The federal government introduced new legislation on Tuesday which aims both to strengthen and rationalize the immigration process, including new limits to asylum claims, while also repressing fentanyl traffic.
The proposed bill not only addresses several of the border security Priorities highlighted by Prime Minister Mark Carney, but also some of the long -standing complaints expressed by American legislators, diplomats and Canadian police organizations.
“This new legislation will ensure that Canada has the right tools to keep our border in safety, fight organized crime and transnational fentanyl and disturb illegal funding,” the Minister of Public Security told Gary Anandasangaree, to journalists in Ottawa after having filed the legislation.
The Minister said that he was planning to have the TSAR from the American border Tom Homan during the new legislation at a meeting later on Tuesday, and acknowledged that he was talking about certain questions that were “irritants for the United States”
He added that he will probably play ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration on a new security relationship that Carney continued.
“It is not exclusively about the United States,” said Anandasangaree.
“It is a question of providing a victory for Canada and ensuring that our borders are safer, our communities are safer and, of course, we respond to some of the concerns that have been posed by the White House.”
Anandasangaree said the new bill, nicknamed the Strong Borders Act, is based on the border security package of $ 1.3 billion announced last December which saw the appointment of a Fentanyl Tsar and new equipment for the RCMP, among other measures.
No new funding is attached to the invoice.
Under the proposed legislation, anyone who makes an asylum complaint more than a year after arriving in Canada would not see their complaint referred to the Immigration and Refugee Council.
People entering Canada through the American land border under the secure third -party agreement will only have 14 days to make an asylum complaint to be taken into account.
The applicants who apply beyond these deadlines will always be subject to a risk assessment before abotation to determine if their security will be in danger if it has returned to their country of origin, which Anandasangaree called a “significant safeguard”.
The new rules are tackling an increasing issue of international students and other temporary visa holders demanding asylum after the expiration of their visas in order to stay in Canada. Federal immigration data obtained by Global News suggest Such complaints will continue to increase this year.
The new bill “would improve and modernize” the existing asylum system by simplifying the application process, by accelerating both references and withdrawal orders, and removing the inactive cases of the system. Complaints will only be decided when a person is physically present in Canada.
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It also gives the government the power to suspend new requests and the processing of existing complaints “for public health and national security questions” and to improve the sharing of information from immigration documents and information between the different levels of government and application of the law.
A provision of the bill, to allow the RCMP to share the data of sex offenders with the partners of the application of laws in the United States and other national and international partners, responds to a long-standing request for cross-border cooperation on surveys on sexual trafficking which dates back to the Biden administration.
As for fentanyl, the government aims to make chemical precursors used to produce controlled substances on illicit opioids, which would allow greater federal surveillance of these expeditions.
Entrance ports, carriers and warehouse operators will be necessary to allow officials of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to carry out export inspections, corresponding to the existing requirements for import inspections.
The bill would also give the powers extended to the Canadian coastal guard to carry out safety patrols and collect and share information for security purposes, but does not restore the port police system that was eliminated in the 1990s.
Police inspectors and Canada will also be able to find the mail in approved cases under the proposed legislation.
Former ASSC officials have long called for expanding research powers at entry points and international trade ports, Noting less than one percent of the goods entering Canada are searched.
The bill aims to strengthen the powers of the police, border services and intelligence services to access information and data, in particular by obliging Canadian electronic service providers to comply with requests to access or intercept communications and other information.
Certain information may be accessible without a mandate in “urgent circumstances and sensitive to time,” said the government in a background document which has given the example of cases involving the continuous abuse of a child.
“If there is an active event that occurs … which involves someone’s safety and security, the police can intervene at that time and request and demand the production of information,” said Anandasangaree.
“But in the absence of this, there is a judicial process by which they must go and seek the mandates and the production orders necessary to continue the investigation. Some of the very important guarantees are integrated. ”
Anandasangaree said he was convinced that the bill did not violate the rights of the Canadian Charter to privacy and regular procedure.
“So that I could advance the legislation, the guarantees had to be in place, it had to comply with the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” he said.
“I fundamentally believe that we have (found) the balance while expanding powers in certain cases, he has the guarantees and the protections in place to protect freedoms and individual rights.”
The network of migrants’ rights said in a statement that the proposed measures “considerably restrict the protections of refugees and allow mass deportations and an exclusion from immigration”.
“Prime Minister Carney campaigned to be different from Donald Trump, but his very first bill is a shameful capitulation for racism and xenophobia, which abandons Canada’s legal and moral obligations to refugees and migrants,” said spokesman Syed Hussan.
“This bill is immoral, it is illegal and it will be arrested.”
The public security criticism of the NPD, Jenny Kwan, took a particular problem with the powers of the government proposed to suspend immigration requests and the improved information sharing, which it described as “alarming”, as well as the absence of a clear call process.
“They put all kinds of limitations, really trying to prevent people from accessing asylum complaints here in Canada,” she told journalists in Ottawa.
“Canada can also say to the international community:” We no longer support asylum seekers. ” They can as well be honest on this subject. »»
The Conservatives did not respond to a request for comments from Global News.
In A message on social networks on TuesdayThe conservative chief Pierre Hairyvre cited A recent OECD report That said, the recent high immigration levels had set the Canada housing market and economic prospects.
Chantal Desloges, an immigration lawyer based in Toronto, told Global News that the proposed legislation will not do much to reduce arrears in the immigration system and that the “headache” of the examination of the complaints of the Immigration and Refugees Council at the Office of the Minister of Immigration.
“They really do not really reduce a real order book, and the measures they take will be at the expense of equity for refugee seekers,” she said.
She added that it is not clear how the government can suspend or cancel requests for immigration.
“It’s a bit disturbing, especially when you don’t know what it really means,” she said.
– With Global Touria Izri Files