Bill C-24 (Historical)

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to, among other things, update eligibility requirements for Canadian citizenship, strengthen security and fraud provisions and amend provisions governing the processing of applications and the review of decisions.
Amendments to the eligibility requirements include
(a) clarifying the meaning of being resident in Canada;
(b) modifying the period during which a permanent resident must reside in Canada before they may apply for citizenship;
(c) expediting access to citizenship for persons who are serving in, or have served in, the Canadian Armed Forces;
(d) requiring that an applicant for citizenship demonstrate, in one of Canada’s official languages, knowledge of Canada and of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship;
(e) specifying the age as of which an applicant for citizenship must demonstrate the knowledge referred to in paragraph (d) and must demonstrate an adequate knowledge of one of Canada’s official languages;
(f) requiring that an applicant meet any applicable requirement under the Income Tax Act to file a return of income;
(g) conferring citizenship on certain individuals and their descendants who may not have acquired citizenship under prior legislation;
(h) extending an exception to the first-generation limit to citizenship by descent to children born to or adopted abroad by parents who were themselves born to or adopted abroad by Crown servants; and
(i) requiring, for a grant of citizenship for an adopted person, that the adoption not have circumvented international adoption law.
Amendments to the security and fraud provisions include
(a) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who are charged outside Canada for an offence that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence under an Act of Parliament or who are serving a sentence outside Canada for such an offence;
(b) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who, while they were permanent residents, engaged in certain actions contrary to the national interest of Canada, and permanently barring those persons from acquiring citizenship;
(c) aligning the grounds related to security and organized criminality on which a person may be denied citizenship with those grounds in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and extending the period during which a person is barred from acquiring citizenship on that basis;
(d) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who, in the course of their application, misrepresent material facts and prohibiting new applications by those persons for a specified period;
(e) increasing the period during which a person is barred from applying for citizenship after having been convicted of certain offences;
(f) increasing the maximum penalties for offences related to citizenship, including fraud and trafficking in documents of citizenship;
(g) providing for the regulation of citizenship consultants;
(h) establishing a hybrid model for revoking a person’s citizenship in which the Minister will decide the majority of cases and the Federal Court will decide the cases related to inadmissibility based on security grounds, on grounds of violating human or international rights or on grounds of organized criminality;
(i) increasing the period during which a person is barred from applying for citizenship after their citizenship has been revoked;
(j) providing for the revocation of citizenship of dual citizens who, while they were Canadian citizens, engaged in certain actions contrary to the national interest of Canada, and permanently barring these individuals from reacquiring citizenship; and
(k) authorizing regulations to be made respecting the disclosure of information.
Amendments to the provisions governing the processing of applications and the review of decisions include
(a) requiring that an application must be complete to be accepted for processing;
(b) expanding the grounds and period for the suspension of applications and providing for the circumstances in which applications may be treated as abandoned;
(c) limiting the role of citizenship judges in the decision-making process, subject to the Minister periodically exercising his or her power to continue the period of application of that limitation;
(d) giving the Minister the power to make regulations concerning the making and processing of applications;
(e) providing for the judicial review of any matter under the Act and permitting, in certain circumstances, further appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal; and
(f) transferring to the Minister the discretionary power to grant citizenship in special cases.
Finally, the enactment makes consequential amendments to the Federal Courts Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

[Yonah Martin]

We have our laws as is because of previous bills such as Bill C-37 and Bill C-24. What you're talking about is not captured in the bill that is before us. I won't comment on what makes more sense or not, but rather say that, for this specific bill, it's really addressing those who are captured by the age 28 rule. I ask the committee to support the bill.

[Yonah Martin]

Yes. The exclusion provision, which is subclause 1(3), was tied to the date of the coming into force of Bill C-24. There were some concerns during the drafting of Bill S-245 that not including the subclause may cause conflict between my bill and Bill C-24. That's why it was put in.

However, if what I'm hearing from departmental officials now is that there could be some confusion and an unintended consequence, as I said, I would be very open to an amendment that would clarify that specific section.

[Yonah Martin]

No, I don't believe that. I think as written it does address those who were captured in the age 28 rule. That's clear.

