Bill C-12

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of Canada's borders and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system and respecting other related security measures

Part 1 amends the Customs Act to provide the Canada Border Services Agency with facilities free of charge for carrying out any purpose related to the administration or enforcement of that Act and other Acts of Parliament and to provide officers of that Agency with access at certain locations to goods destined for export. It also includes transitional provisions.
Part 2 amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to create a new temporary accelerated scheduling pathway that allows the Minister of Health to add precursor chemicals to Schedule V to that Act. It also makes related amendments to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Police Enforcement) Regulations and the Precursor Control Regulations .
Part 3 amends the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and the Cannabis Act to confirm that the Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, make regulations exempting members of law enforcement from the application of any provision of the Criminal Code that creates drug-related inchoate offences when they are undertaking lawful investigations.
Part 4 amends the Oceans Act to provide that coast guard services include activities related to security and to authorize the responsible minister to collect, analyze and disclose information and intelligence.
Part 5 amends the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to disclose, for certain purposes and subject to any regulations, personal information under the control of the Department within the Department and to certain other federal and provincial government entities.
It also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the making of regulations relating to the disclosure of information collected for the purposes of that Act to federal departments and agencies.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) eliminate the designated countries of origin regime;
(b) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to specify the information and documents that are required in support of a claim for refugee protection;
(c) authorize the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board to determine that claims for refugee protection that have not yet been referred to the Refugee Protection Division have been abandoned in certain circumstances;
(d) provide the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration with the power to determine that claims for refugee protection that have not yet been referred to the Refugee Protection Division have been withdrawn in certain circumstances;
(e) require the Refugee Protection Division and the Refugee Appeal Division to suspend certain proceedings respecting a claim for refugee protection if the claimant is not present in Canada;
(f) clarify that decisions of the Immigration and Refugee Board must be rendered, and reasons for those decisions must be given, in the manner specified by its Chairperson; and
(g) authorize regulations to be made setting out the circumstances in which the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness must designate, in relation to certain proceedings or applications, a representative for persons who are under 18 years of age or who are unable to appreciate the nature of the proceeding or application.
It also includes transitional provisions.
Part 7 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to, among other things,
(a) authorize the Governor in Council to make an order specifying that certain applications made under that Act are not to be accepted for processing, or that the processing of those applications is to be suspended or terminated, when the Governor in Council is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so;
(b) authorize the Governor in Council to make an order to cancel, suspend or vary certain documents issued under that Act, or to impose or vary conditions, when the Governor in Council is of the opinion that it is in the public interest to do so;
(c) for the application of an order referred to in paragraph (b), require a person to appear for an examination, answer questions truthfully and produce all relevant documents or evidence that an officer requires; and
(d) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations prescribing circumstances in which a document issued under that Act can be cancelled, suspended or varied, and in which officers may terminate the processing of certain applications made under that Act.
Part 8 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to add two new grounds of ineligibility for claims for refugee protection as well as powers to make regulations respecting exceptions to those new grounds. It also includes a transitional provision respecting the retroactive application of those new grounds.
Part 9 amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to, among other things,
(a) increase the maximum administrative monetary penalties that may be imposed for certain violations and the maximum punishments that may be imposed for certain criminal offences under that Act;
(b) replace the existing optional compliance agreement regime with a new mandatory compliance agreement regime that, among other things,
(i) requires every person or entity that receives an administrative monetary penalty for a prescribed violation to enter into a compliance agreement with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (the Centre),
(ii) requires the Director of the Centre to make a compliance order if the person or entity refuses to enter into a compliance agreement or fails to comply with such an agreement, and
(iii) designates the contravention of a compliance order as a new violation under that Act;
(c) require persons or entities referred to in section 5 of that Act, other than those already required to register, to enroll with the Centre; and
(d) authorize the Centre to disclose certain information to the Commissioner of Canada Elections, subject to certain conditions.
It also makes consequential and related amendments to the Retail Payment Activities Act and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Administrative Monetary Penalties Regulations and includes transitional provisions.
Part 10 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act to make the Director of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada a member of the committee established under subsection 18(1) of that Act. It also amends the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to enable the Director to exchange information with the other members of that committee.
Part 11 amends the Sex Offender Information Registration Act to, among other things,
(a) make certain changes to a sex offender’s reporting obligations, including the circumstances in which they are required to report, the information that must be provided and the time within which it is to be provided;
(b) provide that any of a sex offender’s physical characteristics that may assist in their identification may be recorded when they report to a registration centre;
(c) clarify what may constitute a reasonable excuse for a sex offender’s non-compliance with the requirement to give at least 14 days’ notice prior to a departure from their residence for seven or more consecutive days;
(d) authorize the Canada Border Services Agency to disclose certain information relating to a sex offender’s arrival in and departure from Canada to law enforcement agencies for the purposes of the administration and enforcement of that Act;
(e) authorize, in certain circumstances, the disclosure of information collected under that Act if there are reasonable grounds to believe that it will assist in the prevention or investigation of a crime of a sexual nature; and
(f) clarify that a person who discloses information under section 16 of that Act with the belief that they are acting in accordance with that section is not guilty of an offence under section 17 of that Act.
It also makes a related amendment to the Customs Act .

