44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 24, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, this bill will have a positive and meaningful impact on family reunification for many immigrants, particularly immigrant women.
Bill C-242 would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, specifically the eligibility criteria for parents and grandparents who wish to apply for the temporary resident super visa. To better understand this, let us take a quick look back.
The super visa was introduced in 2011. It allowed many parents and grandparents from around the world to temporarily enter Canada for two years at a time over a 10-year period. This visa allows multiple entries for extended periods. This has benefited families and communities across the country, both socially and economically. More than a third of the super visas were granted to families from India, followed by families from China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh.
One year after the launch of the super visa program, approximately 13,000 visas had been issued, with an acceptance rate of 87%. Without exact statistics about the number of super visas issued per year, we know that it is 20,000 or less across Quebec and the country, representing a relatively small proportion of between 1% and 2% of temporary residence visas issued every year.
We can easily understand that being able to stay longer with an adult child would allow a parent or grandparent to provide support in all kinds of family situations. Very often, the individual will take care of grandchildren, enabling adult immigrants to actively contribute to the economy.
How does the super visa for parents and grandparents differ from a regular multiple-entry visa? Currently, most visitors can only stay in Canada up to six months after their initial entry. The super visa allows eligible parents and grandparents to visit their family in Canada for up to two years without having to renew their status.
Bill C-242 introduces minor and very specific amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to facilitate the arrival of parents and grandparents sponsored by a child or grandchild who is a temporary resident or Canadian citizen. This bill will extend the validity of the temporary resident visa from two to five years. This will give these families three more years to improve their chances of obtaining permanent residence. That is something.
One of the greatest benefits of facilitating the arrival of parents or grandparents from abroad is to make it possible for them to free the parents from the responsibility of caring for young children and helping them save money on child care costs.
I would ask members to note the following prediction: By 2036, between 38% and 50% of children under the age of 6 will be children of immigrants. Therefore, it will be especially important to provide the parents of these children with an alternative for their child’s care.
I would also point out to my colleagues that some cultures value the importance of exposing children to their mother tongue and their culture at a very young age. Those values can have an impact on the families’ preferences when it comes to choosing a child care option.
We know that the lack of established social networks, the lack of ties to the host community and language barriers significantly hinder access to child care. These factors disproportionately affect new immigrants. The situation is even worse for immigrant women. They often face a difficult choice: to work, at times for low pay because they often have few skills or their skills are unfortunately not recognized, or to stay home with the children to save on child care costs.
A resident in my constituency, Laurentides—Labelle, who is originally from India called us for help bringing over his father-in-law. That resident is a new father and it would be entirely natural for the grandfather to be able to stay in the beautiful area of Saint-Agathe-des-Monts to support his daughter and son-in-law for at least five years.
In general, immigrant families are more likely to turn to free child care options that allow both parents to work. For all these reasons, we must consider Bill C-242, which will facilitate family reunification for an extended period of time. It will enable immigrant families to turn to free child care options and make it possible for mothers to choose to contribute to the economy and improve their living conditions. Everyone wins.
For all these reasons, and to support these immigrant families, the Bloc Québécois will vote for this bill.
I would add that there are many new immigrant families who are having a hard time adjusting. We see it, and we support them every day in all our regions. They reach out to us for support in their integration journey. We must support them and support the amendments in Bill C-242.
I would like to talk about the four changes to the eligibility criteria for the parents' and grandparents' super visa. The first, as I said at the outset, is the extended stay in Canada for up to five years. Second, the visa facilitates access to permanent residence. Parents and grandparents will have three years to obtain permanent residence for themselves. Third, the visa expands the pool of insurance companies. Currently, only Canadian companies can be used. Immigrants will be able to buy coverage at a better price. Fourth, the minister will have to table a report about reducing the income requirement to make it easier for parents and grandparents to come.
In closing, we must remember that a newcomer's journey demands a fighting spirit, especially in the early years. They face many obstacles. I salute everyone in Laurentides—Labelle who is facing those obstacles right now. Of course we do what we can to support them.
Many of those who reach out to us need help finding work, learning our language or accessing various services. I believe that Bill C‑242 will facilitate their social and economic integration. It is important to support them.
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Mr. Speaker, before I go further, I want to take a moment to recognize that gender equality is still a daily fight and that this fight is deadly right now for women in Iran.
In a bloodthirsty dictatorship, women are at the front line of unspeakable abuses. They are being killed, raped and brutalized just because they are women. This needs to end, and the Canadian government must do more to end the killing.
