Michelle Rempel Garner
Calgary Nose Hill, Alberta · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, non-citizens' committing serious crimes in Canada and then getting sweetheart sentences in order to avoid deportation, which the Liberals are letting happen right now, is undermining Canadians' desire for immigration.”
“Mr. Speaker, after a year, how can she put that falsehood forward in the House? People are getting sweetheart sentences in order to avoid deportation. There is a story every week.”
“Mr. Speaker, Conservatives proposed a law that would ensure that non-citizens who commit serious crimes in Canada do not get sweetheart sentences so they can avoid deportation, but the Minister of Immigration voted against it. It is her job to maintain order in Canada's immigration system, but the system is clearly out of control.”
“Mr. Speaker, last year, the leader of the Bloc Québécois said this, referring to Alberta: “I am not certain that oil and gas qualifies” to define a culture. A leftist Canadian podcaster recently claimed, “Alberta has ZERO culture. None.”
“The people who try hard to beat the culture of self-determinism out of my province do so to their own detriment and to the detriment of the entire country. A stronger Alberta in a united Canada means acknowledging and giving thanks for Alberta's culture, and praying hard that Alberta will be lucky enough to get more of it.”
“Of all of the human virtues, these qualities are hardest to master, and there is no harder place to learn them than in front of the screens of millions of Canadians while sitting in the pressure cooker that is the Ottawa bubble as an elected leader. I see my colleague.”
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“They have disparate tones and disparate harmonies, but they come together and work together. They are greater than the sum of their parts. I encourage people to go and sit there if they ever want a moment of inspiration in terms of what our national identity can and should be. In telling them that Cardiff's installation at the National Gallery still offers an accurate analogy for what Canada is today, I may have sold my children a bill of goods. Many in Canada would now describe our nation less as a melodically pluralistic counterpoint and more as a ghettoized cacophony. That sentiment flares up most often in discussions of skyrocketing immigration levels, especially regarding whether Canada can integrate all the people it has welcomed in the last five years. Attempting to answer that question leads to even murkier waters.”
“It would take away the notion of responsibility from citizenship. It would impact our country, absolutely, in the future. What is Canada's national identity? Ahead of every election, I try to find the reason for running again in order to ground myself in that purpose. For all of us, of all political stripes, running is such an honourable thing to do but also comes with a cost to our families. I took my family to visit a visual art installation at the National Gallery that uses Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium . It is a speaker set-up. We sat in the middle of the installation and I tried to explain to my family that this was why I was running. When our democratic institution of pluralism is upheld, Canada is a unique, beautiful thing in history. It has all these individual voices.”
“The parliamentary secretary's comments were rote and kind of feckless, frankly. I want to say why. This bill deals, fundamentally, with the value of Canadian citizenship. The reason I cannot support the bill, particularly without those amendments, is that, without national identity, integration is impossible and the collapse of our country is inevitable. I want to lay out why we need to put more value on Canadian citizenship, why the bill so denigrates Canadian citizenship and why it is going to create citizens of convenience that some future parliament will have to deal with. The bureaucrats who are listening in the lobby can mark my words: Future courts will be dealing with this. Future ministers will be looking at evacuations from some country. This bill would create citizenship of convenience.”
“Mr. Speaker, we are here today to debate a bill that was precipitated by the fact that the Liberals decided not to challenge a lower court ruling that would allow unfettered citizenship by descent and create untold citizens of convenience. The department does not even know how many. We are now on the third reading of the bill after the government decided to gut amendments passed by the committee that would have required basic things like language, cumulative residency and security checks. After not challenging a court ruling, the Liberals gutted these amendments, which were common sense. Even The Globe and Mail said that the amendment we put in place was common sense and that the government should have accepted the Conservative and Bloc amendment regarding the residency requirement.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would note that it was the Liberal government that prorogued Parliament for its leadership race, called an election earlier this year and then allowed Parliament to sit for only a few short weeks this year. It is now asking Parliament to expedite a bill that would allow unfettered chain migration in a very short period of time. I digress. My colleague talked about the rights of Canadian citizenship. Could he please explain how this bill would deal with the responsibilities of Canadian citizenship? Why has his government gutted things like language requirements and security checks for adults? What are the responsibilities of Canadian citizenship, and how would this bill allow them to be upheld?”