On the question about June 2015, which would effect moving the first-generation limit from April 2009 to June 2015, the second part of the explanation from legal counsel says that, while it could be made more clear, as written the bill does not purport to have retroactive effect. That would need to be explicit. It cannot be implied. Without retroactive effect, anyone born between 2009 and June 2015 would be governed by the Citizenship Act as it read prior to the enactment of Bill S-245.

The subclause was put in so that my bill, if enacted, will intersect and work effectively with the previous bill, Bill C-24, and not the opposite, as implied by the official. If there's something that could be amended to greater clarify this, I'm very open to that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Of course, luckily, we will actually have experts who will come after this panel. Don Chapman, as you mentioned, has spent his entire life, virtually, fighting for this issue. He has actually brought, to share with all of us, this nifty little thing to tell us all about it. The matter, of course, has actually been looked at by committee at different times, with Bill C-37, Bill C-24 and so on. This has been debated over and over again.

What we do know is that there is a group of citizens who lost their “Canadianness” because of Bill C-37 repealing their right, so we need to make them whole. In fact, as a result of that, a group of Canadians are suing the government at the moment. As we speak, people's lives are being destroyed because of being separated from their loved ones. They can't come to Canada to live their lives.

I appreciate that we have time, but really we don't because people's lives are being impacted. I feel the urgency of the families who want to bring this forward.

What I'm hearing from you, though, is that you don't object to trying to fix this. Therefore, I certainly hope we at the committee will try to do that, because I think it is important to try to fix things so that people's lives are not being destroyed.

With respect to the age 28 rule, with the amendments you have brought forward there are still a couple of gaps, which the officials indicated when they presented to us last week. If the committee members were to bring amendments to fix those gaps for the age 28 rule, would you have any objection to that?

[Yonah Martin]

Okay. The second part of what I was going to say previously is that the date reflected in subclause 1(3) is the date of the coming into force of those subsections, the changes made in Bill C-24. While it could be made more clear, as written the bill does not purport to have retroactive effect. That would need to be explicit and cannot be implied. Without retroactive effect, anyone born between April 2009 and June 2015 would be governed by the Citizenship Act as it read prior to the enactment of this bill.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the officials for being here today.

For sure, this Citizenship Act is a complex file, with so many changes over the years that amendments brought to the table often require amendments to the exception to the exception and so on. It's extremely confusing.

From my perspective, first off, I'd like to say that we have before us Bill S-245, and I want to acknowledge and thank Senator Yonah Martin for bringing this before us, because it gives us an opportunity to look into this issue and see how we can fix some of the problems. Maybe it will never be possible to fix all of the problems, but I think it will be important and incumbent on all of us to do our very best to try to fix as many problems as possible.

I appreciate the briefing in terms of your highlighting some of those areas. On the question around unintended consequences, I'd like to probe a little bit deeper into this issue around other countries, where, if you were to confer citizenship to the individual, it might cause them a heap of trouble, because in whatever country they might be in they may not be allowed to, for example, have dual citizenship.

Of course, conferring citizenship automatically in this way was done before. It was done under Bill C-37, it was done under Bill C-24 and so on. Somehow it was dealt with in those previous scenarios. I get it that times might have changed. There might be more people living globally, but nonetheless the premise of that has not changed.

Can you advise us on how officials addressed those issues back then? Why was it okay then to confer citizenship without these concerns of unintended consequences, but now it is a key concern?

Citizenship Act

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the member for Willowdale says the government is open to certain additional changes, but I agree with my friend from Vancouver East. We had every reason to hope that there would be more in Bill C-6 to undo the damage of Bill C-24.

I certainly will support the bill. I am grateful the amendments were made by the Senate. It improved the bill over what left this place to go to the other place.

As we continue to try to repair the damage done by the previous government, can we do more to address the issue for refugees, particularly those who are facing deportation? I asked the hon. minister this question and he said that there were adequate means for people to protest and to appeal. I have not found them adequate. People who pose no threat to Canada are being deported and do not have an adequate opportunity to defend themselves or stay in our country.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would advise the House that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam.

