Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to the very important motion moved by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill.
I want to begin by saying that this is about our country's sovereignty and the control of our borders. Much has been said on the issue. The parties have been throwing around all sorts of ideas, but what is important to me, as the shadow minister for public safety, is that sovereignty and border control be made the top priority.
The Liberal government seems unable to address the crisis created by the influx of thousands of illegal border crossers travelling across our southern border between ports of entry. What is more, the agencies responsible for dealing with this crisis have found gaps in security screening for newly arrived refugee claimants. They have indicated that there is a major backlog in scheduled hearings and in carrying out deportation orders, and that this trend is expected to increase over the summer months.
In our motion, we are calling on the government to ensure that the agencies responsible for our borders are properly equipped so that they can continue to do their jobs effectively and that those arriving at Canadian borders go through the appropriate processes.
We want the government to admit the Prime Minister’s irresponsibility in tweeting #WelcometoCanada to those seeking to enter Canada through illegal means and take responsibility for the massive social services costs burdening the provincial governments. We also want the government to table in the House no later than May 11, 2018, a plan to stop the influx of people illegally entering Canada and take appropriate measures to handle those who have already claimed asylum.
Now that the weather has warmed up, the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, is reporting significantly higher numbers of illegal migrants crossing at non-designated ports of entry, in this case, Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle in Quebec. The number of illegal entries has grown considerably since the Prime Minister's infamous and irresponsible January 2017 tweet in which he told the whole world, “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada”.
No matter what the Liberals or anyone else says about it, that is at the root of the problem we are discussing today. That extremely unwise and potentially disastrous tweet was heard loud and clear by foreign nationals residing in the United States illegally who know that the U.S. government will take temporary protection status away from hundreds of thousands of them in July 2019. Worse still, the Prime Minister's tweet was heard around the world by people who are not refugees, just people looking for a country where they can make a better life for themselves. CBSA officers told my office that quite a few of the illegal migrants crossing into Quebec at the non-designated port of entry are from Nigeria. As everyone knows, Nigeria is not a poor country. Its GDP is one of the highest in Africa. However, the Liberals want Canadians to believe that all illegal migrants are refugees and that anyone who does not agree with their position is heartless and lacking in compassion. This is really a big problem. With their ideology, the Liberals want everyone to believe that we Conservatives are heartless because we want to protect our border and we want immigrants to come to Canada legally. I would like that to stop. There comes a point when enough is enough.
This crisis is entirely on the Prime Minister. We are talking about the most important elected member, the one with the most power in Canada: the Prime Minister of Canada. This problem is his doing. The Canada Border Services Agency has been swamped by this crisis. To date, more than 20,000 illegal migrants entered Canada through Quebec in 2017. What I am about to say next is important. Border officers are reporting that upper management is pressuring them to drastically reduce security processing. Security processing usually takes eight hours. The process now takes less than two hours.
The Liberal government has been known to give these illegal migrants expedited work permits, health care, and housing services at no cost to them, while those attempting to immigrate to Canada through legal channels have to wait longer and pay immigration fees.
The government has yet to take any steps to stop the influx of these migrants. In 2018, an estimated 400 illegal immigrants will enter Canada daily during the summer at a non-designated point of entry in Quebec. This has already started. Four hundred immigrants a day is 12,000 a month. If we multiply that by the next three or four months when the weather is nice, we get 50,000 immigrants. It adds up quickly.
The $146 million that the federal government owes Quebec for the cost of dealing with illegal migrants in Quebec is nothing compared the anticipated cost in 2018. The Liberals are also guilty of playing with words, since the $85 million that was announced for the Canada Border Services Agency to deal with these new illegal migrants is not even enough to cover overtime pay and other costs related to this crisis.
Meanwhile, the situation at the border is getting increasingly chaotic. It is becoming painfully clear that the safety of Canadians is not a priority for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister needs to understand that Canada's immigration laws were not written and passed by one particular political party. They have been written over a number of years by the Parliament of Canada. This legislation has been introduced by Liberals and Conservatives alike over the years. Immigration procedures in Canada have been administered by all political parties that have been in power for over 150 years.
The same holds true for public safety. Every party that has been in power has worked on developing public safety rules, and we have a duty to enforce them. All of this is in the best interests of Canadians. When they get up in the morning, Canadians need to know that their various governments are there to protect them and ensure that they live in a trouble-free country.
On weekends, when I am out and about in my riding of Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, everyone talks to me about the massive fiasco the Prime Minister created with his now infamous tweet. Migrants are flooding into Lacolle, and people are worried, with good reason. I receive a lot of information. I get it from border services officers; they say they want to talk to me but are prohibited from doing so. There are confidentiality issues to consider, of course, but the situation we are in defies belief. These people just want to make sure someone in the opposition knows what is going on. They have tried, in vain, to talk to their bosses and to someone in the government. Border services officers do not feel that the government understands or accepts their concerns.
Officers have a duty to perform. I was in the same situation when I was a soldier. We have an obligation to serve our country as efficiently and professionally as possible. We are sworn to do our duty. The same goes for border services officers and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They are there to enforce the law. When they are asked to do less and to let things slide, they do not understand. It is not in their nature. That is not why they chose this line of work. These people are worried and cannot agree to such a request.
It is still a sensitive subject, but there is one case I could talk about. An officer contacted me and told me that he was baffled, that he was not supposed to be telling me this, but that someone needed to know. I will read out part of what he wrote to me about the migrants coming in right now. On the subject of illegal migrants, the officer wrote:
They land at JFK in New York and head for Roxham Road. Everything is planned in advance. The government says it is monitoring them, but it is not. We are being pressured to minimize detentions. We let in guys from Sudan without a passport, without any ID besides a library card, and they do not get detained. We got a known murderer from Senegal, and we had a really hard time hanging on to him. They want us to exhaust all other options before considering detention...but a murderer?
It is clear that the situation is serious.
Our border services officers question people whose identity is not clear, who have committed crimes in their country, but the government is pushing to not jail them. The government does not want people to say that it is putting people in jail and is asking officers to leave them in the wilderness. Do my colleagues believe that is what Canadians want and that all parties accept this type of situation? I do not think so. Border services officers are getting tired of this.
This is a chaotic situation. Chaos arises when officers are asked to do things that run counter to what they were hired to do and to the pledge they made to serve our country well. On the one hand, the safety of Canadians is at stake. On the other, there is chaos, the cost, and the social impact, especially in Quebec at this time.
What prime minister with a modicum of common sense would allow our border and immigration laws to be flouted by foreigners? Furthermore, what prime minister would allow these abuses to happen and reward them with better service than that actually afforded to genuine immigrants? We often hear about George Soros. Is the Prime Minister really going to swallow what this man says? That is worrisome. Does he not know about the chaos in other countries where lax border policies have left communities in shambles with drastic increases in violence? More importantly, is the Prime Minister imposing his vision of Canada on the Quebec nation?
Quebec signed an immigration agreement with the federal government. By allowing illegal migrants unrestricted access to Quebec communities, the Prime Minister has found a very creative way of undermining Quebec's authority. In other words, the existing immigration agreements between the federal government and the province of Quebec are now void. Actual immigrants and refugees attempting to come to Quebec legally are forced to wait longer because the Prime Minister decided to reward law-breakers first. That is a real shame.
Furthermore, since immigration resources are already stretched so thin, we must consider the other costs for Quebec and the other provinces. The Prime Minister's odd decision to allow illegal immigrants to enter Canada unimpeded puts enormous pressure on provincial social services. Let us be honest. The provinces are responsible for the vast majority of government services provided to newcomers in Canada. Provinces provide income support to newcomers. Food banks, housing, schools, and health care services are all under provincial jurisdiction. As we have seen, Quebec has had a lot to deal with.
Using simple arithmetic, we have a pretty good idea of how much Quebec will have to pay as a result of the Liberal Party's new border policy.
Do my colleagues know that the Prime Minister is setting up a committee to examine the situation and ask illegal immigrants where in Canada they want to live? That is unbelievable. Quebec has said that it has done enough, and rightly so. Rather than resolving the problem and putting a stop to illegal immigration, the Liberals are going to set up a bus stop of sorts, which says “Quebec is full. Where do you want to go? Ontario is this way. Alberta is in the same direction, but a bit farther away.” What is that all about? Is the government saying that people just have to line up and they will be redirected when they arrive in Canada? That will not work. It is unbelievable.
Meanwhile, every week, my colleagues from every party and I are meeting with legal immigrants in our riding offices because they have a problem. Some have been here for three or four years. They submitted their application but, somewhere along the way, one of their documents was lost somewhere in the public service, and they are being threatened with deportation. I am not joking. There are at least 100 immigrants per year in my riding alone who encounter this sort of problem and are constantly worried about being deported because of administrative issues. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants are streaming across our borders and are being directed to different areas of Canada. What is more, the provinces are required to give them money and everything they need.
