Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this issue this morning and have the chance to listen to my hon. colleague. I congratulate him as a critic at our committee. I look forward to working with him and his party as we work through a number of issues at citizenship and immigration, including this bill dealing with public safety.
I am very grateful for the chance to rise and support Bill C-4 and its legislation therein. It will allow Canada to crack down on dangerous and illegal human smuggling operations while still maintaining our long and proud tradition of providing a safe haven for refugees.
As several of my hon. colleagues have noted, Canada is a compassionate country that welcomes immigrants and refugees from all over the world. In fact, every year we welcome about 250,000 newcomers to our country, which includes granting asylum to more than 10,000 persecuted persons each year and resettling another 12,000 refugees from abroad. In 2010, we welcomed close to 280,000 new immigrants to our country, one of the highest numbers in post-war history.
Let me point out, when we passed the refugee reform legislation in the last Parliament, Bill C-11, contingent upon the passing of that legislation was that we as a country would accept on a yearly basis an additional 2,500 refugees to our country. It speaks to the compassion, care and concern this government has for refugees across the world. Quite honestly, that bill passed with unanimous consent. My congratulations to everyone in the House who chose to do what was right for our country, what was right for refugees and to ensure that we passed a piece of legislation that is good for Canada as well as those refugees who see Canada as their new home. In helping refugees begin a new life Canadians are helping to ensure that we maintain our international obligations and at the same time build stronger and safe communities and fulfill the promise of Canada, the most welcoming nation in the world.
Our government is committed not only to preserving but also strengthening this already impressive track record. As I noted, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which received royal assent on June 29, 2010, will allow us to help more people and do it faster. We have committed significant dollars to ensure that this process and program is implemented to the best of our ability as a government and the best of our ability as a civil service. We have set aside that funding and the person power in order to implement the changes to the asylum system as well as to resettle an additional 2,500 refugees on top of what we already accept as a nation.
The government and many Canadians believe that Canada's generosity should not be extended to criminal smuggling. There is a significant difference when one talks about human compassion and treatment of refugees and the sick and utterly despised human smuggling system on which the government is prepared to take action to ensure it is lowered and lessened. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to get rid of it entirely. However, we strive to lower and lessen the opportunity for human smugglers to make money off the backs of other people in this world.
One of the strongest commitments our government made to Canadians when we were first elected in 2006 was that we would take action to make our streets, our homes and our communities safer for everyone. We delivered on that commitment in a number of ways. Again, when it relates to illegal smuggling operations of all kinds that are of concern to law enforcement officers, as well as all Canadians, the government has taken action to crack down on such increasingly dangerous and violent operations.
Shutting down these organized criminal networks is vitally important to both protecting the health of Canadians, as well as their safety and security. Our message in dealing with illegal smuggling operations has been crystal clear. Canada will take decisive action to protect our borders, as well as the safety and security of the law-abiding citizens who are proud to call this great country home.
Human smuggling poses significant risks to our borders and to all Canadians. It is a criminal activity that calls out for action both domestically, which we will implement with C-4, and internationally. That is what Canadians want. It is what they have asked for and that is what our government will do.
The bottom line is that human smuggling undermines Canada's security. Large-scale arrivals make it difficult to properly identify those who arrive, including the smugglers. They hide on these ships. They dress themselves exactly the same way as the potential refugees. It is almost impossible, and it takes a tremendous amount of work of both the CBSA, Canada Border Services Agency, and our RCMP officers to try to determine who will apply for refugee status and who is a smuggler.
Human smuggling is not just a profitable business; it is also dangerous and it puts the lives of those being smuggled in jeopardy.
I was in Vancouver, British Columbia to see the ship that brought those poor individuals to our country. It is one thing the opposition may not like to talk about, but the fact is these ships are not cruise ships, they are literally containers to stuff human life into. The ships are put out to sea in the hope that it shows up on the shore of a country that will accept it. This trip is probably the most dangerous trip that these individuals will have to face.
To do that to individuals, including children, is abhorrent, unacceptable and the government will ensure that it stops in our country. Under the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, our government is cracking down on human smugglers in a number of different ways.
The proposed legislation will enable the Minister of Public Safety to declare the existence of a human smuggling event, making those involved subject to the act's measures. It will make it easier to prosecute human smugglers. It will impose mandatory minimum prison sentences on convicted smugglers. It will also hold the shipowners and operators to account for the use of their ships in human smuggling operations.
These are proposed reforms which our government is proposing. They will help the safety and security of our streets and our communities by providing for the mandatory detention of participants for up to one year or until a positive decision by the immigration and refugee board regarding their refugee claims, or whichever comes sooner, in order to allow for the determination of identity, the identity admissibility and illegal activity.
It is unfair, unwarranted and unacceptable that in this day and age ships like these come into port and the individuals on those ships are simply allowed to move into the general population of our country. We cannot have that happen. We do not know who is on those ships. We have no idea whether there are serious criminals, smugglers or shipowners on them.
The process to determine the history of the individuals, the potential criminal activity of some of those individuals and the fairness upon which some of those individuals will receive refugee status in our country has to be done properly and right to ensure the safety of all individuals on the ship and all of the 34 million Canadians in our country.
Under the proposed act, our government is also reducing the attraction of coming to Canada by way of illegal human smuggling operations. We will prevent those who come to Canada as part of human smuggling events from applying for permanent residence status for a period of five years, should they successfully obtain refugee status, and prevent such individuals from sponsoring family members for a period of at least five years. These are not easy decisions to make. They are difficult ones to make in terms of how we will process individuals and families ending up on these ships.
