As an immigrant myself and as a member
of this Parliament who represents one of Canada's most
diverse communities, I am shocked that we are even
debating such an amendment to Canada's immigration
policy.
I have heard from immigrant communities
from all across Canada that are against the proposed
sweeping changes in this budget implementation act...
In Toronto, immigrant communities have
joined together to fight these sweeping changes and no
wonder. Look at how this bill will affect these
communities. It will introduce a quota system on
immigration. It abrogates Parliament's responsibility to
oversee Canada's immigration policy. It will facilitate
queue jumping with no accountability and no transparency
and it will support a fundamental shift in immigration
policy to support industries that can best lobby for
foreign workers and away from family reunification and
humanitarian causes.
The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving
Immigrants said that with this bill Canada is moving
away from its vision of immigrants as integral partners
in the building of our country's future.
There are three amendments in the
immigration portion of this budget bill that are
fundamentally wrong: First, it gives the minister the
right to discard applications, to pick and choose which
types of immigrants and what type of work she wants them
to do. If the minister thinks there are too many visible
minorities or immigrants from particular groups in
Canada already, she can pick a group of countries and
discard those applications from these countries. Or she
can put the applicants from these countries at the
bottom of the list and not process them for 10 years, if
ever...
The minister said that Canada needs to
bring in more workers and the professions she mentioned
most was doctors. This minister just deported a
radiologist for no good reason and we need more
radiologists. This minister and the Minister of Human
Resources have failed to support a 42 year old doctor
from the former U.S.S.R. who has been licensed in
Canada, but cannot find a residency to accept her
because of her age. She is a rheumatologist and we need
more rheumatologists. I know that because I hear from
families in my community who are looking for these kind
of doctors for their parents.
Really, this is not about skilled
labour. It is about cheap labour. It is about what Karl
Flecker of the Canada Labour Congress said is “creating
a pool of disposable workers who do jobs at a wage that
Canadians won't accept”.
If this bill passes, ordinary Canadians
will not be united based on humanitarian and
compassionate groups with overseas family members left
behind because of extraordinary circumstances. Why is
the government taking away the ability of applicants for
visitor visas the right to go to court if their
applications are turned down?...
I met Que Ton Hong in Vancouver two days
ago, on Monday. She is getting married in July, but she
cannot bring in her family to attend her wedding. She
cannot bring in the person who raised her, her mother,
for this joyous occasion. This is a shameful way to
treat any person, let alone a Canadian citizen. Today,
Ms. Hong can choose to take the immigration officials to
court to fight for her right to bring her mother to
Canada to attend a wedding, but with the changes in this
budget bill, she will not be able to do so...
The NDP believes a better way exists by
Canada following the example of England and Australia
where applicants whose visitor visas are denied, to have
a right to appeal to a tribunal without being charged
extra costs. It will free up the court system and
provide a no cost alternative to people whose visas are
denied a chance to appeal.
Instead the Conservative government is
moving in the opposite direction, a wrong direction and
no wonder Victor Wong of the Chinese Canadian National
Council said that we have a lot of concerns. He
suggested that the government go back to the drawing
board...
Mr. Speaker, I move that the motion be
amended by deleting all the words after the word “That”
and substituting the following:
this House declines to give second
reading to Bill C-50, An Act to implement certain
provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on
February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve
the fiscal plan set out in that budget, since the
principles of the Bill relating to immigration fail to
recognize that all immigration applicants should be
treated fairly and transparently, and it also fails to
recognize that family re-unification builds economically
vibrant, inclusive and healthy communities and therefore
should be an essential priority in all immigration
matters.
