Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, in this Citizenship Week, I would like to demonstrate the kind of hardship possible under the immigration system. Take for example the sad case of the Vega family. One such case is already one too many. The Vega family is from Colombia. Mr. Vega is a university

Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act   to clarify provisions granting immunities from immigration restrictions to alien registration and overriding the Immigration Act provisions that prohibit the entry to Canada of inadmissible persons but not overriding the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. According

Public Safety Act, 2002   and also the giving of immigration information to other governments, foreign governments. It is very interesting that our country has been so dilatory and so slow in addressing these important issues. As others have pointed out, the United States, the direct target of a terrorist attack

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  Mr. Speaker, being the chair of the citizenship and immigration committee, I have a specific question for the member. In Halifax we have the case of Sanja Pecelj, a woman from Kosovo who came to Canada and had to seek sanctuary in a church. After 400 or more days she left

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply   of immigration. We want to meet the goals that we as a country must meet in terms of our targets for a number of new immigrants, particularly because of the decline of our birthrate in this country and the demographics. Future workforces will depend more and more on new immigrants coming

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply   missile defence and star wars to give Canadians a chance to fully participate in this crucial decision. I was pleased to be asked by the leader of the NDP to take on critic responsibilities in the areas of citizenship and immigration, Canadian human rights and western economic

Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Minister of Finance. In the greater Toronto area, the construction industry is one of the most vital and active sectors of the economy. Within it there are thousands of undocumented workers

Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his concern. It is an ongoing expression of his desire to solve a problem that everybody recognizes must be dealt with. We are doing the very best we can to bring together all the government departments and agencies, some 11 of them, and t

Immigration  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for giving me an opportunity to talk about an announcement that we will make in very short order. It is a repetition of an announcement made by the Minister of Finance. We are about to sign an agreement for settlement and integration with t

Immigration  Mr. Speaker, the money is to be used for a variety of measures. Members will want to take note of the fact that we said we would fix the system, we would build capacity and we would build the flexibility required in order to bring people of skill, ambition and integrity who fit

Supply  . The government has been promising Canadians an audit since last spring. Have we seen that audit? No. The Liberals do not want us to know about that until after the election. The government is burying that information. The scandals go on and on. The former minister of immigration who

Citizenship Act   of the bills. The two bills reflect the input of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. They also reflect the interests of Canadians everywhere and the input of all parties who welcomed these two amendments, I dare say, with baited breath. (Motions deemed adopted, bill

Immigration And Refugee Protection Act  Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to put my comments on the record at this stage, as other members have done. I think I am the longest serving member of the citizenship and immigration committee and I must say that I have seen quite a change in the function

Immigration  Mr. Speaker, I said we want a system that allows refugees to integrate into the Canadian system. Our existing system welcomed many more refugees last year than the previous year. Last year, we accepted 28% more refugees. In my opinion that is evidence that there is indeed justic

Immigration  Mr. Speaker, the justice lies in the results. Many more refugees were welcomed here last year than in the previous year. That is justice. We voluntarily take in refugees and welcome them to this country.