44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2023 02:00PM
- Jun/14/23 11:42:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again to Bill C-35. As I said in my previous speech about this bill, no parent is perfect. I can attest to that first-hand; I make lots and lots of parenting mistakes. However, parents are the best proxy decision-makers for their children because parents have a deep and natural love for their children. This love that parents have for their kids generally ensures a rectitude of intention. “Rectitude of intention” means that parents always want what is best for their children. If they make mistakes, they at least do so from a place of love, wanting to give their children the very best that they can.
I trust parents to make decisions for and about their children. There are, of course, extreme cases in which external authorities have to take over parental decision-making, but the possibility of these extreme and rare exceptional cases should not be used to justify a general policy of having the state interpose itself between children and their parents. While the state can aspire to a kind of general goodwill for all people, this general goodwill is nothing compared to the fierce and natural love that leads parents to always want the best for their children.
Before I come to the particulars of the child care issue, I want to say that we are seeing broader challenges in many areas to the idea that parents should be trusted to shape the direction of their own families. We see movements to have teachers, school counsellors and therapists facilitate dramatic and potentially irreversible changes in the lives of young people without the inclusion of parents, in fact with the explicit exclusion of parents. Why does anyone want to exclude parents from important conversations about the lives of their children? Parents love their children and want the best for them. Of course parents make mistakes, but someone motivated by deep love is less likely to make mistakes and is certainly quicker to correct their mistakes than an official, institutional bureaucracy driven by politics and constrained by inertia. That is why everything that happens in a school, in a child care centre or in any out-of-home program should happen in the context of an openness to conversation with parents. I remember my parents' telling me, as a child, “If anyone tells you not to tell mommy or daddy anything, make sure to tell us right away.” That is still very good advice.
This country has a history of parental alienation, of a state bureaucracy taking children away from their parents in an explicit effort to disconnect them from the culture and values of their families. This was wrong. Today, I am hearing from families, and, most recently, especially from Muslim families, who are concerned about parents' not being included in conversations about how the state and state institutions are relating to their children. This is something we have to be vigilant about.
Going forward, Conservatives will always stand on the side of parental choice and on the side of not excluding parents from important conversations that impact the lives of their children, because the role of the family is at the heart of a Conservative belief in the importance of subsidiarity. The federal government should not stick its nose into the business of the province, and neither the federal government nor the provincial government should stick its nose into what is properly the business of the family. In our federation, this constant sticking of noses into other people's business has led to redundant and inefficient expenditures in many areas and has obscured what should be clear lines of accountability.
With respect to parents and parental involvement in the lives of children, I noted one line in particular from the minister's speech about this child care program. It was a quotation from someone else that she read, but a quotation that I think she read approvingly. She said of these programs, “They are shaping our little people into who they are going to be in the future.” That is undoubtedly true. Part of the reason parents want to choose so judiciously what child care options they select is that child care providers do play a role in shaping critical aspects of how a child sees the world. All education is informed in some way by underlying world views. There is no such thing as value-neutral education, so parents will generally want to pursue an alignment between the values they are teaching at home and the values being promoted in programs outside the home. Therefore, when the range of options is narrowed, it becomes harder and harder for parents to find that alignment. Choice and flexibility in child care make it easier for parents to find programs to facilitate a good alignment between child care provider and family.
Parents should have an opportunity to seek to pass their core beliefs on to their children. Of course children grow up, and there is a natural process of children being exposed to more of the world as they grow more and more, in due course coming to their own distinct conclusions on things. That was certainly my experience growing up. However, parents can and should be able to provide an intellectual foundation that allows children to know where they come from and receive the wisdom of those who love them most and best.
In my last speech, I focused on the practical and economic arguments for choice in child care, but there is more to it than just that. I believe that parents should be able to make decisions about the kinds of child care arrangements that are best aligned with the economic and practical needs of their families, but even more importantly, I believe in choice in child care because I believe in respecting the role of parents making choices about how they will seek to train children in virtues, traditions and practices that are particular to their families. Children should begin life knowing and growing upon the firm ground of their families, and this requires that parents are able to shape the environments that their children are in.