While fear and killing escalate in Iran, for the Canadian women who are here and who have in the past applied to have their families come here to be with them, those visas have been rejected by the government. While visas are being granted for people bringing into this country enormous amounts of money, money launderers, women who have desperately wanted their parents and grandparents to come and visit and support them have had the door closed.
For the Liberal government, it appears that money talks and that entry into Canada is a pay-to-play system. This is wrong and it needs to be corrected. That correction involves more resources to IRCC
Wait times for IRCC are absolutely unacceptable. When it comes to the super visa process, it reflects a lack of compassion and understanding by the government of the importance of family reunification.
In my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, I have met too many young families that have not been able to overcome the barriers that the Liberal government puts in front of them to have their parents come and visit. Too many families in my community have had to go through an illness, a birth, a death, a marriage, a breakup and many other life events alone, because the government is without compassion and has not invested enough resources into the immigration programs. The lack of investment and the lack of compassion and understanding by the government manifests in stress and anxiety for families.
I want to share a few real situations that have caused undue financial and emotional stress in my community. More often than not, it is women who get hurt.
The first example I have is a community person who reached out to say that she had applied for a visa on June 24th for her mother to come and visit. The writer says, “I have given birth to her first grandchild and we were hoping to have her here with us to assist us with our first child. Having an additional set of experienced hands would be so helpful to me during this time, as my husband is back to work full time.”
The second person from my community said, “I have applied for my mom's super visa on Nov 08, 2021. I haven't received any response from IRCC on my mom's application. It's been five years and five months that I haven't seen my mom due to my schooling. I recently got engaged and want to get married this year and want my mom to be here.”
Last, this person wrote, “My mother and I came to Canada about three years ago and became refugees. Our refugee acceptance came in September 2020 and we are permanent residents now. We haven’t seen my father for over 3 years and my mom is getting depression and anxiety since her husband can’t be with her in this tough time.”
These stories highlight how imperative this super visa program is to the lives of Canadians. Although the bill before us seeks to enhance the current process by addressing the high costs with respect to insurance coverage and extending the period in which parents and grandparents can come to Canada, the government must address the lack of resources in IRCC.
There is no doubt in the minds of the New Democrats that ensuring family reunification for parents and grandparents is a laudable goal. It is a goal we support. We want to see this measure come to fruition. Let us reduce the costs of family reunification with loved ones and make it not something a person needs to buy into, but something that is accessible and something that we all honour and respect.
The NDP has always seen family reunification as a pivotal component of Canada's immigration system. All families want to be reunited with their loved ones, and they should not have to go through such hardships to be with their parents or grandparents.
Research has shown that when a family network includes parents and grandparents, it makes the settlement and integration process much easier for newcomers. It also confirms the essential role parents and grandparents play in supporting the healthy development of youth.
Families are particularly important in the maintenance of the well-being of racialized communities, members of the disability community and women.
Women and immigrant women are the core of the care economy in Canada. One in four jobs in Canada is a care job. With the current labour shortages in our country and the crushing weight of an overburdened health care system, immigration will continue to be a necessity to bring more workers into Canada.
Care is already a sector disproportionately represented by women and immigrant women who deserve to have a family support network to support them and their work.
HUMA recently studied labour shortages in the care economy and witnesses asked how they could be expected to attract and retain workers in this highly gendered occupation when the industry discriminated against them. The exploitation of care workers needs to stop. We must make every care job a good job and that includes reunification of the families of these workers.
A high proportion of immigrant women work in care. They provide the professional and emotional support patients need, yet they have no extended family support to help them with looking after their own children when this super visa becomes a barrier.
Witnesses told us during the HUMA study that their situations would greatly improve if they were able to bring family to Canada: better mental supports, child care supports and more security in their communities.
Canada will continue to rely on immigration in the coming years and a good, strong family reunification program will play a significant role in attracting, retaining and integrating immigrants who contribute to our success as a country, particularly as we work to through COVID-19.
When parents and grandparents come to Canada through family reunification, they contribute to the economy. They support the family, allowing parents to get out into the workforce, and they can help with child care. They help with the growth of children by teaching them their cultural and family history, language and more. All of that contributes to building a healthy, happy and multicultural Canada, one of which we are very proud.
With that in mind, I will reiterate that the NDP wants the government to lift the cap on parents and grandparents reunification so all those family members can seek permanent residence status in Canada in an expeditious way.
Of course, the NDP supports the super visa extension. It is a welcomed change that is a stepping stone to a more compassionate family reunification law.