It brings me great joy to rise again before the House to discuss Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act. Bill C-6 represents not only the realization of a fundamental Liberal campaign promise and a signature achievement of our government, but also serves as a powerful articulation of Canadian identity and a reaffirmation of the various benefits of diversity.

Before I continue, I would be remiss if I did not thank both the former minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship, the Hon. and, I might add, tireless John McCallum, for his hard work on this file, as well as the steady leadership of his successor as minister, my hon. friend and colleague from York South—Weston.

I would also like to commence by thanking my former colleagues on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for their work on the legislation, as well as the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology for providing sober second thought to the bill. Having had the honour of being involved in the committee study of the bill as it was originally conceived in the House before it was sent to the Senate in June last year, I am deeply aware of how important the bill is to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

In fact, since being elected in October of 2015, few, if any, issues have resonated with my constituents in Willowdale as powerfully as the need to modernize our immigration system and to repeal and repudiate the most odious changes to our immigration system brought in by the previous government. Whether knocking on doors or in ongoing conversations with constituents, my staff and I have consistently heard the same refrain. Bill C-6 represents a welcome change in policy and tone for Canadians and their families. If any concerns have been expressed, it is the delay that people have experienced in seeing the enactment of Bill C-6.

As an immigrant to this country, I am profoundly sympathetic to this inclination. I understand what Canadian citizenship means, both here and abroad, to generations of families who have come to this great country seeking a better future. As someone who had the great privilege to arrive in this country in my teens, I certainly fully appreciate and would never take for granted the significance of immigration as a lifeline to our future well-being and prosperity.

I can also confidently say that the love of country one has for a place where we were not born but which has nonetheless given us all the opportunities in the world is very different than the affinity one feels for the nation of one's birth. Naturalization occupies a cherished place in one's heart that is neither blinded by history nor blood, but instead by one of deep gratitude. I have both admired Canada from afar and also lived to enjoy its greatest blessings: its educational system, its esteemed place in the world, its deep respect for all persons, its quiet dignity, and of course our spirited people. I recognize the noble value in Canadian citizenship and I am proud of our government's assiduous efforts to restore and reaffirm the bedrock values upon which Canadian citizenship is based.

In its original form, Bill C-6 aimed to accomplish four key objectives: first, to remove the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security; second, to remove the requirement that an applicant intend, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada; third, to reduce the number of days during which a person must be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship; and fourth, to return the requirement to demonstrate knowledge of Canada and of one of its official languages to applicants between the ages of 18 and 54.

In doing so, Bill C-6 repeals or amends the most misguided elements of the Conservative Party's Bill C-24 and establishes a more effective, robust, modern, and just pathway to citizenship. This is not, in other words, a radical departure from established laws and customs, but rather a return to sensible policies following the excesses of Bill C-24.

I would like to briefly examine these four key objectives before examining the amendments before us. First is that it removes the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security.

The most crucial element of Bill C-6, I believe, is that it revokes the unprecedented ability, granted through Bill C-24, of the Canadian government to strip its own citizens of fundamental rights, namely the rights to inalienable citizenship and equal protection under the law.

In rejecting a two-tiered approach to Canadian citizenship, Bill C-6 would bring government policy in line with the recommendations of a litany of stakeholders who condemned the arbitrary, unconstitutional, and undue nature of Bill C-24. This includes the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Layers, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, and many leading academics, journalists, and civic leaders.

The second question relates to removing the requirement that an applicant intend, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada.

Further among its many ill-conceived statutes, Bill C-24 also stated that adult applicants had to declare on their citizenship applications that they intended to continue to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. The provisions created concern among new Canadians, who feared their citizenship could be revoked in the future if they moved outside of Canada.

By way of example, Canadians whose work required them to live abroad for extended periods felt that their declaration of an intent to reside could negatively affect their international mobility and, by extension, their ability to work abroad.

Within the current context of our open and global economy, this would place Canada at a serious competitive disadvantage. Rather than disincentivizing engaged global citizens from seeking Canadian citizenship, Bill C-6 instead supports the government's goal of making it easier for immigrants to build successful lives within Canada, reunite with their families, and contribute to the economic success and well-being of our country.

