Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-31, the new immigration and refugee protection act.
The minister in her brief comments pointed out some of the things that are in the act. I want to talk a bit about what is in the act. Today is second reading debate. We like to talk about legislation in very general ways at second reading debate. My comments will be general by and large, but I will point to specifics in the act to reinforce some of the things I say.
Today I will talk about what Canada's immigration act should deliver. It is important to think about that as a starting point before we get into discussion on what is and is not in the new immigration act.
Second, I will comment on the minister's talk on the act and how it actually relates to what is in the act. That is important because the minister made some statements that make it sound like she has dealt with the problem of people smuggling and illegal immigration in a tough way, which is what Canadians want to hear. Does the act deliver? That is the question I want to talk a bit about today.
The minister said as well that the act would close the back door to those who are not wanted and who would abuse the system. At the same time it would allow Canada to open the front door, as the minister puts it, to immigrants who will benefit the country. Those are good sentiments which the minister has expressed. I will throughout my presentation today talk about whether or not the legislation delivers that.
As well I want to talk about, again in a general way, what has been improved and what is positive in the bill. I will start by talking about what is positive in terms of the minister's message because a lot of what is out there is the minister's message rather than what is in the bill. I will talk about that because I think it is encouraging that her message has changed. In fact, it sounds a lot like the message that the Canadian Alliance Party has been presenting for some time now. That has to be encouraging, but will the act deliver? That is the question.
I will talk also about some particular sections in the act which are good. Will these changes which are positive really lead to a better immigration policy? That is the bottom line. If the changes will not improve the system they are not of much benefit. Even if they are in the legislation and things do not change to allow their application to improve things, what has been gained? I will talk about that today as well.
I will also talk about some things that are clearly negative in the act and things which I think are so negative in some cases that we cannot expect a lot of improvement in most areas of the act. I will get to that.
I want to talk about what the immigration act should deliver. The immigration act is made up of three separate streams. The first stream is economic immigrants, people who are chosen to come to Canada because they should benefit our economy quite quickly. In the economic stream there are several different categories. For example, there is the investor class, the entrepreneur class, and several other classes in which people are chosen for their special skills and education. That is a very positive part of the immigration act. The focus on that clearly must be the improvement of the immigration system. That is the first stream, the independent stream.
When we look at the number of people who are actually chosen under the independent stream based on their judged ability to positively affect our economy, unfortunately we find that only 15% of all people immigrating to Canada fall into that category. Statistics on the economic immigrant stream are much higher because included in the statistics are dependants and others brought in under the independent stream who are never judged, even though they may qualify, based on the potential to add to the economy very quickly. That is the first stream.
The second stream is the refugee stream. Refugees are to be chosen not based on what they will add to our country or what they will add to the economy but supposedly based on their need for protection. Canadians welcome genuine refugees. From what I have heard across the country over the past year and a half since I have become the immigration critic, Canadians are quite happy and quite proud to be able to accept people in need of protection, genuine refugees.
The concern about the refugee system is that many people who enter the country as refugees are not genuine refugees. The minister talks about that in her presentation, but the question is what has been done about it. I will get into that as I go along.
Canadians are quite happy to accept the current number of approximately 23,000 refugees. I have not heard a great many people express concern about those numbers. I think we should have some discussion across the country about what is an appropriate number of refugees. I think debate on the immigration system is necessary and I hope the legislation will provide that. That is the second stream, the refugee stream.
The third stream in our immigration system is the family reunification stream, the families of people who qualify under the economic category and the families of those who come as refugees under the family reunification stream. Some different rules apply but basically it is the same process.
The idea is to reunite dependants, including dependent children and the spouse of the individual who has been accepted as a refugee or as an independent immigrant, to allow for family reunification of these people. It is certainly clear that our system does not do a good job of that right now.
If we were to ask any member of parliament in the House how well our system is working in that third stream of reuniting families, I think we would find they would say it is not working well at all. Every one of us has in our constituency people who have come to us looking for help in reuniting their families, often families that have been kept apart for three to five years or more in some cases. The system is badly broken and the question as I present my debate today will be whether this new act helps to solve that problem. Those are the three streams.
