- Member of Parliament
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- May/21/24 10:09:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean and I do enjoy our time at the immigration committee.
What would Conservatives do if we were in government? Well, first of all, we would not have all the messes we have now that are leading to situations like what my colleague described. The most important thing I want to reiterate about what we would do is that, first of all, we would get rid of the carbon tax. That is the first thing we would do.
The second thing we would do would be to balance the budget because that is causing inflationary pressure. The third thing we would do would be to build more homes by requiring cities to permit 15% more houses each year in order to get federal infrastructure funds.
The fourth thing we would do would be to stop the crime by making sure that repeat offenders end up in jail and that we have proper treatment facilities for those who need it in the country.
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- May/9/24 10:04:52 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition on behalf of Hong Kongers living in Canada.
The petitioners are concerned about the measures to assist Hong Kong residents in Canada, commonly known as stream A and stream B. They write that, as of January, over 15,500 permanent residency applications had been received, with approximately 7,500 granted, leaving over 8,000 applications in the backlog. Because of the shortage of admission targets, the processing time has exceeded the stipulated 6.5 months, with some applicants waiting up to a year or more.
The petitioners are calling on the Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees to acknowledge the humanitarian crisis that has occurred, adhere to and uphold the priority processing guidelines as outlined and allocate additional admission targets to the Hong Kong pathway to effectively address the backlog.
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- Dec/14/23 10:09:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, I have the honour to table today a Conservative supplementary opinion to the report on backlogs and delays.
Eight years of Liberal-NDP leadership in the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship were described by one witness as “nothing short of a dumpster fire”. The main report includes many Conservative contributions and recommendations that we proposed to the committee. That said, some common-sense recommendations were rejected by the NDP-Liberal majority while other recommendations could not be accepted by the Conservatives. For example, the Liberals are moving toward a “click for your citizenship” system, while Conservatives believe that taking the oath of citizenship should be treated with gravity and respect and be done in person, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
After eight years, we know the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, and his Liberal-made immigration backlog is causing more chaos in the department, as well as destroying the faith of Canadians in our immigration system. However, they should have no fear because soon a common-sense Conservative government will be here to restore faith and clean up these backlogs. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/20/23 12:48:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to comment on the question of privilege raised by the member for Calgary Nose Hill on June 15 and again on June 19, as well as the subsequent interventions by my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola on June 19 and the one we just heard from the member for Lakeland.
On June 9, the answers to four Order Paper questions that I had previously submitted were tabled in this House: Question No. 1435, which was about a further breakdown of application processing times; Question No. 1436, which was about IRCC spending on settlement services; Question No. 1437, which was on other departments' spending on settlement services; and Question No. 1438, which was for the temporary resident to permanent resident program, with specific questions about the Whitehorse office. For everyone's information, I am going to review these in reverse order.
In my opinion, Questions Nos. 1438 and 1437 were answered thoughtfully and thoroughly by the government. Questions Nos. 1436 and 1435 were not, which is why they are relevant to this question of privilege.
Question No. 1436 came back with the following answer:
...Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, IRCC, undertook an extensive preliminary search in order to determine the amount of information that would fall within the scope of the question and the amount of time that would be required to prepare a comprehensive response. IRCC concluded that producing and validating a comprehensive response to this question would require a manual collection of information that is not possible in the time allotted and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete and misleading information.
Question No. 1435, answered by the same department, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and signed by the parliamentary secretary, suggested that I look up a website, as they did not want to actually provide the information in written form.
Madam Speaker, I believe if you examine Questions Nos. 1437 and 1436, you will see that IRCC deliberately set out to avoid answering the questions. That is why they are relevant to this question of privilege. We should remember that I said that Question No. 1437 was answered thoughtfully and thoroughly by the government. The wording of Question No. 1436 is exactly the same as that in Question No. 1437, with the exception that Question No. 1436 applies to only one government department, IRCC, and Question No. 1437 applies to every other department within the Government of Canada.
