Debates of Oct. 23rd, 2025

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

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

The hon. member for Edmonton Manning has 10 seconds to respond.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I extend my offer of another mirror to this member.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I know it is not exactly tradition to ask for a round of applause in this House, but our Conservative caucus deserves one today. That is because when the Liberals first introduced the bill in its original form, we fought long and hard against this disaster. It was because of our pressure that the Liberals backed down on the worst of it.

Thanks to the work of our Conservative caucus, the government has not given powers to Canada Post to open any mail, including simple letters, without a warrant. Our work stopped the government from banning cash payments and donations of more than $10,000. We stopped the government from having the ability to access personal information without first seeking a warrant. We stopped the government from being able to use Canadians' personal banking information if it suspected that someone was involved, in any way, in money laundering.

This is a list of groups that were insulted by the ham-fisted first attempt at the bill. In June, 300 organizations were opposed to the government overreach included in the first version of the bill, and it is quite a list. It included the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Church of Canada, the Migrant Rights Network, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and OpenMedia. They are all opposed. It is hard to believe how many people the Liberals could possibly offend. They have to work hard to cause this kind of outrage.

However, we are not done. There is more. The bill was also opposed by the HIV Legal Network, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Climate Action Network Canada, the Centre for Free Expression, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council. Even with this newer, improved bill, there is still opposition from the likes of Amnesty International Canada and other organizations.

These groups are working to protect civil liberties, data privacy and refugee rights, and they all strongly oppose the legislation. They say it tries to fast-track, rather than address, many aspects of the previous bill, which was called Bill C-2.

It is shocking that the Privacy Commissioner said the Liberals did not even consult him before the bill was considered. They did not consult him when they were trying to grant themselves sweeping new powers. They wanted to access Canadians' personal information from service providers, including banks and telecoms. We are talking about access to vital personal information without so much as a warrant.

That is the kind of overreach that the Liberal government would have love to see. I know Canadians are rightly suspicious of government overreach, and they should be. We have seen how the Liberal government tries to take an inch and turn it into a mile.

For example, let us look at what the Liberals are doing to law-abiding gun owners. The government is attacking law-abiding gun owners. In a typical Liberal overreach, the government is trying to force these good citizens to give up the legally purchased and owned guns that they use for hunting and sport shooting. This is the type of government control that alarms Canadians, and it is typical of the Liberals. They want an inch, and it somehow turns into a mile. Conservatives will continue to fight on that front. We will continue fighting so that law-abiding gun owners are not punished for wanting to hunt or go sport shooting.

At the same time, the government still refuses to have mandatory prison sentences for gangsters who use guns to commit crimes. We know that the vast majority of gun crimes are committed using guns that have been illegally smuggled across the border. It is not grandpa with his gopher gun who is committing crimes, yet the Liberals want to go after law-abiding gun owners. Can Canadians believe that? It is incredible. It is almost unbelievable.

Here is another classic example of the Liberal government's overreach: its ridiculous EV mandate. If the Liberals get their way, by 2035, under the EV mandate, Canadians will not be able to buy new gas-powered or diesel-powered vehicles. Can we imagine that? This mandate is a punitive tax on drivers, because those EVs are very expensive, but it is so typical of these “Ottawa knows best” Liberals.

The thing that gets me is that, right now, hybrid vehicles are actually fairly popular in Canada. This mandate would outlaw—

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

May I interrupt the hon. member? Someone's phone is ringing, and it may disturb the interpreters.

We found it.

The hon. member for Edmonton Griesbach.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, the vehicle manufacturers of Canada are dead set against this EV mandate, as are all the major car manufacturers. I have talked to representatives from the industry, and they are all dead set against it. How does it even make sense that in a climate as cold as Canada's, the government would force such an insane law upon us?

I have a friend who has a Tesla. He loves it in the summer. He barely even drives it in the winter because when he turns on the heater, as he tells me, it sucks so much of the battery that he worries he will not be able to get back and forth from work. Now the government has paused the mandate for a year. That is true, but it needs to be killed completely, and Conservatives will continue to fight this government overreach.

