- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- Jun/13/23 5:04:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a very good point. Canada wants to be taken seriously on the international stage, and we used to be taken seriously. When we have loopholes that allow people who are guilty of human rights atrocities around the world to enter our country, to be given citizenship, to be allowed to take up residency and then start to fundraise to fund the acts that they are committing abroad, those human rights violations and atrocities, that needs to be stopped.
This bill starts to get us on the right track. It is a good first step, but a lot more needs to be done. I wish the bill did more. I wish it could do more, but it is a little step in the right direction.
However, the member is absolutely right. We need to be seriously focused on closing those loopholes. In that way Canada can be taken seriously when we talk about foreign affairs.
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- Jun/13/23 4:55:04 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, today, we are debating Bill S-8, which would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as well as regulations made under the act. It would also make changes to the Citizenship Act and the Emergencies Act.
Everyone here knows that these are important policy areas affecting our national security, our national interests and our immigration system, and that is what we have to carefully consider.
It is helpful to start out any discussion in this place, especially on these topics, by recalling what an amazing privilege it is to be Canadian. That is the reason people from all around the world want to come and start a new life in Canada. It is a blessing to live in a country where we can enjoy freedom, opportunity, security and prosperity.
None of those things can ever be taken for granted and if we are fortunate enough to have all of that here, despite the government's attempts to undermine them, we also have a responsibility to maintain it for ourselves and our fellow citizens. We need to ensure that Canada is always in the best position to preserve our way of life in the present and for the future. That is what we must get right.
We are dealing with a bill on an important subject, which the government decided to introduce in the other place. It already went through a first round of legislative process before it came to us. This means that instead of the usual process, we are the ones who are here to give it a sober second thought. In a way, this adds to our role as elected members of Parliament to review proposed legislation, provide oversight and act as representatives to the people.
As I understand it, Bill S-8 tries to close a gap in our immigration law. It would provide a legal framework to declare someone inadmissible or to deport the individual from Canada on the basis of international sanctions. This does not currently exist in the relevant laws. They do not specifically list international sanctions as a reason to reject applicants from permanent residency, citizenship or refugee status. If this was somehow missed, Parliament now has the opportunity to fix it.
An international sanction could come from the Canadian government or it could come from an international body of which we are a member. Either one would prevent the implicated person from legally entering or remaining in our country.
On this point, I would like to congratulate my colleagues across the way for seeming to get something right. In the time that I have been here, it has been rare thing to see something in a government bill that actually makes sense. However, this is something simple and easy enough to support, even it might be baby steps instead of bigger steps. We should all want to protect Canadians from bad actors and to stand up for our values around the world.
Having mentioned international organizations, I want to be clear right now that this aspect of the bill should not, must not and, in fact, does not weaken our sovereignty as a nation.
Despite the Liberal government's efforts to the contrary, every Canadian has a charter right to enter, remain in and leave Canada. Despite the same government's negligence and virtue-signalling over the years, we are a country that should have strong border security. It is essential for us to have control and set our own standard for whoever is allowed to enter.
With international sanctions, we are talking about foreign nationals who are involved in serious crimes or violations of human rights. In principle, this new section of the act would strengthen our ability to protect ourselves and would give us more control. There will be one less excuse for the Liberals not to take the necessary action when it comes to public safety. It will come down to whether the government uses this power and how it chooses to do so.
Unfortunately, it is not enough to pass a new law to make the problem go away, and Canadians have good reason to wonder what results will come of this. We have seen something similar to this already with the Magnitsky law.
In 2017, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act passed through Parliament unanimously so that the government could impose strong sanctions. These are the types of sanctions that are included in Bill S-8 today. However, since it came into effect, Magnitsky sanctions were starting to get used a little during the following year here and there. The point is that the government has chosen not to make much use of it even though it is can.
We are all aware that human rights violations or significant corruption did not suddenly stop happening four or five years ago either. In all that time, we have listened to people speaking out from different communities in Canada or in other countries, calling for these sanctions to be used as they were intended. Professionals and policy experts have expressed the need for it, and so Conservatives have joined with these voices to demand better.
However, as more and more time goes on, Canadians can see that they need a government that can handle these issues better than the Liberals. We could spend all day talking about these bills and we can pass them, but what good will it do if they are not enforced? That is also what has been happening with Iran and the IRGC.
Four-and-a-half years ago, the Liberals voted for a Conservative motion to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code. That still has not happened five years later. The motion passed but the government chose to ignore it, chose to ignore the will of the House. This happened long before the current protest in Iran.
Since those started, there have been reports of hundreds of people who have been killed. Many thousands more have been arrested or detained by police and some of them have received death sentences or have been executed. Of course, the Liberals have made public statements of solidarity with the protesters, but when it comes to taking meaningful action with the motion that they originally voted for, they will not follow through in designating the IRGC. Will they at least explain what is stopping them if they agreed to do it?
It is time to stop playing with empty statements. If the Liberals really want to do something, they have to show it by their actions. We will wait to see if the Minister of Public Safety will use his authority and influence to officially list the IRGC as a terrorist entity.
I know that many of us care about the news stories we are seeing, regardless of party. I also know that we have heard from Canadians and Iranian refugees calling on the government to act decisively.
Back in November, the Iranian community in Ottawa hosted an exhibition of photos and paintings at City Hall, which I was able to attend. It was moving to be there and to talk with people from the community who were present, people who could tell the stories of their family members back home, some of them who were in their home country, experiencing some of this abuse and some of the atrocities that were being committed against their people.
Many of the people who were there had already lost loved ones or had loved ones who were arbitrarily detained and arrested for no valid reason. Many of those people were kids or young adults, people with their whole lives ahead of them, yet their lives were taken, eliminated from this earth. They were not given the chance to live a full life.
More recently, I had the opportunity to join and speak at a rally put on by a group of Iranian Canadians called "Woman, Life, Freedom." A lot of us have heard from the community in different ways, whether it is at an event like the one in Ottawa, in our ridings or at other places across the country. Hopefully this bill will make a difference for them. We will have to see whether the Liberals decide to do anything with it.
Unfortunately, we have learned a lot of discouraging things over the past months about the government's failure to protect our national security. The Liberals have been very slow to act, or in some cases not responded to threats and foreign interference. There have been many displays of weakness for the whole world to see, whether it is our allies or hostile powers. It is unacceptable and it undermines our national security. We need to see the government use its lawful powers to put a stop to it and defend our citizens. That is what it is entrusted to do.
Despite the massive problem of inaction, it is good to see a bill that addresses any problem in our immigration system, which has been neglected by the Liberals for way too long.
I have asked the government about one of my constituents who has been waiting a year to get final approval for a foreign worker to work with his small business, and he is not alone. There is a massive backlog, with over half of the files going beyond the acceptable processing time limits by the government.
The Liberals need to stop breaking everything they touch, if they can help it. They need to get serious about fixing our immigration system. A lot of people want to live and work in our amazing country. We have so many blessings and so much potential in Canada.
Canadians are counting on their leaders to protect what we have and strengthen it for the future, strengthen it in a way that more people will want to come to our country to enjoy the fruits of our prosperity. We take that to heart on this side of the House. We are not going to let them down. We are not going to let current Canadians, future Canadians and the next generation of Canadians down either.
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