Kevin Lamoureux

[Canadian Wheat Board, September 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about government hypocrisy.

On the one hand, approximately 40,000 Prairie grain farmers voted 62% to keep the Canadian Wheat Board. The Prime Minister declares that the vote means nothing, that it does not count. The Prime Minister, like the minister, says the Wheat Board must go.

The CWB vote had a 66% turnout and 62% said yes, and yet in British Columbia the HST vote had a 52% turnout and 55% said to get rid of the HST. There was no question on the validity of that one. My question for the government--

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the issue of fairness.

Members will recall that when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism introduced the bill, he said that the primary purpose of the bill would be to target the smuggler or the profiteer. When the member makes reference to the need to see bills that are fair, when we look at this particular bill, even though the minister talked about getting the profiteer, in reality, it would not do anything for getting the profiteer. The real victim here seems to be the refugees.

I appreciate the story the member made reference to in terms of the Tabaj family that came back to Canada. Here we have refugees who are victims in a country where they come in hopes of getting asylum, and now we have a government, through this legislation, making the family a victim once again.

I wonder if the member would comment as to the fairness of that.

[Citizenship and Immigration, September 22nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government is no friend to the refugee community. We just need to look at the anti-smuggling bill and how it tried to demonize refugees as a whole.

Today, a family of refugees will be arriving here in Canada. The minister knows them quite well. He is the one who actually deported them. It took a federal court in order to get that family back to Canada.

I look to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism or to the government to do the honourable thing and apologize to the Tabaj family for the harm caused because the government chose to deport this particular family.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, September 22nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the speech provided by my colleague yesterday.

One of the things that came across my mind as he was articulating was the whole issue which both opposition parties have been raising, which is regarding the costs. There is no doubt a great deal of effort by both the provincial governments and local municipal governments to try to come to grips with the issue of fighting crime.

The idea of trying to invest more resources in those things that are going to prevent crimes from taking place in the first place, such as community policing and after school programs for high-risk offenders, is where priorities should be.

I wonder if the member could provide any information he has in regard to the costs that have been provided for the implementation of this particular bill and the possible impact of those costs on being able to provide other forms of programs that would have more of an impact on preventing crimes.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, September 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, for a number of years I was the justice critic in the province of Manitoba. When Ottawa makes changes and brings in legislation, quite often it has a profound impact in terms of the budgets at the local and provincial levels governments. That impact is fairly profound on this bill. We have had great difficulty in terms of trying to come to grips with just how much Bill C-10 will cost the taxpayers and how much money the provinces will have to come forward with in order to compensate the bill.

When I was the critic, I was always pretty gung-ho on wanting to prevent crimes from happening. That meant taking those scarce resources and trying to invest them so that little Johnny, as opposed to getting involved in a gang activity, would be involved in a school activity.

Does the parliamentary secretary have a sense of how much money this will cost the different types of jurisdictions, or can he take this as notice and provide us information on how much, for example, it would cost the province of Manitoba to implement Bill C-10?

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, September 21st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, does the member not see the value in terms of investing more resources into things that would prevent crimes from occurring in the first place? I am talking more about crime prevention type of programs by investing in young people so they have alternatives to hanging around the streets. Does the member see the merit in that and would she support those types of initiatives just as enthusiastically as--

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 20th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, in the introduction of Bill C-4, the minister and others on the government benches talked about how this bill would target the profiteers and smugglers. We in the Liberal Party and, I believe, most, if not all, members of the opposition have indicated that they are not really the primary victims. The primary victims are the refugees seeking asylum. I would suggest that the number of profiteers or smugglers, which this bill is actually named after and, apparently, targeting, who will be impacted is pretty close to zero, if not zero.

Does the member want to comment on the title of the bill and on how the government seems to be of the opinion that this bill targets profiteers or smugglers?

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I found the prior question interesting. The member made reference to the whole idea of fearmongering. I would look to my colleague from the New Democrats to provide a comment.

When the Prime Minister of Canada stands on the back of a boat called Ocean Lady to try to raise the profile and then label refugees as being questionable in terms of arriving in Canada, potentially implying that there are terrorists and others on board that boat, would the member who has spoken to the bill acknowledge that as being a part of fearmongering?

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, when the minister introduced Bill C-4, he said the primary purpose of it was to target the profiteers and to go after the smugglers. It is interesting that the member talked about punishing the victims. That is a point we really need to pick up on.

In the bill the government is zeroing in on the profiteers, and the number of profiteers who are going to be penalized by this bill is zero. On the other hand, I want to pick up on the point of who is actually being punished. Individuals are landing on our shores, whether by plane or boat, and for the most part are seeking asylum because if they stay in the countries they originate from, their lives could be shortened. There are threats of torture and all sorts of other horrendous acts.

Would he not concur with me that they are already victims, and now they will be victims a second time because of the government's action? Would he concur with that?

[Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, September 20th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism introduced and spoke to the bill, he made reference to the primary purpose of the bill being to get at the profiteers or smugglers.

We have argued that the bill will not have any impact on that. In the hon. member's comments, he made reference to the number of smugglers this particular bill will actually catch. I believe he said it would catch zero.

I wonder if he would just expand on that particular point. We believe it will have minimal, if any, impact whatsoever. Would the member add a comment on that?