There are instructions in Question No. 1437 to every government department on how to answer the question, and to the credit of every department, with the exception of IRCC, they all answered the question. If every government department can run the same searches, collate the information, put it in a spreadsheet and answer Question No. 1437, then why can IRCC not answer the same question in Question No. 1436? Question No. 1436 already asks for information that the government breaks down in its estimates and the public accounts generally, but not to the degree that I was looking for. I asked the question on the assumption that if IRCC tracks this information for reporting to Parliament in the estimates and public accounts, then it should not have an issue breaking this information down further, especially as we are in the main estimates cycle.
Madam Speaker, I believe that once you take a look at these two questions and answers side by side, you will see a clear case of obfuscation on behalf of IRCC to answer Question No. 1436. Therefore, Order Paper Question No. 1436 must be looked at as part of my colleague's question of privilege.
I will quickly touch upon Order Paper Question No. 1435 and the answer that came back from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. I believe you must also take that into consideration during your deliberations on my colleague’s question of privilege.
As you are more than capable of reading the answer for yourself, Madam Speaker, I will quote part of the answer:
...IRCC undertook an extensive preliminary search to determine the amount of information that would fall within the scope of the request to provide details of the tables provided in annex A in response to Order Paper question Q-1146 broken down by category and country of origin. The data elements identified for this response would be too large to provide and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete and misleading information.
However, application processing times for selected categories are available by country at the IRCC Check Processing Times – Canada.ca website.
You will note from this answer and my original question, Madam Speaker, that I was asking for further information from a previous Order Paper question that I had asked, Question No. 1146. If you were to look at the answer tabled for Question No. 1146 on March 20, 2023, you would see that IRCC made a concerted effort to actually answer this question in a thoughtful manner. Indeed, it was the thoroughness of this answer that prompted me to ask Question No. 1435, which simply read, “With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the government's response to Order Paper question Q-1146: what are the details of the tables provided in Annex A, broken down by category and country of origin?”
It is a department whose job it is to track people by country of origin and immigration stream; I simply asked the department to provide that information, based upon a search it had previously conducted for Question No. 1146. Indeed, according to IRCC's departmental plan 2022-2023, which has been tabled in the House and forms part of the estimates, the department has three core responsibilities, including no. 2: immigrant and refugee selection and integration. This question goes to the very heart of the department's core responsibilities. Therefore, the department officials' deliberate decision to, in Questions Nos. 1435 and 1436, withhold information that they had access to is relevant to the question of privilege raised by my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill.
On June 22, we are coming to the end of the supply cycle, and, as members of Parliament, we will be asked to vote on tens of billions of dollars of money for the government to run various government departments. Written questions are one way that we, as MPs, are able to get information from the government in order to make informed decisions when we vote upon those estimates. I framed my Order Paper questions with the understanding that a) this information was available and within the scope of what Parliament was entitled to while examining the estimates; b) that the government would not intentionally block a member of Parliament from doing their job; and c) that there was still a modicum of respect left in the House of Commons, from the government to opposition MPs, to allow us to do our job and to hold the government to account.
With the extra information I have provided, and with all due respect to you, Madam Speaker, I urge you to look at the pattern of disrespect that the government has shown to the opposition throughout the Order Paper question process and to rule in favour of my colleague's question of privilege.
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- May/16/23 10:04:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, it is my honour to table, in both official languages, a supplementary report to the 16th report, on the situation at Roxham Road border crossing.
Conservative members wish to reiterate what our leader, the hon. leader of the official opposition, has said, which is that the government could have acted much sooner to close Roxham Road. This inaction was highlighted by the fact that the government signed a secret protocol well over a year ago to close the safe third country agreement, but set an effective date of March 26, 2023. Conservative MPs did ask the Minister of Immigration, in November 2022, if the government had any intention of closing this loophole, but he kept answering that negotiations were ongoing, claiming that it could not be done easily. This was a statement we now know is false, as the signature had already been dry for half a year on the agreement to close Roxham Road.
