Now that the elections are over and the Conservatives have retained their power in parliament, they are moving ahead with plans to change Canada’s human smuggling laws.
The new legislation was first introduced by the Conservative administration last fall, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. The proposals were made in response to the controversy over the August 2010 arrival of a ship in Victoria, British Columbia. The large vessel was carrying nearly 500 illegal migrants from Sir Lanka.
The new laws include harsher punishments for anyone caught smuggling people into Canada, including very large fines and, in some cases, prison terms.
“We committed in our platform to bring forward a bill to crack down on human smuggling,” said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney this month. “We know those operations are still going on in East Asia. So this legislation will come forward fairly early to try to deter them.”
The new legislation was stalled by the elections earlier this year once the Conservative government collapsed. Now that the Conservatives hold a majority of the seats in parliament, they will no longer require the backing of another party when they wish to introduce new legislation such as in this case.
Source: Edmonton Journal