, we push back. However we cannot push back Parliament. We cannot push parliamentarians back when they are bringing to light for Canadians three individuals who have been held for six and seven years without knowing why they are being held. There is a secret trial that is going to happen or is not going to happen. We are playing mind games with their families. We are playing mind games with them. This country should not be one of the countries that does this.

Unfortunately, less than one year ago, in April 2006, the holding centre was built in Kingston right beside Millhaven. It is not Correctional Service Canada. It is not CBSA and it is not Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It is just a holding centre. It has an administration building and it has living quarters for the three men who are being held.

The three men who are being held there do not have anyone who speaks for them. They can put in a complaint and they can raise issues and they are dealt with somewhere. We do not know where or by whom, but they are dealt with and they get a response. If they want to complain further, they have absolutely nowhere to go to.

Mr. Speaker, if you were to get a traffic ticket today, you could go in front of a judge and say, “I am innocent” or “I am guilty”. These individuals have not yet had their day in court. They do not know why they are being held and certainly, in order to improve their living conditions, they have nowhere to go.

The minister visited and said, “I have seen the chocolate bars”. Well, I visited two days later. These individuals have lost 25 to 30 pounds. They were drinking soya milk, water and orange juice. The minister says they have chocolate bars. I was there almost a week and half ago, and when I opened the fridge, there were four bottles of water and two bottles of orange juice. Yet when the committee went there yesterday, the table was filled with orange juice, soya milk and everything else. What hypocrisy. What a show was put on.

This goes back to my original thought. We need an ombudsman. These individuals need an ombudsman in order to be able to voice their concerns.

They are on the grounds of Millhaven penitentiary but they are not on there. There is a memorandum of understanding between the two departments. One department says one thing, one department says another thing. The correctional services officers who are looking after them are really on loan to CBSA.

One of my professors from university said, “Enough BS and verbal diarrhea to really baffle the brain”. This is what we have from the Conservative government. We have absolutely no clear direction. The bureaucrats have no clear direction with respect to these men. There is nobody to oversee them.

Let us go over this issue. We need a protocol on how to deal with these detainees and should there be any detainees in the future of the same sort. We need a protocol that indicates how it should be done and we need an ombudsman to oversee it. The Correctional Investigator ombudsman should be one of the individuals who oversees this.

These individuals have not seen a medical practitioner. They have not seen a doctor for months. Mr. Mahjoub's health is ailing. He has high blood pressure. He has hepatitis C that he contracted when he was incarcerated. Yet in this country, not in Syria, not in Egypt, not in Iraq, not in Pakistan, but in this country, we do not give him health care.

One of the men has a hernia. I asked the officer yesterday, “When are you going to give him attention?” The officer said, “Oh well, it takes 18 months to get hernia operations in Kingston and the surrounding area”. Eighteen months. That is enough to boggle the brain. In Kingston, in this country, it takes 18 months to get an operation. Is there enough verbal diarrhea and bullshit here to baffle the brains? We bet there is.

What is the minister doing? They got chocolates. If the minister had bothered to look at the men he would have seen that they had lost weight. If he would give his bureaucrats a clear mandate on how to do it, there would not be a problem with their health care.

Something which is more bizarre is that every day the men stand to be counted. Remember that there are three of them in a small building, something like 20 by 40 feet. That is ridiculous.

Yesterday we found out that there are five guards who are certainly a little more aggressive than the rest of them and they are making these men's lives miserable.

The minister is saying that if they want to walk out and go back, by all means. Has the minister forgotten about Arar? Has he forgotten what happened to Arar in Syria? Maybe we should spell it out for him. It cost $10.5 million. It cost an embarrassment to the government. Saying that they can walk out and go back to Syria is something that this country certainly cannot afford and it is not humane.

I think we must ask the Conservative minority government, the new government as the Conservatives say, to come to terms with reality. Regardless of whether the men are terrorists or not, we are not here today to debate that particular thing. We are here today to talk about the way they have been treated. We are here today to talk about setting protocols. We are here today to talk about the secret trials and sealed evidence. Not in this country.

These men must know what they are charged with. These men must know and be able to face their accuser. These men and their families should not be separated for seven years.

Mr. Mahjoub has children who were born in Canada. Mr. Jaballah has a grandchild whom he has only seen once or twice. Where? In Canada. It is a pity.

I join my colleagues, on this side of the House at least, the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals, in urging the minister to look at this very carefully, to make sure that the minister puts in place protocols and guidelines that the holding centre and the detainees can be governed by.

There are 20 issues that the detainees have put forward. Issue one was dismissed. Issue two was dismissed, and it goes on for 20 issues. They were all dismissed.

If people are convicted, hardened criminals, they can have conjugal visits in jail. Their families can spend up to 72 hours with them. Imagine. I heard my colleague from Kitchener—Waterloo talk about Olson and Bernardo. We are talking about that calibre of criminal. They can have conjugal visits.