We tried to call the minister before the committee on this, but the NDP-Liberals indicated they had no desire to allow transparency on this issue. This, once again, shows how the NDP-Liberal coalition is more concerned about making a media splash than solving problems.
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- Apr/24/23 6:09:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member and I have a good relationship at the immigration committee and I enjoy working with her. I agree with her, but the problem in what she is saying right now is that I do not believe it is possible. I do not believe it is possible to achieve what she is talking about. We do not have enough time to deal with this. What she is talking about is wishful thinking.
I have wishes and hopes and dreams too. I wish Canadians could afford groceries and I wish we did not have a strike going on right now, but these are not the realities of our life today. We want to be the most pragmatic we can be. We have the opportunity to at least solve this problem for a group, for a subset of these lost Canadians, so we see the opportunity to push it forward and solve that part of the problem.
I would also like to mention that the government and this member have had many opportunities to present legislation on this subject before, so there is no reason we could not see other legislation on this. There is no reason the government could not put forward legislation to plug the rest of the holes that are here.
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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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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-286, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (recognition of foreign credentials).
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to rise and present my very first private member's bill in this House, the recognition of foreign credentials bill.
I am bringing forward this legislation in my role as deputy shadow minister for immigration to help immigrant communities throughout Canada. This is an issue that I constantly hear about form newcomers to Canada, and it is something I want to improve. Many newcomers to Canada have qualifications to do a particular job in their home country, but a combination of red tape, confusing rules and licensing boards means they cannot practise their profession here in Canada. We all know the examples of doctors driving taxis, nurses working as nannies, or mechanics working as janitors. The system for foreign credential recognition is broken. When newcomers to our country are denied the opportunity to practise their profession, it hurts them and their families, and it negatively affects the Canadian economy, individual businesses and the welfare of all Canadians.
One way to fix this process is by reducing red tape. By giving government the tools to bypass the red tape, the process could be expedited. My proposed legislation would give the government expanded regulatory authority in assessing foreign credentials. It would allow the minister to designate certain foreign education credentials as equivalent to Canadian ones. This would speed up and simplify the ability of newcomers to work in their profession in Canada.
As I said, the largest barrier is red tape, and this bill would remove some of that complexity and confusion. My legislation is one piece of the puzzle. It is not the whole picture, but it is a solid start. When combined with funding announcements, such as the one proposed by my friend, the future leader of the Conservative Party, the member for Carleton, this legislation would go a long way to resolving the issue.
That said, I would ask all members of this House to support this legislation.
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- Mar/29/22 12:14:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that question is one that we have asked multiple times at the immigration committee. I hear it from people every day.
The simple reality is that when one has finite resources and one adds more work to the pile, something will not get done. That is just reality. All of us who have been in the real world have experienced that. We experience that in our own homes: If there is too much to do, something does not get done. All of us have to-do lists we have not gotten to. That is the case here also.
I have heard many cases of other streams of immigration. I spoke a lot about Afghanistan. I think that one is falling by the wayside a bit. Certainly, in the normal stream of immigration, I can recall a man in my riding who was not able to see his wife and kids for two and a half years because he was waiting for paperwork. Those are the kinds of cases that I believe are going to suffer because of this. There are not enough resources to do all of this work at the same time. The good news is that I believe there could be more resources, if the will was there. Ultimately, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to be able to deal with a crisis while we continue maintaining the regular work that has to be done.
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- Mar/29/22 11:49:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise in this House today to speak to this concurrence motion on the grave situation before us in Ukraine. My constituents in Saskatoon West know that I sit on the House of Commons immigration committee. On this committee, we have been focused on several issues of importance, but none more so than the horrid war in eastern Europe and the humanitarian crisis being caused by Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The motion we are debating today is very simple. The immigration committee came together under the leadership of my colleague, the Conservative shadow minister of immigration, and asked the government to take in Ukrainians visa-free. That is simple enough, right? Unfortunately, every single Liberal on that committee voted against the motion. I hope today that the Liberals will change their minds and support this motion now that it is in front of the entire House of Commons.
This motion was born out of the experience of government failures since August 15 of last year to help Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban. We do not want to see a repeat of what happened with Afghanistan replayed here with Ukraine, and indeed the two issues are very much intertwined. Before I get into detail about Ukraine, I must bring out some context about Afghanistan.
None of us in this House asked for the Taliban to wipe out the legitimate government of Afghanistan last August when Joe Biden removed the last of the U.S. troops from that country, just as none of us in this House asked for Vladimir Putin to invade and wage war in Ukraine, creating the greatest mass exodus of people in Europe since the end of World War II, yet here we are.
As one of the most fortunate and blessed countries on the planet, Canada has a role to play and must step up to the plate. If we listen to the government, we would hear that Canada's response, in the words of the foreign affairs minister, would be for Canada to be a convenor of meetings. We would send over a few World II bazookas and set up a couple of meetings in Ukraine. Of course, that pales in comparison to the Liberal response to the Taliban, a banned terrorist organization in Canada, conquering Kabul last year. Maryam Monsef, then Liberal leader for women's rights, no less, welcomed the Taliban as “our brothers”.
I first want to put some context to this debate on Ukraine today. That context is Afghanistan. When Kabul was falling to the Taliban, our Prime Minister called a vanity election, hoping to get his sought-after pandemic majority. On that day, the world was in crisis, and all the Prime Minister could see in the mirror was his own vain image. Thousands of Canadian Forces members served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014, with the solemn loss of 159 Canadians and military personnel. These brave women and men fought to secure basic human rights, such as girls not being sold into sexual slavery and instead going to school. They also fought to eliminate the threat the Taliban posed to world peace. Of course, it was the Taliban that gave material aid and support to al Qaeda in planning and executing the 9/11 attack.
Thoroughly embarrassed, the Liberals did promise to bring in 40,000 Afghan refugees. This included those who helped our armed forces while they were in the country, but the program established to bring them over to Canada has been a dismal failure. In eight months, the program has brought in less than 20% of the eligible number, and most of those brought in are in Canada because of private refugee sponsorship, not through the clumsy, overly bureaucratic IRCC process.
Last night, I attended the Afghan committee and listened to painful stories from Afghanistan. The Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock. Girls have been banned from schools after the sixth grade and women cannot even travel on a plane without a male chaperone, yet Canada cannot get its act together.
Here is one example. Friba Rezayee from the Women Leaders of Tomorrow works with elite women athletes. She has 15 female Afghan athletes who have been given full-ride scholarships to respected Canadian universities. The Liberals have denied them student visas because they are afraid that these women might stay in Canada in the long term. The Liberals will not allow elite women athletes to study in Canada because they might not return to a regressive Taliban. I guarantee that we will not see that headline on CBC News.
Today many potential new refugees are currently in Europe, waiting for their go-ahead from IRCC and a plane ticket, but it is not happening. Indeed Greece, Crete and other EU nations are getting increasingly impatient with Canada as they bear the cost of housing and feeding these refugees who are meant for our country.
As an MP and deputy shadow minister for immigration, I am fortunate enough to have been able to meet with many ambassadors, high commissioners and consuls general from other regions to discuss Canada's response to the refugee crisis. I had very fruitful discussions with President Biden’s consul general, Boris Johnson’s deputy in Ottawa and the Belgian ambassador. I have also met with the high commissioners from India, Ajay Bisaria, and Bangladesh, Dr. Rahman, to discuss these issues. I hear one unifying message from the diplomatic corps here in Ottawa: Get on with the job and get those refugees settled in Canada.