I will examine the act based on how well the system works to accept independent immigrants, to accept genuine refugees while keeping out people who are not refugees and people who may harm our country, people who are a threat to national security. There has been a lot of talk about that lately. In her presentation the minister talked about from her point of view what she thinks the act has done in that regard. My point of view is slightly different, but I will talk about that.
It has been an interesting process watching the minister and listening to what she said since the new bill was tabled in response to the leaked draft of the act which I received over a month before Bill C-31 was tabled in the House. There was much debate about the act long before the bill was officially tabled.
Many of the minister's statements reflect what Canadians feel and what Canadians want on the issue. If what the minister says the legislation will do and if what the minister says is in the new legislation is accurate, it can be nothing but positive in terms of the particular areas that are reflective of what Canadians want.
As I go through my presentation today I think Canadians will see that what the minister says and what is actually delivered in Bill C-31, the new immigration act, are not the same at all. I will talk about that in a few minutes, but before I get to it I would talk in a general way about what is in the act.
The new immigration act deals with the non-administrative aspects of immigration. I am not talking now about how effectively it deals with that. It provides legislation but it does not talk about the administration of the act. It talks about the selection of immigrants, and I will talk about what it does and does not say in that regard. It talks about who is admissible and who is inadmissible to Canada. It talks about the enforcement of the law to some extent. It talks about detention and release of people who come to Canada claiming refugee status or coming under some other category. It talks about appeals. It talks about refugee protection. It talks about the IRB, the new division and the reworking of the Immigration Refugee Board. It talks about immigration offences, probably in a way that is easier to understand than the current act does. It also talks about other technical matters.
It does encompass many different areas but let us have a look at what is provided in the bill, which is, I think, a key to this whole thing. Let us look at the independent categories. What is an immigration system about? More than anything else, an immigration system should allow Canada to choose people who will benefit our country as much as possible. I have no doubt that immigration has been a very positive influence in this country generally.
I come from east-central Alberta and over the last century it has been immigrants who have developed the area to make it a very prosperous part of Canada. If we looked at any part of the country we would see that it has been immigration which has developed and built the country into one that provides us with a good standard of living. That is important.
What was the purpose of immigration in my area of east-central Alberta? How were immigrants chosen and what process took place? I would suggest that several times in Canada's history our immigration system has been well focused and the people administering the system knew what type of people we needed and wanted in our country. That was one of the times I believe when the immigration department was very effective in attracting people who could develop the agricultural areas of western Canada.
The Lakeland constituency that I represent, which is east of Edmonton over to the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, is an agricultural area, and immigrants in different flushes, we could say, have come and developed the area. The British people were the first immigrants to begin farming in our area. Small groups of Ukrainian and German settlers and small groups from the Scandinavian countries also developed the country. As time went on, throughout the early part of the last century, large numbers of Ukrainians, Germans and others settled down and develop agriculture in that part of the country and made it a very prosperous part of the country generally speaking.
We all know that things are not always good for agriculture. Right now things are not very good in the grain farming sector but if we look at the long run it has been a very prosperous business thanks to immigrants. I know every member of parliament could talk about their constituencies and about immigrants who have come to their part of the country and have built Canada into a country for which we can all be proud. That is what should happen and what has happened in the past. The question is, will this bill allow that to happen again?
Not many would argue, including the minister herself, that the system is not working well in terms of helping and choosing people who will add to our economy very quickly. A large number of people who do come under the independent categories are very successful but it is not because the system is accommodating them. I would suggest that there are large numbers of people who would add to our economy very quickly but they are just not allowed to come to Canada. They usually give up after a couple of years of trying and go to another country. They have choices now. Canada is not the only choice. Our system has failed us in that regard.
