Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to speak to Bill C-12.
I hope all colleagues in this chamber had an amazing Thanksgiving. I enjoyed the week in my riding, but I am back in Ottawa to continue the important work we do here on behalf of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
We are debating this bill today because this is the Liberals' second attempt in the same Parliament. Their first attempt would have allowed for a massive, sweeping violation of every law-abiding Canadian's individual freedom and privacy. In fact, that bill, which has not been withdrawn, as we found out from a Liberal member this morning, and is still on the Order Paper, would allow Canada Post to open any mail, including letters, without a warrant. It would ban cash payments and donations over $10,000. It would allow for warrantless access to personal information. It could compel electronic service providers to re-engineer their platforms to help CSIS and the police access information, and it would allow the government to supply financial institutions with Canadians' personal information, apparently in an attempt to resolve money laundering and terrorist financing. These are Canadians' hard-earned rights that the Liberal government seems to not want to respect.
The Liberals tried to pass a power grab to access Canadians' personal information from service providers like banks and telecom companies without needing a warrant, and worse, they did not consult the Privacy Commissioner. It was only due to Conservative pressure that the Liberals backed down, it appears, with the introduction of Bill C-12. The Conservatives will always stand up for Canadians' individual freedoms and privacy. They are fundamental tenets of a democratic nation.
This new bill continues with the same old Liberal soft-on-crime policies that are causing crime and chaos in our communities. Liberal bail is still very much alive and well for those who traffic guns across our border and terrorize our communities. There are still no mandatory prison times for fentanyl traffickers. Astonishingly, there are still no mandatory prison times for gangsters who use guns to commit crimes.
In the last month alone in one of the municipalities in my riding, Richmond Hill, we saw two brutal executions in broad daylight on quiet residential streets, one of them with a firearm. The Liberals have let thousands of guns flood across our border that are used to commit crimes in our communities.
I think members of the Liberal government need to rethink the way they are trying to fool Canadians. Everything is not a political issue. The decisions we make in this House affect real people. In making the announcement the Liberals made on December 5, 2024, as they do every year the day before the anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre, to say they were banning firearms, they tried to capitalize on that anniversary for political gain. That does not resolve the problem, I say to my fellow colleagues across the aisle. Illegal guns are coming across the border. It is not law-abiding Canadian citizens, hunters or sport shooters who perpetrate these crimes. It is not people with licensed firearms who commit these crimes. People who commit these crimes purchase guns from the back of a car, the back of a Honda, at the mall or in some aisle somewhere, for $600 or $700.
The Liberals are not serious about resolving the issue, and in Richmond Hill, in the last 30 days, there were two murders in broad daylight, one with an illegal gun that came across the border, which the Liberal announcements every year in the early part of December have not been able to resolve and will continue not to resolve. Instead of taking real action and implementing real consequences for those smuggling guns at our borders, the Liberals want to waste millions of dollars buying back guns from highly vetted legal firearms owners. This would do nothing and has done nothing to reduce crime in our communities.
Criminals are laughing at the Canadian government. When they get arrested by our hard-working law enforcement officers, under this bill, they would still be let out on bail, sometimes hours later, as we are told by police forces across the country. They would then go out and brutalize our communities over and over again.
When criminals are convicted, Liberal hug-a-thug policies allow many of these criminals to serve their sentences from the comfort of their own home. Wow. What a big penalty. We need jail, not Liberal bail for violent offenders, and only Conservatives will bring safe streets back to our communities.
This bill also touches upon immigration and, more specifically, our asylum system. Let me be clear. Over the last 10 years, the Liberal government has systematically dismantled our immigration system and obliterated our asylum system. Back in the days of Prime Minister Harper, when I had the honour of serving as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship and immigration, our asylum system was well respected around the world and operated with swiftness, integrity and fairness. In 2014, there were fewer than 10,000 asylum claims pending. Today, there are hundreds of thousands, due to the Liberals' failed policies.
Why has the government, for years, put asylum seekers, including many who make false claims, in hotels at taxpayers' expense? Canadians right across our country would love to hear the answer to that question. Why has the Liberal government, for years, given asylum seekers a more generous health care plan than the one Canadians receive? Numerous constituents in my riding would love the level of coverage given to asylum seekers. How is this fair to Canadian taxpayers and the Canadian people? This is billions of dollars allocated away from other services and infrastructure.
It is unacceptable that the Liberals, by their inaction and rhetoric, facilitated the flow of asylum seekers coming to Canada through other G7 countries. I would argue, as many people would, that the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany are safe, peaceful and democratic countries with functioning asylum systems. When individuals enter Canada through a G7 country, it makes a mockery of our system and undermines our commitment to processing genuine refugees efficiently. These are people who need help.
Canada's once well-perceived, respected and functional immigration system has been ruined by 10 years of abysmal Liberal policy. Millions upon millions of immigrants arrived through all channels without the proper health care, housing or jobs to support them. The Liberals' bringing in millions of new immigrants with not enough jobs available means that youth unemployment is at a staggering high. The Liberals' bringing in millions of new immigrants without the necessary health care capacity means that costs go up and wait times get longer. The Liberals' bringing in millions of new immigrants without the proper housing drives up housing costs, making housing unaffordable.
Both Canadians and immigrants suffer due to these policies. We cannot blame immigrants for the Liberals' failures.
Functionally, our system has lost most, if not all, of its integrity. There is very little enforcement of departures and very little tracking of individuals in the system, and the asylum claim backlog is mountainous. Furthermore, the reports of individuals with serious criminal convictions being let into the country under the government's watch represent a threat to public safety and raise questions about the thoroughness of all background checks being completed.
In closing, the seventh immigration minister in 10 years has offered no solutions. This bill would continue to clog up our immigration system and push the problems down the road. Luckily, Conservatives will end this chaos, fix our once proud immigration system, add more CBSA officers, end and reform the temporary foreign worker program and build an immigration system that Canadians can be proud of once again.