- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Saskatoon West
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,909.92
- Government Page
- 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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- May/10/22 6:34:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on Motion No. 44, which seeks to force the government to:
...develop and publicly release within 120 days following the adoption of this motion a comprehensive plan to expand pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers, including international students, with significant Canadian work experience in sectors with persistent labour shortages...
Furthermore, we are debating the amendment put forward by my colleague, the member for Vancouver East, with whom I sit on the immigration committee. It seeks to strengthen this motion.
Let me start by saying that this is my first opportunity in this Parliament to speak during Private Members' Business. I have had the chance to speak to multiple government bills and budgets since my re-election by the good folks of Saskatoon West, but it is always a pleasure to discuss ideas that originated from MPs outside of the Prime Minister's inner circle.
I would remind my Liberal colleagues across the way that they have the actual power to implement these things right now. I am glad to hear them talking positively about the motion, and I encourage them to actually implement it.
In Saskatoon West, as in all parts of Canada, our economy is driven through job growth. As our population ages and the boomers retire, we need people to fill those jobs and continue to grow our economy.
Like many western nations, Canada's demographics play against our economic survival. Birth rates in Canada are at a historic low of 1.47 children for every woman. An economy needs a replacement of 2.1 births just to keep the population stable, and that assumes that all people want a job and want to work.
Unfortunately, as we now know, some people, for one reason or another, would rather take a government cheque than work. Members should not kid themselves: I get emails from constituents demanding that what they and the NDP term as a “universal basic income” get implemented. This social experiment replaces working with a government paycheque, allowing people to stay home and watch Netflix all day. Not only are we short citizens, but not all able-bodied citizens want to work.
How do we fix this problem? Well, for the past 20 years or so, the answer has been immigration: bringing in people to do the work the so-called old-stock Canadians no longer want to do. They pick our vegetables, drive our taxis, serve our coffee, drill our oil, mine our lithium for electric cars, drive our big-rig trucks, take care of our children and elders, perform our surgeries, fly our planes, become our members of Parliament and so on. There is actually no limit to the skills that immigrants bring to our country.
Many of my constituents in Saskatoon West know that I support immigration. Conservatives are proponents of immigration. I sit on the immigration committee, and I believe in the value and hard work of our immigrants.
I take the opportunity when I am back in the riding to meet with Canadians of all backgrounds. Two of the main complaints I hear about are the issue of backlogs and the pathways to permanent residency. Both of these systems are broken.
Let me start with backlogs.
On Sunday, the latest figures reported by the government put the immigration backlog at two million people. These are Afghans and Ukrainians who are waiting. They are fearing for their lives. These are wives, husbands, children, brothers, sisters and parents who are waiting patiently to join their families already in Canada. They are waiting for IRCC to shuffle through paperwork.
Our citizenship backlog sits at almost half a million people. These are people who are now in Canada: They have gone through the immigration backlog, and have successfully applied and been accepted for Canadian citizenship. They are waiting for the day to give that simple oath that will give them the rights and privileges of being a Canadian citizen. Can members believe that? There are two and a half million people waiting for the nod of approval from the Liberal minister.
Clearly, there are major problems in the systems we use to manage immigration in our country. We have highlighted some ideas, such as having the entire process online, complete with notes and reasons for decisions to allow for complete transparency. Our system badly needs to be modernized and updated, and Conservatives will continue pushing for that.
It is the folks on temporary visas who are the most vulnerable to the whims of the minister and his backlogs. Immigrants come to Canada on a wide variety of temporary visas, such as study and work visas. Imagine that we have just spent four years educating someone as a doctor, engineer, accountant or something else, or a company invests months to train and provide experience to a worker, and then we send them home. Now, sometimes these folks want to return home, and that is just fine, but very often these people want to stay in Canada. When we send them home, Canada loses out on their talent and skills just when they are blossoming into productive workers.
