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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/3/22 10:36:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, most of the fish in my riding actually live in glass tanks, but I appreciate the great work that the member and his colleagues on the committee do. I think that it is important to clarify, and the member can follow up on this, that some members have said that concurrence debates eliminate the existence of the opportunity to table petitions, when in fact that is not true. After a concurrence debate, we proceed with petitions unless the government takes the very draconian effort to move to the orders of the day, and it is government motions to proceed to the orders of the day, not opposition concurrence motions that actually prevent members from tabling petitions.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/3/22 3:21:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if you can just report to the House on the question of bringing an unanimous consent motion when a unanimous consent motion that was identical or very similar has been put forward. I supported the last motion, of course, but I am concerned about protecting the rights of members insofar as seeing the same motion proposed repeatedly. I wonder if you can report to the House on the expectations around that.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/3/22 3:40:05 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-8, and my comments will focus on part 5 of Bill C-8. This is the government's effort to double down on its failed strategy of mandates and in fact try to push provinces, which are all moving away from mandates, to try to bring them back. Specifically, part 5 of the bill says: The Minister of Health may make payments to the provinces and territories not exceeding $300 million in total for the purpose of supporting their coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) proof-of-vaccination initiatives, with the amount of each payment to be determined by the Minister of Health. This is the context in which we are living: Provinces are recognizing and moving away from these mandate policies, and the federal government is doubling down on its failures. Members who travel back and forth to Ottawa will see the realities of how the federal mandates conflict with the provincial mandates and really how absurd it is. This weekend, I was at a trade show in my riding, and in keeping with the provincial rules in Alberta, anybody could come to the trade show without needing to present proof of vaccination. I think that is a good thing. People are not required to wear masks, which is positive and reasonable as well. I was at this trade show meeting with constituents who were coming through, shaking hands, kissing babies, talking to people about the issues on their mind. None of these requirements were in place at the provincial level. Then, when I go to the airport and get on an airplane, all of a sudden I am in federal jurisdiction, which means that all of a sudden the pandemic is back once I arrive at the airport. I need to wear a mask, and I need to provide proof of vaccination to get on the plane. There are all these new requirements in place. Then I get to Ontario and leave the airport. In Ontario, people do not have to present proof of vaccination to get into restaurants. They do not have to wear masks in restaurants. I get off the plane, come downtown and go to receptions. There are all these receptions being hosted off the Hill in restaurants, and I see Liberal, NDP, Conservative and Bloc staff and members at these receptions not wearing masks. No proof of vaccination is required. They are in a restaurant and it is all fine, apparently. Then, when they get on the Hill, they are back in federal jurisdiction and the government insists that proof of vaccination is required and they have to wear a mask. I try to make sense of the science behind the apparent conclusion that COVID-19 can only be transmitted when we are in places regulated by the federal government. How does it make sense scientifically for Liberals to say we need these mandates in these small, limited areas of federal jurisdiction, even when provinces are lifting these mandates? It is perfectly okay for Liberal members and staff to go to parties and restaurants in Ottawa outside of the parliamentary precinct and there is no risk from COVID, apparently, in those places. However, when they come to the Hill, apparently we need to ban any person, staff member or member of Parliament who is not vaccinated and require people to wear masks. It does not make any sense. These rampant inconsistencies do not make any sense at all. This is what has frustrated so many people throughout COVID-19. They are being told they have to follow the science, and then they are being faced with these obviously radically inconsistent rules that are applied in different ways. Insofar as there are things that make sense scientifically, they should be in place across jurisdictions. If the same people are going to