I will now move to the various amendments that were suggested. The legislation before us today has, of course, been further modified by several amendments put forth at the Senate committee stage. I would like to use my remaining time to briefly address these amendments.

There are three proposed amendments before us today. One is an amendment to change the citizenship revocation model. The second is an amendment allowing minors to obtain citizenship without a Canadian parent. The third would change the upper age for citizenship language and knowledge requirements to 59 years.

After careful assessment and consideration, our government agrees with two of the three amendments adopted in the Senate, as they support our commitment to remove unnecessary barriers to citizenship, make citizenship more accessible to the more vulnerable, and enhance procedural fairness in the citizenship revocation process.

With respect to the proposed model to have the federal court act as a decision-maker on most citizenship revocation cases in which citizenship was acquired fraudulently, allow me to reiterate that ever since the current decision-making model came into effect in 2015, the minister has been the decision-maker on most cases involving fraud and misrepresentation, while the Federal Court has been the decision-maker on more serious cases involving fraud related to security, human or international rights violations, and organized criminality.

Under the Senate's proposed model, all individuals facing revocation of citizenship would have the right to request that their case be referred to the Federal Court for a decision regarding revocation on grounds of fraud or misrepresentation.

In cases in which an individual refers their case to the court, the minister's role would be to bring an action in the court to seek a declaration that the person obtained citizenship by false representation, by fraud, or by knowingly concealing material circumstances. It would then be up to the court to make the final decision.

The government has considered this amendment carefully and is supporting this new decision-making model, but with some key changes. The government believes that the minister's authority should be limited to revocation cases that the individual does not wish to have referred to the Federal Court.

Our government also supports, with modifications, the Senate amendment allowing minors to apply for citizenship without a Canadian parent.

Our government must respectfully disagree with the proposed Senate amendment to change the upper limit for language and knowledge requirements.

As mentioned previously, the language and knowledge requirements brought about via Bill C-24 were seemingly imposed at random, and this side has yet to see a compelling argument for this amendment.

The government has considered these proposed amendments very seriously and has accepted some key proposals regarding a new decision-making process for the revocation of citizenship.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, these amendments should have been in Bill C-6 to begin with. They were not.

These amendments were amendments that I brought to committee. Then they failed at committee. Then I had to go and lobby the senators to make these changes. I am glad that worked, and that they brought these changes back. I am glad that the government is going to accept what the senators are bringing forward.

I support Senator Omidvar and her work, because I met with her about it and urged her to take action. She did, and I am delighted to know that. I am delighted that Senator Oh took up my amendment on the issue around minors.

I wish there were senators who would have taken up more of the amendments I tabled at committee that failed. I know they did not, but given that this is where it is, I will accept what is here before us and will support the bill. This has been our position right from the beginning, that we needed to repeal Bill C-24. I wish the government had done that. If the government had done that, we would not even be here having this debate right now.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak in this important debate.

It has been almost a year and half since Bill C-6 was introduced in the House of Commons. The bill was sent to the Senate on June 17, 2016, and it has now finally made its way back to the House from the Senate, where it was held up for more than a year. Many people in our communities have been waiting anxiously for this legislation to be passed and to come into effect.

Members may recall that when he was on the campaign trail, the Prime Minister promised Canadians, particularly those in the ethnic community, that he would repeal the Conservatives' Bill C-24. Like so many Liberal promises, that did not happen. Instead, the government introduced Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act.

On February 25, 2016, Bill C-6 was first introduced in the House. About a month later, on March 21, 2016, it passed second reading and was referred to committee. Bill C-6 was then sent back to the House for third reading. It passed third reading and was sent to the Senate on June 17, 2016.

I should note that no amendments were made during second reading or at committee stage at the Senate, but three amendments were made during third reading.

The first amendment included providing a pathway to citizenship for minors. This was similar to the amendment that I proposed at committee, and I am glad to hear that the Conservative member and the government members now support it. At committee, though, government members certainly did not support it.

Another amendment proposed providing judicial appeal for citizenship revocation for fraud and misrepresentation. This amendment is similar in principle to my amendment to provide due process for these cases, but differs in the procedure. I support this amendment. Due process being restored has been a long time coming for those who face citizenship revocation.

The third amendment has to do with increasing the age of individuals who must pass a language test to 60. This Senate amendment I do not support.

In reviewing the process that we have embarked on with Bill C-6 to arrive at where we are today, let me point out that at committee I tabled 24 amendments on a range of topics. Two out of those 24 amendments were passed at committee. They included changes in two areas.

First, a statelessness provision would provide the minister with the authority to intervene in cases that would cause a person to become stateless and provide him or her with status based on humanitarian and compassionate factors. I was pleased that amendment passed.

The second amendment that also passed was with respect to disability rights. My amendment would ensure that the Citizenship Act adhered to Canadian human rights laws and regulations around reasonable accommodation for those with disabilities. I am pleased that this amendment also passed.

While I am happy that these amendments were supported at committee, there were many that were not. One set of amendments that I had hoped would be adopted at committee would have ensured that there would be judicial fairness and due process again for those faced with citizenship revocation. As members may be aware, the Conservatives' Bill C-24 fundamentally altered the process for revoking citizenship.

The process in place before Bill C-24 involved three steps. The first was a report under Section 10 of the Citizenship Act that the minister was satisfied a person obtained citizenship fraudulently. Second, once notified of the report, the person could request that the matter be referred to the Federal Court for a hearing. Third, if the Federal Court made the finding requested by the minister, citizenship could be revoked by the Governor in Council, which could consider equitable factors.

The Conservatives' Bill C-24 eliminated the Federal Court hearing process. The minister now decides on revocation with no requirement for a hearing, and this is wrong.

As pointed out by the Canadian Bar Association:

Bill C-24 also eliminated consideration of equitable factors that could prevent a legal, but unjust, outcome. Before then, the Governor in Council could consider equitable factors when deciding whether to revoke citizenship. This is no longer possible.

The BC Civil Liberties Association also challenged this, and stated:

In our submission, the government should repeal the procedural changes made to the Citizenship Act by Bill C-24 and restore individuals’ right to a fair hearing before an independent judicial decision-maker who can take humanitarian and compassionate considerations into account in making their decision.

There is no question that this needs to be rectified.

Perhaps the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers put it best when it said:

A permanent resident subject to deportation for misrepresentation has a right to both a hearing and an equitable appeal. Yet a Canadian citizen whose citizenship is to be revoked has no such rights. These provisions are currently being subject to a legal challenge—

I will diverge from the quote to say that a decision has been made by the courts, and the BC Civil Liberties Association, which took this matter to court, won.

These provisions are currently being subject to a legal challenge in the Federal Court as being inconsistent with the Charter of Rights. There is no reason why the new government should support these reforms which deny citizens a fair hearing. Indeed, while in opposition Liberal Members of Parliament opposed these very provisions.

The amendments that I proposed at committee were based on a system put forward by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, known as the CARL system, supported by experts and stakeholders that use the IRB. Prior to Bill C-24, individuals could appeal to the Federal Court. Because of the cost, duration, and lack of availability of the courts, this has been called an inefficient system by some experts.

The Immigration Appeal Division currently undertakes similar appeals and reviews of decisions for statuses such as permanent residence. For that reason, this board is adequately situated to handle citizenship cases as well, and can handle them more efficiently than the Federal Court system. My amendments would have instituted this policy as well, which is what I proposed. The aim was to restore the consideration of humanitarian and compassionate grounds as well as put forward a system of appeal that is more efficient and cheaper for taxpayers. Sadly, these amendments were not supported at committee, as they were deemed to be out of scope.

Former minister of immigration John McCallum acknowledged that this needed to be fixed. Many of us in the community were led to believe that this would be done. However, no action was taken. When the government failed to address the issue, the BC Civil Liberties Association challenged the government in court on this fundamental violation of people's right to due process and won. There is no question that this needs to be fixed, and finally, here we are.

The matter was then pushed over to the Senate. That is exactly what happened. The government did not introduce a bill in the House to fix the problem, so it was pushed over to the Senate for the Senate to deal with. I lobbied a number of different senators on the need to address this issue and I am glad to see that Senator Omidvar agreed to champion the cause. Now, after more than a year, I am happy to see that the Senate has attempted to rectify this huge gap in our Citizenship Act with its amendment, and today the government motion before us indicates that this amendment will essentially be accepted.