In addition to the points I have already made, it is also essential that we bring back the appeals process for the parents and grandparents stream. As the member for Vancouver East has said many times in the House, she had a family that was rejected for the program in its third year of meeting the onerous financial requirements because it went on maternity leave for one month. As a result of that, the family's income dipped and its dream of reuniting with their parents vanished. This is wrong. An appeals process with some ability to provide flexibility would have accommodated that temporary change in circumstances.
Ultimately, our immigration system is in need of repair and the NDP would like to see long-term change. In the meantime, the measures in this bill would help people, and that is something the NDP supports.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑242 makes minor, very specific changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The bill seeks to make it easier for a child or grandchild with temporary resident status or citizenship to bring in sponsored parents and grandparents. It amends certain specific super visa eligibility criteria.
The super visa was introduced in 2011 under the Conservatives. It is a visa that allows multiple entries and is valid for a maximum of 10 years. It allows parents and grandparents to enter Quebec and Canada and visit their family under a temporary visa for two years without having to renew their status. A regular visa for multiple entries is also valid for a maximum of 10 years, but it allows a maximum stay of six months each time.
I do not have precise statistics on the number of super visas issued per year, but we know that there are fewer than 20,000 issued nationwide every year. This represents a fairly marginal proportion of 1% to 2% of the 1.7 million temporary resident visas issued annually from 2017 to 2019.
The super visa has allowed thousands of parents and grandparents from abroad to come to Canada for extended periods, which benefits the families not only socially, but also economically. For example, by being in Quebec, those parents and grandparents can help care for young children, allowing working-age immigrants and citizens to fully participate in the labour force and the economy.
Having them here saves parents from paying for child care. Studies show that immigrant parents are less likely than non-immigrant parents to pay for child care in order to go to work. Sometimes, these families simply cannot afford child care.
It is well known that immigrant women are particularly likely to be underemployed for their level of education. Faced with a choice between accepting low-paying work for which they are overqualified and staying home with the children, many immigrant mothers choose to stay home and save on child care costs.
It is worth noting that the difference in the use of child care services between immigrant and non-immigrant families is not statistically significant in Quebec, which has had a universal public child care system since 1997.
As one study found, it is women who usually assume the additional responsibilities of child care. Bill C-242 is therefore more likely to have a positive impact on the social and professional lives of immigrant women.
Since they have temporary status, these super visa immigrants cost the government little or nothing. One of the eligibility criteria for the super visa is that the person sponsoring their parents or grandparents must provide a letter that includes a promise of financial support.
A child or grandchild who invites their parent or grandparents to come to Canada must prove that their household meets the minimum necessary income. Applicants for the super visa must have medical insurance from a Canadian insurance company and must provide proof that the medical insurance has been paid.
The obligation to provide proof of medical insurance reduces the likelihood of any potential demands on the health care system or social services funded by Quebec and Canadian taxpayers. The insurance also protects the parents and grandparents, who will not be taking any risks and will not have to pay the total cost of medical care out of pocket.
As with any temporary immigration document, applicants must prove that they will voluntarily leave Canada at the end of their visit. Contrary to what we may infer from all the financial restrictions that the government has put on this super visa, having a parent or grandparent come here does not pose an additional financial burden. It is just the opposite. Having a family member provide child care allows parents to spend more time working, freeing them up to take additional shifts, for instance.
Studies also show that parents and grandparents who are invited under the super visa program or sponsored under the parents and grandparents program help their immigrant children remain in or join the labour market. Having a grandparent at home can also enable parents to accept jobs with irregular hours that fall outside child care hours.
Bill C-242 seeks to facilitate the arrival of these parents or grandparents by amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in four concrete ways. First, it allows applicants for a temporary resident super visa to purchase private health insurance from an insurance company outside Canada. Based on the law of supply and demand, it is possible that, over the long term, Canadian insurance companies may lower their own insurance premiums and contributions for temporary immigrants.
Second, it extends the maximum stay in Canada to five years instead of two, without requiring the document to be renewed.
Third, the bill also requires the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to prepare and table a report assessing the implications of a reduction to the minimum income requirement, again to facilitate the arrival of parents or grandparents by reducing the financial restrictions associated with applying.
Fourth, the super visa currently allows eligible Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their parents and grandparents so that they in turn can obtain permanent residence. Basically, this program operates like a lottery.
By extending the validity of the temporary resident visa from two years to five, Bill C‑242 gives these families three extra years to improve their chances of obtaining permanent residence for their parents or grandparents.
Bill C‑242 is particularly relevant in light of the labour shortage happening in Quebec and everywhere else. That labour shortage is exacerbated by a shortage of child care spaces.
