Less than a day after supporting the Harper government’s initiative to extend the Afghan mission, Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals vowed to vote against the Conservatives’ controversial human-smuggling bill, signalling its death.
The Liberal Leader and his team announced his party’s intention on Wednesday, arguing that the bill violates the Charter and is aimed at making Canadians “anti-immigrant.”
The Bloc and NDP also oppose the bill. It takes all three opposition parties to defeat the Harper minority government.
But Immigration Minister Jason Kenney emerged from Question Period on Wednesday promising not to give up the fight. He said he is bringing the legislation to the Commons for a vote anyway, basically challenging the opposition parties to kill it.
Mr. Kenney refused, however, to say whether it would be a confidence matter. This is significant because a defeat on a confidence motion would trigger a federal election.
No date has been set for the bill to come to the Commons for the second-reading vote.
Calling the Liberal position “irresponsible,” Mr. Kenney charged that the Liberals had pretended to support the bill before Monday’s by-elections, suggesting that their opposition to it could have hurt their electoral chances.
With the by-elections over, however, the Liberals made their true intentions known, he said.
“We’re not going to give up the fight on behalf of Canadians,” Mr. Kenney said. “[Canadians are] not going to allow the opposition’s ideological view to trump meaningful action to stop human smuggling.”
And he asserted that the bill is one of the “highest priorities of Canadians” but that there has been much fear mongering around it.
The government bill was introduced in October, triggered by the arrival of a boat in British Columbia carrying nearly 500 Sri Lankan migrants.
It aims to impose new penalties on anyone convicted of human smuggling, and would allow smuggled immigrants to be detained for a year and put on probation for five years.
“Canadians are still very concerned about this country being targeted by smuggling syndicates, by the systematic abuse of the fairness and integrity of our immigration system by these smuggling syndicates and frankly their customers,” Mr. Kenney said.
“Canadians expect us to take action. So we will not give up on this strong but reasonable effort to stop the smugglers from targeting Canada.”
The furor over the bill erupted just after the national caucus meetings ended on Wednesday. Mr. Ignatieff announced his party had decided not to support the bill on second reading.
“We feel very strongly it [the bill] is punishing the wrong people,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “It’s punishing the victims, not the criminals.”
Immigration critic Justin Trudeau said the Harper government is “torquing up the issue of refugees and immigration.”
“They are encouraging Canadians to be more against immigration than ever in the past by not defending and being clear about the difference between immigrants and refugees,” Mr. Trudeau said.
The Montreal MP said the Harper government is “stoking fears and apprehension” and is being “irresponsible.”
Mr. Ignatieff said that the new bill would not pass a Charter challenge. He said that his party would work with the government to toughen penalties against the crews, boat owners and others “who originate this terrible traffic.”
“But don’t show me a bill that says let’s go after the victims,” he said.
