Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to speak when you are sitting in the chair.
I would like to congratulate the newly acclaimed mayors in my riding. We recently had an election in Quebec for cities and municipalities. I would like to congratulate Alain Dubuc, who was re-elected as mayor of Beauharnois. I would also like to congratulate Daibhid Fraser in Dundee, Deborah Stewart in Elgin, Mark Wallace in Hinchinbrooke, André Brunette in Huntingdon, Michel Proulx in Les Cèdres, Sylvain Brazeau in Les Coteaux, Peter Zytynsky in Pointe‑des‑Cascade, Sylvie Tourangeau in Saint‑Anicet, Mylène Labre in Saint‑Clet, Daniel Pinsonneault in Sainte‑Barbe, Shawn Campbell in Sainte‑Justine‑de‑Newton, Jinny Brunelle in Sainte‑Marthe, Martin Dumaresq in Saint‑Étienne‑de‑Beauharnois, Yves Daoust in Saint‑Louis‑de‑Gonzague, Jean-Pierre Ménard in Saint‑Polycarpe, David McKay in Saint‑Télésphore and Miguel Lemieux in Salaberry‑de‑Valleyfield. Eighteen mayors out of 25 have been acclaimed in my riding. I would like to wish them all the best and may they have a successful term for the coming year.
Today, we are discussing Bill C‑12. With the exception of three parts, it is almost identical to Bill C‑2, previously presented by the government with considerable fanfare. Viewers at home will recall that the bill's number, Bill C‑2, reflects the fact that the government was intent on bringing this bill forward urgently at the start of this Parliament. That is why today, in mid-October, we are dealing with another bill that has the same objectives, but is now known as Bill C‑12.
What does that mean? It means that this bill was initially intended to appease the President of the United States after he set a very high bar for Canada in terms of border security requirements. The Prime Minister promised to respond forcefully to the problem and to introduce a very strong bill to secure the borders, known as Bill C‑2 at that time.
The Bloc Québécois has carefully examined Bill C‑12 and we want the government to know that we support sending it to committee for study.
However, what worries me is that I heard the Minister of Public Safety say that Bill C‑2 has only been postponed, and I have read that too. In other words, in order to be able to pass the other parts of Bill C‑2 through Bill C‑12, he removed the contentious parts that were preventing it from being passed unanimously, namely all the parts that violated privacy or anything that did not comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In its report, the Library of Parliament provided a whole list of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms violations, including the section that protects the right to life, liberty and security of any person in Canada, and section 8, which provides protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Obviously, we have talked at length about everything akin to opening mail without a warrant and about section 15, which provides that every individual is equal before the law.
There was a risk of arbitrary discrimination. I could not find a single organization or agency that had anything good to say about the parts that were removed from Bill C‑2. That is why we are discussing and debating Bill C‑12 today. I could not find anyone to defend those parts because they represented a potential for intrusion. One very well-known expert witness told me that parts 14 and 15 of Bill C-2 would spell the end of privacy. If those provisions were not amended, it would have been the end of privacy.
The government clearly took its shot, but it wrote this in a hurry. What scares me is that if the Liberal government had won a majority, Bill C-2 would have been passed and rammed down the throats of Quebeckers, Canadians and the opposition, all because the Americans felt it was very important. However, they do not value privacy as highly as we do here in Quebec and Canada.
That is scary, because there is no guarantee that Bill C‑2 will not be brought back to life. Parts of that legislation can still be found in Bill C‑12. The minister has not given up hope of getting the highly contentious parts of Bill C‑2 passed.
What matters is that the opposition did its job. The government realized that it did not do its job properly, that it had rushed things and had been too hasty in introducing Bill C‑2, which did not at all meet the needs of Quebeckers and the people of the other provinces.
Bill C‑12 was pared down, because it is better to have something than nothing at all. This bill does have some interesting parts, which we would like to explore. We in the Bloc Québécois do not simply oppose or criticize. As a political party, we truly want to improve things and propose ideas, especially when they are in the interest of Quebec. All the better if they are also in the interest of other Canadians.
When it comes to the whole issue of border security, the Bloc Québécois has long been calling for stronger action. We know that it took the President of the United States to tell us that our border is like a sieve. The Speaker of the House will surely recall that, at the time, we were very critical of the fact that the Liberal government opened Roxham Road and that we were told that we were racist and unwelcoming to refugees. Slowly but surely, Ontario came around to our way of thinking, as did the other provinces, and all of a sudden, the government managed to solve the problem and began welcoming refugees through the proper points of entry.
The Bloc Québécois also made suggestions about how to better monitor the borders and better protect citizens. The first was to create a department of borders. I asked the minister questions at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security two weeks ago, but instead of answering me, he looked to the president of the CBSA to answer for him. That is rather unfortunate. He needs to be accountable. This is his responsibility, and he needs to answer the questions. Given the current context, we think it is high time that the government incorporated a border department into this department, where all security interventions are entrusted to a minister who is responsible and accountable.
We also proposed a measure that we believe could improve border security. We propose that border officers be given more flexibility in performing their duties. On Friday, I visited the school where Canadian border officers are trained. The training centre is located in Rigaud, in the riding of my neighbour from Vaudreuil. I had a wonderful time seeing first-hand the serious training provided to border officers and the highly-qualified personnel it produces in all matters related to border security. Why not let these officers respond to situations as they arise, leave their post, perform interceptions and call the RCMP to come and deal with packages, shipments or people trying to enter Canada illegally?
I fail to understand the government's resistance to this proposal, since not a single border officer would deny that it is a good idea. In times of limited resources, it is wise to use our resources as effectively as possible. That is an idea proposed by the Bloc Québécois.