Now, let us get back to the legislation at hand. The Liberals claim that the new bill, Bill C-12, would crack down on precursor chemicals, which is great. Those are the chemicals that are used to manufacture illegal drugs. At the same time, the Liberal health minister has recently refused to rule out approving additional legal drug consumption sites.

This summer I toured the area around a major drug consumption site in my riding of Edmonton Griesbach with the Edmonton Police Service. To say it was a disaster is an understatement. These sites are allegedly, supposedly, used by addicts to safely inject drugs, including fentanyl, but the reality is that they are just not working. Unfortunately, on my tour, we noticed someone right outside the consumption site in my riding of Edmonton Griesbach injecting drugs. This site, I might add, is located not that far from a day care. What the Liberals are doing with these sites is shocking and appalling.

I have talked with police, and they say that these sites increase the amount of drug activity in the area. The drug dealers are naturally drawn to the area; they know they can sell their wares there. It is like a magnet for them, and we can see the sad, dejected people who are struggling with this illness. It has resulted in a spike in violent crime in the area, including murders. In addition, for all the people who argue that there is so-called safe supply, there is nothing safe about injecting drugs into one's system, especially fentanyl.

It is especially bad in Chinatown. My Edmonton riding includes half of Chinatown, and it is really tragic to see the effect on a community that was once thriving, vibrant and very safe. There was a bakery there that had been in business for 60 long years, but because of the kind of crime linked to these injection sites, the store had to close. They could not keep the addicts out of their shop. They had been broken into. Crime was rampant, and it caused this Canadian small business to close. That is so sad.

Now in Chinatown, the most common sight seems to be “for lease” and “for rent” signs, and it was once such a safe, thriving neighbourhood. I have seen the tragedy of people slumped in the streets, obviously struggling with addiction, and it is largely due to these consumption sites that the Liberals like to encourage. It is shocking that they encourage these sites.

Does it not make sense that, if we truly are a caring society, rather than pushing people into these sites, we do the humane thing and help people recover? Do we not owe that to the most vulnerable in our society? Do we not owe them that, as opposed to, in some cases, watching them die on the street?

As I have mentioned, the original version of the bill, Bill C-2, included significant changes to the immigration system. My riding has a significant amount of immigration casework. I live in a very diverse riding. I recently hosted an event to welcome new Canadian citizens in Edmonton, but we know the Liberals have been very poor on that front. They have broken the immigration system. Conservatives will continue to fight on all these fronts.

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

Madam Speaker, one of the things I have noticed from Conservatives is that they like to make a statement. It is somewhat misleading, and I am being kind. Let me give a specific example. The member makes reference to safe injection sites, which are under the jurisdiction of provincial governments. Other Conservative members have made reference to injection sites' being around, for example, schools and playground areas.

The Conservatives try to blame this on the federal government, yet it is a provincial and municipal, in particular provincial, responsibility. The Conservatives are suggesting the federal government should override provincial jurisdiction, but instead of trying to be bold and say what it is, they try to give the false impression that Ottawa is responsible for the matter.

I am wondering whether the member can provide his explanation as to why the Conservatives tend to want to mislead Canadians on important issues.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is not misleading; the Liberals agree with the sites wholeheartedly. More recently, the health minister refused to rule out injection sites, even near day cares. It is shocking.

I rode with the frontline police officers who have to police around these sites, and they are just disgusted. It has made their lives so difficult, and if the Liberals had some leadership, they would be vehemently opposed to these things in order to support our good law enforcement people.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will give my colleague a chance to put on his earpiece so that he can understand one of the two official languages of the House.

My question is about the number of officers the government promised to hire. In April, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to hire 2,000 more officers: 1,000 CBSA officers and 1,000 RCMP officers. Last week, six months later, he repeated what he had already promised during the election campaign.

