Mr. Speaker, I stand before the House today to participate in debating Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
While I, along with my colleagues, try to debate this bill objectively and examine its components seriously, I have to admit that I am hugely disappointed that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the Conservative minority government continue to neglect a wide array of immigration files that deserve serious attention and immediate action.
In late February, the House of Commons debated and adopted a motion which stated that the Conservative Party has been failing immigrants and new Canadians and, in fact, all Canadians. The House expressed the concerns of many Canadians about the direction or, more specifically, the lack of direction, that this Conservative government has taken toward helping immigrants and new Canadians reach their optimum potential in society.
Canadians are quite rightly proud of our diversity and our reputation for welcoming immigrants. Immigration is more than just a symbol to Canadians. It is also an economic necessity. Given the dynamic nature of our immigration system and the diverse character of our nation, the federal government, regardless of the party in power, must recognize the magnitude of its responsibility toward these challenges and opportunities.
New challenges arise as our needs for immigration change. The adjustments that many immigrants face are numerous. The opportunities that immigrants bring to our country's skilled labour force enhance the cultural richness of our society and increase the knowledge base of our economy and communities.
I want to take some time to go through a number of challenges and opportunities that the government could be and should be focusing on, but it has unfortunately shown little will or desire to do so.
For example, on foreign credentials, during the last federal election campaign the Conservatives continually stated that if they were in power they would fix the difficulties that many immigrants and new Canadians face when attempting to have their foreign credentials assessed or when obtaining professional domestic licences.
The Conservatives made an explicit promise to eradicate barriers that some new Canadians face and blamed the Liberals for neglecting this issue. The promise to fix the problem of foreign credentials was written into their platform despite the fact that many told them, and in fact many Conservatives knew, that this promise was bogus.
What happened? Once the Conservatives assumed office, they employed delay tactics and deceptive tricks to pretend that they are still committed to fulfilling that promise. A year and a half later, the Conservatives admitted that they are breaking that promise and have abandoned Canadians who took their word at face value.
It is not that the Conservatives have changed their minds about the importance of this real and serious problem, but they have chosen to go from one extreme to another, from promising to take on the whole matter and fix it once and for all, to refusing to accept the role that the federal government can play in facilitating a solution. After repeated promises and a year and a half of claims that they are fulfilling their promise, the Conservatives have decided to shake off their responsibility and pass the blame on to others.
I am sure the Conservatives are aware that Canadians are not pleased with their handling of this file. Canadians continue to expect them to step up to their responsibility and take a leadership role in facilitating a resolution to this complicated matter.
Let us move on to family reunification, another missed opportunity for the Conservatives. They have the opportunity to address the mounting backlog of family reunification applications. Many Canadians continue to wait too long to sponsor their spouse, parents or grandparents, which raises the level of anxiety and frustration among many.
We as a country have made a conscious decision to help Canadians and permanent residents reunite with some of their immediate family members in order to help them in their settlement process and reduce family separation anxiety. The Conservatives appear to have a nonchalant attitude toward this increasing pressure on our system and have yet to articulate a plan and a process to address it.
Also, what about the lost Canadians? There is the matter of the so-called lost Canadians, on which the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has been conducting a comprehensive study, because many Canadians are starting to realize that due to old and archaic clauses within the 1947 Citizenship Act and other unintentional flaws, they have lost their Canadian citizenship.
Unfortunately, rather than stepping up to the challenge and dealing with this matter expeditiously, the Conservatives chose to spend a lot of time attempting to minimize this problem. They expended a lot of energy on arguing whether there were only 400 Canadians affected or upward of 50,000 Canadians affected.
Regardless of the number of Canadians affected, it was clear to any intelligent observer that many Canadians were caught in some unfortunate circumstances and the government should have acted quickly to assist them. If it were not for the determined work of our committee members at the citizenship and immigration committee, and the heart-wrenching stories of many Canadians who were affected, the Conservatives would have completely ignored these laws.
What about the points system? Many stakeholders have been arguing that our points system to attract immigrants needs reform and adjustment. The Conservatives are ignoring that matter.
What about the Immigration and Refugee Board? Our Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has tabled a report articulating and describing the state of crisis that the IRB is going through. At least a third of IRB members have not been appointed and the backlog has tripled.
What about citizenship application delays? Many permanent residents have been waiting for months, in fact more than a year, for their citizenship applications to be examined. The backlog continues to mount.
