Canadian government looks to get tough on “serious criminals”

Canada’s government is looking to get tough on serious foreign nationals or visitors who are either trying to enter the country or are on Canadian soil.

Calgary-Centre Member of Parliament Joan Crockatt made the announcement in downtown Calgary Friday, in place of Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney.

The law would address numerous obstacles and red tape that have prevented or slowed down the removal or transfer of convicts.

For example, Crockatt says foreign nationals and permanent residents convicted of serious offences in Canada who are granted a record suspension cannot be removed on the basis of the conviction.

It would affect four Acts already in the place: the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the International Transfer of Offenders Act, and the Criminal Records Act.

“This announcement is about the safety of Canadians which our government takes very seriously,” she said. “And one of the things we want to do is make sure when we have criminals on our soil, that we can remove them from our soil.”

It’s called the Serious Foreign Criminals Act and Crockatt says it’ll remove many of the barriers now in place.

“If they have a known criminal come to a border crossing right now and the agent knows that it’s a known criminal, they are required to admit them and have a hearing before they are denied entry to Canada, this could take months!” said Crockatt.

One of the big issues will be whether the Conservative government get this passed before Canadians head to the polls, but she says they are certainly going to try.

“This is important because we realize the environment that we are in now has a much higher threat for Canadians than it was many years ago, but the fact is Al Qaeda is out there, jihadi terrorists are out there, there are people who want to do Canadians harm and they have said that publicly.”

“It will be a challenge for us, but I think we’ll get it introduced and see how fast we can get it through Parliament, we have until the end of June,” said Crockatt who adds when she’s on the doorsteps, these are the types of questions she’s getting.

Crockatt says they’ve had little to no support from the Liberals or the NDP in terms of what they have done to protect Canadians.

“We know that we’ve had terrorist threats as close to home as West Edmonton Mall,” she said.

“Anything that we can have, tools at our disposal, is extremely useful for us and helps keep people safe at the end of the day. There’s a number of individuals, a lot of travellers that make their way to Canada,” said Karen Wilmot, Manager of Hearings and Appeals with the Canadian Border Services Agency in Canada. “We have a very busy operation here.”