Question to Minister Blair: Unintended consequences of Bills C-45 and 46 for permanent residents

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Thank you, minister, for being with us today. Since Senator Smith asked the question about asylum seekers, I want to share with you Senator Pratte and I visited Roxham Road in Lacolle, Quebec. We were very reassured by what we saw—due process, law, fingerprints, biometrics, questioning and processing. I want to commend our CBSA and RCMP officers for the work they’re doing. I hope you can pass that on to them.

My question comes back to Bill C-45 and Bill C-46. Both bills disproportionately and unintentionally impact permanent residents because of the new lower threshold on serious criminality. We talked about this. This chamber passed amendments on both those bills. The House of Commons rejected those amendments but gave us assurances the matter would be dealt with.

I’m making a proposal to you. For instance, the CBSA officers could first be educated about the impact of serious criminality on permanent residents. Second, you could direct your CBSA officers to look at first-time offenders so they are not automatically deemed inadmissible.

What is your response to these practical proposals? What is your government doing to fulfill the promise that was made to me and us in this chamber?

Hon. Bill Blair, P.C., C.O.M., M.P, Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction: Thank you very much, senator, for your advocacy on this issue and your comments. I will certainly pass them on about the officials we have at Roxham Road.

Senator, when the amendment was first proposed to us, quite frankly, the concern we had was we did not want to diminish serious criminality. Impaired driving is a serious criminal act. We didn’t want to diminish that. I believe it’s more appropriately dealt with under the discretion of the immigration minister and his officials. I know that’s an issue they’re very attuned to.

We have had a number of discussions about that impact, but it was not appropriate, in my humble opinion, to make significant substantive changes to criminal legislation with respect to what constitutes serious criminality as determined by the length of sentences of the maximum penalty to diminish what I think is the public’s concern and abhorrence of certain types of crimes by reducing the sentence for those offences.