Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 6th, 2024

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Then we are back on the amendment proposed by Mr. Chiang.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

That is what it is, and I have the speaking list.

I have Mr. Chiang, Mr. Redekopp, Madam Zahid, Madam Kwan and Mr. McLean.

Mr. Chiang.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On my proposed amendment to Mr. Kmiec's motion, with my amendment we can get more answers from the government, I believe, on this important issue we are debating here. It is something I want to see us get done. My amendment clarifies it more so that we can get a comprehensive response for this committee, so that we can do the important work we're doing here. I'm hoping that we can agree on my amendment, so that we can move on and get this thing done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

Do the members on the speaking list still want to speak on the amendment brought by Mr. Chiang?

No? You want to speak to the main motion. Okay.

Madam Kwan, please go ahead.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Can I just hear the whole subamended amendment of the motion, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Mr. Clerk, could you please read it, when you're ready?

[The Clerk]

Ms. Kwan, I'll do my best, but because I didn't receive your text in written format—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Why don't I suspend for two seconds and let Madam Kwan come and give you that? I don't want any excuses—

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Chair, before we suspend, are we doing the motion now with my amendment on it, too, or is it just Madam Kwan's?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

It's the amendment and the subamendment together. Thank you.

I'm suspending the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I call the meeting back to order.

The floor is with the clerk.

[The Clerk]

The motion reads as follows, and then I will read Mr. Chiang's amendment separately.

It is:

That the committee acknowledge it has received correspondence from the president of Canada-Hong Kong Link, Andy Wong; that it express its deep concern at the unreasonable delays being imposed on Hong Kong Pathway applicants of up to 21 months; that over 8,000 applications are still waiting to be processed; that Hong Kongers in Canada are freedom-loving people and keeping them in limbo is wrong; that the committee call on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to immediately automatically renew open work permits and study permits for Hong Kongers as they wait for their permanent residence applications to be processed; and that this matter be reported to the House.

Then amendment by Mr. Chiang is to add, “pursuant to Standing Order 109, that the government provide a comprehensive response” after “that this matter be reported to the House”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you.

Is there any debate on this?

We're voting on the amendment of Mr. Chiang.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

After the vote, can I speak?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

You will have the floor first, on the main motion.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The amendment by Mr. Chiang to Mr. Kmiec's motion is adopted.

Now we are back to the motion brought forward by Mr. Kmiec and amended by Mr. Chiang and by Madam Kwan.

Is there any debate on that?

I will go to Mr. Redekopp.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I want to be on the speakers list for after the vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Okay, I have the speaking list in this order right now: Mr. Chiang, Mr. Redekopp, Madam Zahid, Madam Kwan, Mr. McLean. If you are telling me you are not speaking now, I give the floor to Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for navigating that.

I just wanted to add my support for this. I met with members from Hong Kong who are suffering with these problems, so I think this is really important. The government said that there was going to be priority processing for these streams, stream A and stream B, for Hong Kongers in Canada, and as has been pointed out, these are freedom-loving people. These are people who can add to what makes Canada what we are.

These people are being unduly hurt, I would say, from the conversations I've had, by having their paperwork expire while they're waiting for the government to process their PRs. I've talked to mums who can't put their kids in school now because their paperwork is expired and technically they're in the country illegally now, and that's completely wrong and totally against the whole point of why these streams were created in the first place, to help these people escape the problems they were having in Hong Kong. Also, they don't have any options. They can't leave Canada. They can't go back to Hong Kong, so it's a real problem for them. It takes away their access to health care and education.

This is really important, and as my colleague, Mr. Kmiec, mentioned, the modus operandi of this government seems to be to wait until the very last minute before actually renewing something or doing something about it. We've seen this time and again on different programs.

I don't want to see that here. I'd like to see some action, and that's why I think this is really important and those are my thoughts on this motion. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

I have Madam Zahid on the list.

Madam Zahid, do you want to say something?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Not on this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Okay, thank you.

Madam Kwan, do you want to say something?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll just finish up with some closing comments with regard to this. I want to say thank you to all the committee members for their support for my amendment, because I think it's absolutely essential that we restore people's status automatically.

This has been done before, by the way, Mr. Chair. During the COVID period there were many people who were falling out of status because of the situation, and I proposed to the then minister that what the government should do is automatically renew people's work permits and study permits so that they don't fall out of status. Many people were at risk of that, and as we know, when people fall out of status they're here illegally, and that would have implications for any immigration streams to which they might want to apply at a later date. It leaves a black mark on their file forever, so to pre-empt this, I think we should go forward with an automatic renewal.

The other thing with an automatic renewal is this. Aside from giving protection for people whose status would expire, it would also save IRCC resources. It would mean that they wouldn't have to go and process renewal applications and could instead invest that time and energy and those resources into processing permanent residence applications.

I really hope the government will actually undertake to do this work in action and not just in words. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Madam Kwan, and I have my dear friend, Mr. McLean, on the list.

Please go ahead. I'm sorry you had to wait a long time.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you, and I won't be very long at all, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to my colleagues, Tom Kmiec and Brad Redekopp, and Mr. Chiang, for bringing this forward and speaking about this, and Jenny as well. Thank you very much.

It's a very important issue, and I think it's important for people to recognize what this means to people who are living in Canada who came from Hong Kong and who are waiting for their immigration process to be finalized or to be temporarily extended. Open work permits, when they're not extended, cause people to not get jobs, because some employers want to make sure they're hiring somebody for the two- or three-year term, and they want to make sure they're going to be there for the two- to three-year term. As my colleague, Mr. Redekopp, also said, when you have children in school, that school is provincial jurisdiction. It's overseen by provincial authorities, and they also want to make sure all the paperwork is there, so that the children can attend school legitimately and have the paperwork to do so.

The other situation, of course, is the health care system, and the health care systems in the provinces need to ensure that there's the right paperwork so that we provide health care services to people who are awaiting the paperwork requirements from IRCC as well.

This has become a situation in which too much is being held up, and we need to process these as we told people we would. Now all their representatives are coming here. We're parliamentarians. We represent this. It seems we're all speaking with one voice in this place.

Can we please move forward here as quickly as possible and get something done for these people? We've made promises to them and we've made commitments to them, and now we have to fulfill those commitments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Mr. McLean.

It seems like the list is exhausted. We will take a vote.

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Mr. Chiang.