In our last Conservative election platform, we promised to:
create pathways to permanence for those already living and working in Canada, so long as they are prepared to work hard, contribute to the growth and productivity of Canada, and strengthen our democracy. It does not make sense to attract the best and brightest, provide them training and knowledge, and then force these people—with all their potential—to leave.
Permanent residency is the best way to achieve this. Yes, the Liberals have played around the margins of many immigration programs, such as the temporary resident to permanent resident pathway, the Atlantic immigration program, etc., but what have they accomplished? I do not know.
Hopefully, this motion will pass and force the government to report back and tell us, but here is an easier answer: permanent residency. The question is, which classes of immigrants will it be for? Let us tackle that one.
Many immigrants come to Canada with credentials in their country of origin that allow them to practice medicine, be a nurse or a lawyer, drive a big truck, fly a plane, engineer a road or be a plumber, electrician or a boilermaker. When they come to Canada, either the federal or provincial regulatory body that controls their licensing says that they do not meet the standards. Sometimes that is fair, as when someone is a lawyer coming from India who speaks English. If the person expects to move to the Gaspé to practice law in French, he or she needs to meet certain requirements specific to that province's law association.
In other areas, training is training. An easy example to understand is aviation. If people are qualified to fly a Boeing 737 in Indonesia, they are equally qualified to fly that same plane in Canada. It is substantially the same. Therefore, a pilot coming from Indonesia should be able to pick up roots, move to Saskatoon and start flying for WestJet or Air Canada with very minimal training requirements.
In cases when there is some Canadian-specific training required, we need to simplify the process to achieve that education. Indeed, in our election platform, we promised to launch a credential recognition task force to develop new, timely and appropriate credential recognition strategies. I will be introducing in the House my own private member's legislation soon enough to accomplish this very task, so I encourage all members to look out for that.
Let me touch on the amendment from my colleague for Vancouver East. Her amendment would add the caregiver program to the list of programs that needs to be examined. In the past two studies we have done in the committee, I have asked multiple witnesses about this very program and about caregivers. Many of these folks come from the Philippines and settle in Saskatoon West. What I hear is unsettling. There was no pun intended.
MD Shorifuzzaman, who is an immigration consultant from my riding of Saskatoon West, appeared at our committee and said, “Let me focus a little bit about the caregiver program, which can be an example of mistreatment of those foreign workers who work hard to protect the vulnerable in our communities. This program was offered in 2018, but unfortunately, what happened was the priority of the IRCC shifted to the other programs.”
Mr. Gurpratap Kalas, another Immigration Consultant from Saskatoon West, also commented on the caregiver program and said, “The processing time has been an extensive amount and, because of the lengthy processing, the majority of the applicants' relationship stresses are often causing breakdowns in their relationships, with marriages falling apart, children reaching the age of majority and other areas. In some cases, employers have either already passed away, or the person to be cared for has already reached the age of majority, as is the case with child care providers.”
These immigration consultants are on the ground dealing with the failed caregiver program. I point this out, because I had asked the associate deputy minister of Immigration Canada, when she was at committee, about her thoughts on the caregiver program. She told me that “the caregiver program is one that is a priority for the department.” If a program that is a priority for her as deputy minister is such an abysmal failure, I hate to imagine what a non-priority program would be doing.
I want to conclude my remarks by reflecting on the need for compassionate immigration: our refugee program. The wars in Afghanistan and Ukraine have driven home the fact to many Canadians that we can and should be there to welcome people displaced by war. This is a role our country has taken on time and again.
Many immigrants came to Canada in the wake of the First and Second World Wars. We know that Hungarians fled here in 1956, and Eastern Europeans did throughout the Cold War. Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese people all fled conflicts. People from Hong Kong, Chinese citizens and practitioners of Falun Gong escaped China's basic dictatorship. Stephen Harper brought boatloads of Lebanese people over during their war with Israel, and the Syrians were after that.
Canada must continue to be open for refugees, but for that to happen, we must fix our immigration system, eliminate backlogs, implement new technologies and modernize our bureaucracy.
Let us get this motion passed and see what the government says in response. Hopefully, we can get on our way.
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