House Of Commons: Immigration System

Protecting Canada Dept: Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act, which seeks to deport so-called "bogus" refugees quicker and crack down on human-smugglers and illegal arrivals, cleared the House of Commons on Monday in a vote of 159 to 132, split along party lines, according to Vancouver Sun. It also swallows the government's human-smuggling bill tabled a year ago and moves forward on a biometrics plan a Commons committee only started looking at around the time the bill was tabled in February and two years after the federal Conservatives reached a widely celebrated consensus with the opposition to revamp Canada's refugee system, the government has used its majority to replace that legislation with a new version that continues to draw wide-spread criticism. Billed as a replacement to the Balanced Refugee Reform Act adopted during the previous minority Parliament but only set for implementation this month, the new legislation effectively reintroduces contentious elements that were omitted so the Tories could get the earlier version of the bill passed. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.