Mr. Speaker, I thank members of the House for their grace in allowing me to speak to this important bill today.
I rise today with ongoing and deep concerns about Bill C-12. Behind the language of “efficiency”, “integrity” and “streamlining”, the bill would do something very real and very harmful. It would take rights away from people who are seeking protection, handing more unchecked power to the government and scapegoating newcomers. The intention in the logic behind this legislation is not just flawed, it is dangerous. That is why New Democrats cannot support Bill C-12.
Let us begin with the refugee system. Canada has long prided itself on offering people a fair hearing and an opportunity to present their case before an independent decision-maker. However, Bill C-12 would weaken that foundation. Under this legislation, people would be found ineligible for a full hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board, not because their case lacked merit but because of some arbitrary timeline. Instead, they would be pushed into a pre-removal risk assessment process. The government says that it is fine, but the process would deprive individuals of the opportunity for their case to be heard by an independent tribunal. Under the pre-removal risk assessment process, decisions are made by an immigration officer. There is no meaningful right to appeal.
Due process is not a luxury. It is a fundamental principle of justice, and the bill would erode that. This is not a concern just raised by me in the House. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has already sounded the alarm bell. It has warned that Bill C-12's new ineligibility provisions would deny refugee claimants adequate procedural safeguards, and it has called on Canada to ensure access to fair and efficient procedures in line with our international obligations, including the principle of non-refoulement. Civil society organizations, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, have said the same.
There is no evidence that the legitimacy of a refugee claim is linked to how quickly someone files it. The introduction of a one-year bar is particularly troubling. Refugee claimants are expected to navigate a complex legal system, often without legal advice, often in situations of trauma. Under this legislation, they would be told that if they do not act within an arbitrary timeline, they will lose access to a full hearing. This is not fairness. This is exclusion, and this is procedural duress. Frankly, this is a system stacked against the claimant.
Who would this actually affect? It could affect a child who once visited Canada with their family, a human rights advocate who came to Canada to speak about conditions in their home country or a survivor of gender-based violence who needed time to process trauma before coming forward. All could be captured by these sweeping exclusions, and it gets worse. These provisions are retroactive. They would apply to people who entered Canada years ago, going back to 2020, who had no way of knowing these rules would one day be used against them. It undermines the very principle of legal certainty.
However, that is not all. Bill C-12 would also grant sweeping powers to the government to cancel immigration documents, potentially affecting an entire group of people. Under the broad and undefined concept of public interest, legislation needs to be precise. It must include clear limits and safeguards, but the bill does not do so. Instead, it would open the door to decisions being made without transparency, without independent oversight and without adequate recourse. This should concern all of us, because when power is concentrated without accountability, mistakes are not just possible, they are inevitable.
We do not have to look far to understand the risks. Canada has a history, one we must acknowledge, of making decisions in moments of fear that disproportionately harm marginalized communities. We have seen exclusion justified; we have seen rights denied, and in hindsight, we have recognized those decisions as wrong. The question before us is simple: Have we learned from that history or are we just repeating it, but this time under different language?
Another serious concern is the expansion of information sharing. The government argues that this is to improve coordination, but coordination must not come at the expense of rights. Under this framework, personal information, status, identity and immigration history can be shared more broadly across government systems. While the government says that safeguards will exist, many of these arrangements would depend on agreements that are not transparent.
This creates real risks, because migrants rely on public services, health care, housing and legal supports. If there is even the perception that accessing these services could expose their immigration status, people will hesitate. They will delay seeking care. They will avoid reporting exploitation. They will withdraw. That has consequences, not just for those individuals but for our communities. Public systems work best when people can access them safely and without fear. This bill risks undermining that.
The Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, after studying the bill, called for the draconian measures in part 5 to part 8 of the bill to be deleted. The Senate wanted amendments to restore some balance so that measures to block refugee hearings; the arbitrary, retroactive one-year bar; the breach of privacy to share information about applicants; and cabinet's ability to cancel or suspend documents en masse under vaguely defined public interest terms are done away with.
Unfortunately, these amendments were voted down by the Senate committee on public safety. In the end, the Senate passed amendments to limit the sharing of personal information from citizens and permanent residents and to make mandatory annual reports on asylum claim processing times, ineligibility data and statistics on post-one-year asylum claims. Even though the amendments from the Senate are significantly pared down from their original form, the Liberals want to reject the Senate amendments to respect the privacy rights of citizens and permanent residents.
The Liberals have introduced this at a time when migrants are increasingly being blamed for broader social challenges. We hear claims that migrants are responsible for housing shortages, for pressures on health care and for affordability challenges. I will be very clear: Migrants do not create these crises. These are the result of policy decisions about housing supply, public investment and economic priorities. Blaming migrants does not solve these problems. It distracts from them, and legislation like Bill C-12 risks reinforcing that narrative.
The bill is an attack on people who are already vulnerable, such as refugees fleeing violence, migrant workers facing exploitation and families trying to build a life in Canada. These individuals are not statistics. They are members of our communities; they contribute, they work, and they care for others. They deserve a system that treats them with dignity and fairness.
The consequences extend beyond individuals. Denying refugee claimants due process puts people at risk of persecution, torture or worse. It also damages Canada's credibility on the world stage. The same UN Human Rights Committee has raised broader concerns about the state of civil liberties in this country, from surveillance to systemic discrimination and barriers faced by marginalized communities.
New Democrats believe there is a better way. We can build an immigration and refugee system that is both fair and efficient, that processes claims in a timely manner, that ensures access to legal supports, that upholds due process and that recognizes the humanity of those seeking protection. These are not competing goals. They are complementary.
We must uphold the principles of fairness, accountability, human rights and due process. The legislation does not meet this standard. For those reasons, my colleagues in the NDP and I will oppose the Liberal motion and will also be opposing Bill C-12.
