October 21, 2010

Ottawa – October 21, 2010 - Gord Brown, Member of Parliament for Leeds-Grenville today expressed his support for a new government Bill designed to counter human smuggling.

“When the Sun Sea entered Canadian waters in the summer I heard from residents of Leeds-Grenville that they wanted action taken to prevent this incident from repeating,” explains Brown.

“I brought those concerns to Ottawa and today the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, was introduced.

It is a fair, reasonable and tough approach to the problem, he says.

The legislation introduced today will send a clear message: Canada opens its doors to those who work hard and play by the rules while cracking down on those who seek to take advantage of our generosity and abuse our fair and welcoming immigration system.

The Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act will:

• ensure law enforcement has the tools it needs to crack down on human smugglers
• help ensure the safety and security of Canadian communities
• deter illegal migrants from using human smugglers to come to Canada

“The measures we introduced today send a clear message to individuals overseas thinking about smuggling people and to those people thinking about using human smugglers,” says Brown. “Don’t do it.” 

Under the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act, our government is cracking down on human smugglers by:

• Making it easier to prosecute human smugglers;
• Imposing mandatory minimum prison sentences on convicted smugglers; and
• Holding ship owners and operators to account for use of their ships in human smuggling operations.
• Preventing those who come to Canada as part of a human smuggling event from applying for permanent resident status for a period of five years, should they successfully obtain for refugee status; and
• Preventing illegal migrants from sponsoring family members for five years.
• Ensuring the health benefits participants receive are not more generous than those received by the Canadian public by the government; and
• Enhancing the ability to terminate the protected person status of those who return to their country of origin for a vacation or demonstrate in other ways that they are not in legitimate need of Canada’s protection.
• Appointing a Special Advisor on Human Smuggling and Illegal Migration; and
• Increasing the presence overseas through operational activities, diplomatic outreach, partnership with other affected nations, and engagement of multilateral bodies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Under the Act, our government is ensuring the safety and security of our streets and communities by:
Establishing the mandatory detention of participants for up to one year, or until a positive decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board, whichever comes sooner, in order to allow for the determination of identity, admissibility and illegal activity;

Under the Act, our government is also reducing the attraction of coming to Canada by way of an illegal human smuggling operation including by:

In addition, our Government is detecting and deterring human smuggling overseas through: