Those changes are improvements but I am still not able to support the bill as it now stands because I believe we cannot treat a class of refugees, simply because they arrive by boat, differently from how we would treat anyone else. We could legitimately have an entire boatload of people escaping religious persecution. It would not matter the reason they had arrived on our shores, they would go to detention.

That is my understanding of the bill. I would ask my hon. friend if she thinks I have misunderstood the government’s intent?

Jean Crowder: Mr. Speaker, actually, Amnesty International has raised this as an issue about looking at how a group of refugees comes. It cites article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which reads:

Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. 

The same article stipulates that anyone who is deprived of his or her liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court and so on.

Other organizations are also raising concerns about how we are targeting refugees, on how they arrive in Canada and on how we are treating them differently.

The post Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act (Bill C-31) appeared first on Elizabeth May.

“Take note” debates generally don’t come to a vote but are a chance for Members of Parliament to make their views known on a specific policy issue.  This particular debate is prompted by the violence earlier this month in Egypt when 27 Coptic Christians were killed and hundreds injured during a military crackdown on protesters.

“The Coptic Christians in Egypt, the Baha’i in Iran, the Ahmadiyya in West Java, Tibetans in China—there are way too many examples that we can cite.  Canada must stand as a nation and say, this is not acceptable in our world,” said May.

Coptic Christians make up almost ten percent of Egypt’s population but they are denied the right to have places of worship.  In Iran, people of the Baha’i faith are routinely thrown in jail and harassed.  In Indonesia, the Ahmadiyya face attacks, intimidation, property destruction, and the closure of their places of worship.  The Chinese government’s repression of freedom of religion in Tibet is longstanding.

“Freedom of belief is a fundamental human right that includes freedom from pressure to renounce your faith.  So many around the world are deprived of any protection for freedom of thought and religion, it is up to the international community to work together to solve this issue,” said May.

The Canadian Committee on Foreign Affairs has been examining a motion adopted by the House on October 17th that asserts Canada stands in solidarity with religious minorities around the world and particularly Coptic Christians.  “What we need is an international outcry and we need the United Nations to conduct full investigations into these terrible acts of repression,” said May.

Full text of Parliamentary Motion:

That this House stand in solidarity with those religious minorities around the world and strongly condemn the vicious attacks on Egyptian Coptic Christians and their institutions; call on the Egyptian Government to ensure that the perpetrators of the attacks be brought to justice and bear the full weight of the law; and, ask the United Nations Human Rights Commission to conduct an open and transparent investigation into the plight of Egyptian Coptic Christians and issue a public report on its findings.

The post Religious Persecution Must End appeared first on Elizabeth May.