Immigration And Refugee Board  Mr. Speaker, the immigration minister released confidential names and testimony to his embattled appointee to the IRB, Michael Schelew. These were names of people who had accused Schelew of intimidation and wrongdoing but gave testimony under the promise of confidentiality. My office consulted with the privacy commission and was told that the minister's actions are grounds for a complaint under the Privacy Act.

Immigration  Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows or should know, this problem is one that affects all refugee receiving countries. The minister travelled to Russia very recently to deal with international concerns in this matter. An international conference will be taking place within the next month to deal with this very serious matter.

Immigration  Speaker, the answer to the first question is no. I confirm that the chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board wrote to me yesterday suggesting that there would be reasons for conducting a fuller review. Yesterday I instructed our department's legal counsel out of the Department of Justice to write to the deputy vice-chair requesting his written comments within seven days.

Immigration  Not only in the family class category itself but the principle of family is protected in every other category. When we bring in an independent or a business class immigrant or a refugee they also have the legitimate right to bring in their families. We have also tried to seek a balance because there are four different categories in the immigration program. We want each category to have an appropriate market share of the overall program.

South Africa  Moreover, South Africa asked for and was given advice on various issues, especially on the refugee status claims processing system it is setting up. Canada offered to help South Africa become an active member of several multilateral organizations. For our efforts and our expertise Canada has been singled out.

Ethics  Yesterday in an interview the minister of immigration stated he would not send a letter to the Immigration and Refugee Board. He said it would be wrong for him to write to a quasi-judicial body that reports directly to him. I do not understand this. The minister of immigration appears to understand it, but the Minister of Canadian Heritage does not.

Immigration  Where is the enforcement of what is happening here already to save those taxpayers dollars? Changes to refugee policy, there are virtually none, except an ongoing amnesty that rewards those who can tie up the system for three years. There are no changes to control and enforcement, except for the defective Bill C-44 which is already pending in the House.

Department Of Canadian Heritage Act  I know that many of those Somalia youths are involved in the community to the extent that they are because of organizations like the Somali integration and settlement agency, which gets funding from the very program that the members opposite are criticizing. They get funding because they are coming here as refugees. They have left everything behind. The majority are women with young children coming here for safety. These people do not come here with a lot. This agency gives these people coming to our country job training, language training, access to services so they have the ability not to separate themselves, but to integrate more fully and more completely into Canadian society.

Petitions  The petitioners humbly pray and call on Parliament to reduce immigration to the previous level of one-half of 1 per cent of the population or about 150,000 persons per year, with the basic intake of not less than 50 per cent of the total composed of carefully selected skilled workers required by the Canadian economy, and that our refugee acceptance rate be brought in line with the average asylum destination countries. These petitions were initiated by the Immigration Association of Canada. I support their efforts to address concerns over immigration policy.

Immigration Act  It is concerned about testing for AIDS. In my riding just a short time ago a young lady was raped by an illegal refugee. She spent six months waiting for the results of an HIV test while this individual basically ignored the whole situation. Had we originally tested that particular individual on coming into the country, she would not have had to go through that six months of torture, unfortunate as it was.

Social Security Programs  When I asked these grade 11 students to tell me what they thought were the really big issues facing Canadians, they identified Indian land claims, possible separation of Quebec, an out of control immigration and refugee situation, an ineffective Young Offenders Act, and justice problems in general. They also mentioned the debt and deficit in relation to social programs. I asked these young people, who will actually have to pay off this debt-it will probably be $600-$700 billion by the time they are out in the work force-how long they thought it took for Canada to incur this debt.

Human Rights  I have before me a document which was prepared by the deputy chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. It documents widespread human rights-

Old Age Security Act  For example, if a non-citizen, someone from another country, comes to Canada, decides to stay for reasons we can certainly well understand and makes applications as a refugee, that the individual is on welfare or some other social program cannot be disclosed to Canadians trying to evaluate which people should be allowed to come to our country and be accepted as citizens to help build our nation.

Immigration  Speaker, the minister of immigration said in his speech to police chiefs that the buck stops here. He has promised to get tough on those who abuse Canada's immigration and refugee systems. I ask the Prime Minister: When will he hold his minister of immigration to that self-imposed standard of accountability?

José Mendoza  The immigration minister and the Prime Minister cannot dog responsibility for Mendoza and similar cases. They cannot continually shift the blame for these cases to the police, the courts or the refugee board. As the head of the government, when is the Prime Minister going to hold the minister of immigration directly and personally responsible for the multiple failures of his department?