I want to turn to the specific motion we are debating today. Earlier this month, our committee, led by the Conservatives and supported by the other opposition parties, passed this motion calling upon the government to implement visa-free travel for Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s war machine. Unfortunately, Liberal members voted against this motion, going on record with their opposition to allowing Ukrainians coming into Canada. Indeed, the Liberal member for Surrey—Newton summed up Liberal opposition to this at the March 1 committee meeting when we were discussing this. He said:
…Liberal members who are concerned about the security…concerned about bad people coming to Canada if there is a visa-free entry.
…This is not going to go well, so please consider that and do not support this motion.
Let us remember that we are talking about women and children. Men are not even allowed to leave Ukraine.
Honestly, this is just a smokescreen for the government to slow down the process and keep people out. I know this, because I asked the Minister of Immigration directly about security concerns for Ukrainians coming into Canada when he came to the committee at the following meeting. Specifically, I asked him if the biosecurity checks that are being done at our embassy in Warsaw, Poland, would add extra processing time to the applications. His answer was that it takes only a few days and added negligible time to the processing of Ukrainians. This is simply not true. The reality is that it is adding up to six weeks to the process.
It is so bad, in fact, that the Toronto Star reported that the Polish prime minister had to take Canadian media aside during our Prime Minister’s trip to Poland to underscore his frustration that these refugees were not being cleared through our embassy in Warsaw. When the Polish prime minister needs to complain about the lousy job the Liberals are doing, something is clearly wrong.
The Conservative solution is simple: Do the security checks when these individuals arrive in Canada. These are women and children; the risk is very low.
What would our Conservative solution accomplish? First and foremost, it would allow the people fleeing the war zone the opportunity to come to Canada in an expedited manner. Back in Saskatoon, as I talk to people who have family on the ground in Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia or wherever they may be in Europe, the stories they are telling me are of massive delays at Canadian embassies and consulates to get paperwork done, and that paperwork is for visas. It is to get the so-called biometrics done. Basically, it is fingerprinting and criminal record checking but on a larger scale and against a global database. Conservatives absolutely understand the need to keep undesirables out of Canada. However, we can do these criminal checks in Canada. Let us remember that we are talking about women and children. Canada can do better.
On Thursday of last week, the Minister of Immigration appeared at our immigration committee. I asked him about the dichotomy between the treatment of Afghans and Ukrainians coming into Canada. I wanted know why only 9,500 of the promised 40,000 Afghan refugees have arrived in Canada after eight months. I wanted to know why he was also bragging about bringing in over 10,000 white Ukrainians to Canada in only three months. The minister said back to me, “the vast majority of people who want to seek safe haven in Canada actually [will] return to Ukraine.” Regarding Afghans, he said, “I hate to admit that the likelihood that people who are coming here are going to be able to return is just not there.”
He believes that Afghans will stay in Canada permanently. On the other hand, he has every confidence that white Ukrainians will have no problem exiting Canada when the time is right. This boggles my mind. He basically admitted to his own systemic biases in gauging people by their skin colour.
I am not the only person who caught this either. On Friday last week, The Globe and Mail did an entire news story on my exchange with the minister. This was its analysis:
Opposition parties says the Liberal government’s streamlined immigration program for Ukrainians creates a two-tiered, racialized system that prioritizes Ukrainian immigrants over refugees from other conflict zones, including Afghanistan.…
[The immigration minister] added that the government opted to offer streamlined immigration measures to Ukrainians, rather than a dedicated refugee program, because European counterparts and the Ukrainian Canadian community have indicated that most Ukrainians who come to Canada will want to eventually return home. This is not the case with people coming from Afghanistan, he said, hence the need for a refugee program.
I can assure my constituents in Saskatoon West and indeed all Canadians that they can read between these lines and see that the minister is basically waving the white flag to the Taliban and saying that, unlike white Europeans, Afghans do not have the drive, desire or love of their homeland and would not return if conditions improve.
