Mr. Speaker, we are debating an issue that goes to the core of our country and our democracy, which are built on the foundational pillars of transparency and accountability. I have been listening to this debate, and the Liberal responses have often been to deflect or to attack the messenger. We only go personal when we cannot defend something based on its merits, when we cannot defend the indefensible. Unfortunately, this seems to apply to multiple issues raised with the government.
Recently, I asked the Prime Minister a question related to Chinese foreign interference. Again, we heard a personal attack. Instead of focusing on the very important matter of foreign interference, he attacked me, and it was so blatantly and sadly transparent. In the latest example, we heard yet another pathetic personal attack from the immigration minister during question period earlier today.
I do not care about what he called me because I have been called worse by better, but I do take offence to the personal attacks that he has levied against my staff. My Toronto constituency office is proud to serve not only my constituents but also other Torontonians who have been failed by the immigration minister's Toronto Liberal colleagues. I could not be more proud of my team for stepping up where the government has failed. All four of my team members in Toronto are former immigrants, and one is a former refugee. Unlike the immigration minister, we actually care about immigrants, who are the people who choose to make Canada their home, who want to work or study here, or who want to visit, often because their families call Canada home and they want to reunite with them.
Far too many people have been failed by IRCC, the department under the immigration minister's watch. People have been caught in some sort of weird purgatory, which has been inhumane while they are separated from their family or missing funerals to say their final goodbye to loved ones. I do not know if it is because of incompetence, ignorance or something else that is driving the immigration minister.
Unlike the immigration minister, those in my office actually care about the integrity of Canada's legal and immigration systems and would never abuse our power to make a mockery of Canada's courts and the professional immigration staff by overruling a deportation order issued by our own department and upheld by the federal court to save a five-time criminally convicted foreign national who boasted of foreign financing to blockade Canadian roads and infrastructure, such as building pipelines. No wonder the government does not take the issue of foreign interference seriously when it is actively abetting it and saving those who are proudly boasting of it.
How can we have a country where there is transparency, responsibility and accountability when we are protecting foreign nationals who are boasting of foreign interference? Under the immigration minister's watch, and that of his predecessors, it is letting in ISIS terrorists, who are in videos dismembering the bodies of the victims they have murdered, and granting them citizenship.
I take the issue of immigration seriously because my parents were refugees who were welcomed to Canada at a time when other countries were closing their borders to people in need. I knew of no better way to honour that incredible act of compassion by Canada then, 40 years ago, than to serve. I volunteered to join the Navy nine and a half years ago because there is no better way than to give back and serve the very country that gave my family everything.
Last year, during my honeymoon, my wife very kindly allowed us to take a detour to South Africa so I could meet with Canada's High Commissioner in Pretoria, because there also is racism there. Racism is perpetuated by locally employed staff hired by the department of immigration. People are perpetuating the injustices of apartheid in Canada's name, and it continues under the watch of the immigration minister. Nothing is being done.
There are Black doctors and nurses from South Africa who want to come here and help heal Canadians to relieve the backlog of patients and surgeries, which are so bad in British Columbia that they have to send Canadian patients to the U.S. What a shame and what a sham. They are being discriminated against, and that continues under this immigration minister's watch.
This is why I have been so adamant in ensuring that we uphold the highest standards of Canada's legal and immigration systems. Again, this goes back to the heart of the issue that we have been debating in regards to SDTC because it is clear that, when we turn a blind eye to corruption, when we turn a blind eye to perhaps, at best, incompetence, we see what happens. We see how it permeates different departments in this country, and it is failing Canadians.
I will use my last few moments to simply address a matter that was also raised with the immigration minister, which was when he attacked the competence of my staff. He said that my office never sent his department anything.
Well, minister should go back to his office to ask his team about the case that was escalated on September 14, 2024. He should ask his office about another case that was escalated to him on October 23, 2024. He should also ask his office about a more recent one, sent just last week, on November 13, 2024, about the Australian doctor I referenced during question period. This Australian doctor of Iranian heritage left the evil regime because she did not want to live under the gender apartheid regime. She went to Australia, got trained and wanted to come to Canada to help heal, but now she is stuck in IRCC purgatory.
When the minister attacks the integrity and competence of my team, and he is pointing at us, he seems to forget that there are also fingers pointing back at him. He should ask his team: Did they intentionally keep it from him, or did they miss it?
