Madam Speaker, I am rising in the House once again, this time to participate in today's debate about Bill C-49, which affects three laws: first, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act—which means revisiting Bill C-11; second, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act—and I wonder if it really is balanced; and third, the Marine Transportation Security Act.
This bills aims to correct an illegal situation. It really is a government's responsibility to protect its border security. Security is clearly a critical issue for the entire world.
I would like to refer to certain international documents, agreements that Canada has signed, thus agreeing to be fully accountable for implementing their contents.
First, I would like to remind members that Canada signed the 1951 Geneva convention. It is also signed the protocol stipulating that individuals who have been victims of persecution since 1951 must also be subject to the Geneva convention. I will obviously come back to this during my speech.
The Geneva convention and the protocol that followed are the reasons why our refugee acceptance system was created. This system, despite its faults and weaknesses, and there are some, has become a model for industrialized countries.
This bill proposes a number of clauses that would punish smugglers, those who profit from the poor people who are trying to flee their country and come to Canada to live a life free of terror, discrimination, rape and killing. These smugglers receive enormous amounts of money and they violate international laws as well as our own Canadian laws.
In response to that, Bill C-49 proposes a substantial fine, for example a fine of $1 million for any criminal organization guilty of inducing, aiding or abetting a group of people to illegally enter Canada. That is from subclause 117(3), as it would be amended by the bill.
This amount depends on the number of people arriving in the group. The offenders could also receive a life sentence.
That is an improvement, in my opinion.
These clauses can certainly act as a real deterrent for smugglers hoping to bring groups of people illegally into Canada. Still, I would suggest that impounding the vessel or ship on which they come would be an additional deterrent to these smugglers. The price of smuggling then would become exorbitant and the loss of the vessel a real economic loss.
We also wish to congratulate the minister on his intention to work with local police forces in the home countries of human smugglers.
That aspect is not included in the bill, but is an important part of any concrete action.
Refugee claimants are not criminals. How many times must we repeat this? However, Bill C-49 treats them as if they were guilty of crimes, and again, this is what the bill suggests throughout the first part of it. Why are there only five sections of Bill C-49 that impact smugglers and twelve sections that impact refugees? We thought it was about smugglers. In fact, it is about changing the Canadian law, after study, which admits prospective refugees.
Another question I have is, why is this bill sponsored by the minister responsible for public safety and national security? Is it because the Conservative government wants to give Canadians the impression that refugee claimants pose a security threat? It tried to do this with the ship that arrived off the coast of British Columbia a few weeks ago, when in fact we see several weeks later that not one person has been held because he or she is a terrorist, yet the rumour goes on.
The people who are on these ships, or whatever mode of transport they use, are seeking safety and a good life in Canada. It is not their intention to break any international or Canadian law, yet the government presumes that they do so when it decides, through a bill like Bill C-49, to detain all the individuals designated as irregular arrivals. Irregular arrivals are those people who arrive in groups larger than, one would suppose, just a man, his wife and his children.
In this way, Bill C-49 is in direct violation of section 11(g) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states that an individual is “not to be found guilty on account of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted an offence under Canadian or international law or was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations”.
These refugee claimants, these people who flee in exile, include women, elderly people, young children, men and quite often, as we have learned, even pregnant women.
As a signatory to the Geneva convention, Canada is duty bound to protect these claimants. But instead, Bill C-49 would have them immediately detained. Let us be clear: “detained” is a nicer way of saying “imprisoned” or “incarcerated”.
This is contrary to article 31(1) of the Geneva convention, which states, “The contracting states shall not impose penalties...provided [the refugees] present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”
Even if we agreed that detention is required, the length set out by Bill C-49 also goes against article 31(2), which states, “The contracting states shall not apply to the movements of such refugees restrictions other than those which are necessary and such restrictions shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized. The Contracting States shall allow such refugees a reasonable period... ”
I would like to emphasize the word “reasonable”.
But this bill proposes keeping these people in prison, until their identity can be proven, for up to one year.
Those of us who have worked with refugees and for refugees know that quite often, these vulnerable people have had to leave very suddenly and cannot always bring their official documents to prove their identity.
I should also remind hon. members that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, of which we are all so proud, protects any person present on Canadian soil, regardless of their citizenship.
What about the negative consequences of detention on these people? As I was saying earlier, among these refugees we often see older people, very young children and pregnant women. Often they have been tortured, raped or abused in their country. They received no protection in their own country and they fled.
They did not receive protection from the smugglers during the dangerous voyage, but they had hope. When they arrive in Canada, despite what they might expect, they are not entitled to protection from the Canadian authorities either.
How do we explain to these young children why they are prison? What crime did they commit?
I would like to read from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989. Section 40(2)(a) of this convention stipulates that:
No child shall be alleged as, be accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law by reason of acts or omissions that were not prohibited by national or international law at the time they were committed;
How do we explain this clear violation to them?
Section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states:
Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.
However, under clause 20 of the new Bill C-49:
The Minister may, by order, having regard to the public interest, designate as an irregular arrival the arrival in Canada of a group of persons...
And, under clause 55 of the same bill:
If a designation is made under subsection 20.1(1), an officer must
(a) detain, on their entry into Canada, a foreign national who, as a result of the designation, is a designated foreign national;
or
(b) arrest and detain...
This is clearly an arbitrary detention.
It is regrettable that under clause 110, no appeal may be made by a refugee claimant in respect of a decision of the Refugee Protection Division. In Canada, even common criminals have the right to appeal a judge's decision.
Our humanitarian tradition that allows individuals the right to appeal decisions is entrenched, or I thought it was. Even Bill C-11, tabled in Parliament by the same minister, respected this right.
Bill C-49 also has hidden consequences. For example, section 11 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as amended, would state that the designated foreign national may not make an application for permanent residence until five years have elapsed. Subsection 25. (1.01) of the same amended act would also state that the foreign national may not make an application until five years have elapsed. It is clear; it is stated twice in the bill.
Let us figure it out. When people arrive in Canada they are held for one year to prove their identity. The applicant may become a designated refugee, if all goes well. At that point, he must wait five years before making an application for permanent residence. Why? When the Immigration and Refugee Board establishes that someone is a refugee, that person is permitted to apply immediately for permanent residence in Canada. After the five years, if all goes well, the person applies but does not immediately become a permanent resident. We know it, I know it and everyone with immigrants in their riding knows it as well: two or three years may elapse before the government responds to the application. I estimate, and I do not believe I am exaggerating, that someone could wait up to 10 years before receiving permanent residence status in Canada.
During these 10 years not only he but his entire family will be in limbo, not knowing how life will unravel.
An irregular or designated refugee will therefore have to wait 10 years before being able to sponsor his or her family. Those are the hidden consequences of Bill C-49. Refugees cannot sponsor their families before becoming permanent residents of Canada. Given that they will not have the right to travel outside Canada during the entire period, they also will not be able to visit their spouse or children. That comes from a government that boasts about protecting family values. These family values are certainly not protected. Quite the opposite.
Amendments to the current immigration law proposed under Bill C-49 further consolidate the minister's legal authority to suspend an application for the consideration of any type of status, for example refugee status or even to be heard on humanitarian and compassionate grounds for access to Canada's protection, for a full five years. Let us not forget the individual would have already spent 12 months in jail, called detention, even before the government would look at the case. All these delays would be based on whatever the government deems to be the grounds for public policy. This amendment would then become part of section 25 of the IRPA as amended under Bill C-11.
This means that the timeline we just suggested, these 10 years, is the best-case scenario. It is not the scenario where the person is sent back or is refused anything in Canada. It is a scenario where he thinks he is going to stay, 10 years of limbo if the minister decides not to intervene.
Let us go back in time. Bill C-49 brings us back to the time of the Chinese exclusion act, the act that caused Chinese men to live their lives here in Canada without their wives, without their families. In fact many of these men never saw their families again. It caused economic hardship.
This is what caused the Canadian people to say they would not continue this, and this is when the concept of family reunification came in, when Canadians decided it was cruel to allow people, men and women, to stay here in Canada as Canadians and yet separate them from their families, wives, husbands and children, for we did not know how long.
Lo and behold, it was a Conservative prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, who had the act repealed in 1947. How unfortunate that the present Conservative government cannot continue this humanitarian tradition.
Let us go back in time again to 1986—