Whether it is the United Nations, or international bodies or governments in our country, we have to stop the smugglers from doing this. It is not enough just to try to attempt to go after them internationally. We have to let smugglers know that it will be difficult for them to fill those ships, because individuals will not want to risk what may happen to them in the process of coming over.
Furthermore, after the passage of the act, our government will also make administrative changes to ensure that participants in a human smuggling events do not receive health care benefits that are any more generous than those that Canadians receive now. From my perspective, having gone across the country holding town hall meetings with a number of my colleagues, this is one of the principle parts of what it is to be Canadian, and we exude that with the principle of fairness.
Canadians accept and understand our role from an international perspective to help those who need it most. We have shown that during tragic incidents, such as what happened in Haiti. We have shown that in our acceptance and our obligation, punching above our weight in terms of the number of refugees that we accept from the United Nations to come to our country each and every year.
What we cannot do, and what Canadians do not want us to do, is to move beyond the principle of fairness. If those who come to our country receive health care benefits that exceed the benefits Canadians receive, then we need to act, and Canadians have asked us to act. We are doing just that in this legislation.
As the minister has noted, the reforms that our government is proposing are tough. We are not saying anything else about that. They are tough, but they are fair.
While Canada has a proud history and a tradition of welcoming immigrants who wish to start a new life here, Canada's generous immigration system has become a target for human smuggling operations. We must take action to end the abuse of Canada's immigration system by human smugglers because it is not acceptable. The majority of Canadians do not accept it and the majority of people in the House of Commons do not accept it. However, to do so we must have laws and measures in place that will deter and prevent these operations.
Canada's refugee resettlement program is one of the most generous in the developed world. As I mentioned, there is no country, on a per capita basis, that accepts more refugees than Canada. We continually punch above our weight when it comes to showing care and compassion for those who need it the most. Canada is one of the most generous countries in the developed world. On average, we take one out of every ten refugees from around the world who wants to resettle here, and it is a big world.
That speaks to the acceptance that we have as Canadians and it speaks to what we as a government believe must be maintained and be continued in the future. However, we must do so under some principles, issues, laws and measures that make sense to us as a government, but also meet the common sense rule and the principle of fairness rule that Canadians have asked us to do.
The critic for the NDP mentioned the issue of a queue not existing. Individuals in refugee camps have lived in squalor and have done so for the last five to ten years. They have been determined by the UN to be refugees. We as a country have an obligation to accept our fair and higher percentage than that which has been slated for us.
We are shutting the doors on individuals and potential families coming here when a boat with 500 individuals on it comes in. It may slightly open the door for the opportunity for a new life for those individuals who have been smuggled here, but it shuts the door on those who are already refugees who have been waiting for that same opportunity to begin a new life.
I beg to differ with my hon. friend. We have a process when these ships come here. It sets in place what we have determined is an acute problem with queue-jumping. When those ships cannot rest in any port across our country, then we do not have queue-jumping. Instead we have a fair process that has been determined by the United Nations to be an extremely good one.
All sides of the House of Commons determined that reform was necessary in our refugee legislation, and that was passed unanimously. We are now coming close to the end of the implementation point where this process, the new refugee act, will now begin. It has been hailed across the world as a system that will improve what has already been considered by many to be one of the best systems in the world.
It is unfair to those who have patiently waited, through legitimate means, to come to our country to have human smugglers illegally bring people into our country. It is that simple and the Canadian public understands this. In every town hall meeting, whether they were in total support of the legislation or had some difficulty with parts of it, one point individuals did not argue with was the fact that Canada had a principle of fairness that it acted upon when it came to all of its international obligations, specifically in dealing with refugee reform.
Queue jumping is not fair. It is not fair to people in our country and it is not fair to those who have been determined to be refugees to come here. That principle upon which fairness exists has to start and this legislation would help do that. When this happens, Canada's immigration system becomes less fair. More than that, our safety is actually threatened by criminal or terrorist organizations that can and often do use proceeds from human smuggling operations to fund other more violent activities, which pose a significant threat to our way of life.
No one in the House can tell me that these individuals who pay $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 and sometimes upwards of $50,000 for a place on what is deemed to be a boat have it in their pocket to do so. There is an obligation, in fact a price, that is on each one of those individuals to repay the exorbitant fee, the rip-off. The human smugglers could care less whether these individuals survive, only that the demanded payment is made in order to get these people from their country of origin. Those individuals spend their lifetime trying to repay that loan and they live in fear doing so. They have no idea what recriminations will be put upon them if they are unable to do so.
This circle of human smuggling has to stop. We have to find a way to erase the circle and not have it exist in the fashion that it has with Canada being a haven for these ships. Human smugglers cram individuals onto a ship and let it sail into a Canadian port. We will not let that happen in a way that Canada is seen across the world as the place to do this, or that Canada is a place for them to take a chance with hundreds or thousands of lives. It will not happen anymore. We are determined as a government to put a stop to it.
Canadians have told us en mass across the country. We just fought an election over a number of issues and this was one of them. Canadians sent us back to govern. They sent us here to implement this bill because they believe it is right legislation and it is timely. Perhaps it should have been implemented decades ago.
Under the legislation, the very ship that my hon. colleague from the NDP spoke about would not have been turned away. It would have had an opportunity. There would be a process in place with legislation and regulations that would work.
I look forward to getting the bill to committee. I look forward to getting this bill back for second reading and implementing the legislation.
