Immigration Minister Lena Diab sparred with her Conservative critic at a tense House of Commons committee meeting Thursday as the two disagreed on everything from immigration levels and deporting non-citizen criminals to what kind of salad they prefer.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner put Diab in the hot seat throughout her two-hour committee appearance, grilling Diab about her file and accusing her of being “a very bad minister” when she struggled to give a clear answer on whether she will use powers under the government’s pending C-12 legislation to mass extend temporary visas.
A section in that bill gives the government the ability to stop accepting applications or cancel, suspend or change documents for an entire immigration class — something critics on both sides of the issue say could be abused either to turbocharge the number of newcomers or cancel visas en masse.
Asked if she plans to use that power to keep more people in Canada rather than expelling them when their visas expire, Diab said “that’s not the purpose” of the legislation but wouldn’t say how it would be used.
A frustrated Rempel Garner interrupted Diab.
“When you ask a question I think you should be able to have decency to let someone respond,” Diab said.
“I don’t like your word salad, it’s true. You are a very bad minister,” Rempel Garner said.
“You know what, I prefer fattoush and tabouleh to your salad, at any time,” Diab said.
“That is the oddest thing any immigration minister has said at this committee. It’s very weak and will likely be added to your performance reviews,” Rempel Garner said.
“It’s my culture,” said Diab, who is Lebanese Canadian.
WATCH | ‘You are a very bad minister,’ Conservative MP says:
‘You are a very bad minister,’ Conservative MP says to immigration minister
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner and Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab spar during a parliamentary committee hearing, with Rempel Garner calling Diab’s answers a ‘word salad’ and Diab saying she ‘prefers fattoush and tabbouleh to your salad.’
At one point, another Liberal MP, Peter Fragiskatos, stepped in as the two exchanged words.
Rempel Garner said she wasn’t speaking to him about these issues.
“He’s going to have your job,” she said to Diab of Fragiskatos, suggesting the minister was about to be shuffled out of cabinet. “I’ll likely be having this conversation with him in a couple of months.”
Rempel Garner also asked Diab about some recent non-citizen criminals getting more lenient sentences so they can avoid deportation.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a permanent resident or foreign national can be deemed inadmissible if they engage in “serious criminality,” which includes any crime that results in being sentenced to prison for more than six months.
In one recent case an Indian national paid for sex with what he thought was a teenager at a Mississauga, Ont., hotel. That teenage girl was actually an undercover cop.
The man was ultimately sentenced to a conditional discharge for committing an indecent act and was sentenced to 12 months of probation, including three months of house arrest. Rempel Garner said the man should have been dealt with more harshly by the courts and ultimately deported.
Asked if she will send a message to judges that are letting non-citizen criminals off easy to avoid being forced out of Canada, Diab said that’s not her role.
“Sentencing decisions are made independently by the courts,” she said, while assuring the Conservative critic the government will remove foreign criminals when appropriate.
“So, you’re pro-raper,” Rempel Garner asked provocatively.
“The courts have already indicated that serious offences will be dealt with seriously,” Diab said, while adding she wasn’t familiar with the case Rempel Garner raised.
“Can’t you just say it’s wrong and we’ll look into it?” Rempel Garner asked in return. “You just defended a guy who sexually assaulted somebody. It’s rampant in our justice system.”
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The federal government will cut permanent immigration to Canada by over 20 per cent in the next three years, leaving groups like temporary workers and foreign students in limbo. This follows polling that shows most Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration have soured.
Liberal MP Paul Connors admonished the Conservative.
“A wise person once told me you debate the issues and the policy and you don’t debase the individual,” he said, urging his colleagues to follow that mantra.
Deputy minister cites cases of bullying
The meeting started with the committee chair, Julie Dzerowicz, reading a letter from Diab’s deputy minister — the top bureaucrat in the department — saying some public servants have been subjected to bullying and intimidation after appearing before the committee.
That letter, written by Harpreet Kochhar, relayed that some unnamed politicians have posted videos of the public servants testifying at the committee, and they have been targeted online and in person as a result.
Dzerowicz said Kochhar was concerned about the “well-being” of these government workers who he said have endured “significant harassment and abuse” and “hostile emails.”
The letter, shared with CBC News, relays Kochhar’s fear that MPs posting “short, decontextualized clips of committee appearances” by bureaucrats could lead to violence.
“One of our colleagues was recently confronted in a public space by an angry individual referencing material shared online,” Kochhar wrote.
“I want to implore all committee members from all parties to be very cognizant of how we use the information from this committee, whether it’s online or offline,” Dzerowicz said, adding she doesn’t want appearing before a committee to be a “security risk.”
A new Canadian citizen holds a Welcome Home booklet containing a citizenship certificate during a Canadian citizenship ceremony in 2023. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)
Rempel Garner said Kochhar was trying to “censor” Conservatives and stop them from questioning the department about what she described as a failed immigration policy.
“I will not be silenced,” she said, saying she will fight to get the government to “do the right thing” on this file.
“Giddy up,” she said.
Diab was ostensibly before the committee to talk about the government’s immigration targets for the coming years — figures that were included in the recent federal budget, an unusual move given they are generally delivered publicly by the minister.
The minister said the plan, which includes big cuts to the number of temporary residents and more modest decreases to the number of permanent residents over the next two years, is designed to bring about “sustainable, predictable levels.”
She said the government has heard from Canadians that the volume of immigrants in the post-COVID period has been hard to manage, challenging “local capacity” to integrate them.
At the end of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s term, the population grew by about one million people a year for three years in a row, according to Statistics Canada data — unusually high growth rates for a developed country.
The recent budget says the government will “stabilize” the permanent resident admission targets at 380,000 per year for three years, down from 395,000 in 2025.
The plan will also reduce the target for new temporary resident admissions by about 45 per cent from 673,650 in 2025 to 370,000 in 2027 and 2028.
