Recognized opposition parties are signalling they remain open to advancing the Liberals’ updated border bill that would expand federal powers to deny entry to Canada and to remove migrants already here. And despite their amendments being “expeditiously rejected,” the NDP and a broad coalition of migrant and civil liberties groups are reaffirming their demands to withdraw a bill they say would make former prime minister Stephen Harper blush.
“If this bill had been introduced under a Conservative government, the Liberals would be the first out there howling [against it], louder than anyone,” NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s immigration and public safety critic, told The Hill Times.
Introduced on Oct. 8, Bill C-12, the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act, updates the Liberals’ stalled Bill C-2, one of several omnibus bills introduced by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s (Nepean, Ont.) new government in June.
It would also give the government significant new powers to crack down on asylum seekers, and block or cancel visa applications. Those powers, first proposed in C-2, also attracted plenty of criticism outside Parliament, but have been included in the new bill essentially unaltered.
On Nov. 24, a coalition of civil society and immigration advocates held a press conference on Parliament Hill to “denounce” Bill C-12, and to demand its withdrawal.