“I will do my part by saying to Master Sergeant Jeffrey Scott Garner, Sr., my husband, a proud American to the core, that I love him. I thank him for loving me as I stand for my people while also providing me with important perspectives about his nation. May we all continue to strive for prosperity and peace between our nations. The free world is counting on us to get it right.”
“Mr. Speaker, lately, there have been a lot of terse words said about Canadian-American relations, so today I would like to try something a little different. For generations, Canada and the U.S. have shared the world's longest undefended border, fought together on the battlefield against evil, maintained strong trade ties and joined our nations through marriages such as mine. The peace, freedom and prosperity we have shared has helped to bring stability to the world. To continue, we must each safeguard our economies and societies through smart policies, strong militaries and robust protections for our democratic institutions, as well as, frankly, seeking to understand the complexities that each of our nations faces, our hopes and our challenges.”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite often talks about the importance of language rights in Canada. I note that one of the amendments passed at committee stage was an amendment to ensure that people who are obtaining citizenship by descent through this very terribly crafted bill by the government would be subject to the same language requirements as somebody who is seeking citizenship by naturalization. This is for adults. Can the member talk about why he supported this amendment in the context of why it is so important to ensure that people seeking Canadian citizenship have an adequate knowledge of one of Canada's official languages?”
“Mr. Speaker, this week the Prime Minister asked Canadians to sacrifice more. At the same time, the Minister of Immigration advertized Canada's free health care system on Twitter to bolster the already unsustainable level of immigration the Liberals have undertaken. They did this all while emergency rooms are overflowing and most people cannot access basic primary care or diagnostics. Seniors cannot access long-term care. This is not fair to anyone, including newcomers. With the health care system barely being able to serve the people in Canada right now, will the Liberals apologize for falsely advertizing that Canada has the capacity to be the world's walk-in clinic?”
“Mr. Speaker, I will take that as a no, the Liberals have not deported the publicly listed, incestuous child sex abuser who should never have been allowed into the country in the first place because he was on a public sex offender registry in a G7 country. Let us listen to that answer. Why can the Liberals not say yes, people who commit crimes, who are non-citizens and who are inadmissible to this country, should be deported? Has Gulfam Hussain been deported from Canada?”
“Mr. Speaker, weeks ago, I asked how Gulfam Hussain, a Pakistani national, was allowed to enter Canada by the Liberals, in spite of being convicted in the United Kingdom for the following: “Adult sexual activity with a female child family member 13 to 17 - offender over 18 - penetration”. He is also on the U.K.'s sex offender registry. Can the Liberals tell Canadians whether they have deported this publicly listed, incestuous child sex abuser from Canada in the week since I last asked about him?”
“Mr. Speaker, why? It is because the member opposite is so radically far left and so postnational that she believes people who get citizenship by descent should not have to take a citizenship test, which includes such things as that female genital mutilation is a barbaric practice or that people need to reject violent and extreme ideology. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner: Mr. Speaker, they are heckling at me for the—”
“I am not saying there are not things we should be correcting, but if we are not talking about the responsibilities associated with citizenship, our pluralism will not survive.”
“Mr. Speaker, over the last decade we have heard a lot about what Canada can give to the world. We had the citizenship and immigration department tweet last week that Canada is essentially the walk-in clinic for the world. It is about time this place started talking about what the responsibilities are of being a citizen as well, such as respect for the rule of law and upholding freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to worship without persecution or fear. Those things are under threat right now, and it is because of 10 years of the Liberal government erasing our national symbols and saying that in order for us to move forward, we have to constantly wallow in the past.”
“I believe there should be a language requirement; I believe there should be security checks, and I believe there should be a citizenship test. Anybody who does not believe this needs to give their head a shake.”
“Mr. Speaker, I cannot wrap my brain around what is happening. We had members of Parliament stand up in here today and say that we should never, as a Parliament, exercise the authority our constituents have given to us when a court has ruled on something. We have the power to make legislation. We have the power in our charter to overturn court rulings. The Liberals made a deliberate choice not to challenge legislation that speaks to the value of Canadian citizenship and how something so precious can be applied. They essentially eliminated rules for that. That is bananas. It is antithetical to the principle of parliamentary supremacy. I am so proud to stand here and say that Canadian citizenship has value and that it is worth having this debate in the House of Commons.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals rolled over on the court ruling. They said that Parliament should not have a debate on this. They allowed the first-generation limit to be eliminated by a lower court. Parliament is supreme. I cited the part of our laws through which we have the right to determine what Canadian citizenship is, and the Liberals took that debate away from us. They had to extend the limit on the court ruling because they had screwed it up so badly that they did not have anything in place to prevent unlimited citizenship by descent. It is preposterous. If the Liberals think that the court ruling should not be challenged, then why are we here? Why do we not just give everything to the judges? I say no.”