Having said that, I would like to shift to another point, that of workforce participation. This has come up a few times in different ways in different speeches that have been given tonight. Liberals champion, as a feature of this plan, that it would increase workforce participation. By increasing the cost the taxpayers pay and channelling those dollars into a particular model of out-of-home child care, this puts more financial pressure on families that do not use the state system, which likely forces some of them to opt to enter the workforce.
By taxing all and subsidizing some, this approach tips the scale in a certain direction, and I think the argument goes that this tipping of the scale leads to higher levels of workforce participation, which is identified as one of the goals. The Conservatives' preferred policy is one that supports families without tipping the scale. That is that it finds ways of supporting families that do not involve the arbitrary redistribution of resources among families based on their different child care choices.
On the issue of workforce participation, I want to clarify an important distinction. Workforce participation measures the proportion of people who want to work while the employment rate measures the proportion of those people who are actually working. Therefore, people who choose not to work are not considered unemployed. They are considered not in the labour force. People are considered unemployed if they are in the labour force, that is if they wish to work, but they are not able to find a job. Again, people are not in the workforce if they are choosing not to be in the workforce, and people are unemployed if they are choosing to be in the workforce, wanting to work, but are not able to find a job.
Clearly, we should seek to minimize the unemployment rate. We should seek to have as low as possible the number of people who want to work and who are not working. We want as high an employment rate as possible, but it is not obvious to me that we should always aim for the highest possible workforce participation rate. There are many good and legitimate reasons why people might choose not to be in the workforce. It could be because they are studying, retired, of sufficient means and would rather spend their time volunteering, or attending to the needs of their families. All of these are, of course, forms of work, but they do not formally count as being in the workforce. That is that they are not forms of work that are commodified.
There is nothing wrong with people making these kinds of choices to opt out of the workforce. We should not be so narrowly mercantile as to suppose that the only way for a person to live a good and productive life is by generating income and paying taxes. Rather, we should focus on the advancement of overall happiness and well-being on the discovery of the true, the good and the beautiful, and on facilitating this by trying to build a society in which people have the prosperity and the freedom to maximizing their own happiness and well-being with choices.
I do not see any reason why we should set a goal of public policy to achieve the greatest possible participation in the formal workforce. If someone has well-considered reasons for not working inside the formal commodified marketplace, such as the ones I described earlier, I do not see a problem. Why should the state seek to push or incentivize someone to move in a different direction than they wish to go when it comes to workforce participation? Ideally, I would like to see people be able to study if and when they want, to take time off work if and when they want, to retire if and when they want and to stay home with their children if and when they want.
For plenty of practical reasons, this is not always the case, and personal preference is not the only factor that shapes our lives, but why should the state aim for the highest possible labour participation rate by increasing taxes and subsidizing those choices that involve higher workforce participation? Why tip the scale in this direction?
The state should aim to allow people to make their own choices, presumably choices that they believe will maximize their own happiness and the happiness of their families. If a woman or a man, having the means to do so and with a view to their own assessment of what is best for their family, decides that they want to work part time or not work at all for a period of time for the sake of being with their children or for some other purpose, I do not understand why we in the House of Commons should presume to tell them that there is something wrong with that choice, nor should we in the House of Commons presume to tell a dual-income family that there is anything wrong with their choice.
However, the government's policy is to use higher taxes to subsidize certain kinds of families to make certain kinds of child care choices over others. Increasing taxes to subsidize certain kinds of choices over others does not advance freedom or choice.
The Conservative policy of offering direct support to families allowed parents to have the means to freely make their own choices, motivated by love for their children and unfettered by economic coercion. It is support for all families without tipping the scale.