What about temporary workers? A lot of stakeholders have been lobbying on this and arguing that our temporary foreign workers program needs reform.
I deliberately have spent a lot of time highlighting the various pressing issues that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration needs to address. These are all serious and urgent matters that Canadians expect the minister responsible for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to be focusing on and resolving.
I have to admit, though, that when I was briefed on Bill C-57, I was disappointed. I was hoping that the minister was going to offer solutions to any of the challenges I have mentioned today. Instead, the Conservatives and the minister have chosen to play cheap political games.
Let me be very clear. I support any and all initiatives to protect Canadian and foreign workers from exploitation and abuse. That is why we will give the bill a chance to achieve what it is intended to accomplish, but we have a lot of unanswered questions. We will be consulting and listening to experts and stakeholders at committee to ensure that we end up with a bill that has real substance, not broad and ineffective unchecked political powers.
I will not hide my disappointment with the fact that the minister appears to have chosen to play politics rather than implement real and sound policies. There are many other pressing issues that deserve the highest level of her attention and energy. As an opposition member of Parliament, regardless of how the parliamentary secretary feels about my performance, I am expected by Canadians to critically evaluate the performance of the Conservative government and to test legislative proposals thoughtfully and deliberately to ensure that Canadians receive effective policies and laws from their government.
I do not think anybody is fooled by the fact that this legislative proposal's main goal is to create the perception that the previous Liberal government was condoning the exploitation of temporary foreign workers who came to Canada as exotic dancers and that hundreds of them were arriving at our borders annually. In fact, the hon. member just mentioned it in his speech.
Having said that, I, along with my parliamentary colleagues, have a responsibility to rise above petty partisanship and posturing and ultimately decide whether we are supporting the bill based on its merit and substance, putting aside all the rhetoric that is based on false perceptions.
There is room for partisan differences, however, during our debates and the exchange of ideas, in order to challenge ourselves to do better and to seek to improve what we have. The Liberal Party strongly believes in protecting women against exploitation and human trafficking. The previous Liberal government made substantial changes to restrict visa applications to foreign exotic dancers.
My Liberal colleagues at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women endorsed a report that called on the government to do more to address the systemic problems that may exist when it comes to vulnerable members of our society. This leads me to the conclusion that the government's approach to this matter only confirms my concern that this bill has more to do with political motivation than a genuine desire to protect exploited women.
The bill, regardless of its declared objectives, does very little, and in fact nothing, to address the systemic problems of exploitation that exist in Canada. If the Conservatives agree with many who say there is a high risk of exploitation, why are they not instructing the human resources and social development department to examine the industry itself?
Why are they choosing to avoid dealing directly with the establishments and employers who are implicitly accused of committing these exploitations? Who is doing the monitoring? Who is protecting the foreign workers who are in Canada now? How will the minister reach a conclusion when allegations are made about abuse? What about other industries that need temporary foreign workers? If we have allegations of abuse, will the minister take measures to deal with these allegations? Again, what is the role of HRSD?
These are very legitimate questions and deserve real answers.
This bill alone does not address the root causes of the problem. I want to urge the Conservatives to expand their policy to include addressing the systemic issues if they are really serious about eradicating causes for abuse and exploitation. If these conditions continue to persist, other women will be victimized, and this should no longer be acceptable to any of us.
The Department of Human Resources and Social Development must have a bigger role in monitoring and verifying working conditions and protecting workers. As it stands right now, the bill provides the minister with unchecked and broad powers that could have serious impacts on our industries. Currently, all classifications under the foreign worker program could be adversely affected, including those of agricultural workers and live-in caregivers. We will be calling for further clarification and restrictions at committee.
If the Conservatives are serious about protecting foreign exotic dancers, why not restrict the mandate of the bill? I want to reiterate that we in the Liberal Party stand firmly against allowing or condoning any form of abuse or exploitation of all women, be they Canadians, permanent residents or foreigners, and we will work diligently with any party on combating it.
We will put partisanship aside and offer thoughtful and constructive ideas that will advance this cause. We are determined to eliminate any causes that may place anyone in a vulnerable position of exploitation and/or abuse. Even though the bill is incomplete, and even though we know it is motivated by petty partisanship, we are prepared and in fact keen to remain a constructive voice in this debate.
I am looking forward to listening to all arguments and to discussing with my colleagues and other interested and concerned Canadians how we can improve the bill. I am grateful for this opportunity to share my thoughts with the House.