events in their ridings and going to restaurants, out and about where they are not wearing masks and the government is not insisting that there be proof of vaccination in those places, and then it insists on the continuation of discriminatory mandates in areas of federal jurisdiction, we should note and call out how absurd that is. We should also know that these federal mandates that are being promoted in Bill C-8 are applied regardless of the risk of transmission or exposure. One would think that the government would be happy to include an exception for those who take a rapid test. If people have just completed a negative rapid test, they are obviously at much lower risk of having and transmitting COVID-19 than if they were vaccinated a significant number of months ago. I think that is fairly clear in terms of the scientific data that we have right now, and yet people who have not been tested recently can get on an airplane if they were vaccinated, but if they have just produced a negative test and they are not vaccinated, then they cannot get on the plane. This is clearly not about risk to other people on the airplane. It is clearly not about risk to other people in that space. It is about the government trying to be as punitive as possible toward those who have made a personal choice with respect to their health. We have federal mandates that say to public servants who work from home that they have to be on leave. That does not make any sense. Those mandates do not affect just the unvaccinated; they affect vaccinated people who rely on federal government services. We are seeing in immigration and so many other departments delays in the provision of government services and major gaps in terms of the provision of key government services. People need to wait years for their citizenship application to be processed. People who are trying to sponsor refugees in vulnerable situations need to wait three years before they can privately sponsor someone to come to Canada. It may be that a contributing factor to that is that the government has told people who work in immigration processing and other areas, even if they are working from home, that they cannot continue to work if they are making a choice not to get vaccinated. How does that make sense? For all members of the government know, the people they are interacting with on public transit and servers at restaurants close to the Hill at the various receptions they are going to may or may not be vaccinated, yet they insist that public servants who are working from home providing vital service to Canadians in immigration processing or working on providing support to people who are filing their taxes, and other areas, have to be vaccinated or they will be put on leave, again, even if they are working from home. These mandates clearly do not make any sense. They have never made sense, because they are not applied with a view to risk; they are applied solely with the objective of being as punitive as possible toward those who have chosen not to be vaccinated. Why else would these have happened? At this point in time, where we are today, in May 2022, let us acknowledge that any meaningful impact on vaccination rates of these coercive mechanisms has now run its course. I do not think these mandates made sense at any point in time, but certainly at this point, any people who are going to be impacted in their vaccination choices by these coercive tools have already had the opportunity to consider the impacts, and if they are not vaccinated, they have definitively, despite the coercive pressure from the government, chosen not to. It is time now for the government to recognize that people have been presented with information and they have made the choices they want to make. Now, proposing the spending of another up to $300 million to promote mandates at the provincial level just does not make any sense. Let us recognize that at this stage, two years after the start of the pandemic, many Canadians have been vaccinated and we have worked hard to address the issues we need to address in terms of health care capacity and other things, and it is time now to try to move forward. People I talk to across the country, including in my riding, do not want to see the permanent realization of vaccine mandates. We saw at times the government proposing funding for three years of vaccine mandates, and it is simply grossly unfair that people would be still, and possibly in the future, prevented from getting on airplanes, prevented from seeing family members and prevented from coming into Parliament in the event that they are not vaccinated, especially given that people from federal jurisdictions are going out and participating in things where they are interacting with people without masks and people who are not vaccinated. In the time I have left, I want to comment on the principle behind vaccine mandates. It was interesting in question period to hear the transport minister say that we cannot at the same time think that vaccines are useful from a health perspective and also say that—