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise today quite disturbed and deeply disappointed that despite the widespread criticism of Bill C-2 from civil liberties groups, migrant groups, experts and human rights advocates, the Liberals are attempting to repackage pretty much the same bill under a new title, Bill C-12, which has so many of the same alarming and unacceptable abuses of international law and charter rights.

The revised border security bill would maintain a host of the government's new immigration powers introduced in Bill C-2, including the ability to limit immigration applications and cancel existing documents when the government deems it to be in the public interest, all the while pushing through huge, overreaching powers for the Prime Minister and his cabinet. I am the proud representative of Winnipeg Centre, home to 70% of refugees who move into Manitoba. They are my neighbours and my friends, and they have a right to have their human rights upheld.

The bill has raised much concern, including what experts are flagging as a detrimental impact on women and LGBTQ people.

We know what the bill is about. It is not about border security, from my perspective, but about appeasing a leader to the south who is showing us more every day that he would even have the military go after his own citizens. It is about appeasing a right-wing, authoritarian leader in the White House. We know his immigration policy includes ICE's ordering masked federal officers to go into communities and arrest people, individuals whose human rights are protected under international law.

It is funny to me to watch the member for Winnipeg North across the way smiling during my speech, when his constituency is in fact home to a vibrant and diverse immigrant population. It is a border that I am very proud to share—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The government chief whip is rising on a point of order.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North and I were having a conversation, and then we overheard his name being mentioned by the member in her speech—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

It was not his name but his constituency.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, it was his constituency. The point is that the member is making an outlandishly false claim right now by suggesting that he was laughing or smiling at her in a mocking way. That simply was not the case, and she should not be engaging in that kind of activity—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I was not actually looking, but the hon. member was making her speech and has a certain leeway in what she can say in it.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has the floor.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, we know that much of what is happening in the States with attacks on immigrants and attacks on asylum seekers is primarily impacting people of colour in cities across the United States. I do not want Canada to appease the kind of racist, dogmatic, fascist behaviour that we are seeing south of the border.

Just as in the case of the unconstitutional Bill C-5, Bill C-12 would create power for cabinet to create “Orders Made in the Public Interest”. This would give the government an unchecked power to stop receiving applications for visas and for other residency permits, to suspend processing of immigration applications and to target measures against “certain foreign nationals”.

There is no definition of “public interest” in Canadian law, and no explanation in the bill, so how do we know that the Liberal cabinet, or any future cabinet, would not in fact pursue its own interests or, worse yet, the interests of the Trump administration through this unconstitutional legislation?