I will now talk about some of the positive changes that I see in Bill C-31. Throughout our time in parliament we in the official opposition have been very careful to not only oppose and criticize legislation but to offer what we believe are positive alternatives to what is being proposed. This is important because if we only dwell on the negative I do not think people across the country would see that as what they want. They want the opposition, particularly the official opposition, to talk about what is working as well as what is not working and what is good in the proposed changes as well as what is not.
A positive thing about the new immigration act is that it is written in much simpler language than the current act. It is also much easier to read and thinner than the current act, which is a hodgepodge. The current act was originally designed in 1975. Many changes have been made since 1975, with some very substantive changes in 1989 with the development of the IRB. Some major changes were made in early 1993 to that enacting legislation in 1989. Substantive changes have been made throughout the past 25 years so the current act is not really the 1975 act.
Unfortunately, the changes have not worked very well. I would suggest that our immigration system really does not work as well now as it did back in the 1950s and 1960s. I do not think many people in the House would argue with that, including the minister herself. I am sure that is why she has tabled new legislation.
Unfortunately, there are some negative aspects to the bill being much thinner. One of the key negative aspects is the number of different areas that have been left to regulation.
The legislation is extremely vague on the independent categories, the whole positive side of immigration. I do understand that many refugees add to our economy quickly, but they are not chosen or I think they are not chosen for that reason. Currently, refugees are chosen based on their expected ability to adapt to life in Canada. Generally speaking, the refugee system is meant to provide refuge for people who need it.
Let us look at the whole independent category, which is really the backbone of our immigration system. How much deals with that in Bill C-31? Would it be a third of the act? Would it be half the act because it is an extremely positive side of immigration? No. Two short paragraphs in this entire act deals with the independent categories, or the economic categories which is the term used by the government and the immigration industry. The rest is left to regulation. That is one example of why the act is so thin.
However, looking at the positive side, it is easier to read and has been organized much better but there are a lot of holes in the legislation.
Because of the amount in this new act that has been left to regulation, the government is really asking us to take a blank cheque, sign it, say that we approve of it and allow the department officials and the minister to fill in the blanks later. That is completely unacceptable. On the one hand, the bill is easier to read and it is shorter, but the reasons for it being shorter are not very positive.
We applaud the government for cutting out the right of appeal to the IRB's appeal division for serious criminals. Many people in the country, including many people who work in the immigration system with refugees, have complained that people who are clearly identified as serious criminals are allowed an endless stream of appeals. There is at least one level of appeal in the act that is cut out for serious criminals, although I would suggest that all the levels that are added for most applicants and most refugee claimants will slow the process down.
The next positive thing in the act is that Canada will for the first time have a definition for people trafficking. It has never really been defined in the past. It is good to see that clause 111 actually defines what people trafficking is. We have heard the terms “people smuggling” and “people trafficking”. We often use them interchangeably but there are definitions that are pretty widely accepted by countries around the world. Much of that definition will still be determined by the regulation which will be added later.
When it comes to regulation, it is unacceptable to leave so much to regulation that when we examine a new piece of legislation to determine what it does or does not say we really cannot determine with any kind of certainty what is really in the act because so much is left to regulation. That the definition is there is a positive. However, we will not know how positive it is until we see what exactly the regulation will mean and how helpful it will be in terms of dealing with the system.
Another positive feature is clause 114 which will, we hope, give the courts clear direction in the prosecution of people traffickers by listing aggravating factors. In other words, there is a list of things which, if they apply, will determine how tough the penalty will be, how long the sentence will be, how big the fine will be and those kinds of things. This is important, somewhat helpful and does improve on the current act, but I would suggest there should be much more in the legislation itself than there is. It is a positive move but it unfortunately only goes part way.
We do not always agree with the direction in which the government is going as our philosophies are quite different on most issues. However, for the first time in a long time in the House of Commons, it is good to have clearly different philosophies as to how the country should be run and in what direction it should go.
I believe that for the first time in the next federal election we will see an election that is based on the philosophical differences of two parties. I have no problem with the Liberals. They have a majority government and it is fair that their philosophies show up in legislation. However, the problem is that there is so little actually defined in the legislation. While they go part way, which they often do, they really do not go far enough to clearly define what they want.