I have managed many people over the years, and I have learned that the vast majority want to do a good job. I am sure that the hard-working staff at IRCC want to make Canada proud and do the best job that they can, but there are clear problems. Both Afghans and Ukrainians are being stalled by bureaucracy and piles of rules that effectively stop good people from coming to Canada. These types of problems fall firmly at the feet of leadership: the minister and his senior staff. I urge the minister to review this bureaucracy and make immediate changes so that those at IRCC can do the work they want to do and make Canada proud.
Marcel, from Saskatoon West, wrote to me after that Globe and Mail article was published. I want members to know what he said, because it is relevant to today's debate. He said, “Thank you for raising this issue...I complained...at election time that it was criminal that getting Afghanis who helped the Canadian Forces had been delayed by the Bureaucrats and the Liberals.... Today's paper states about half of those approved are still being kept out. We should charter planes to bring them here and do the paperwork later. All those who helped the Canadians can be identified by past and present members of the forces.”
Marcel's point was that the Afghans we are trying to get out helped us through the two-decade war. Canada was in that war because we are part of NATO, and the U.S. invoked article 5, which ensures mutual defence. When one NATO member is attacked, we are all attacked.
What is happening in Ukraine has a lot of people talking about NATO and Canada's role in NATO. People in Saskatoon West are asking me what I believe should be done for our defence posture in our budget. To that end, I put a motion on notice in the House just last week. Motion No. 55 reads as follows:
That, given the ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine and the possibility of the war spilling over into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) defended territory, in the opinion of the House, the government should:
(a) make at minimum the NATO requirement of defence spending investments of 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in budget 2022 to bring the budget of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) into line with NATO requirements;
(b) focus this funding on expanding Canada’s war fighting capabilities;
(c) authorize the departments of Public Works and Government Services and National Defence to make capital purchases for the CAF on an urgent basis using national security grounds and waving bureaucratic red tape; and
(d) immediately enter into an agreement with the United States of America to use Canadian territory for the deployment of its ballistic missile system and provide funding and operational personnel for such a system based within in its territory.
The first and second parts of the motion are pretty straightforward. When our Prime Minister was in Brussels last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that all member nations have until June to provide their plans to him to reach the NATO target of 2% of GDP for defence spending. Our defence minister immediately left that meeting and shot that idea down. The government's coalition partner, the NDP, has said that it will veto any increased defence spending, so it looks like Canada will once again miss this target.
The third part of the motion to cut red tape and authorize the purchase of military equipment on national security grounds is something that has not happened since Prime Minister Harper. When Canada needed tanks or new heavy-lift airplanes for the war in Afghanistan, the government invoked the national security clause and the equipment arrived within months. Today, when we look at what we can provide for the war on Ukraine, we do not have much. Our military cupboard is nearly bare.
When our governments go to buy helicopters, fighter jets or new naval vessels, it takes decades. The process to start building the new naval frigates started in the early 2000s, and not one plank has been laid. The process to buy the fighter jets started at the same time, and only yesterday did the government announce that it would begin the process to buy the planes that Harper wanted to buy in 2006. What about those helicopters? Yes, they are the ones that Brian Mulroney ordered in the 1980s and were cancelled by Jean Chrétien. Then they were reordered and finally arrived only a few years ago. Unfortunately, they are all out of service because of cracks in the airframe, but, hey, that is the government's red-tape military procurement system.
The final section I have in there is on Canada joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence system. Do members know that Canada is the only NATO country not protected against Russian nuclear attack? The technology in this system is proven to shoot down incoming ICBMs. It would not catch all of the nuclear warheads, but it would certainly limit the damage. Why is Canada not a member? The Americans were willing to pay and man the system after all, and all we needed to do was allow them to set up some stations in our Arctic territories. However, under the Paul Martin Liberals in 2005, Canada told President Bush that we thought Putin was a nice guy and would never harm a fly. What I am proposing is that we get back to the Americans, tell them Canada made a mistake, and that if we need to pay and man the stations in the Arctic, a real partnership with the U.S.A., we will do it.