The bill would also be very problematic for the safety of women and girls. Several women's organizations, in fact, including Women's Shelters Canada, the Canadian Women's Foundation and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, stated, “Survivors of...violence are uniquely harmed by arbitrary timelines and restricted pathways in immigration, which deny survivors the ability to seek protection when they most need it. Any changes to C-2 that do not remove the immigration provisions will continue to put vulnerable women at risk.”

A broad coalition of civil liberties groups, data privacy organizations, refugee and migrant rights organizations and gender justice organizations strongly opposes the government's introduction of Bill C-12, which seeks to fast-track rather than address many aspects of Bill C-2's myriad problems. In fact, a coalition of over 300 organizations is reiterating its call for a full withdrawal of both bills. That coalition includes Amnesty International, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Church of Canada, the Migrant Rights Network and the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Tim McSorley, who is part of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, indicated:

Bill C-12 does not fix Bill C-2; it fast tracks some of the most egregious aspects, while still moving forward with the rest. Our government has made it abundantly clear that they will continue to fight for every privacy-violating measure Bill C-2 still contains, and are only introducing Bill C-12 to get restrictions on migrant and refugee rights adopted sooner.

As parliamentarians, we are obliged to uphold international law, and that includes international conventions that we are signatories to, including for international human rights that grant asylum seekers the right to seek protection from prosecution. This is most notable in article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the 1951 Refugee Convention. A core principle is non-refoulement, which means that countries are prohibited from returning refugees to a place where their life or freedom is at risk. Countries are obliged to assess asylum claims fairly and protect refugees from being sent back to danger.

I think about the number of refugees who have made Winnipeg Centre their home, whom I am proud to now have as neighbours and who fled life-and-death circumstances. We have a legal obligation to not close our borders to them.

Article 14 states, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” Article 14 further notes that this right does not apply to those genuinely prosecuted for non-political crimes or acts against the UN principles.

This is a fundamental principle: the principle of non-refoulement. This fundamental principle of international law is also found in other international human rights treaties that we are signatories to. It prohibits the forced return of refugees to a country where they face a serious threat to their life or freedom. This is considered a customary international law that applies to all countries.

I felt very strongly about the NDP's position on this particular bill, a bill that would violate international law. It is a bill that, in fact, would violate the rule of law. It is a bill that would have an impact on our reputation around the world and that feeds into the racist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic tropes that we are seeing coming from the south. Let us put silence on that voice and let us be what Canada has always been, a home welcoming to all.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola. I am hoping to work together with my colleague on a private member's bill that I put forward with respect to an area of mutual interest.

It is interesting that the member spoke about immigration, because my parents, as I have spoken about many times, emigrated from Italy to Canada. Therefore, I owe everything I have to immigration. Standing on this green carpet was an immigrant's dream really, so that just caught my ear.

With respect to Bill C-12, the member talked about immigration. If she could have one amendment, sitting at the committee table, is there anything else that she sees in Bill C-12 that she would point to that must be addressed?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's very thoughtful question. I support the more than 300 civil liberties organizations that are saying we need to get rid of the bill. I am ashamed, as a member of Parliament and as a legislator, that we are being forced to vote on a bill that is in direct violation of the rule of law and is in direct violation of conventions we have signed on to. We need to listen to those recommendations and take them seriously. If the bill should be salvageable, which I do not believe it is, then we need to pretty much write a whole new bill.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for continually raising some of the very troubling issues that we are seeing from the U.S. administration south of the border. One aspect in particular is the tendency to use the justice system as retaliation against political foes. I wonder if the member opposite has any comments on the Leader of the Opposition's comments and bringing that style of U.S. justice system retaliation against political foes to Canada.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, certainly that is irresponsible of a leader, but the Liberals are abusing their powers as government to violate international law and give cabinet and the Prime Minister unprecedented amounts of power. With all due respect to the member across the way, he needs to clean up his own backyard in addition to commenting on others.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Madam Speaker, there are fairly significant differences of opinion between the Bloc Québécois and the NDP but, on the issue of workers' rights, I think we can often find common ground.

