Press Release
Source: OmarAlghabra.ca
URL: [link]
Date: March 4, 2008


For Immediate Release

March 4, 2008

Alghabra tables a private member bill to amend Security Certificate Act

OTTAWA - Today, Omar Alghabra, Liberal Member of Parliament for Mississauga- Erindale, tabled Bill C-523 entitled an Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate).

In February 2007, the Supreme Court gave the government a full year to improve the law, at the time, citing a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Conservative government chose to delay the presentation of their proposed changes giving parliamentarians very little time to have a substantive debate.

"The Conservatives have suffocated that debate and Canadians deserve a candid discussion," said Omar Alghabra. "If I, a lone parliamentarian with modest staff, was able to draft a bill with the help of experts within two weeks, surely the Conservatives could have tabled theirs sooner and given Parliamentarians enough time to exhaustively debate it."

Conservative Senator Pierre Claude Nolin publicly acknowledged that many parliamentarians had to hold their noses and adopt Bill C-3 because of the lack of time given by the government. Witnesses provided compelling evidence that the law is clearly flawed.

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