It concerns me and the members of the Canadian Alliance when we see the government laying out a little more detail but we still really do not know where it will end up until we see the regulations. That is a problem throughout the bill, as members may have guessed. I will talk about this in a more comprehensive way later because I think it is a key issue.
Another positive I want to mention is that the provision to go to one member panels in the IRB should allow the IRB to handle more cases, at least in the first round of appeals, and that is good. It is fine to have a one member panel as long as there is some reasonable way to appeal if a decision is in question. The appeal does not necessarily have to be an appeal to the courts.
I would argue that what we should have in our system is an initial hearing, an appeal right at the IRB, by a very experienced, well trained individual or panel. In some cases I think we would want a panel of two or three persons to hear an appeal. My concern is that this is already in the system to some extent, but appeals to the federal court and to the judiciary are still allowed. This results in even more appeals than in the past. If the one member panel is put in place, that should speed up the process. Then we would have the second level of appeal to the IRB, which would slow it down quite dramatically, but there would still be the appeals to the courts.
While this is positive when put together with everything else contained in the act, it really will not help very much. Unfortunately, even the positive moves in the bill really will not do a lot to help make things work better. As we see the debate progress throughout the day, I think that some of the reasons for that will become clear.
There are some changes which are clearly negative. I have already talked about the first one, one of the key ones, quite a bit already, but I think it is something that has to be talked about more. I am referring to the fact that there is so much in this legislation that is left to regulation.
I have already used the example of the independent categories. There are only two short paragraphs in the whole bill defining who should be included and how the system will work. That is not enough to bring to the House of Commons, expecting our support for the legislation. I would hope that Liberal members would not support it without more detail and more of the basic principles that are to be applied being included in the legislation. Too much is left to regulation.
Landings have been returned to our system. In other words, people already in Canada could apply from within for landed status. I think in some cases this would be positive and would make sense.
For example, let us look at foreign students who have studied in Canada, who have done very well and who have a degree or degrees in a certain area or some very high level of expertise in a technological area. These students have studied in Canada and have adapted to life in Canada, and maybe, to some extent, the workplace. At the present time they have to leave the country to apply for landing. They may never come back. That is not the intent. The intent of these foreign students is to return to their country of origin, in many cases to help that country move ahead.
Immigration in Canada should benefit Canada. What we want to do is attract the very best of these students and encourage them to stay. By allowing them to apply for landed status from within Canada is positive. This may result in having more of the very best of the foreign students decide to stay because they can apply for landing from within the country. That is to be applauded.
The whole idea of generally accepting far more people within Canada is a real concern. This is something that happened in the past which proved to be disastrous. People who clearly did not qualify applied, resulting in a continually building number of people in the country with no status.
What happened in the past was that we had general amnesty for tens of thousands of people because the system could not handle the growing numbers. What governments have done on at least a couple of occasions in the past 30 years was to provide a general amnesty, whereby anyone who was here under certain circumstances was allowed to stay.
Our system is accepting people who have not been screened. They have not really been chosen based on their ability to add to the country. They are still waiting for that to happen, but the backlog has become so large that we have had these general amnesties. From what I have heard from people who have been in the system, general amnesties have caused a lot of problems.
I believe that is a concern. Clearly in certain areas it is a good thing, but overall it will not work. It has been demonstrated that it will not work. It is important that we do not allow that to find its way into legislation. I hope the government will see that it will not work.
Along the same line is the dual intent clause, which states that a person may be granted a visitor's visa when that person clearly plans to immigrate to Canada, which is not allowed under the current system. It would cause the same kind of problem. We would have people coming as visitors and then saying “We are applying for landed status. We want to immigrate”, and they will stay here throughout the process.
Of course the process already has a terrific backlog. Under the independent categories people can expect an average wait of two years. Many times, if the wait becomes too long, people give up. But in the meantime what we will find are either continual extensions of visitor visas or people with no status in our country. That number will build and build until we will end up with an even longer backlog in the system, leading to a complete state of collapse. I would suggest that we are almost there with the current system and that this new immigration act will not fix the problem in general. Those are some of the negatives.