In this particular case, a customs union has commented on the bill, saying that they have been making demands for many years yet nobody is listening to them and they are not being consulted, either on this matter or in several others, which has led to the disastrous results we are now familiar with.

Does my colleague agree that the government should listen more closely to the union representing the workers who make sure our borders are secure, day in and day out?

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, we are targeting the wrong people with the bill, quite frankly. When Trump accused Canada of being a key exporter of fentanyl across the border, that was a bunch of hooey.

We talk about workers, and the bill would impact migrant workers. We know that the most exploited workers are migrant workers. Migrant workers are protected under international law. The bill would violate the rights of migrant workers, refugees and asylum seekers, as well as people's civil liberties. We need to get rid of the bill and replace it with a bill that addresses the concern without attacking immigrants, refugees and migrants.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L’Érable—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin my speech, I want to take a moment to thank Divya Dey, who is participating in the parliamentary internship program and who gave me the great privilege of choosing me for her first stint with a member of the House of Commons. She is a brilliant and dynamic young woman from the Greater Toronto Area who speaks excellent French and who chose a member from a rural region in Quebec. I hope that many people from Toronto will do the same thing and follow her example in order to discover the beautiful regions of Quebec.

Today Divya helped me research and write this speech. Obviously, I added the partisan side of my speech myself because interns have to remain non-partisan during their time with us. I wanted to warn people that some of the passages are my own creation. I congratulate all the interns on their achievements and thank the organizers and sponsors of this wonderful program, which gives young Canadians the opportunity to experience first-hand the decision-making process on our beautiful Parliament Hill.

Let me get back to today's topic, namely Bill C‑12. Before going into the details of the bill, I would like to take a step back and look at the big picture of what this Liberal government has done in 10 years. Since this Prime Minister was elected, I believe that we have witnessed the largest pothole repair operation in Canadian history.

What is a pothole? After a long, hard winter, when the snow melts, we discover that our roads are full of holes. There are big ones, little ones, huge ones and potholes in the making. There are holes everywhere, especially in the municipalities. Just before summer, at the turn of spring, municipal road crews get to work filling as many holes as possible as quickly as possible to keep them from getting bigger, to prevent cars from breaking down and to ensure pedestrians do not get hurt. I have no doubt that all this is done with the best of intentions.

However, anything goes when it comes to filling holes. They act quickly. They know that what they are repairing will not really be repaired because it is just a quick fix. They will have to come back a little later. They intervene for appearances' sake, knowing full well that the repairs are cosmetic, which means that instead of being fixed, the problem will get worse year after year. The following year, they will have to come back because the hole will be a little bigger. If it is only a quick fix, they will have to come back again the year after that.

What does this have to do with Bill C‑12? Before the members opposite ask me that question, I will explain. It is very simple. It is as though we are coming out of an extremely long 10-year winter during which the Liberals dug holes everywhere. There are potholes in every department after 10 years of Liberal mismanagement. Whether we are talking about justice, immigration, passports or delays at the Canada Revenue Agency, there are potholes everywhere after the long Liberal winter.

I did not talk about the biggest pothole of all, and that is the country's finances. That is the biggest pothole of all with a deficit that has doubled and inflationary spending that has created many smaller holes in the pockets of all Canadians, who can no longer make ends meet at the end of the month. Canadians are $200 away from being in the red, from no longer being able to pay their bills at the end of the month. They are struggling and they are being forced to make tough choices at the grocery store.

Today, the Liberals would have us believe that spring is right around the corner. They have looked under the snow after 10 years in power, and what they saw was really not pretty. Their woke Liberal ideological policies have caused a great deal of damage, and Canadians will be left to pay the price for years to come.

As I said, a pothole repair operation is a superficial fix that is not used to repair holes for good, but rather to simply fill them in. After how badly Bill C-2 failed, Bill C‑12 is a superficial fix to tackle the damage caused by the Liberals over the past 10 years. By the way, this part was not written by my intern. I just want to clarify that.