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

May/3/22 3:50:42 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I want to acknowledge that the member might have a point. I did not intend to leave this button on for this speech. I will tell them, since members are curious, that it says “end federal mandates”. I could also table the button if—

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/3/22 5:47:28 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-242

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by congratulating the member for Dufferin—Caledon, a member of the Conservative caucus, for putting forward this bill. It is a bill that very much reflects Conservative Party values and emphasizes the importance of open and fair immigration. It is also a bill that is very pro-family. It recognizes the value of strong families and of families being able to spend time with each other, and the need to have creative measures that allow for families to spend time together. What we really need to reflect on in terms of reforms to our immigration system is the value of family and extended family and how we can promote family connectedness so that people do not have to suffer through these processes and spending long periods of time away from close family members in the context of waiting for applications to be processed or in the case of other situations. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to that a bit today. Specifically, the bill put forward, Bill C-242, by the member for Dufferin—Caledon, would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as follows: to allow a parent or grandparent who applies for a temporary resident visa as a visitor to purchase private health insurance outside Canada and to stay in Canada for a period of five years. It would also require the Minister of Immigration to prepare a report on possibly reducing the minimum income requirement for a child or grandchild. This recognizes the value of what is often called a “super visa”, supporting family members so they can be together and support each other. A bit of context is important here. Very often, families are looking at sponsoring members of their immediate or extended family to come to Canada for permanent immigration. That is a valuable channel, but there are limits to it. There is an additional option, one that maybe reflects the desire of some family members who would like to come and stay for a long time in Canada but do not plan on permanently immigrating here. I believe it was a Conservative government that developed the idea of having a super visa program as an additional channel for people. The super visa is for people who are not immigrating permanently to Canada but would simply like to come here, be with family members, like children and grandchildren, and spend extended periods of time with them. As a condition, those who come are expected to purchase private health care and are therefore not relying on the public system. This is very reasonable. We should not stick ourselves in this binary of saying that either people do not come or they come and immediately have all the social services associated with someone who has a permanent presence in Canada. Instead, we can create mechanisms that allow people to come and spend significant amounts of time in Canada with family members, while paying privately for insurance. At the same time, we should look to make these channels more accessible and more reasonable so that more people can take advantage of these opportunities to be together as a family. The super visa program is a very good program and a very popular program, and for those who are able to fit into this stream, it really achieves the best of all possible worlds. It is beneficial to Canadian society to have these folks come and be with family members and provide various kinds of support to their families. Also, again, it recognizes the fact that there are some limits in the permanent immigration stream regarding parents and grandparents. It strengthens this particular stream and allows those who may not wish to be here permanently to nonetheless come and be present in and supportive of their families. Needless to say, the value of extended families is well known, I think, to all Canadians. For many cultural communities, there is a particular recognition of and appreciation for the role being played by extended family members. As I give this speech now, I have five children at home, and I am very glad that my mother-in-law is able to visit and play such a key supportive role in our family. That enables me to travel and enables my wife to do all the things she does. For newcomers to Canada who do not have the benefit of grandparents being here in Canada, that can create some really significant challenges. Having that super visa channel available and extending it to five years, making it more accessible and making it easier for people to make those health care insurance purchases by giving them a broader range of options of who they can purchase from, makes that transition so much easier for people who are living and working here in Canada. This is really designed to ease that process. Again, it reflects a Conservative understanding of the value of family connections, both within the idea of a nuclear or immediate family, but also within the extended family and the supports that are provided there. This is an excellent bill, but there are many more things that the government needs to do, and that Conservatives are calling on the government to do, to address the unnecessary pressures on families that are associated with our immigration system right now. One of the main complaints we are hearing in our offices is the strain that is created for families by backlogs. The fact is that across a broad range of immigration categories, there are huge delays, and this forces families to be apart from each other for much longer than they should be. The idea that people have to wait years, for instance, to have a spouse come to Canada, or that they have to wait years for other members of their families or for caregivers to come to Canada who meet all the requirements and are very much needed, is an issue that we need to really get to the bottom of. This affects the issue of refugee sponsorship as well. The delay, I think, is three years for private refugee sponsorship, so Canadian community groups, church groups and others who are waiting to sponsor vulnerable refugees have to wait for a three-year period. It may be that those refugees are in a vulnerable situation: they may be in need of ongoing financial support where they are or their security may be in question, yet they are sitting and waiting while the Canadian sponsors are sitting and waiting for that long processing delay. Those lengthy delays are simply unacceptable, and they require urgent action by the government and by all of us. In our last concern of the election platform, I was very proud of some of the concrete proposals that Conservatives put forward in terms of expediting, processing and addressing the long backlogs. Of course, the adjudication process is critically important, but it needs to be timely. It is always tragic when families are forced to be apart for years for no reason other than bureaucratic delay, so we need to do much better. The government needs to do much better in terms of ensuring a lean, effective and results-driven immigration system. We all see these frustrations in our offices right