I would like to understand the Conservative Party's position. Are the Conservatives prepared to say that this situation is unacceptable? We are constantly being promised hires that never materialize. I would like to hear the Conservatives' opinion on the number of officers to be hired and when these hires should be made in order to further secure our borders.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is so typical of the Liberals that they promise and promise but do not fulfill. We have a problem at the borders. We saw what happened with Roxham Road, for instance: People poured in, and now we are facing challenges for housing, for schooling and for many things. “Overpromise and underdeliver” is the motto of the Liberal Party of Canada.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, we are looking at another border security bill, and I am reflecting back on what we have seen over the past 10 years in my riding of Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies.

There was the largest drug lab bust ever in Canadian history in the community of Falkland, which some referred to as being in the middle of nowhere. I would argue that it is actually in the middle of everywhere, only kilometres off the main highway, Highway 97, which runs north-south completely through the province of British Columbia, and only minutes away from the Trans-Canada Highway, exactly halfway from Vancouver to Calgary. It is the middle of everywhere, yet after that drug bust, we have heard little more than that one arrest was made. There was a massive drug bust, the largest in Canada, and only one arrest.

Would the member say this is an example of the Liberals' failure to address our border security and the drug problem in Canada?

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I could not have said it better myself; that is exactly it. The member nailed it. We have a serious problem with fentanyl, and the Liberals are doing very, very little to address this very grave problem.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

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.

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

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister made a commitment to Canadians to deal with strengthening Canada's borders and to deal with immigration and the area of stabilization, in particular dealing with asylum seekers. Bill C-12 would do just that. It is a fulfillment, in good part, of a commitment that was made.

We are looking for co-operation from opposition members, because this is a minority government, in recognizing that this legislation is a significant move forward. I would suggest that this bill, combined with the commitment of having 1,000 new border control officers and 1,000 new RCMP personnel, would provide more security for Canadians by securing our borders and making our streets a safer place.

Would the member not agree that to get the legislation through, we need a high sense of co-operation? Are there any specific amendments the member would like to see with respect to Bill C-12?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is an important question.

As the member across the way will understand fully, we are co-operating very clearly on getting Bill C-12 to committee. Without the offensive parts of Bill C-2 in it, we are moving this bill forward. However, a number of issues only have half measures, and we need to make sure they fully address the problems faced by Canadians, not just those visited upon us by the new U.S. administration, which is pushing the government to act. We understand that and we are willing to get this bill to committee. Can we make changes to the drug-pushing laws? Can we make changes to the half measures, as opposed to the immigration asylum system, that are part of this bill?

We would love to see this bill roundly discussed and those amendments clearly made at committee. We will be working toward that end.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is also concerned about the fight against crime. We have a few ideas on the table. We have talked about removing the religious exemption for hate speech from the Criminal Code. We have also talked about a bill to ensure that trials for intimate partner crimes are not abandoned because of the Jordan decision.

The member spoke about street gangs. My colleague from Rivière-du-Nord has introduced a bill on that subject to facilitate the seizure of property belonging to individuals convicted of a gang-related offence.

Has the member looked at those bills? To what extent would he be willing to work with the Bloc Québécois on these important crime issues?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a good question.

Our job is to work with all other parties to improve the bills that are presented to us. That is our job. The member is talking about another bill. It is important to take a look at it and take it under consideration.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Liberals want to talk all the time about the 1,000 RCMP officers they are going to be hiring. I submitted an Order Paper question to discover how many RCMP officers we are capable of training in one year. Currently, we are training 34 per year, and that could ramp up to 58 per year. Given that, it would take 20 years to get the 1,000 RCMP officers the Liberals claim they are hiring operational.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague has any comments about these bait-and-switch announcements the Liberal Party puts up all the time.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. I thank my colleague for arriving with the data. It is important because making announcements is something we have talked about. As I said in my speech, it is all talk and no action. It is the same with the Canadian Armed Forces and the notion of improving the Canadian Armed Forces and getting back to a base. The Liberals talk about increasing the numbers, yet recruitment does not show any increase in the numbers whatsoever. It is the same with police. The Liberals talk about having 1,000 more police and border officials at customs, yet the hiring practice does not seem to be happening at all.