Let us talk about immigration. The government made our businesses dependent on temporary foreign workers. Now, with Bill C-12, the government is going to punish the very people it made promises to when they decided to come settle here in Canada. This is not just about compassion. It is contradictory. The government made our businesses dependent on these workers and now it is trying to break that dependency without a plan, leaving businesses and workers in limbo. Most importantly, the government is forgetting that those affected are human beings with children, families and a dream, a dream of settling in Canada.

In the beginning, the temporary foreign worker program had the very specific goal of addressing temporary labour shortages. However, under the Liberals, this program grew and it became a permanent solution to problems that the government refused to address. This program was working well and meeting its objectives, but the Liberals created so much chaos and neglected the program so much that, today, people who should be able to go through the proper channels no longer have time to do so because the system is so broken.

Bill C‑12 is not fixing the problem of temporary workers. This bill would make it harder for all these people, whom we welcomed with open arms after the former prime minister sent a tweet inviting them to come to Canada. This message was heard across the country, but today, it is making many people unhappy. We have all heard about it in our riding offices. This improvised approach hurt people, it hurt families and it hurt businesses.

After a decade of the Liberals' absolutely disastrous mismanagement of the immigration system, the number of refugee claims has risen to 296,000 today. That is huge. Think about it. Ten years ago, we only had 10,000 and now, we have 296,000. At the current pace, it would take the government 25 years to process the 296,000 pending files. Let that sink in. It is absolutely unacceptable. It is a disaster. The Liberal government's attitude to immigration as a whole has created some really desperate situations that are heartbreaking for the people experiencing them.

Let us now turn our attention to crime. I will let the numbers speak for themselves. After 10 years of Liberal governance, the total number of violent crimes is up 49.84%. Homicides are up 28%. Gang-related homicides are up 78%. Sexual assaults are up 74%. Extortion is up 357%. What action did the Liberals take last winter to protect Canadians? They took no action. On the contrary, they made the situation worse by passing legislation like Bill C-5 and Bill C-75, which set criminals loose, let abusers serve their sentences at home and forced judges to let criminals go as fast as possible.

Sadly, since taking office seven months ago, this Prime Minister has done nothing to act on his promises. Bill C-12 may close a few loopholes, but it will not quiet the fears of Canadians who have never before seen their country change as much as it has in the past 10 years of this long Liberal winter.

Time is flying by. The Liberals would have us believe that spring is coming. However, they have not even started fixing the potholes, and winter already seems to be right around the corner. Never before have we seen a pothole repair be botched so badly. This Prime Minister promised to spend less, but he is spending twice as much as his predecessor. He promised to maintain the deficit, but we now know that it will be much bigger than the one predicted by Canada's most spendthrift prime minister before him. They are not repairing potholes; they are digging more and making them bigger. We were seeing the first signs of spring, but instead we are in for another storm of Liberal spending.

Just today, the Prime Minister confirmed in the House that he will run a generational deficit on November 4. They are not fooling us. Bill C‑12 will plug a few holes, but the root causes of the Liberal legacy of the past 10 years will unfortunately remain.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, as members can see, the member opposite is getting excited about November 4. There will be a lot of wonderful things for Canadians in the budget. He will find that it will be a reflection of what Canadians have been telling this government for months now.

The new Prime Minister has made it very clear, whether on asylum, temporary permits or permanent residents, that we want to stabilize things. That is the goal of the government and the Prime Minister, and we are moving in the right direction with respect to that. Bill C-12 is a significant step forward. It is like in 2010-11, when asylum was a major issue and the Harper government brought in changes to the asylum system. At times, we need to make changes, whether for the pandemic or the international student issue, something that was created through the provinces, post-secondary institutions and a lot of private institutions. We have to take some responsibility on that, but it is being fixed.

I wonder if my friend could provide his thoughts with regard to the new Prime Minister and how we are stabilizing the immigration file.