With this Senate amendment, individuals will have the right to a judicial hearing, and humanitarian and compassionate considerations related to the person, particularly in situations where the best interests of a child are directly affected, will be considered, although the government's motion uses different terminology. Instead of humanitarian and compassionate considerations, the government's motion uses “any consideration respecting his or her personal circumstances”. At the end, the effect, I believe, is the same. Therefore, the NDP supports this amendment.

I would like to point out that there seems to be some suggestion from my friends on the Conservative side that having an appeal process in place would incite people to somehow defraud the system and misrepresent their applications. I will take a moment to respond to that, because that is simply absurd. People do not think that because there is an appeal process, they will think about how to defraud the system or misrepresent their cases. That is absolutely not how people operate.

We need to have due process in place to ensure we do not presume people are guilty before they make a final decision. By the way, there are situations where a case could well have gone awry from the officials, that they might have received misinformation about a particular application. It is absolutely essential in a democratic society for an individual to be able to challenge the alleged misrepresentation against them. Allowing the appeal process to be restored will do exactly that.

In addition, the government motion also added the provision whereby an individual could request that his or her case be heard by the minister. That is to say that an individual would have the option of having the matter referred to federal court or be heard by the minister.

As the government motion allows for this to be a choice, the NDP will support this change as well. If it said that it would be up to the minister to make that decision, we would not have supported it. People should have the right to choose an independent judiciary to make that decision. However, since this is not what the government has proposed, I will support the option to allow for the individual to make that choice.

The truth is that the Harper government should never have taken away someone's rights to a judicial hearing in cases of citizenship revocation.

Tied to the process of citizenship revocation, another issue I hope the government will rectify is the notion of indefinite suspension. As it stands right now, the minister has the right to suspend the citizenship process indefinitely. Instead of putting in a system of accountable and extendable deadlines, the government is continuing the indefinite suspension provisions. This is wrong.

Under this system, a person could be under investigation indefinitely without ever knowing when it might come to an end. Imagine what that would be like. In criminal cases there is a statutory limitation, but not in immigration. Does the government not think it is wrong to indefinitely investigate someone? Do the Liberals really think it is an appropriate thing to do in the case of citizenship and immigration? While I moved an amendment on this during committee, unfortunately the committee did not accept it, and that is too bad.

Let me turn to another amendment before us today. The Senate proposed an amendment to provide unaccompanied youth or those under state care pathways to citizenship. I called for this at committee. At issue, as explained by justice for children and youth, is:

Section 5(3)(b)(i) allows for an applicant to make a request to the minister on humanitarian grounds for a waiver of the age requirement...this humanitarian exemption poses a generally insurmountable barrier for children wishing to access citizenship and is not a reasonable limitation or a satisfactory solution to issues raised by the age requirement provision.

The provision in effect restricts access to Canadian citizenship for children—solely on the basis of age—who otherwise meet all the requirements.

It restricts access to citizenship for the most marginalized children, i.e. unaccompanied minors, children without parents or lawful guardians, and children with parents who do not have the capacity to meet the citizenship requirements or do not wish to apply.

Unfortunately, my amendment was rejected by the committee. I am so glad now that the Senate, particularly Senator Oh, picked up this amendment, advanced it and has now referred it back to the House.

The NDP will wholeheartedly support this amendment. I had wanted to see this adopted at the committee stage.

Let me turn to the last amendment before us.

The Senate saw fit to bring forward an amendment to increase the upper age requirement for passing a language test from 54 to 60. This is where I diverge from the Senate. The NDP does not support this change and I am pleased to see the government also disagrees with it. The government motion has changed the upper age requirement for passing a language test from 60 back to 55.

It is my view that we should go further than this. I moved an amendment at committee to reinstate the allowance for an interpreter to be used during the knowledge test in the citizenship process. The current system amounts to a second language test, which is harder than the actual language test, due to non-standard terms and events contained in the knowledge test for those who do not speak English or French as their first language. I was saddened that my amendment did not pass at committee.