The Fédération des intervenantes en petite enfance du Québec, a Quebec organization representing child care providers, says that there is a need for 75,000 regulated, subsidized spaces.
This shortage has considerable economic impacts: Seventy per cent of SMEs say they are having human resource management issues directly related to a lack of child care spaces.
Bill C‑242 does not deal so much with the issue of the quantity of immigration as the quality and fairness of the immigration process. It is consistent with the concept of looking after new immigrants rather than feeding a machine designed to receive large numbers of immigrants with no regard for their integration into the host society.
As we know, the process of adapting and transitioning into a new society is often tumultuous and rife with challenges, particularly in terms of the language and culture of the host country, difficulty finding a job, a lack of social support and all the material sacrifices caused by arriving in a new country.
Bill C‑242 could therefore make things easier and allow new immigrants to have more time, for example, to properly integrate into the host society, learn the French language, look for work and improve their living conditions.
For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑242.
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- Oct/24/22 3:32:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented to the House on Friday, April 29, be concurred in.
I appreciate the opportunity to open debate, a debate that I understand will be, by unanimous consent, continuing this evening, on the sixth report, which deals with the ongoing injustices facing Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims and the work that we need to do as a House in response to it.
I am grateful for the work of the immigration committee. This is a unanimous report that highlights many important issues, and I want to start the debate by reading points from the report into the record and then discussing them.
The report states:
In light of the fact that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China face an ongoing genocide, and in light of the fact that those in third countries are at continuing risk of detention and deportation back to China, where they face serious risk of arbitrary detention, torture, and other atrocities, the committee calls on the government to:
a) extend existing special immigration measures to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, including the expansion of biometrics collection capabilities in third countries and the issuance of Temporary Resident Permits and single journey travel documents to those without a passport;
b) allow displaced Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in third countries, who face risk of detention and deportation back to China, to seek refuge in Canada;
c) waive the UNHCR refugee determination;
d) and the government provide a comprehensive response by letter to the committee within 30 days.
This motion follows an important step taken by the House about a year and a half ago when the House voted to recognize the Uighur genocide. It was a unanimous vote of all who voted in this place. As members will recall, cabinet abstained and still has not declared its position, but the vote that will take place on this motion, because it is a vote to agree with this report, will provide cabinet and the government with another opportunity to declare their position with respect to the Uighur genocide.
I reflect as well on the fact that much of this conversation was started in the House with the recognition of the genocide motion, but there has been much more discussion in the international community and evidence that has come out since. Just recently, there was the report of Michelle Bachelet. There were significant efforts to influence that report and there were significant limitations with respect to the work she was able to do, but, nonetheless, very damning conclusions came out of that report.
Various analyses have shown forced sterilization, systemic sexual violence targeting Uighur women, people being taken away and put in concentration camps, clear violations of the UN definition as it pertains to genocide and states that are party to that have an obligation to recognize and respond in those cases. This report recognizes and reaffirms that.
The focus of this report is on other measures that the House and the government need to take in response to these events. I want to focus on the ones in this report, as well as other additional measures that can and should be taken.
Following that recognition, even while the government has still not declared its position, other members of Parliament have been trying to put forward constructive initiatives that respond to the question of what Canada can do to advance the issue of justice and human rights for Uighurs. There have been a number of different areas where proposals have been put forward in the House.
This report speaks on additional immigration measures that have been put forward, and I know that later this week we will be having the first hour of debate on Motion No. 62. I should have made note of my colleague's constituency name before, but my colleague from somewhere in Montreal is proposing that and we will be debating that for the first hour on Wednesday. We are seeing a number of different initiatives on the immigration front.
We recognize the reality that Uighurs in China obviously often struggle to get to safety, but, increasingly, the efforts of the Government of China to have influence beyond its borders are creating greater and greater challenges, escalating pressures on refugees who have fled, maybe thought they were in a safe place and are now facing intimidation and persecution that is being pushed on the countries where they are resident as a result of pressure from the Government of China.
As it relates to third countries, it is worth mentioning the case of Huseyin Celil, who is a Canadian citizen detained in China. This was a case where he did not travel to China. Mr. Celil was in Uzbekistan, but was taken from Uzbekistan and sent back to China, where he has been detained for over a decade and a half. Underlining that is the fact that we need to recognize how CCP pressure on third countries can lead to people being sent back and facing human rights violations in the process.
Canada can be a place of safety for these folks in the Uighur diaspora who have left China but who are still facing the risks of potential persecution and repatriation in the countries where they are.