The regulations are very important. We have to have a lot of what has been left to regulation put in legislation so that all Canadians, when they are giving advice to their members of parliament on what they want in the immigration act, know what is being proposed, because it is in legislation.
Another underlying change has been made which will cause a general breakdown of the immigration system, and that is the implementation of the Singh decision. The Singh decision was a supreme court decision of 1985 which stated, I believe, that people who are in Canada are entitled to a hearing and an appeal before they are deported if they are applying to immigrate.
Governments, the previous Conservative government and now the Liberal government, have taken the interpretation of the Singh decision and broadened it very substantially. They say that the Singh decision means that everyone, even non-citizens who have come to Canada, even if they have come illegally, is entitled to the full protection of the charter of rights and freedoms.
That is the way it has been interpreted. That interpretation found its way into the current legislation, but only in the general information at the beginning. This new legislation has expanded that charter protection for everyone in the application clause.
What does it really mean to have it in the application clause of the bill? It means that there is no doubt that this interpretation will apply to all areas of the legislation. That is a real concern because it clearly expands section 4 of the act to include people who are not citizens of Canada, who have no status in Canada, who are not even physically present in Canada, and it will include people who may have applied to come to Canada from somewhere outside the country.
I do not know if people will believe what I am saying, but it is true. It is in section 4 of the act. It is absurd. No other country in the world would give that kind of protection to people whose only connection with Canada is that they want to come to our country, either as visitors or as immigrants.
The people who are expert in the immigration system, who have given me advice on this legislation, say that it will do exactly that, that it will cause a backlog in the system, and that it really could cause almost a complete breakdown of the system as we get legal challenges and the expensive process of giving people who are not Canadian citizens, who are not present in the country, access to our judicial system.
That underpinning factor which is now in the application clause will cause long term problems. If this legislation goes ahead, no matter what is done with the regulations, we will have an immigration system which will function less well than the current immigration system.
I started my comments by saying that most people in the House would acknowledge that the current system does not work well. People who would benefit our country soon after their arrival, who would help our economy grow and fulfill a need that Canada has, often give up and go to some other country like the United States, Australia or New Zealand, countries very similar to Canada. Many others are left in a state of limbo for years as they try to come into our system. This bill will not help those people.
Will the bill help genuine refugees? No, it will not. There is nothing in this legislation which will cause the government to choose more people from refugee camps overseas.
If Canada wants to help genuine refugees, should we not choose people who have been designated to be refugees from camps overseas? Does that not make sense?
The United Nations has a body that is quite capable. I do not always give a lot of credit to the United Nations. I have concerns in many areas. However, in the area of refugees it has people and a system that is quite capable of choosing who is a refugee, and in particular people who are in refugee camps.
To Canada's shame, of the 23,000 refugees who were chosen last year, probably fewer than 3,000 came from camps overseas. About 7,000 came from overseas, but more than half of them were people who had been rejected by European systems and Canadian officials picked them up and brought them to Canada as refugees. I am not saying that is bad because it makes sense in a lot of cases, but what about the people in the camps, the people like those in camps in Bangladesh who have been there for more than 50 years?
If the government is compassionate, why does the legislation not provide for those people? It does not work for genuine refugees. Does it improve things for people who come illegally and does it improve things in terms of protecting Canada from organized crime, terrorists, serious criminals or from people who come to Canada with the help of people smugglers and traffickers? No. There are some things in the bill which look good, such as tougher penalties, which will help, but when we look at the whole picture the legislation will not protect Canada better than the current act.
Will the bill help to reunite families? It tears my heart out, and I am sure it is the same for every member of parliament, seeing so many situations in our constituencies where families are waiting for years to be reunited. They are waiting two, three, five years and longer because our system is so badly broken. I would suggest there is nothing in the new legislation to deal with that problem.
Overall the bill will not improve the system; it will slow it down. I encourage the government to seriously consider substantial amendments to the bill, and we could provide them.