I learned English as a second language. I immigrated here when I was young, and I did not speak a word of English. I spoke Cantonese. I have my Cantonese language. I speak the Cantonese language fairly fluently. I can understand, communicate, and I can do interviews in that language without any trouble. However, when technical terms come up, it is very difficult to know what the technical term is and how to articulate it well. This is the same thing for those who are subject to this citizenship test. The issue around technical terms is that they differ in the first language, and often it is difficult for the person to pass the knowledge test if they do not have the technical language. That does not mean that they do not speak English well enough—they speak it very well—but some technical terms are very difficult to master.

There was a time, prior to Bill C-24, that the interpreters would be allowed to attend these tests so that those technical terms could be explained in the person's first language. However, that has now been done away with, and I am saddened by that.

There are other amendments that I wish were before us. At committee I called for the expansion of the definition of “statelessness”, to better capture how people can fall through the cracks. In particular, I called for the provision to prevent any official from being able to engage in a decision that would contravene any international or human rights agreements that Canada is a signatory to, especially those on statelessness. Unfortunately, those amendments were not supported, as they were deemed to be out of scope.

On a related matter, I would like to see changes made to address the issue of lost Canadians. For decades, Canadians have found themselves to be stateless due to a number of arcane laws. We heard from a number of people who lost their citizenship out of the blue one day because of these arcane laws. There are situations of second-generation Canadians who had been born abroad not being recognized as Canadians.

This year we are heading into the 150th anniversary of this country. When we celebrate this nation's 150th birthday, would it not be something to know that there are Canadians who have been Canadians all their lives, have somehow become lost in the system, and we have done nothing to fix that? That was something I wanted to advance at committee, yet once again the committee did not accept my amendments. I am concerned that the government did not bring legislation to address this issue before July 1 of this year. That should have been done.

The other issue I want to raise is with respect to cessation provisions. We talked about this issue with respect to refugees. These are people who, unbeknownst to them, find their status affected for no other reason than that they travelled back to their country of origin at a time when the cessation provisions were not in place and when the threat that had forced them to flee their country no longer existed. Even then, the status of these people had been affected by cessation provisions. In most cases, cessation proceedings are brought against them when they apply for their citizenship. That is outrageous. I hope that all members of this House would agree with me that those provisions need to be done away with. We need to bring in legislation to repeal the cessation provisions that were brought forward by the Harper government.

With that, I know my time is running out. I am glad to see that this bill is finally before us. I hope to see a speedy passage of it, so Canadians can ensure that their rights are protected. I hope that those who have been waiting for this bill to pass will finally see it go through all stages of the House and come into force and effect.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I went through the steps we took at length, including the measures in Bill C-24, which are effectively being revoked by the current government, to prevent citizenship fraud. One of the measures we put in place was the streamlining of the process for revocation in cases of fraud, as a way to make sure that people are not incenting that. I read quote after quote, actually a quote from a news article, that said we were taking steps in the right direction.

Here is the thing for my colleague. The Liberals have been in government for nearly two years. The Auditor General's report came out under their government. They are the ones who are saying welcome to Canada. They are the ones who are moving this amendment. I have made a very compelling business argument tonight, but it is their responsibility to act. In 2019, the current government cannot come forward and conjure up the ghost of Stephen Harper. The Liberals have to take responsibility for their own actions. If they are not doing that tonight, and if they are simply supporting this amendment because they do not have the wherewithal or the plan to address some of these issues, they are failing Canadians in their mandate.

I cannot stand here and accept the politicized argument my colleague just made that somehow this is Stephen Harper's fault. Our former minister, Jason Kenney, spent a great majority of his career trying to correct the mistakes that had compiled over decades of Liberal governments. At some point, the current government has to take responsibility for the fact that it has materially changed the immigration process, our levels in Canada, and it is now setting the tone for how these processes work.

My colleague could have asked me any number of questions about how we could study this or what our party is willing to do in terms of further study or support, but he instead chose to make a partisan dig at the former prime minister. I would answer his question with one to him: When is he going to take responsibility for the failures of the Liberal government?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. I also want to take this opportunity to thank him for his service as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I have greatly benefited from his long experience as chair of that committee in previous Parliaments, and I have learned a lot from him.