These individuals do not know what they are faced with. We tell them that they are terrorists. We tell them that they have links to al-Qaeda, but certainly we are not putting this forward. When their families visit, they are harassed at the gate before they get in. They go in and there is a short time when they meet and they are told, “You have a couple of minutes”.

For the record, the chocolate bar that the minister did see and he said that the men got chocolates, was for the grandson of one of the individuals, should the grandson visit.

One has to ask why we are not moving in a humane fashion. What signal are we sending to the rest of the world?

I certainly urge the House to support the motion.

[Request for Emergency Debate, February 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, due to the number of Canadians who over the last year have been hurt or killed in Mexico and the Mexican government's seeming inability to investigate and solve those crimes, I feel that the House of Commons should undertake an emergency debate on this issue.

These tragic events have caused many Canadians to ask the government to issue a travel advisory for Mexico. To date, Canada's new minority Conservative government has refused the calls of Canadians and parliamentarians.

Today the Minister of Foreign Affairs is in Mexico. He has the opportunity to press this issue with his counterpart.

As the government has failed to safeguard Canadians while they are visiting Mexico, it is up to Parliament to ensure Canadians are warned of the perils they face while travelling to Mexico. Canadians want their government to take the necessary steps to safeguard them.

This morning the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Trade said in an interview that for a travel advisory to be issued:

I would suggest to you that Canadians would have to be targeted, and Canadians are not being targeted in Mexico.

Do Canadians have to paint a bull's eye on their foreheads? That is absolutely outrageous.

In a few days the universities will have a reading week and in a few weeks from now we will have March break. The Canadian government must ensure that Canadians are aware of the dangers they could face at their travel destinations.

I am, therefore, requesting an emergency debate on this issue. We must be responsible for Canadians and to Canadians.

[Hrant Dink, January 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my sorrow and condemnation of the brutal unprovoked murder of Turkish Armenian journalist, Mr. Hrant Dink, on January 19, 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey. I wish to extend my sympathies to the family of Mr. Dink and to the Armenian community throughout the world. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Mr. Dink was an internationally respected journalist, intellectual and a prominent Armenian voice in Turkey. He believed there could be understanding, dialogue and peace among peoples.

During his distinguished career, Mr. Dink was outspoken against the state, advocating the opinion that Turkey committed genocide between 1915 and 1917 when it forced a mass evacuation from the Ottoman Empire and the related deaths of 1.5 million Armenians. He became victim 1.5 million and one. Mr. Dink's life's work will no doubt serve as an inspiration to other writers around the world who use the power of the pen as a weapon against brutality.

I also add my voice to the thousands at his funeral who stated, “I am Hrant Dink. I am Armenian”.

[Privilege, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.

Today in the citizenship and immigration committee during normal proceedings, I was questioning a witness, citizenship judge Raminder Gill. It is a well-known fact that Mr. Gill was the Conservative Party candidate for Mississauga--Streetsville in the last election. He also had political aspirations to run again in that riding. It is also a well-known fact that the current member for Mississauga—Streetsville changed political parties. Mr. Raminder Gill was appointed as a citizenship judge circumventing the required screening of citizenship judges.

I feel that my privileges were trampled upon by the committee chair in order that the truth not come out. The chair kept continuously interrupting me and abusing his position. I wanted to receive an answer from the witness. The chair brushed aside my questions in order to facilitate a cover-up of the government.

The Prime Minister and the member of Parliament for Mississauga—Streetsville have been cooking his defection to the Conservatives for a long time. My privileges of getting answers and to get to the bottom of this pork-barrelling scandal were pushed aside in order to provide a cover-up. This is the most crass feather-bedding patronage I have seen since Brian Mulroney bought Lucien Bouchard.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to look at today's proceedings and review this matter.

[Riding of Mississauga--Streetsville, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today in the citizenship and immigration committee questions of political affiliation and participation were posed to Judge Raminder Gill. Mr. Gill was the Conservative Party candidate in Mississauga—Streetsville in the last election and had political aspirations to run again in the riding.

Will the Prime Minister today confirm that Mr. Gill was appointed as a citizenship judge circumventing the required screening in order to facilitate the member of Parliament for Mississauga—Streetsville joining the Conservative Party?

How long has the Prime Minister and the member for Mississauga—Streetsville been cooking his defection to the Conservatives?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 29th, 2007]

With respect to the listing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organization, on April 8, 2006, what has the government done to ensure that law abiding Canadians of Tamil decent are not being subjected to undue scrutiny?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 29th, 2007]

With respect to the provision of humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Lebanon, what has the government, more specifically, the Minister of International Co-operation, done to provide assistance to the people of Lebanon to help them rebuild their shattered lives and to provide assistance to the government of Lebanon to help it rebuild its infrastructure and help clean up the environmental damage?