“We are at a moment in history when we have to start restoring the value of Canadian citizenship, not further degrading it. I beg colleagues to ensure the amendments that were passed in a multipartisan way at committee are kept so that we can keep the value of Canadian citizenship and reverse the decade of damage that the far left Liberal postnational ideology has done to the value of Canadian citizenship and our pride in national identity.”
“While we might not agree on certain types of policy or how to get to certain types of outcomes, if those democratic institutions are eroded through a postnational ideology, and we tell the world that our citizenship does not have value by gutting a common-sense amendment like this, it would further erode the social fabric of our country. What is the outcome of that? It would erode Canada's pluralism. The only way that pluralism and multiculturalism can exist is through a democracy that has strong respect for the rule of law, for institutions such as freedom of speech and unifying things such as language. Mark my words, the Liberals continuing their far left postnationalism by gutting common-sense amendments on things like language requirements will only further degrade Canada's pluralism.”
“They could have challenged this ruling, but they chose not to. They chose unlimited citizenship by descent with residency requirements that are weaker than what people who naturalize to this country have. The reason I am so fired up is that I have watched, through a decade of Liberal postnationalism, which they have not just said but have also operationalized, the eroding of our democratic institutions. We have seen their catch-and-release bail policies over the last year and the crime that has wrought on our streets. It is the erosion of the justice system. We have seen the censorship bills they have put in place and the erosion of free speech.”
“Our national identity needs to be rooted in the fact that we all have a duty for not just the privileges associated with citizenship but also the responsibilities. These are things taken right from the citizenship guide. For example, there is a requirement to abandon violent and extreme ideology upon coming to Canada. Anybody who is or wants to be Canadian must abandon violent and extreme ideology. It is right in the citizenship guide. Conservatives amended the legislation to have a citizenship test. This is the same as it is for somebody who wants to obtain citizenship through naturalization. As my Bloc colleague raised in a question earlier, Conservatives wanted a report to Parliament on how many people have been given citizenship by descent because of the fact that the Liberals did not challenge this ruling.”
“It is because language is a unifier, and language is part of our national identity. There are two official languages in Canada. They are very important to what it means to be Canadian. They are integral and core, especially in Quebec and other parts of the country where there is a whole concept of national identity that is firmly entrenched and attached to language. We made that amendment. It is common sense. It is the same that is already in the Citizenship Act. We also said maybe somebody should have to take a citizenship test. It is the same requirement of somebody who wants to naturalize to Canada to take a citizenship test. They have to read the citizenship guide and have a basic understanding of what Canada is and what our rules are.”
“I want to thank my Bloc colleagues for working with us and passing these amendments. The amendments we put forward were very common sense. We sought to harmonize the residency requirements that somebody has to have to obtain citizenship through naturalization with citizenship by descent, so they have to live here at least three out of five years to have the provisions in this bill apply to their descendants. That seems reasonable to me. It is a reasonable amendment. (1035) The second thing Conservatives did was amend the bill to have a language acquisition requirement, the same language acquisition requirement that is there for people who want to obtain citizenship through naturalization. It is the exact wording that is already in the Citizenship Act. We said this is reasonable. Why is it reasonable?”
“It is that concept of postnationalism, where there is no national identity, there is no value to our citizenship and we can just eliminate first-generation rules to allow people to obtain citizenship by descent in a way that is easier than it is for people who have naturalized to this country. This is why Conservatives worked with the Bloc Québécois to amend this disastrous chain migration bill at committee. Conservatives put forward some very common-sense amendments to try to ensure that people who are obtaining citizenship by descent through this chain migration bill would have to go through the same processes as somebody who is obtaining citizenship through naturalization, so that at the very least, we are not creating a two-tier citizenship acquisition system in this country.”
