Laurin Liu

[Public Works and Government Services, June 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, days come and go, and still the Conservatives refuse to answer our questions. We still have no guarantee about the industrial benefits of buying the F-35s.

The report from the independent review panel has yet to be made public. Government members have it in their hands. If it contained good news, they would not hesitate to talk about it at every opportunity.

What is in the report? When will it be made public?

[Public Works and Government Services, June 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it came as no surprise yesterday, when we learned from the panel on the replacement of Canada's fighter fleet, that the decision would be a political one.

However, we also know that the acquisition will be based on a document that is out of date and almost entirely unfunded, the Canada first defence strategy.

Would the government tell us why it is not using this stale strategy for the rest of the Department of National Defence's planning, but it thinks it is fine for the F-35s?

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question. I imagine that in his riding office he must also provide services to people who are waiting to get their citizenship.

Since the Conservatives came to power, wait times have doubled and today, 320,000 people in Canada are still waiting for their application to be processed.

Of course, humanitarian cases have to be processed as quickly as possible. My colleague from Halifax mentioned the case of a mother who was waiting to sponsor her children. For the months she had to wait, she lost track of her children who were in her home country. The wait times are unreasonable. They penalize people who live in Canada, who want to be good citizens and contribute to our country. For humanitarian reasons, we have to address the processing times problem.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is not the only example of its kind. When I talked to groups of immigrants in Montreal, they gave me this example: a person gets a scholarship to Oxford or Harvard and has to leave for a period of months or years but fully intends to return to Canada and live as a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

These are opportunities our citizens should have. They should not be punished for wanting a chance to live or work elsewhere for a period of time. This bill goes way too far. Clearly, the Conservative government really did not do its homework on this one.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

I should mention that the Conservatives limited time for debate on this bill. This is really problematic and it infringes on our right to express ourselves on bills that will affect the lives of Canadians and immigrants.

It is more or less an omnibus bill. In fact, it is the first major reform of the Citizenship Act since 1977. We really ought to do our homework to come up with the best legislation possible.

I oppose this bill and I will take my ten minutes to explain why.

I would like to begin by recognizing the work done by groups in my riding that welcome immigrants, such as ABL Immigration, which works in the Lower Laurentians to help immigrants better integrate into our society and country and have access to services that can help them.

My fellow Canadians are ready to welcome newcomers, to have new people come to live here, but this bill goes against Canadian values.

I would like to mention that I was a panellist at a meeting in Montreal on Bill C-24. Julius Grey, a very well-known lawyer in Montreal whose name is probably familiar to all members, and the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes, which is active in Montreal, also participated in this event.

With the people who took part in the discussion, I was able to see that this bill raises a number of concerns about the Conservative government's approach. There were also concerns about the negative impact of that rather complex legislation, which includes many measures.

Since March 2008, or since the Conservatives took office, over 25 major changes have been made to immigration practices, rules, laws and regulations. We found that not all of these changes have been positive, including the moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents.

In my riding I met people affected by this measure. In fact, I meet people from across Canada who are affected by the fact that they cannot bring their parents and their grandparents here. In recent years, fewer family reunifications have taken place. This threatens the well-being of Canadians.

We saw that the government also chose to punish vulnerable refugees. On this issue, I want to note that Bill C-31 imposes a number of measures that experts deem dangerous for refugees. These provisions give the minister the power to hand-pick which countries are deemed safe, without consulting independent experts. They also give the minister the power to detain asylum seekers for one year, without reviewing that decision.

This bill also contains provisions to deny certain refugees access to the refugee appeal division. Bill C-31 also imposes a mandatory waiting period of five years before legitimate refugees can become permanent residents and be reunited with their families.

As we can see, these are very tough measures that adversely affect the safety of refugees who come to Canada after fleeing unstable situations in their country of origin.

We have also seen that under the Conservative government there has been an increase in the number of temporary foreign workers to the detriment of Canadian workers. Furthermore, and I am sure that I am not the only member to have noticed this, our riding offices are reporting that processing times, which are currently 31 months, are harming our constituents who come to our offices looking for help. Unfortunately, too many of these people want to know the status of their file. The only thing we can tell them is that they have to wait, even though the processing times are unreasonable. Instead of attacking refugees and preventing families from being reunited, this government should instead be tackling processing times. That should be the priority.

I will now focus on the measures in the bill that the NDP members are concerned about. First, we have seen that Bill C-24 concentrates many new powers in the hands of the minister, including the power to grant citizenship and to revoke it from dual citizens. This creates two tiers of citizenship and penalizes people with dual citizenship. It allows a minister to revoke the citizenship of a person who has dual citizenship and commits illegal acts, whereas someone without Canadian citizenship will be punished in the criminal justice system instead.

We believe that this is rather arbitrary. We should not have two tiers of citizenship. I am very proud of my Canadian citizenship and I know that my parents, who immigrated from China, were as well. A Canadian is a Canadian, period. We should not have two types of citizens, those who have dual citizenship and those who have single citizenship.

Under the provisions of the bill, the minister may revoke citizenship if he, or any staffer he authorizes, is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that a person has obtained citizenship by fraud. That poses significant problems because this clause is based on the balance of probabilities. If the minister has reason to believe that the person has obtained citizenship fraudulently, he has the right to unilaterally revoke that citizenship. Clearly, that prevents the individual from appealing to the courts and it places more arbitrary powers in the minister's hands.

This bill is problematic for another reason, namely the provisions related to the declaration of intent to reside in Canada. The minister can arbitrarily choose to strip someone of citizenship if he believes that the individual does not intend to reside in Canada. That penalizes those who obtain citizenship and then perhaps get a job offer elsewhere but still plan on returning to Canada. It penalizes people who find themselves in rather unique situations.

The final measure in this bill that I would like to raise is the fact that the length of time someone spends in Canada as a permanent resident will no longer be taken into consideration for the granting of citizenship.

Clearly, the NDP feels it must oppose many of the measures. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill as well, for the reasons I have just presented.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, could my colleague tell us more about how this bill could be subject to constitutional challenges? We know that the government does not always bother to make sure that its bills respect human rights and comply with the Canadian Constitution. Could my colleague talk about the problems with this bill and how it might not meet constitutional standards?

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the bill is very long and, as the member mentioned, some measures are worse than others.

Could my colleague talk about the omnibus nature of this bill? This does not allow opposition members to fully debate this bill, which contains a number of measures that affect potential new Canadians.

[Consumer Protection, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, banks are imposing unfair penalties of up to $30,000 on consumers who pay back their mortgages in advance because of a change in workplace, a separation, or a death.

Will the Conservative government finally put a stop to this practice and support my bill to put a cap on these unfair and excessive penalties?

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for the question. I know that he speaks with a lot of gravity and authority on the subject.

Let me give the House one fact to drive this point home. We know that Honduran authorities devote minimal resources to investigating human rights complaints. In 2012, the country's special prosecutor for human rights was responsible for acting on 7,000 cases. That is a very high number, and it was done while employing just 16 prosecutors and 9 investigators.

We can see that this is not a country in which human rights abuses stand to be investigated. It is not a country in which the assassinations of journalists stand to be solved.

For these reasons, I encourage my colleagues to oppose this trade agreement.

[Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, June 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Roughly half of Hondurans live in poverty. The Conservatives say they are going to find people who are going to buy Canadian products. However, when half the population of a country lives in poverty and its economy is smaller than Ottawa-Gatineau's, then where are these consumers of Canadian products? We have to wonder.