The government seems to want to stack a whole bunch of bureaucrats in Ottawa at the thought level without any of the people who have to deliver the services to Canadians at the ground level. That is a mistake of the current government. We need more action and less talk.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise again in the House of Commons to represent the people of Peace River—Westlock.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-12, which sounds a lot like Bill C-2. Bill C-2 has been replaced by this bill. It was less than a month ago that I stood in this place and gave a speech on Bill C-2, during which I outlined a number of deficiencies that I saw with the bill. When I heard the Liberals would be reintroducing Bill C-2 as Bill C-12, I mentioned a number of things for consideration as possible fixes and the concerns I had with the bill. I was hopeful they had the opportunity to listen to my speech and would address a number of the concerns I had. Unfortunately, it does not look like the Liberals listened, once again.

I want to address a number of things that were asked of us. At the time, the member for Winnipeg North pointed out that Canada Post needed to be able to open people's mail without a warrant, but then he said it was with a warrant. Interestingly, that has now been dropped. I guess that was something the Liberals recognized as a problem. I talked about the banning of cash payments and donations over $10,000 and said we had concerns with that, and that piece has also been dropped. Kudos to the government on that. The pressure from Conservatives caused that to happen as well. Then we talked a lot about concerns regarding warrantless access to information. These are some of the most dangerous parts of Bill C-2 and they have been dropped, and I am pleased about that.

At the time that I gave my speech, about a month ago, I was reprimanded and chastised by the members opposite, who said that we should get out of the way and let the bill pass quickly. We saw right away that there were major concerns with Bill C-2. I remember, in particular, that I was challenged on allowing Canada Post to open people's mail, as if we needed this to fight the fentanyl being mailed out. I am interested in knowing if members opposite still hold those positions and why these things have been dropped. I can tell the minister that my constituents and those across the country thought this was a dangerous inclusion in the bill, and I am happy to see that it is gone.

We have always worked hard to fight for everyday Canadians, and one of the other areas of concern was about the $10,000 donations. We see that the government continually goes after the freedoms that Canadians enjoy in Canada, and we see its subtle and dogged attack on things like charitable organizations in this country, whether it is through the recommendations that came out of the finance committee last year about stripping religious organizations of their charitable status, the Canada summer jobs changes or the charitable attestation changes. Now we see a ban on cash donations. The Conservatives will always stand up for the charitable sector and the good work it does.

The bulk of my speech last month was about the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the changes being made to it. I had not had the time to look at it in detail. As members know, when there are amendments to a piece of legislation in the abstract, it is often difficult to see what they are, but since then, I have had a chance to put them in their place in the act and see what kind of effect they would have. I was concerned at the time about the passport markings the Conservative government had put in place and the ability to revoke the passports of folks who are registered to the sex offender registry, and there has been zero action by the government over the last 10 years on either marking passports or revoking them.

I have been digging into this a bit, and I discovered that one of the issues is that the RCMP, which holds the registry, is unable to share this information with other levels of government, other organizations and other law enforcement agencies. The bill says that we could share it with other law enforcement agencies, but the challenge is that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is not law enforcement. The folks who issue passports are not law enforcement, so the bill is unclear. I do not think it will solve the problem of passport marking and the revocation of passports based on the registered sex offender list. This continues to be a problem.

I reached out to stakeholders who work in this space, like the folks from Ratanak International, based out of Vancouver, who flag this for me regularly. Registered sex offenders, convicted sex offenders, here in Canada often go abroad, likely to perpetrate more crimes. Countries around the world are pleading with Canada to alert them that a registered sex offender is coming or to prevent them from coming in the first place by withholding their passport.

I noted last time in debate the reality that a passport has, in the opening page, an endorsement of the individual. It endorses the individual and asks those viewing the passport to give the person free passage through their country. I am not convinced that folks in the sex offender registry are necessarily entitled to a passport. The law has been changed already so we can revoke these passports, but the Liberal government has failed to do this over the last number of years.