“A lot of the far left principles that we see in the NDP espouse something called postnationalism. This is an ideological belief. The former prime minister actually said there is no national identity in Canada. There is no national identity. There is now a minister of national identity in the Liberal Party who said there is not one way to be Canadian. Then the new Prime Minister , during the election campaign, when asked what it means to be Canadian, said it is to be not American. We are at a juncture in the country right now. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. This should concern all parliamentarians. The social fabric of our country is breaking down because of a decade of what we have seen from federal leaders in this country.”
“In fact, the correct answer from the government on that, which I cannot believe members did not know, is that, per section 91(25) of the Constitution Act, Parliament has the authority to amend the Citizenship Act to impose new restrictions on how citizenship is acquired in our country. Why does Parliament have the right to do that? Why does Parliament have the imperative to do that? It is because Canadian citizenship has value. It should not be appointed judges who can do that. It should not be anybody other than duly elected representatives talking about what restrictions we place on how somebody obtains Canadian citizenship. That is why we have the Citizenship Act. There are limits and rules for how people can acquire Canadian citizenship. About a decade ago, the Liberals came into power.”
“This was done in the late aughts to prevent something called citizenship of convenience, as we saw cases in the 2000s where Canada was called on to evacuate people who had never paid taxes and who had Canadian citizenship, but who had never really been in Canada. They had acquired citizenship through descent. When Canada evacuated some of these people, most of them just went back. That is why the first-generation limit was put in place. Rather than challenge the court ruling, the Liberals said, “Yeah, okay, we'll just agree with the court”. I cannot believe this, but one of my colleagues asked why the government would challenge a court ruling. Why would we do that? It is because Parliament is supreme.”
“Mr. Speaker, what a mess. What we are dealing with today is an abject mess. I have to explain to the people who might be watching what has happened and what we are dealing with today. The Liberals had a court ruling. There was a court ruling at a lower court that said the first-generation limit of citizenship by descent could go on indefinitely. The previous Conservative government had put in place a rule that said that, if somebody is going to pass down their citizenship to a child born abroad, they could only do that for one generation, and that somebody who obtains citizenship by descent has to have a substantive connection to Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the Liberals are about to remove an amendment the committee made to include a language requirement in the bill. Language is a unifier in Canada, and the Conservatives worked with the Bloc Québécois to ensure that somebody who would be receiving citizenship through this chain migration bill would at least have to pass a language test that is similar to the one for somebody who is receiving citizenship through naturalization. Why would the Liberals table an amendment that would create a two-tiered citizenship class, one that denigrates Canada's language rights as they relate to citizenship acquisition?”
“Mr. Speaker, over the last very short period of time, I think it is three years, the Liberals have allowed three million temporary residents to come into the country, which is over 7% of Canada's population. We are hearing about the potential abuse of the asylum system by people who are on these visas. Their visas are expiring, and they are being counselled by unscrupulous immigration consultants to abuse the asylum system and make false asylum claims. Can the member talk about whether he thinks the measures in the bill would be adequate enough to fix the mess the Liberals have made after the disastrous #WelcomeToCanada tweet in 2017?”
“Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that the Liberals brought in three million temporary residents in such a short period of time. It is absolutely bananas, insane, crazy. It broke the immigration system. The bill would not fix that. Wow, what a disaster this is.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am so glad my colleague brought this up. It gives me the opportunity to talk about the magical missing promise of more border agents. The Liberals keep getting up and saying that they promise 1,000 more border agents. They keep making this announcement, but they are not hiring anybody. What an utterly inept and disastrous government it is. Canadians deserve something better. They deserve Conservative policies that restore order and fairness, actually deliver on promises, and will again make sure that immigration is focused on integrating people into the Canadian economic and social fabric at a pace that matches housing, health care and jobs.”
“Mr. Speaker, since we are going through history, I will say that Jason Kenney, bless him, had to impose a visa on Mexicans because of the number of bogus asylum claimants there were. What did the Liberals do as soon as they came into office? They immediately reversed it. Now, after that, there have been over 60,000 asylum claims. Whose fault was that? Was it Jason Kenney who reversed the visas? No, it was the Liberals. Come on. I am so tired of the Liberals' trying to say anything. They just try to absolve themselves of responsibility after 10 years of mess. No. Conservatives have better plans and better ideas to restore order, compassion and fairness to Canada's immigration system. That is what we are going to do.”