Regardless of the particulars of the child care policy, nobody has made the argument in this place, as far as I have heard, that higher workforce participation is a good in and of itself. Presumably, existing retirement and post-secondary support programs are an acknowledgement that higher workforce participation is not always desirable. If the government cancelled existing retirement supports, I suspect workforce participation would then go up, but this would still be a bad policy, because it would limit the ability of the retirees to choose to leave the commodified workforce during their golden years.
Of course there is a gender dimension to this workforce participation discussion. Statistics suggest that women are more likely to opt out of the workforce for some portion of their child-raising years. I suspect that we would find women are also more likely to opt out of the workforce for post-secondary education, since right now women are attending university at much higher rates than men.
Certainly, we should seek to ensure all people are able to make their choices freely, without any kind of coercion. Regardless of the reasons or the circumstances that lead people to want to opt out of the workforce, we should seek to maximize choice and flexibility for everyone, but it seems to me to be grossly paternalistic for the state to presume some kind of false consciousness operating in the choices that many women make in this respect. The state should seek to promote prosperity and freedom; how people then choose to use that prosperity and freedom inside or outside the workforce should not be the business of the state.
I want at this point to highlight some of the key points I made previously in this debate.
Number one is that this bill substantively does nothing, other than establish an advisory council. All of the agreements are already in place; this bill is merely an active self-congratulation by the government.
The government has put in place a system that is not effectively achieving its own stated goals. In fact, what we see with the current system is that by subsidizing child care but in fact not sufficiently to align with the promises it has made, and at the same time by regulating prices, it has put a great deal of strain on child care providers.
The people one would expect to be most enthusiastic about this program, child care providers, have actually been in many cases the most vocal in expressing concerns about it. What they are saying is that combining subsidies, at the level they are, with price regulation makes it very difficult for child care operators to invest in and grow their business and offer those additional spaces over time.
What we are seeing is a kind of ticking time bomb created in the system: The government is over-promising at the same time that it is imposing enormous strains on those who are actually providing child care services.
I would warn the parents who feel they are benefiting in the short term, because some families have seen reductions in their costs while many families are still on waiting lists and many families are paying higher taxes because of the current government, those who are experiencing short-term reductions in costs, that the structural damage the government is doing to the child care system, by putting strains on child care providers, is not going to allow child care to deliver in the long term.
One of the speakers on the government said that this is about establishing a generational long-term promise. Not at all. What the government is doing is using deficit spending to underfund while over-promising child care operators, who now face enormous strain, cannot bring in new staff, cannot expand, and creating a system that is simply not going to work over the long term. It will not fulfill the promises it has made. We have seen this in many aspects of this government's record, the over-promising and under-delivering. I would encourage those who are following this debate to listen to child care providers to hear from those who are working in the system.
When we raised these concerns with the minister, she asked why we were so negative. She said that Conservatives are always criticizing and being negative about the things the government is trying to do. I think our job in this place is to tell the truth, even if telling the truth about the trajectory of government policy involves pointing out that there are flaws and risks. We hear this accusation a lot from the government by the way. A couple of years ago, when our leader was talking about how overspending was going to lead to inflation, the Liberals said we were being negative, but it was true.
We will continue to speak truth to power and highlight the problems of the child care approach.
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- Jun/15/23 12:00:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight about a grave problem involving our immigration system and an injustice done to a number of well-meaning students who came to this country with the best of intentions. They were victims of fraud, and they are now being revictimized by the Liberal government.
I want to start tonight by recognizing the leadership of the Ontario Gurdwaras Committee and my friends at the Malton Gurdwara in particular. They brought this issue to my attention and helped facilitate interactions for me with a number of the students who were affected by this issue. I know that many people in the Sikh community and other communities have been speaking out about this, but I wanted to provide that particular recognition because it was through leadership that I became aware of this issue, met some of the students affected and was able to support this advocacy in the House as well.
What happened in these cases that we are talking about is that students were given fake acceptance letters to real colleges here in Canada by an unscrupulous consultant in India. Those students thought they had received real acceptance letters. They provided those fake acceptance letters to Canadian immigration. For whatever reason, Canadian immigration failed to detect this fraud. They did not verify with the colleges, I suspect. They issued real visas based on fake acceptance letters. Then these students came to Canada.