The RCMP was able to share with me how many notifications it had of sex offenders travelling. I see there is an update to the notification process. In 2022, the RCMP was notified 1,700 times. In 2023, it was notified 2,200 times. In 2024, it was notified 3,300 times. That was for registered sex offenders travelling abroad. However, the RCMP noted that it is unable to track the number of sex offenders who leave the country, given that if a sex offender does not register to do this, the RCMP does not know. We often know when they come back, as they seem to get flagged in the system then. As they come in, border security gets notified, but we do not know how many leave. Also, the RCMP was unable to ascertain how many times a registered sex offender failed to register when they left, because it does not track this.

For most of the last decade, countries, particularly the United States, have been begging and pleading with us to share this information with them. I think the bill would cover that. The changes the bill would make would allow our law enforcement to share with American law enforcement that a registered sex offender is travelling across the border. It is a particular annoyance for the Americans, and I understand that at a time when we are trying to mend relationships with the United States, rectifying this particular annoyance is the thing to do.

I would point out that I had flagged this for a number of years prior to this situation. I noted that, proactively, the United States has been sharing this information with us. In the first half of 2022, 165 Americans convicted of child sexual offences were allowed entry into Canada. We know this because the U.S. has a whole system to notify Canada that these folks are coming. Another question is whether we can stop them or refuse them entry, but that is another question altogether.

I look forward to seeing some of the questions I have about the bill clarified in committee. I also look forward to seeing if we need an amendment to fix the passport issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am actually encouraged. The member seems to have a deep amount of respect for the RCMP. He cited statistics and so forth, and he talked very positively about the RCMP.

I want to share with him something that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press last week, on October 17. It references how the leader of the Conservative Party called the leadership of the RCMP “despicable”. This is something his leader said about the leadership of the RCMP. I agree with the member, who talked about how reliable and valuable the RCMP is in terms of providing service to Canadians. In fact, it is recognized worldwide as a wonderful organization from a legal, security and intelligence—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to give the member for Peace River—Westlock a chance to respond.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is mighty rich for the member opposite to be so concerned about the reputation of the RCMP now, given that his former leader, Mr. Trudeau, said the entire operation was systemically racist. In terms of the comments that my leader made, I particularly remember the commissioner of the RCMP being pressured by Justin Trudeau to release the names of the firearms that were used in Nova Scotia.

The actions of the leadership of the RCMP, I think, are indefensible in many instances.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I just want to say that I find it rich of the Liberals to add a day of debate on Bill C-12 and then not put up any speakers for the day. When it comes time to ask questions after a speech, we can debate the ideas that were presented, but we cannot deny the fact that the Conservatives are addressing the issue on the agenda. I find it especially deplorable that the Liberals are not taking advantage of an opportunity they created to discuss the bill before us, their bill, which is highly questionable at that.

In that regard, the previous version of the bill, Bill C-2, included a part 16 on the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. It authorized the collection of personal information for individuals suspected of funding terrorist or criminal activities. I understand that this was a special circumstance, but did my colleague think it was acceptable to include such a measure in the previous version of the bill?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I gave a thoughtful speech challenging some of the things that are right in the legislation, and the defence of the RCMP.

One other issue that I want to bring up in regard to the leadership of the RCMP is the case of Rhonda Blackmore. There are a lot of questions that concern me around this situation, with the treatment of Rhonda Blackmore and her removal as the head of F Division. There are questions about the leadership of the RCMP, and they continue to be unanswered. I look forward to seeing what responses come from there.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on the subject of enforcement and crime in this country, I want to highlight and get the member's thoughts on another act of vandalism that we saw in Edmonton against a church. This was St. Clare's Parish, with some very offensive graffiti sprayed on the church. Stained glass windows were broken. I know that in this member's own riding, there have been instances of attacks on churches.

When it comes to our police officers, I know many are very frustrated by the fact that they try to enforce the law, yet the government has let them down by creating a framework in which criminals are repeatedly released on bail.

I wonder if the member wants to share his thoughts on these acts of vandalism against churches and how we can support police officers who want to enforce the law.