“I encourage people who have viewpoints on this issue, experts in the field, to either refute or support my hypothesis and also to come up with constructive ways to help parliamentarians modernize the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act so we can protect the world's most vulnerable people, restore order and fairness to the system, and stop the incentivization of abuse on our once fair and wonderful asylum system.”
“Mr. Speaker, where I will agree with my colleague is on what we have seen with the Liberals in their omnibus bills. They consistently want to push a narrative to Canadians that somehow they have to sacrifice their civil liberties in order for the government to fix messes of its own making. I think that what the Liberals have done with the immigration provisions in the bill is to purposely design a bill to punt the issue off to the courts so the Liberals can somehow skate through while the system continues to get worse. That is not going to help.”
“Mr. Speaker, in Greek mythology there is a character called Cassandra, who was fated to know the future and have nobody believe her. I know that colleagues on this side believed me when I said that tweeting “#WelcomeToCanada” and then rolling out a literal actual red carpet at Roxham Road and instructing the RCMP to help illegal border crossers with their baggage was going to be a problem with the asylum system. The Liberals did not believe me, but here we are today. The Liberals created this mess. The bill is going to punt stuff to the courts. I guarantee it will. I guarantee it is going to incentivize more response. They need to amend it. There need to be better solutions. They need to stop the incentivization of the abuse of the asylum system, so we can protect the world's most vulnerable.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of things. I am speaking to the immigration provisions in the bill. My colleague mentioned health. The impact that the government's completely bananas, unsustainable levels of temporary residents and letting the asylum system get out of control has had on our health system needs to be measured and be dealt with. With regard to fentanyl, I will note that this week the Canada Border Services Agency issued a very important tweet about apprehending paper plates. I am wondering what it is doing with fentanyl precursors.”
“Mr. Speaker, I get that the Liberals want to silence me, but, again, I got the information right off their website. Do they not know how to use the Google machine? It was fewer than 10,000 when they formed government. Today it is almost 300,000, after they hashtagged “WelcomeToCanada” to every economic migrant in the United States. This is insane. I wish we had our former immigration minister back. This never would have happened. The bill never would have been here. Now, today, the Liberals had better not punt the issue back to the courts, and they had better fix the system.”
“Mr. Speaker, hello, fifteen years ago called and wants its immigration debate back. Fifteen years ago the asylum system had fewer than 10,000 claims, thanks to our Conservative government. What happened—”
“ln that context, with regard to the asylum system, careful decisions must be made to ensure that our asylum system prioritizes the world's most vulnerable, is immune to abuse and fixes the mess the Liberals have created. In the 30 seconds I have left, I will say this. The Liberal immigration minister has not answered any of these questions. She has put this bill out, it has been massively denigrated by all sides of the public and she has not come up with a solution. I have solutions. I have put them out, and I hope the minister will respond to some of these things in her speech so I do not have to keep doing her job for her.”
“Also, the government should pause the acceptance of new United Nations-selected, government-sponsored refugees and use those spots to find room for highly persecuted persons who are already in Canada and who the government has already made promises to, like those waiting for news through the Hong Kong pathways program, or Ukrainians in Canada, who the Liberals made promise to and have failed. The reality is that there are hundreds of millions of people who want to move to Canada, but we do not have the housing, health care or jobs to support them all. Our immigration system must be fair and orderly to make consistent and smart decisions and to prioritize, especially in the asylum system, the world's most vulnerable persons. The Liberals have moved us far away from that.”
“Asylum claimants could be made to prove that their claims were made in a timely manner, as opposed to having that responsibility fall on the government. We could reverse the onus. This would prevent fraudulent claims from being made long after someone arrived in Canada. Additionally, there are many reports of unscrupulous immigration consultants aiding and abetting the abuse of Canada's asylum system. Shame on the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants for rejecting a request to appear in front of our committee. We will be reinviting it. It is absolutely shameful what some of these consultants are doing. The fact that its executives left under mysterious circumstances and are not coming to our committee suggests that maybe it is time these consultants report to lawyers after all.”
“The Liberals could be pursuing new rules and engagement strategies for countries with high levels of asylum claims, particularly resulting from bogus asylum claims made by temporary resident visa holders whose visas have expired. Educational institutions that have profited off of massive and unsustainable numbers of foreign student visas could be made to pay fines and be held financially liable when their students on these permits make bogus asylum claims. When the asylum-claim backlog reaches a certain number of claims or approval rates, an automatic review of the system could be triggered to ensure that officials are not incentivized to rubber-stamp applications as opposed to making thorough and consistent decisions.”