When they got to Canada, the students were told there was a mix-up; the school was full. However, the students knew that, as a condition of their visa, they had to go to school right away. The consultants then offered them another opportunity with a smaller college that was less well-known, saying they could study there instead.
These students came to Canada, and they were duped through no fault of their own. They put a lot of money into being able to come to Canada. In many cases, these were poor families that would have sacrificed enormously to allow a member of their family to come to Canada and have this opportunity.
The students came here, and they studied; in many cases, they got work permits. Then, just as they were applying for permanent residency, somehow, the government found what had in fact been the government's own error. The government was able to look back and say, “Oh, actually, we screwed up. We gave you real visas on the basis of fake acceptance letters.”
The students have been threatened with deportation. We have seen a number of instances of stays of deportation. Very clearly, if we look at the timelines, this has only happened following the public advocacy of the opposition. Great promises have been made by the minister and others, saying that they would treat these folks fairly. They should not worry. They are going to do it on a case-by-case basis, and so forth.
The reality is that those commitments were only made in response to heightening pressure from the community, engaging with the Conservative opposition. In fact, we put forward motions to study this at committee, and these motions were repeatedly voted down by the Liberals and the NDP. However, from what I understand now, the committee is finally able to move forward on this.
There is a question of the fairness to these students, but there is also a fundamental question of the integrity of our immigration system. How did this screw-up happen? Let us make sure these students are taken care of, but let us also address how such a massive screw-up took place. Somebody could simply photoshop fake acceptance letters, which should be a pretty easy thing to do, and was able to fool immigration, potentially hundreds of times. I would like an answer to that.
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- Jun/15/23 12:05:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his questions because they allow me to share some news and to validate some of the concerns that he expressed with today's announcement by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, which addressed these concerns around the report of international students and graduates facing removal from Canada. As he said, letters of acceptance submitted as part of their study permit applications were determined to be fraudulent.
The minister today announced that he has created a task force that will see officials at IRCC working closely with the Canada Border Services Agency to identify victims of fraud. He has directed officials to approach every incident on a case-by-case basis and to do so with expediency, flexibility and compassion. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides the minister with discretionary authority, which he has indicated he will exercise in the present context.
Therefore, if the facts of an individual case are clear that an international student came to Canada with a genuine intent to study and without knowledge of the use of the fraudulent documentation or participation in criminal activity, instruction has been given for immigration officers to issue a temporary resident permit to that individual. This will ensure that these well-intentioned students and graduates remain in Canada. It will also ensure that they are not subjected to the five-year ban from re-entering Canada that normally follows in cases of misrepresentation. While this process runs its course, a preliminary temporary resident permit will be issued as required in order to prevent an imminent deportation.
While we are focused, of course we want to support those who have done nothing wrong. It should also be kept in mind that there are also other foreign nationals who had no intent of pursuing higher education, including some involved in organized crime who may have used fraudulent acceptance letters to take advantage of our immigration system. Officials are currently investigating to identify the innocents and those who are aware of the fraud.
IRCC has always taken fraud seriously and it is working with its local and international partners to detect and deter fraud, including working even more closely with post-secondary institutions, provinces and territories, and organizations representing our colleges and universities. The minister of IRCC is taking every opportunity to improve our detection of fraud and crackdown on dishonest consultants. IRCC is also continuously improving the system to detect the evidence of fraud. When fraud tips are reported, IRCC will continue to look into each one of them.
To uphold our system, a full review of the international students program is actually under way. The review aims to strengthen program integrity and enhance protections to address the students' vulnerability, unethical recruitment and unscrupulous actors.
As I am sure the member is also aware, the government has cracked down on dishonest consultants and is requiring that they be licensed under the college of immigration consultants. Our government has made investments to improve oversight, strengthen enforcement and increase accountability.