The Bloc Québécois also continues to demand better control of firearms that are circulating illegally and are prohibited on our soil. I represent a riding that borders the Akwesasne reserve, Lake Saint‑François, Lake Saint‑Louis, and the U.S. border in New York state. We know there is trafficking of illegal arms. We are therefore asking for more patrols and more resources to be allocated to this part of the country, where we know there is a lot of smuggling and even human trafficking, which occurs more by waterways than by land.
We will continue to demand oversight to clean up the Toronto big banks and money laundering activities linked to criminal groups. We will also propose tougher penalties for border smugglers. The current penalties are a joke. We have even seen smugglers get caught and deported back to their countries, only to return to Quebec and resume the same criminal activities. Our border control system is clearly dysfunctional.
Obviously, we also want to take action in the fight against the fentanyl crisis, which, as everyone knows, is a public health crisis. In the Bloc Québécois, we agree that we need to invest in public health, which means increasing federal health transfers. The government must be more attentive to the needs of Quebec and the provinces in terms of support and funding, whether for rehabilitation centres, rapid access to emergency rooms, social worker services, supervised consumption centres, or harm reduction initiatives.
The Bloc Québécois believes that border measures to crack down on organized crime continue to be not only necessary, but extremely important. In addition, we must have seamless co-operation among American, Mexican and Canadian authorities so they can be more effective in their response and capture the criminals, who have had it easy for the past few years. These criminals have figured out the flaws in our system and learned how to take advantage of them.
Of course, Bill C‑12 also deals with the issue of refugee claimants. If the bill is sent to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, we will have an opportunity to debate it there and get a better idea of the sections that amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
I must say that the Bloc Québécois has some questions about Bill C‑12. Under the bill, rail companies will have to create a space in their marshalling yards, including a warehouse and offices, because right now customs officers are unable to inspect railway cars leaving Canada for the United States. To do that, rail companies such as CN, CP and CSX will have to build infrastructure in their marshalling yards. The big question I have is this: Are those rail companies going to have to cover 100% of the costs associated with setting up this infrastructure?
For example, it could cost millions of dollars to set up infrastructure that includes a warehouse and two or three offices for border officers, as well as a scanning system to detect if cars contain explosives or other important illicit substances that could threaten national security. I do not have the exact figure, but it could be more than $30 million. I know this because it is what is required at the Port of Valleyfield for border officers to be present and for containers to clear through the port. Will the rail companies also be required to set up this very expensive infrastructure? Will they receive financial support? Will they have a certain amount of time to comply with the new requirements?
As is often the case in legislation, the devil is in the details, and yet the current text of Bill C‑12 is lacking in this level of detail. In committee, we will have an opportunity to hear from many witnesses. For example, CN officials may tell us that this is not a problem, that they are willing to invest several million dollars in their marshalling yards to ensure that the agency has the infrastructure it needs to inspect the rail cars. I may be a pessimist but, given the times we are living in, I question whether a rail company would want to invest so much money in order to meet a government request. I suspect that enforcement delays may be much longer than what is anticipated in the context of the bill.
In terms of rail companies, allowing border agents to come into marshalling yards to conduct inspections is a new way of doing things. Practices are going to change as a result. Ultimately, with Bill C‑12, the government is announcing a lot of changes today. A law can be changed, but it can take several months or even years before the law is implemented and practices on the ground actually change. There are bills that were passed two years ago that we still do not have regulations for. The Official Languages Act is a good example.
Bill C‑12 also provides for changes to the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard. As we know, the Coast Guard is responsible for patrolling various parts of Quebec and the provinces by water, but it does not have the authority to relay information to other authorities. It is not allowed. I do not know if it does so in practice, but it is not supposed to. This bill therefore corrects that by giving the Coast Guard the ability to help document information it deems suspicious.
Since the Coast Guard has been moved back under the military budget, what we are wondering is whether Coast Guard officers will be armed and how much they will be able to intervene. I did not see anything in the bill to indicate whether that might change. It is rather odd to be part of the armed forces but to not be allowed to be armed. That is another question. We can have that debate during committee hearings when we study the bill more thoroughly. As long as we do not know the answers to these questions, if the Coast Guard's only mandate is to provide information and surveillance, then we have to wonder whether it will truly be integrated under the umbrella of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I think everyone knows that this is needed first and foremost for the Arctic, to safeguard the border and protect Canada's territorial sovereignty. However, as a member of Parliament representing an area near Lac Saint-François that also borders the Akwesasne reserve and New York State, what I am seeing is a decrease of at least 50% in maritime patrols in that area. The government talks about adding resources, but I think it is more a question of managing resources. The government is going to take resources away from the Coast Guard, give it a little more power and move its officers to priority areas, thereby neglecting other areas, including areas in my riding, which is a hot spot for gun smuggling, tobacco smuggling and human trafficking.
For the past year or year and a half, the government has been making one announcement after another. I think this is the fifth official announcement of plans to hire 1,000 border officers. Hiring 1,000 new officers takes a lot of organization; after all, border officers do not grow on trees. It takes at least 18 weeks to train them, not including the specialized training delivered at various campuses in Quebec and Canada. What is less clear in the bill is who will be training them. Do we have enough instructors? Are the 1,000 officers really going to be assigned to the border? It seems not. Instead, we hear that 800 border officers will be trained at Rigaud and another 200 will be assigned to intelligence or administrative investigation duties. These are some of the areas we will have to clarify when we ask questions in committee.
In closing, we obviously intend to take a serious and thorough approach to Bill C-12. We are going to help improve it, and we hope that the governing party will listen to our amendments and recommendations.