“New rules are needed to ensure that those with serious criminal convictions are rendered inadmissible to our country. The Liberals also need to get serious about closing loopholes and backlogs that further overload the system and cause frustrating delays up and down the immigration system. Applications failing the physical presence requirements, false information and endless rights to appeal need to be modernized to ensure the system works for the folks who it is intended to serve: the world's most vulnerable. The existing inventory of asylum claims should be reviewed on a last-in, first-out basis, while the criteria for making new claims must be tightly narrowed to prevent the system from being abused by economic migrants.”
“While hearings and immigration tribunals must be conducted in a timely and efficient manner to ensure that claimants receive a fair process, those who do not have valid claims must be swiftly removed from Canada if our laws require them to be. Otherwise, we will just keep incentivizing people to abuse the system, because there is no disincentive for them not to. This could mean ensuring the detention of offenders attempting to enter Canada undetected when conditions are met. Peace officers must be empowered to carry out their duties as set out in the law, and national security warrants must be issued and executed in a way that Canadians expect them to be. We have seen reports that the Liberals have allowed foreign nationals with known criminal histories into the country.”
“(1545) Why is Canada, at this juncture, still accepting asylum claims originating from the G7 and other safe third countries? The Liberal government needs to give its head a shake if it believes that someone who is arriving in Canada after having reached the safety of the United Kingdom, Germany or Japan is fleeing persecution in the spirit of the refugee convention and should be allowed to stay in Canada for years on a pending claim receiving taxpayer benefits like free hotel rooms. Also, Canada's laws regarding the removal of people with no legal right to be in Canada need to be enforced. Canada needs timely removals and anonymized but publicly released departure tracking, and we need to know how this is getting done within the CBSA.”
“For example, the Liberals should immediately undertake a system-wide review of the benefits that asylum claimants receive, particularly bogus asylum claimants, those with claims that have been found to fail, with an eye to reducing the benefits that bogus asylum claimants receive, especially when they are benefits that Canadians themselves do not receive. For example, did members know that bogus asylum claimants get taxpayer-funded vision care through the interim federal health program? I know a lot of Canadians who do not get that. Years of taxpayer-funded hotel stays for bogus asylum claimants while Canadians make ends meet serve as a draw for system abuse. These types of benefits must be reviewed, and where possible, they must be curtailed to prevent the abuse that further draws on the system.”
“Even though their history says they are not going to challenge immigration rulings and they know that every legal group in the country is saying that this bill will need a charter challenge review, the Liberals have said they are probably not going to do anything about it. Mark my words: I cannot wait to come back to this in the House a few years from now, or whenever it may be if this bill passes, and say I was right. What the Liberals are doing is punting this issue to the courts while the system continues to get worse. The Economist magazine recently published an article entitled “Scrap the asylum system—and build something better” that stated, “Rich countries need to separate asylum from labour migration.” I agree. Bill C-12 is silent on several other measures that could restore order and fairness to Canada's asylum system right now.”
“After the Liberals established a reputation for not challenging court rulings, the ruling that precipitated Bill C-3 , an unmitigated chain migration bill, was never challenged by the Liberals. They did not even bother to assert Parliament's supremacy on the laws that had been made in this place. They said, “No, this is good”, and we have all of these other potential problems with Bill C-3. Now, after the Liberals have refused to challenge that ruling, they are trying to say that all of the lobby groups that are saying this bill is not charter-compliant are somehow going to magically accept that it is charter-compliant and will somehow solve the problems, which I find ridiculous. The other thing is that the Liberals have gone out of their way to eschew the validity of section 33 of the charter. What have they essentially done with that?”
“In fact, when I was at the immigration committee and asked some department officials what they thought about the charter compliance of the provisions in Bill C-2 that are now in Bill C-12 , they were fairly silent on the matter, which told me everything I needed to know. This is the Liberals' “let the courts sort it out later” approach to a system that is massively broken. It will only lead to abuse of the system without massive amendment and other massive actions to reduce the intake of people and their incentivization to abuse the system. I can say one thing, though: This is definitely going to make lawyers and immigration consultants a lot richer.”