That is why Canada should be looking at strengthening special immigration measures. Our view on this side of the House is that we need to recognize the important role played by private sponsoring organizations and a strategy for responding to persecution and supporting victims of human rights abuses should involve collaboration between governments and private sponsoring entities.
We need to recognize that there may not be resources within those private sponsoring entities to cover all of the needs that exist, and there could be vehicles for joint sponsorship. There could even be cases, perhaps, where the government provides the funding but organizations on the ground here in Canada play a specific role in welcoming newcomers.
All of the data suggests that those who are privately sponsored have a greater level of success once they are here in Canada, so we should look for opportunities in the process to engage private sponsors, such as mosques, churches, synagogues, faith groups, community groups and civil society, to help people acclimatize to coming to Canada. We recognize that this is not just a question of state policy, but the process of welcoming refugees is a collective effort that all Canadians can be involved in. I think, in many cases, people from different backgrounds and different experiences want to be involved, and they certainly get a lot out of it.
I want, as well, to discuss some of the other measures that we need to be taking about, coming out of where we were a year and a half ago.
I have sponsored a private member's bill in this place that comes from the other place, from Senator Ataullahjan. Bill S-223 is a bill that would combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent. This is a private member's bill that would have Canada doing what it can to combat this horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking.
I do want to note that, unfortunately, the progress of Bill S-223 has been stalled. It has been sitting before the foreign affairs committee for months and months. We have not been able to get it adopted and sent back to the House. In fact, I was not originally scheduled to be here in the House right now. I was scheduled to be testifying before the foreign affairs committee, but at the last minute, the meeting scheduled to conduct hearings on Bill S-223 was cancelled by the Chair. That has further delayed the process of bringing this bill forward.
The bill to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking is pertinent now because we are hearing more about Uighurs being victims of this practice, but it is something that has been going on for decades. In particular, the Falun Gong community has highlighted the abuse of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and how it impacts their community.
It has actually been 15 years that parliamentarians have been working on a bill to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Borys Wrzesnewskyj was first to bring one forward. Irwin Cotler also had a bill.
Since I was elected in 2015, I have been working on this with Senator Ataullahjan through the last three Parliaments. This bill has passed the Senate three times, twice in its current form. It has passed the House once in its current form. It has been studied multiple times by Senate committees and by a House committee, so I think it is time that we finally get it done, if we are able to end the logjam around it at the foreign affairs committee. It should not be about any one individual. This is a bill that will save lives if it is passed. I hope we are able to get it done.
A lot of work, as well, has been done on this issue of forced labour. There are significant concerns about how Uighurs are victims of forced labour and, in general, how Canada's laws to combat forced labour are totally inadequate. There is much more work that needs to be done. Another bill before the foreign affairs committee, also with an unclear timeline around it, is Bill S-211, a bill from a colleague on the government side. It has broad support in the House, and Conservatives supported fast-tracking it at second reading, but it is, again, not moving forward at the moment.
We need to move forward with these bills that are currently before the foreign affairs committee. Bill S-223 and Bill S-211 are two excellent bills. One is on organ harvesting, and the other is aimed at addressing an issue of forced labour.
Bill S-211 would create a reporting mechanism. It is an important step forward, but the other thing we need to do is recognize that in the Uighur region, for example, there is a very significant, very large issue of forced labour. I support measures, such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States, a bipartisan piece of legislation, that would recognize the particular issues in that region, and perhaps in other regions, where there are really significant and coordinated state-pushed efforts to have forced labour. We need to specifically designate those regions.
We need to look at, for instance, Bill S-204, a bill put forward by Senator Housakos that is not in the House yet. It is still in the other place. That bill would impose a ban on the import of any goods coming out of Xinjiang or East Turkistan, the region where Uighurs are in the majority. The goal of this is to recognize the reality that so much of what is produced and exported in that region is tainted by slave labour. We need to have an approach that recognizes the particular risks in this region and targets that region as well. That is another issue that we need to move on legislatively and there may be other measures we can consider that involve the designation of specific regions. This would target the specific regions in the world where we know there is a very high level of forced labour and a high risk that goods coming out of there will have involve slave labour.
There are many mainstream brands that people will be familiar with, that they may use products from, that import products from that part of the world. It is very concerning. The government announced a new policy on combatting these imports, but, in fact, there was only one shipment that was ever stopped and it was subsequently released. Therefore, we are clearly lacking in this area, and there is much more work that needs to be done.