For students specifically in India, IRCC has also run media campaigns to deter fraud. As recently as March of this year, IRCC ran a campaign in India targeting potential visitors, students and workers to decrease the misuse of permits—
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- Jun/15/23 12:09:22 a.m.
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The hon. member's time is up.
The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
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- Jun/15/23 12:09:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would just put two follow-up points to the parliamentary secretary.
The first is that it took far too long for the government to respond at all. Those who were involved and were victims of this had been meeting and were trying to engage with local Liberal MPs in the greater Toronto area for a long time to get a resolution. It should not have taken questions in question period to get the government to change course on this. I am glad the official opposition was able to lead on this, but it should not have taken so long for the government to act.
Second, I would like to hear an answer about how this happened in the first place. I think we need to know not just about the issue of justice for the students, although that is critically important, but also how there was such a significant hole in our immigration system's integrity. Is the parliamentary secretary trying to get to the bottom of how this happened?
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- Jun/15/23 12:10:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to clarify a few points for the member.
First of all, I think that, collectively, all members of the House are generally concerned about the situation that has arisen over the last few months. I can assure the member opposite that several members on the side of the government have been strong advocates on this.
The member refers to one instant where motions were tried by his colleagues in committee. I would remind everyone who is watching this evening that legislation has precedence in committee, and we were in clause-by-clause at the time the filibustering was happening by members of his own party.
However, we are here today to announce that we will continue to advocate for those who are victims of fraud, and our government is taking every action.
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- Jun/15/23 12:11:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we hear so often from the government's talking points about how seriously it allegedly takes the issue of foreign interference, and I implore them to please stop with the talk and show Canadians some action.
Honestly, I shudder to think what the Chinese Communist Party must think of the Liberal government's handling to date of foreign interference. They must be wondering just how pathetic this government can get with its flimsiest of efforts to crack down on foreign operatives roaming around our country. It seems of little consequence that Chinese operatives are free to interfere in our electoral system, intimidate our citizens and open any number of police stations across the country, all at will and even with some financial abetting from our government.
The recent bungling must have sent Beijing into convulsions of laughter when our government gave up to $200,000 in funding to a Quebec charity that the RCMP itself has said might be hosting a secret Chinese police station. I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if the talking points have now settled on the number of Chinese police stations in operation in Canada, or does that number conveniently fall under the rubric of national security? I want to get this straight.
Canadian citizens can be followed, confronted, threatened, intimidated and live in fear on our soil, and their government is unable to stand up to defend them. What kind of government is that? When will Canadian citizens of Chinese ancestry, or not, finally get some answers?
How long does an RCMP investigation into Chinese police stations operating in Canada take? Has anything been done? Has anyone been arrested or declared persona non grata and sent packing?
The most important question that remains is this: Why has there been such a reluctance by the Canadian government to take definitive, concrete action against foreign interference in Canada? Does Beijing have something on the Prime Minister or the cabinet? Is there some vested financial trade deal at play? Is our government still haunted by the Huawei heiress and the Prime Minister does not want to receive another public dressing-down from President Xi?
Canada expelled a Chinese diplomat who targeted the family of an MP, and the government seems almost more apologetic than angry. Is our government even capable of informing China, in no uncertain terms, that we as a country are neither its personal plaything nor a doormat? Canada has the right to stand up for our national security and sovereignty, just as China does on the slightest perceived indignity, real or imaginary.
It is clear that the matter of illegal foreign police stations, just like the overarching issue of foreign interference in Canada, either of Chinese or Iranian persuasion, can only be fully addressed by the convening of a full and independent public inquiry. Will the government call a full, independent public inquiry in our lifetime?
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- Jun/15/23 12:15:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to address the ongoing concerns of foreign interference in Canada.
Canada is a country with open political systems, democratic processes, social cohesion, academic freedoms and prosperity.
