MP Report: Canada must regain control of its borders
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on September 7, 2018.
Canada’s Immigration department has released figures indicating that illegal border crossings from the U.S. spiked by nearly 23 per cent from June to July of this year. This has brought the number of individuals seeking asylum this year, after entering Canada illegally, to more than 12,000. The government claims everything is under control, but there are obvious signs of mismanagement. This crisis began in January 2017, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a tweet in response to changes to America’s immigration policies. This irresponsible post resulted in a wave of asylum seekers illegally pouring across Canada’s border. These asylum seekers have taken advantage of a loophole in an existing safe third country agreement between Canada and the United States allowing them to claim refugee status if they arrive at border locations other than a regular port of entry. Lest we forget, the U.S. is a safe third country. The influx has caused Canada’s immigration and refugee programs to become more unfair, disorderly and unsustainable. My staff and I have experienced, along with other MP offices, that wait times in the federal immigration department have increased and backlogs have grown. Officials have quietly confirmed that resources have been shuffled from regular programs — including Temporary Foreign Worker, permanent residency, and citizenship applications — to deal with this new, manufactured crisis. The federal government insists that it is going about business as usual, but the prime minister had to remove the minister of immigration from the federal task force on illegal border crossers and replace him with two other cabinet ministers. Not to mention, the amount of money needed to manage this problem continues to grow — an estimated $270 million has already been spent managing this crisis, not including the costs borne by the provinces — and we have not been given a firm idea about what the final costs related to deportations, housing, provincial transfers, and social services will be. Canada is a nation of people that come from diverse cultural backgrounds. I agree that we can be proud of our diversity and must be compassionate when it comes to our differences. However, we cannot be compassionate by encouraging newcomers to arrive illegally and we cannot promote diversity by penalizing those who apply through regular, legal processes. In order to be compassionate as a country, we must ensure that our immigration policies are legitimate, safe and fair. At a time when many Canadians are struggling to make ends meet, and so many newcomers are trying to legally enter Canada, this manufactured problem remains an unfair and unnecessary challenge. We need to regain control of our borders, prioritize refugees from the world’s most dangerous countries, and make sure those who obey the law are treated fairly. This is an issue that our prime minister created and continues to mismanage. It is up to the federal government to put forward a concrete plan to secure our borders and make sure that we have a safe, orderly and compassionate immigration system. (Glen Motz is CPC Member of Parliament for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner constituency.) 8-7