In terms of some of the legislative proposals that are coming forward, I want to also recognize Bill C-281, a bill that had its first hour of debate recently and has its second hour of debate coming up soon. It is from my colleague in Northumberland—Peterborough South.
Bill C-281 is the international human rights act. It contains a number of measures that would push forward Canada's response on international human rights, including requiring the minister of foreign affairs to table an annual report regarding the government's work on international human rights, include listing, as part of that report, prisoners of conscience, which is of particular concern.
It would also create a mechanism by which individuals could be nominated for sanctions under the Magnitsky act and a parliamentary committee could pass a motion suggesting that someone be sanctioned under the Magnitsky act. If that motion were to pass, the minister would be obliged to provide some kind of a response. This parliamentary trigger mechanism for Magnitsky sanctions has been adopted in other countries. It is very important because a Magnitsky sanctions tool, though a powerful tool, still leaves the discretion entirely in the hands of the government.
There have been many countries around the world where there are serious human rights abuses, and the government has actually failed to sanction anybody from that country. There has been very limited use of Magnitsky sanctions in response to the Uighur genocide. That is why I support this proposal from my colleague to have a parliamentary trigger mechanism, so that a parliamentary committee could, if not compel the government to sanction someone, at least compel the government to provide some kind of a response with respect to why they are or are not considering moving forward with a sanction.
These are some of the measures that we have moved on, from the act of recognition by Parliament a year and a half ago to now, trying to propose concrete, constructive measures that would see Canada play a greater and greater role in combatting this ongoing injustice. We have talked, of course, about the immigration measures that are called for in this report as well as immigration measures that have been put forward in other initiatives that we have seen. We have talked about the issues of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and the legislation that has been put forward on that.
We have talked about different kinds of trade measures, such as those contained in Bill S-211 from Senator Miville-Dechêne, as well as Bill S-204 from Senator Housakos. Bill S-211, which is the general reporting mechanism requiring companies to be involved in reporting on these issues, also has the designation of particular regions of concern and the issues that come out of those. Then there are the other measures in the International Human Rights Act from my colleague, in Bill C-281.
As such, we have seen many different legislative initiatives. I guess one thing to acknowledge that they all have in common is that they are all private members' initiatives, so we are seeing a flurry of activity from individual members, many from our side, many from the Senate and some from other parties as well. However, we have not really seen any government legislation that is aimed at closing the gap, and I think members understand the processes of this House and the long and arduous journey every private member's bill has to make. I have seen it myself in the work I have done on the organ harvesting and trafficking issue. I work on a piece of legislation, and every time it is actually voted on it is unanimous, yet there are so many steps it has to go through, little amendments here and there, that it ends up not getting done.
We are in the third Parliament in which I have worked on this bill, and it has been attempted in two previous Parliaments as well, so there is this long journey private members' bills have to go on, and the risks are the same for other good private members' bills that are responding to urgent and present human rights concerns. That is why the government should take a look at some of these initiatives and maybe consider putting forward proposals that advance them through government legislation.
There is so much more that needs to be done on this issue of forced labour, like even getting it out of government procurement, never mind addressing the import of products of forced labour that come into the private sector. We are relying on private members' legislation to do that job, and we should support these private members' bills, but the government should be willing to lead on this and provide really comprehensive solutions.
One of the areas the government can particularly lead in combatting the injustice facing Uighurs is in working more closely with our allies on combatting the importation of products made from forced labour. There is obviously a lot of tracing and data work that is required in terms of blocking out products made from forced labour from coming into Canada, and this is why we can benefit from sharing information with our allies. If we have consistent laws and are sharing information around forced labour, then we can be more effective working in collaboration.
In fact, we have already started down this road by recognizing as part of our trade deal with the United States and Mexico an obligation around combatting forced labour, but Canada needs to now live up to that obligation. We can share information. We can adjust our policies to really strengthen the work that is required to prevent products from forced labour from coming into this country.
In conclusion, I want to recognize the incredible work that has been done by the Uighur community in particular, but more broadly by other communities, like the Muslim community in general and many other communities that are coming alongside as allies in support of justice and human rights, who have been advocating on these various points related to the injustices the Uighurs have faced.
The information has very clearly been exposed, despite the best efforts of certain actors to suppress it. It is now widely known: the existence of a campaign to put people in concentration camps, forced sterilization and systemic sexual violence. The subcommittee on international human rights two years ago heard brutal testimony from survivors about what had happened, and I reflected at the time on this quote from William Wilberforce, who said, “[Y]ou may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know.”
