Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the citizens of Calgary Centre and speak about the new bill that is before us.
The actual title of the bill is 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, but I say we should call Bill C-12 the short Liberal title, “We broke the immigration system, and we messed up public safety, border security and law enforcement, but do not worry; we are back to fix it because we know what we are doing.” In other words, it could be called “I break it then fix it. It is my version of job security”, or “If I did not break it first, how would anyone know how good I am at fixing it?”
It is the classic Liberal playbook: They break the system then hold a press conference to announce they are fixing it. They light the fire then show up with a watering can and call it leadership.
The issues we have to address in the bill are based on several parts of the bill. Bill C-12 has numerous parts to it, but a couple of objectives: security of Canada's borders, of course, and the integrity of the Canadian immigration system. For the sake of the public who may be following, I will break down further what is known as an omnibus bill.
The bill is composed of 11 parts that would amend various statutes, including the Customs Act, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Cannabis Act, the Oceans Act, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and its regulations, the Retail Payment Activities Act, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act.
There is a lot for me to unpack. There is an option for me to spend 10 minutes talking about a plethora of sources and what we can do with the bill going forward. It started with Bill C-2, much of which was pressed on the government by the Trump administration in the United States, which forced us to look at some of the security measures that were not happening in Canada at that point in time. We were pushed to the wall to actually accomplish some things.
The bill came back to the House. The opposition, my colleagues, revisited it, and the Liberal government has taken out of the initial bill a bunch of the quite offensive parts that would really have impeded civil liberties. The government has come back with Bill C-12, which would actually address some of the issues that have long been simmering in Canadian society and have caused significant problems.
Bill C-2 was an error, a Liberal misstep, and now we need to rectify it. If the Liberal government really needs help drafting the kind of legislation that actually works, my Conservative colleagues and I are willing to write the legislation for them to make sure we get the security we need in this country, both in the immigration system, which we have seen explode in the last number of years, and in the border security realm.
There are a number of things going on in the bill for me to pick from. Let us note that it is a fix for the Liberal government's first attempt at the bill, but we must go through fixes in the House at times, and we are willing and happy to do that with this legislation.
I would like to speak to the issues of the illicit drug trade, organized crime, money laundering and human trafficking. For 10 years, the Liberal government has been duly informed of these attacks on Canada's expectations of maintaining peace, order and good government in this country. There are problems that have been evident for a long time.
Money laundering was addressed in budgets delivered by the government, but it never took any action. Dealing with organized crime and the illicit activities that go with it were always kicked down the road. It has been all talk and no action. Let me say that ignoring the avails of organized criminals is, by default, accepting the consequences of organized crime.
Opioids like fentanyl are ruining the lives of Canadians. Fifty thousand Canadians have perished over the last eight years from the use of fentanyl and opioid-related drugs. This has visited misery upon their families, upon our streets and upon our society in general.
Let me share a personal story. Last January, across the street from my office, I went to pick up my dry cleaning, and there was a young man dying on the sidewalk. I was the first person on the scene. I got on my knees and did everything I could to get that man's heart beating. One thing runs through a person's mind: their kids. I have four boys, and that is what ran through my mind at that point in time, that this could be one of my sons.
The situation is a scourge. I do not know the man's backstory but, for 20 minutes, I helped revive him, and I begged other people to help me. That experience does not leave a person. This is something we need to think about, as far as how it impacts all of society.
Imagine losing your sister, brother, or even one of your parents. Imagine losing a loved one with whom you will never again share a meal, a laugh, or a memory, a loved one whose dreams you will never see come true and who you will never get to see grow older. This is what thousands of Canadian families are experiencing every day as they are struck by the scourge of fentanyl. Things could be different, but the current government is failing in its primary mission, which is to protect the public.
Tent cities are growing in every major city in Canada. I represent a riding downtown. The Canadians who live in tent cities are not safe; they are not secure. This is not a future that we see for our kids. It is not a future for any Canadian. The scourge of addiction and homelessness should never have been ignored. This is about priorities, and the priorities for Canadians are very clear.
There seems to be comfort in ignoring the obvious. Obviously, criminals are profiting. What is the number of car thieves considered statistically normal before society pushes back? There are higher insurance costs, higher policing costs and escalating violence; the crimes are not victimless.
One of my proud moments as the member of Parliament for Calgary Centre was my opposition to a second so-called safe consumption site in downtown Calgary, at a place called the Calgary Drop-in Centre, where homeless people can go in Calgary. It is right next to Chinatown, a very important part of downtown Calgary, and to a new development called East Village.
East Village is an area that was built to bring families back downtown. There are lots of nice towers with three-bedroom condos in them. During that time, families were actually leaving because they did not want to raise families on streets that were trafficked by the drug pushers and criminals looking to profit from people's addiction. Imagine one's kids in that type of area.
Think about the homeless people themselves, who have to go through a gauntlet of death in order to get to a homeless shelter. This was never a solution. It was brought forward as a potential solution by the provincial UCP, the United Conservative Party government. The New Democrats, provincially, were all onside, and I will correct my colleague on the other side: The federal Liberals were onside.
I was the lone opposition for some time. Certain members of city council came to join me in that fight, and in the end, there was no safe consumption site opened at the drop-in centre, which serves some of the people in Calgary who need our help the most.
The solution was never a solution. We need to get back to what the real solutions are. The real solution is, of course, to win at the source, and that source is the criminals who are moving this scourge upon our population: the drug pushers, organized crime and the people who are making money at the expense of society.
I propose that we move the bill eventually to committee and actually make those changes that would make the laws more strict for the people who are actually causing the death and destruction in our society and that would make sure we make them pay. Crime should not be a risk-free, profit venture. We need to end this as quickly as possible and make sure the criminals are accountable for their actions.