Even with the war in Ukraine, I am not under any delusion that the NDP-Liberal government will support this motion, but I want my constituents back in Saskatoon West to know that I am putting these ideas forward for them.
Saskatoon has one of the highest Ukrainian diaspora populations on the planet. After Ukraine and Russia, the Canadian Prairies are home to the world’s third-largest Ukrainian population. I grew up behind the garlic curtain in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. The Yorkton area has a very large Ukrainian population, which is why I thought that garlic was one of the food groups. Borscht, perogy, holopchi, I ate very well in Yorkton.
I recently learned that my own ancestry is tied to Ukraine. My heritage is Mennonite. My Mennonites started out in the Netherlands; then they moved to Prussia, and then they were enticed to move to Russia by Catherine the Great. She offered them freedom in exchange for their work in developing vast farms, because they were known as great farmers. My grandfather always called himself Russian and labelled his town of birth as Schönfeld, Russia. However, what I recently learned was that my grandfather was actually born in Ukraine. His birthplace, while called Russia at the time, was actually very near Zaporizhzhia, the heart of the current fighting in southern Ukraine. I finally understood my love of Ukrainian food and of Ukrainian people.
Many Ukrainians also live in Saskatoon West. Their families came here when our province was first settled, and the government was providing land to be farmed. Many others had grandparents and parents flee to Canada during the Holodomor, Stalin’s holocaust and mass starvation of the Ukrainian people. Even today, there are many Ukrainians who are immigrating right now. The Ukrainian language is very much alive and well in Saskatoon.
I have had a chance to meet with many constituents of Ukrainian descent over the past several years and to talk about issues common to all Canadians. We talk about taxes and government spending. Inflation is a hot topic right now. We talk about health care, the pandemic, crime and everything in between. It has only been recently, though, that we have begun talking about the old country and their relations and ties back in Ukraine. It is heartbreaking to listen to the stories they relay from the front lines. It is also heartwarming to know that many of them are prepared to do everything possible to support Ukraine against Putin’s war of aggression. Even in Saskatoon, I have spoken with young men who could not wait to find a flight to get back to Ukraine to help fight against Putin.
Oleksandr from my riding wrote to me and said the following: “Hi Brad. I am Ukrainian immigrant. I am in Saskatoon since 2006...I am glad to meet with you (though I am just a journeyman welder in Canada, former Ukrainian engineer. Resident of Saskatoon. I am not a leader of a community or anything like this, so you don’t really need me other than to learn from me about this ridiculous fact of this old vicious attack against Ukraine”.
Oleksandr’s letter told me that he wanted to send a money wire transfer back to his family, but because of the policies of the Liberal government in Ottawa, he was barred from doing so. This is just another example of the Liberals making bureaucracy a priority over the people of Ukraine. What I will tell Oleksandr and all my constituents is that I am in Ottawa and I will continue to fight for you and will continue to stand up against this incompetent Liberal government to ensure that the concerns of Ukrainians are heard.
I do not know what the future holds for Ukraine and Afghanistan. I fear that in both instances it will not be good. Democracy and human rights may once again prevail in both countries, but the human cost will be high.
What is Canada’s responsibility to make sure peace happens? We fought a war in Afghanistan and a lot of Canadian blood was spilled and treasure spent. In Ukraine, the stakes are even higher. Reports put daily military causalities higher than the entire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan inflicted on U.S.A. and NATO allies in two decades. The belligerents of Russia and Belarus directly border NATO countries, while NATO supply lines of military equipment into Ukraine have become legitimate targets for attack. President Biden said the following, “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.” Those are scary words, for sure.
Let me finish with these inspirational words from Ukrainian President Zelenskyy when he addressed this Parliament two weeks ago: “We are not asking for much. We are asking for justice, for real support, which will help us to prevail, to defend, to save lives, to save life all over the world.… Please expand your efforts to bring back peace to our peaceful country. I believe that you can do it and I know that you can do it.”
These are inspirational words. Let’s heed them. Peace to Ukraine. Slava Ukraini.
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