Members of Parliament answered that call; the subcommittee on international human rights was unanimous and the House was unanimous, but the cabinet has still been silent and unclear, so this motion would provide the cabinet with an opportunity to vote again on the question, since this motion would reaffirm a recognition of the genocide.
It would also go further. We are not waiting for the cabinet; we are pushing forward with measures that are required in terms of pushing for additional immigration measures, and I have talked about the need to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking, the need to bring in new trade measures and the important additional measures in Bill C-281.
I hope members will support this concurrence and the other measures that are urgently required to stand with our Uighur brothers and sisters, who face so much injustice in China as well as threats even after they have fled.
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- Oct/24/22 3:53:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course members are welcome to pick up on whatever themes they think are most important in the conversation, but the opportunity to raise issues of concurrence is an important part of the process here. We have, I think, an understanding today about the majority of this debate taking place into the evening. This is the kind of dialogue that has happened with respect to this report.
Fundamentally, it is a good report and something we should be talking about. It was a unanimous report at the immigration committee. It is an opportunity to highlight right now, as well as this evening, some of the important measures that are required to stand with the Uighurs and try to combat the injustice that is being visited upon them.
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- Oct/24/22 6:45:00 p.m.
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It being 6:44 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, the House will now resume debate on the motion to concur in the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- Oct/24/22 7:38:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work with the member's colleague from the Bloc on many of these issues. His colleague proposed the amendment. He talked about this in relation to an Olympic boycott, which was, I think, one potential way of the international community sending a strong signal. Unfortunately, that signal was not sent early enough with sufficient magnitude to achieve the result that his colleague and other members of this House were advocating for.
There are many different things we can do legislatively to push for justice for Uighurs. I really appreciated the speech given by another one of the Bloc member's colleagues on Bill C-281, which is an important international human rights piece of legislation. We have Bill S-211 and Bill S-223 as well, which are both before the foreign affairs committee and are unfortunately waiting to move forward. There are also the immigration measures, the concurrence motion and the motion to be debated later this week. There are many different things we can do.
I wonder if the member would like to comment on the breadth of areas where Canada's Parliament could take action and on the fact that we can make a difference through the steps we take here in Canada's Parliament, even to impact injustices that are half a world away.
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- Oct/24/22 8:41:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to speak to this motion today.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.
I am proud to speak to this motion on behalf of my constituents in Saskatoon West. It is a very important motion and I want to note that the motion came from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, of which I am a proud member and have been since this Parliament resumed a little over a year ago.
I am also proud to say that last week I was elected by my colleagues as the vice-chair on the committee, which is new for me. Along with my work as the associate shadow minister for immigration, it is a very important role and I am thankful for the faith that the leader of my party and my constituents have put in me for that. My goal is to work with MPs from all parties to better our immigration system. This does not have to be a partisan issue, so I have some key priorities as I work with the immigration committee and immigration in general.
We need to hold the government to account when it makes errors that affect people. We all need to work together to improve the system and fix the problems. There are so many examples I see in my work of people who are stranded from their families. These are true life-and-death situations for them. We, as MPs, have to remember that the people we work with are not files but people and families with real issues. We need to always keep that in mind.
I am also very excited to work on the student direct stream. That is important for us. We know the IRCC is broken when it comes to backlogs. MP offices are inundated with immigration cases every day. I am sure everyone is in the same boat. That is also very important to me.
Finally, foreign credential recognition is a huge issue for me. That is why I put forward my private member's bill, Bill C-286, to help improve that situation and work with the government to try to make that situation better so that new immigrants coming to our country can work in the jobs in which they are trained, rather than having the classic “doctor driving a taxicab” situation. That is very important.
About 20 months ago, the House adopted a different motion, declaring that China's treatment of Uighurs and Turkic minorities constitutes a genocide. This was a Conservative motion and it was unanimously agreed to by the House, but it is disappointing that the Liberal cabinet did not vote for it. In fact, it abstained. It has had no position on this. It is unfortunate because, as has been discussed tonight, this is a very important issue through which we can make a difference in people's lives in a huge way. I would encourage the Liberal cabinet to take a position and take some action on this.
The other interesting thing that happened just recently was that the United Nations officially recognized that horrific crimes are occurring in the Xinjiang province of China against the Uighur people. This is a very significant move. For the United Nations to recognize and mention this is very significant and will definitely raise the profile of this and allow for more work to be done.
