OTTAWA – “Our Conservative Government is taking fair, reasonable and tough action to prevent the abuse of Canada’s immigration system by human smugglers” said Leon Benoit, Member of Parliament for Vegreville-Wainwright. “We have introduced legislation that 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.”
“These new measures send a clear message to individuals overseas thinking about smuggling people and to those people thinking about using human smugglers – don’t do it” said Benoit. “The Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act will ensure law enforcement have the tools they need to crack down on human smugglers, help ensure the safety and security of Canadian communities, and deter illegal migrants from using human smugglers to come to Canada.”
“Under this new legislation, 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” Benoit explained. He added that the Act will ensure the safety and security of Canadian 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.
Benoit said that the Conservative Government is also reducing the attraction of coming to Canada by way of an illegal human smuggling operation by:
- 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;
- 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.