now, and this is why we have really been pushing forward on the issue of backlogs across the range of categories. As well, my colleague for Dufferin—Caledon gave notice of motion at the immigration committee today on a motion to call for addressing the backlogs in citizenship applications, which is a different issue from immigration applications. There are various elections coming up in different parts of the country. Here in Ontario, there is going to be a provincial election relatively soon, and people who would otherwise be eligible for their citizenship and would participate in that election are waiting in longer and longer queues to get their citizenship applications processed. It is not just on the front of families being together, but it is on other fronts, such as people being able to exercise their democratic rights and other things where the issue of delays, inefficiencies and backlogs within the immigration system has concrete negative effects for families. We put forward some concrete proposals in our last election platform around addressing this. I think it is very important. I will conclude by congratulating the member for Dufferin—Caledon and recognizing the work that he is doing in trying to strengthen and make more accessible the super visa program. This very much aligns with our vision of a family-friendly immigration policy: one that recognizes the value of strong families and of families being able to be together.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/3/22 6:40:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak today on the Conservatives' ongoing push for the government to allow visa-free travel for Ukrainians. Up until now, unfortunately the government has opposed these efforts. In a constructive spirit, we are continuing to push hoping that the government will do the right thing to allow Ukrainians to come to Canada to flee the challenges they are facing right now as a result of this horrific invasion, and to find safety and security in Canada. I want to remind the House that right after the invasion, my colleague, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, who is our lead on the immigration file, put forward a motion at the immigration committee. That motion supported visa-free travel. The motion was adopted because Conservatives were able to work constructively with members of the Bloc and the NDP, but that motion was, at the committee level, opposed by the government. This House subsequently voted in the majority to support visa-free travel for Ukrainians. Again, the entire Liberal caucus, without exception, opposed it. There were some members who were not present for that vote, but every member who was present voted against allowing visa-free travel for those coming from Ukraine. At this point, we have seen this shared view with the Conservatives leading and putting this issue forward, but having support from the other opposition parties, emphasizing how crucial it is for the Liberals, the government, to move on this. As of yet, the government has not been willing to implement the will of the House of Commons expressed through that concurrence vote. Why do we support visa-free travel for Ukrainians? At a basic level, we want to help those in need to find safety and security, and to be able to do so in Canada. Many people have stepped up. They want to offer support. They want to open their homes. However, the government has to get out of the way and allow them to offer that support. It is also important to acknowledge that many of those who are coming want to have security while the war is going on, but they also want to return. In many cases, we are talking about mothers and children and the father in the family is still in Ukraine and is participating in the defence of Ukraine. When we have some members of a family and not others looking for refuge, it is very clear that people are not planning on staying permanently. In general, and the government has acknowledged this, the intention of those who are coming here is to be safe until the war ends. Hopefully it will end soon, and people will then be able to return. Let us acknowledge that other countries are doing this. We want to share in that support, recognizing that countries in the region, such as Poland, the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as Romania, and countries throughout Europe, are doing a great job offering that visa-free support. It is a simplification of this system. The government has presented counter arguments. Some members of the government have said there is a security issue because we need to be able to do this review. Security precautions can be taken, and they can be taken as they have been in other countries. The minister has also said that time is an issue. He said that regulatory changes, and changes to IT systems and other things, would take 12 to 14 weeks to implement. I do not know why that would be the case since we are simply removing a requirement, but we are almost at the 12-week mark anyway, and people are still having problems accessing these visas. We have actually almost come to the completion of the timeframe the minister said would be in place. I want to share some really compelling stories from people in my riding. There is a case of two mothers who are friends and who have young children. They applied at the same time. One got a visa accepted and one is still waiting. They would like to travel together and have the security of being together. There is another case of a family with four children who all applied at the same time. One was asked for biometrics and nobody else in the family was asked for biometrics. There is another case of a mother and her children who applied on March 16, and they are still waiting for processing. Let us just get this visa-free system in place so we can get it done and stop the pain and suffering for those who are waiting.

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Context: House Hansard - 63 - May/3/22

Mr. Garnett Genuis

May/3/22 6:49:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with great respect for the parliamentary secretary, I think that answer provides some obvious effort to distract and to say, “Look at some of these other things happening over here. Isn't it great that people have an opportunity to work when they come to Canada?” Yes: People should be able to work when they come to Canada, obviously, but the question was specifically about visa-free travel. This is the issue that was raised in this question. This is the issue that was raised when a majority in the House of Commons voted to have visa-free travel. It does not make sense at all to say that having the visa requirement in place is necessary for us to be able to do all of these other things over here. What we are saying is that there are other measures that are valuable, of course, for supporting Ukraine and supporting Ukrainians, but one of those measures is lifting the visa requirement. There is no reason that the government cannot proceed with, for instance, having an open work permit while also lifting the visa requirement. I would submit that it obviously would be easier and faster if the requirement for the issuance of the visa was no longer there. Why does the government not do this simple thing? It would make life easier, because it is not meeting its targets in many cases that I am hearing about from constituents. Let us lift the visa requirement.

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