In the report that the UN submitted in August, it said “serious human rights violations” have been happening, things like beatings, solitary confinement, waterboarding, forced sterilization and the destruction of mosques in communities. These are all terrible things for a government to be doing against its people. The report stopped short of using the word “genocide”, but it did say that reports of all of the things I just mentioned were credible reports and are real. China, of course, reacted very angrily to this and fought very hard to prevent the United Nations from actually publishing this report. However, in the end, it was published.
I want to also stress that, as I speak somewhat negatively about the Chinese Communist Party, it is so important to remember that I am not speaking negatively about Chinese people. There is a big difference between the Chinese people and the party that is running their country as a dictatorship. The issues that I am reacting to are with the Chinese Communist Party and not with the people of China. I have many good friends from China and many others that I have met. They are wonderful people. It is their government that I struggle with.
The Chinese government claims many things about the Uighurs. For example, when the world, the United Nations and others, see something that looks a lot like concentration camps, it says, no, they are just re-education camps. It has some very nice names for the atrocities that it is committing against the people. We can see through that. We know that is just not true.
We have to be very careful about the Chinese Communist Party. Members may be aware that on the weekend it had its congress, which it has once every five years. One thing I found particularly interesting was that former president Hu was forcibly removed, as a show of strength by the current president, Xi. We can see video of that, of his literally being picked up and taken away during the meeting as a way for the current president to show his power and strength. It is quite an amazing thing that has been heavily censored in China. The government does not want Chinese people to know about that, but it is quite interesting.
That is why I am concerned about our Prime Minister. He said he has admiration for China's basic dictatorship. I know that is not what we want in this place, and I am sure he has changed his position, or at least I hope he has.
I am concerned, though. We know there are Chinese police stations in Toronto now. We do not know exactly what they are doing, but I think we can probably safely assume they are harassing expats, among other things. I am hoping we can learn from this and maybe eliminate some of these things, like these police stations in Toronto.
I am hoping, also, to pass another motion at the immigration committee related to Hong Kong. We know there are special measures in place right now, but they expire in February. I am hoping we can not only extend those measures but waive the requirement for police certificates. It is quite silly, I think, that a Hong Kong resident who wants to come to Canada has to get a police certificate, which essentially means walking into a government office and saying, “Hi, I want to leave the country and go to Canada,” and then expecting to get good treatment. It is just not reasonable, and many Hong Kongers are not even trying to come to Canada because of that.
I want to look at the motion itself. Part of the reason for this motion, I think, as I indicated, is that we talked about this 20 months ago and nothing much has happened. Part of the purpose here is just to remind the government, again, of how important this issue is, to put it on the radar and make sure the government is aware of it. I think that is one of the really important reasons for bringing this motion forward today.
Another point I want to make is that in section a) it talks about some of the things we can do. It talks about special immigration measures for Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.
The government might say that these people are totally free to claim asylum, and that is true, but we have a very congested system in Canada. As I mentioned already, it is backlogged. There are a lot of things going on. We have the ability to create special immigration measures, and we have done this, in fact. We did this for Syrians. We have done it for Afghans, and we have most recently done it in Ukraine, for Ukrainian people.
It is something we can definitely do, and it actually helps, because it creates a special program that gets them priority and gets them special treatment. Otherwise, it is very difficult for people who are fleeing something that is very significant for them.
The other thing I want to mention is that point c) talks about waiving the UNHCR refugee determination. That is an important thing, because right now the UNHCR is able to determine who is and who is not a refugee. It is an administrative process, but it is super important, because if one is designated as a refugee, it gives one access to a whole lot of different programs that one may not otherwise have been able to access. If one is not a refugee, then one is excluded from all those things.
We have heard a lot of testimony at our committee about this very issue, about how bias gets introduced into the system and the method for selecting who is and who is not a refugee. One can have racism and other things that enter into it, because, obviously, people are making these determinations.
One of the things that have come up in that is the persecution of minority religions, particularly Christians. Former London chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, said in 2014, “The persecution of Christians throughout much of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and elsewhere is one of the crimes against humanity of our time, and I am appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.”
This is a very important issue for me. I want to make sure that Christians who are persecuted all around the world have a safe haven in Canada, and that they are selected to be refugees by the UNHCR and other things.
It has been mentioned that this is a genocide. I was in Rwanda in April of this year, and I have been there a number of times. I had the privilege, a very holy privilege, to see what has happened in Rwanda and the aftermath of the genocide that happened there. Many of the same things that were mentioned here happened there. We all know the story of Rwanda.
Fortunately, Rwanda has managed to come out of that, but the genocide against the Tutsis was very significant. We said, “Never again,” and I just hope we can also say, “Never again,” about the Uighurs.
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