Canada is an open and generous society. Every year, we welcome hundreds of thousands of immigrants from around the world. They are people who work hard and play by the rules. My father was one of those immigrants, coming here from Hong Kong in the 1950s. My mother was also one of those immigrants, coming here from the Netherlands in the 1960s. They met in Kingston, Ontario, got married, worked hard, and raised a family in Wellington County.
While we have a proud history and tradition of welcoming immigrants who wish to start a new life here, Canada’s generous immigration system is being abused by human smugglers who are clearly targeting Canada. The problem is growing and must be stopped.
Our government will crack down on human smugglers and those who seek to abuse our immigration system. We will not allow human smugglers to dock their boats on our shores with impunity.
That is why the government introduced Bill C-49 Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act. This bill will crack down on human smugglers and deter individuals from abusing our immigration system.
It is designed to ensure law enforcement officers have the tools they need to crack down on human smugglers. The new measures in the proposed legislation will make it easier to prosecute human smugglers, impose mandatory prison sentences on convicted human smugglers, and hold ship owners and operators to account for use of their ships in human smuggling operations.
The bill will also strengthen Canada’s national security by ensuring the detention of illegal migrants to allow for the determination of identity, inadmissibility, and illegal activity.
It also contains numerous measures to deter individuals from using human smugglers to come to Canada. It will ensure that illegal migrants who obtain refugee status can be re-assessed within five years to determine whether they can be returned to their country of origin. It will ensure that the health benefits illegal migrants receive are not more generous than those received by the Canadian public from the government. It will ensure that refugees who were illegal migrants are not able to come back to Canada if they return to their country of origin. Finally, it will prevent illegal migrants from sponsoring family members for five years.
It is unfair to those seeking to come to Canada through legitimate, legal means when others pay human smugglers to jump our immigration queue. When this happens, Canada’s immigration system becomes weaker, less fair, and less balanced, and the Canadian public loses faith in the entire immigration system. That is why these changes are needed and necessary.
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If I can be of any assistance, do not hesitate to contact me at chongm@parl.gc.ca or at (866) 878 5556.