Committee MPs amend border bill to restrict health, other benefits to deportees

OTTAWA – MPs on the House of Commons national security committee have amended the government’s border security bill, C-12, to restrict the benefits people subject to removal orders can access.

MPs debated more than 50 amendments during a clause-by-clause analysis of the bill that began Tuesday afternoon and stretched into early Wednesday morning. 

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner added an amendment that prevents anyone subject to a removal order from accessing federal social services beyond emergency medical care. Rempel Garner said part of the rationale for this change is to discourage deportees from using procedural methods to prolong their time in Canada, especially when there is a family doctor shortage. 

Another amendment proposed by Rempel Garner passed, requiring annual reporting on the types of benefits provided to asylum seekers and the cost of those benefits. 

This was part of a suite of amendments the Calgary MP said she planned to introduce ahead of the meeting. 

Quebec Liberal MP Jacques Ramsay introduced another revision that would give those individuals access to maternal health services and community health care for STDs, but it was voted down.

Liberal committee members, Qubec’s Sameer Zuberi and Ontario’s Peter Fragiskatos, also refined the legislation’s wording on when the government can modify or cancel immigration documents in the “public interest.”

The definition says these sweeping powers can be used in cases of fraud, threats to public health, safety or national security, or to correct an administrative error.

In prior committee hearings, Immigration Minister Lena Diab and department officials had said the term “public interest” was kept intentionally vague to give the government more flexibility.

Rempel Garner successfully moved an amendment that if the government uses these “public interest” powers the immigration minister will have to make a presentation in Parliament explaining why in a high level of detail. 

Under the original legislation, the time period and who is being affected by “public interest” powers would be published in the Canada Gazette, along with rationale. 

Not all of Rempel Garner’s more than 30 amendments were adopted; several were deemed inadmissible because they dealt with legislative changes outside the scope of C-12.

One Conservative amendment that was rejected by the committee was a measure to prevent people coming from the European Union or G7 nations from making asylum claims in Canada. This would have been applicable to residents or people transiting through these countries. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2025.