Although there are many reasons why people choose to come to Canada, our open society makes us an attractive target for foreign interference. Foreign interference, including acts targeting our democratic institutions and electoral processes, is not a partisan issue. Regardless of our political affiliations and stripes, as parliamentarians and leaders, it is our responsibility to protect Canada and Canadians from these threats.
We recognize that individuals in Canada subjected to intimidation, harassment or manipulation by foreign states or their proxies suffer the effect of foreign interference directly. These activities are a threat to Canada's sovereignty and to the safety of our communities and individuals in Canada.
The Government of Canada takes these threats very seriously. Our government has taken steps, including, among others, disrupting foreign interference through available legal mechanisms, such as publicly denouncing threats, leveraging existing legislation or through other efforts, as well as investigating suspected illegal activities and seeking to address them through criminal prosecution where applicable, providing mechanisms for public reporting through the CSIS and RCMP websites and national security threat phone lines, engaging with communities at risk in Canada to help them better protect themselves against foreign threats, and consulting with the public and key stakeholders on the design and implementation of a foreign influence transparency registry.
While those actions are not exhaustive, they highlight the real work that our government is doing to safeguard our democracy and citizens.
Our government is well aware of the serious allegation that Canada is being targeted for foreign interference, in particular the allegation of overseas police stations reportedly affiliated with the People's Republic of China. I can assure members of the House that the Government of Canada is taking swift action to deal with these concerns and has a strong, robust strategy for combatting foreign interference.
To summarize the latest action, on March 6, the Prime Minister announced further actions to combat foreign interference. These initiatives included the establishment of a new national counter foreign interference coordinator at Public Safety Canada and requesting reviews of NSICOP and NSIRA on the state of foreign interference in the Canadian federal electoral process and how national security agencies have responded to develop a plan to address the outstanding recommendations from the NSCIOP Rosenberg report and other reviews on these matters, which were delivered on April 6, and an investment of $5.5 million to strengthen the capacity of civil society partners to counter the disinformation.
Public Safety Canada also launched public and stakeholder consultations on March 10 of this year, to guide the creation of a foreign influence strategy registry.
On that note, our efforts are backed with budget involvement. Budget 2023 is there in support, with a significant amount of dollars to help.
Let me be clear. The government is keeping Canadians safe. While we cannot broadcast every effort, Canadians need to know that they are safe and secure.
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- Jun/15/23 12:19:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, these are more very strong words but what is the action and, more importantly, what are the results?
With all due respect to the parliamentary secretary, she can list all of the government's talking points and all of the things that it has allegedly done, but what matters are the results. The results clearly demonstrate that what it is doing is not working.
At least three MPs have been targeted and the Chinese Communist Party is setting up illegal police stations. The government is even sending them money. Is that considered success?
Diaspora groups are still sounding the alarm. Does the government interpret that as “mission accomplished”?
I ask again. Why has there been such a reluctance by the Canadian government to take definitive, concrete action against foreign interference? Does Beijing have something on the Prime Minister? What will it take for the government to finally wake up to the need for an independent and public inquiry? Does someone have to really get hurt or worse? Does someone have to die before it acts?
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- Jun/15/23 12:20:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, while my colleague is speculating and somewhat making allegations, I will say what the government is actually doing.
We are very committed to combatting foreign interference by protecting the Canadians and communities targeted by foreign state actors, safeguarding our democratic institutions and promoting economic security. This will not change.
We are aware, as I mentioned, that certain foreign governments, including that of the People's Republic of China, have attempted to threaten and intimidate individuals in Canada or their relatives abroad. Canada's security and intelligence agencies use the full extent of their mandates to respond to these threats. The RCMP is currently investigating reports of illegal activities in relation to the allegation of overseas police stations.
As they are ongoing investigations, new information cannot be revealed at this time. However, the member can rest assured that if there is evidence of state-backed harassment or intimidation, CSIS and the RCMP will apply the full measure of their mandates to investigate these threats. We are working—
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- Jun/15/23 12:21:14 a.m.
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I am sorry, but the hon. member's time is up.
The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until later this day at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 12:21 a.m.)
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