Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the people's House on behalf of the good men and women of Miramichi—Grand Lake. My constituents are honest people. They work hard; they follow the rules, and they expect their government to do the same. They believe the purpose of government is not to manage their lives but to protect their freedoms, the freedoms that their parents and grandparents fought to defend. That is why they see through the government's latest deception.
Bill C-12, the so-called strengthening Canada's immigration system and borders act, sounds like something impressive. However, as in most Liberal bills, the title and the truth are strangers. The bill does not strengthen our borders. It strengthens the hands of a tired government that has lost control of spending and is losing control of our streets. It does not fix the broken system; it covers the cracks with slogans. It does not make Canadians safer; it makes them easier to watch, easier to tax and easier to silence.
I come from a part of the country where words still matter. When a man gives his word, he keeps it. When he breaks the law, he goes to jail, not on vacation. The government has broken its word again and again to families who cannot afford a home, to victims who cannot find justice and to newcomers who did everything right and are still waiting years for an answer while illegal migrants go to the front of the line.
The same government that cannot guard our borders now wants to guard our bank accounts. Of course the Liberal government wants to guard our bank accounts: It has not tabled a budget in 18 months, and it has spent all of its own money. The same people who cannot stop fentanyl from coming in want access to Canadians' private data going out. The government calls that progress. It is the fox guarding the henhouse.
Let us talk about safety, because that is what is really at stake here. In my riding, we have seen the human cost of the Liberal government's failure in law and order. Families are shattered by addiction, my own included. No family is left untouched. In our communities, police are doing their best, but they have fewer and fewer tools to support them in doing their jobs and enforcing our laws.
Fentanyl is flowing across an open border faster than compassion can bury the dead, yet the same government that refuses to jail fentanyl dealers wants to lecture the rest of us about fairness and kindness. Compassion without courage is cowardice, and the government has made a policy of cowardice.
Catch-and-release bail remains the law of the land. Drug dealers and gun traffickers get house arrest. Meanwhile, law-abiding hunters and farmers are treated like criminals for owning tools their families have used for generations. This is not justice; it is a failure. My constituents know the Liberal logic has failed us for a decade now, but Conservatives are focused on real change and law that will protect law-abiding Canadians. That is why we are proposing a shift in the Criminal Code to reflect castle law, the notion that a person's home is their castle. We thought that might be easy to sell to the Prime Minister, given that he spent a good part of the last decade living in castles in Europe.
Canadians do not want fentanyl traffickers watching Netflix on their couch. They want them behind bars where they cannot poison children. While the government lets criminals walk free, it punishes the people who play by the rules. The government punishes the same people who plough the roads at 5:00 a.m., coach a hockey team at 7:00 a.m. and still find time to shovel a neighbour's step before work. Those are the people the Prime Minister looks down on. Those are the people he calls “fringe”. He is focused on telling them what kind of car they can drive, but those are the people who built this country and who continue to build it.
Let us talk about immigration. Conservatives believe that Canada is made stronger by those who come here legally, who work hard, who learn our languages, who share our values and love our flag. Immigration must be founded in law, not luck, and in fairness, not favouritism. Under the Liberal government, our system has become a revolving door for those who exploit it and a brick wall for those who respect it. There is no compassion in chaos. There is no justice in disorder. There is no sovereignty without security.
Bill C-12 does nothing to fix any of this. It is a window dressing for failure. It is one more photo op for a government that governs by headline and has not tabled a budget in 18 months. My constituents in Miramichi—Grand Lake expect the Liberal government to spend as much energy dealing with the public safety crisis happening in our communities as it spends on recognizing the terrorist state of Palestine half a world away.
The people of Miramichi—Grand Lake do not ask for much. They do not expect perfection. They expect honesty and hard work. They expect a government that protects their children before it protects its own image. They expect the Prime Minister to spend more time defending Canada's borders than defending his own reputation. Instead, they get a government that values surveillance instead of safety, mistaking kindness for weakness and patriotism for extremism.
The truth is, the bill would give more power to the bureaucrats and less protection to citizens. It would not stop the drug flow, the repeat offenders or the crime in our communities. It would just tighten Ottawa's grip on loosening Canada's borders.
Conservatives will not be fooled, nor will ordinary Canadians. We will fight for real security, the kind that guards both our borders and our freedoms. We will restore mandatory prison time for violent offenders and traffickers. We will end catch-and-release. We will secure our borders, protect our privacy and rebuild Canadians' faith in institutions that are supposed to serve them.
The only thing more dangerous than a government that refuses to defend its borders is a government that no longer believes Canada is worth defending. However, there is hope. There is another path, one led by a man who understands that freedom and order are not opposites but partners. This man is the Leader of the Opposition, and under his leadership, Canada will again have borders that are strong, streets that are safe and a government that minds its own business instead of that of others.
The people I represent are ready for that Canada, a Canada in which government protects what matters and leaves the rest to the good sense of the people. They are ready to trade slogans for strength, control for courage and Liberal wokeism for Conservative common sense, because they know the Liberal government has forgotten that freedom is not granted by politicians but is inherited by patriots.
Bill C-12 is not a solution; it is exactly the problem. The bill is just another example of a government that has lost its way. On behalf of the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake, on behalf of every Canadian who believes in borders, law and liberty, I will vote against the bill. Only Conservatives will restore a Canada that is once again strong, sovereign and free, but not free for the taking.