Continuing on the issue of the legislation's silence on how Canada is supporting LGBTQ refugees, I firmly believe that many positive recommendations were put forward by members of civil society who appeared in front of our committee that could have been adopted into some sort of program. It is shame that this omnibus legislation that the government has tabled does not address the needs of that particular group. It is something that I hope the government will address. We will continue to put pressure on the government to see the pilot program that was established under our government become a regular program, and that it be done with the help and advice of members of the community in Canada who have been doing excellent work.

Another good point is that we have not addressed the issue of how best to support private sponsorship groups. Some of the testimony that we heard during the study on Syrian refugees earlier this year, or late last year, indicated that many improvements could be made to harness the generosity of Canadian philanthropists and people who choose to bring refugees into their homes through private sponsorship.

One frustration facing many of my colleagues across political lines is the wait times for applications to be processed to bring these refugees to Canada. There are many reports of people losing their deposits on apartments that they secured, or not being able to connect the refugee family they have identified with the support here in Canada because of processing times. This continues to be an issue.

It always behooves us to be thankful, as well, in this place. On behalf of all parliamentarians, I want to thank the many Canadian private sponsorship groups who have worked not only through the Syrian refugee initiative, but who have helped to bring persecuted ethnic and religious minorities to Canada as well. I am speaking of groups such as Rainbow Railroad, and groups related to and working within the LGBTQ community. They have assisted in bringing persecuted people from those communities into Canada through the private sponsorship program. Again, the recommendations relating to those improvements are nowhere in these amendments.

I do not understand what priorities are in the bill, as opposed to some of the most urgent issues we have seen come before our country with regard to immigration.

I would be remiss if I did not talk about the bill's silence on one particular issue of great interest to all parliamentarians and many Canadians, and that is the issue of those coming across our land borders illegally, irregularly, whatever words one wants to use. A great tragedy that has not been acknowledged in this place adequately was the recent news that we received last week of a woman who tried to cross into Canada from the United States to presumably seek asylum, which is my understanding from media reports, and perished in her journey. That is deeply tragic, and yet the government has been silent on it. This is a problem.

The government has been silent on the problem of border crossers. We have seen a sharp rise in the number of people who are making the journey across the border to seek asylum. Community resources are strained. The resources of CBSA, the RCMP, and local municipal governments have all been greatly strained, and yet the Liberal government has not come out and said anything. It took the government months to even allude to the fact that this is not a safe activity.

I grew up in southern Manitoba, and I know what a -30° winter evening looks like. It is not a safe activity to cross the border in this regard. When the Prime Minister tweeted a welcome to Canada in that context, I was just so dismayed. I was not dismayed to share the sentiment that Canada is an open and welcoming place. That is not in political dispute. The dispute is that the manner in which people enter our country should be done through proper procedures. Where there are gaps that enable the activity that is happening here, that is why we have the opportunity to debate legislation such as Bill C-6. Bill C-6 has been completely silent, in the amendment process and everything, given that it is an omnibus bill, on the issue of the safe third country agreement and the process by which people can seek asylum in Canada if they have already entered the United States.

For those who are listening who might not be aware of this issue, Canada has an agreement with the United States. It essentially functions such that if somebody makes an asylum claim, we acknowledge that our asylum systems are both very robust, arm's length, operate on principles of generosity and compassion and due process. If someone makes an asylum claim in the United States, they cannot automatically also claim asylum in Canada. The safe third country agreement essentially was designed, among other things, to ensure that our asylum system is open and transparent and fluid for the most vulnerable people in the world, and that it is not being gummed up by people making claims in both of our countries. The safe third country agreement speaks very specifically that if individuals cross the border through proper border channels, they are not allowed to make asylum claims. However, it is silent on the issue of individuals who cross a land border or a border that is not controlled. This allows people to cross the border illegally into the country and then make an asylum claim.

I do not think that this is sustainable. My colleague from the NDP, whose riding name I cannot think of, has been very eloquent in raising the concerns of the legal community, in saying that maybe the safe third country agreement should not exist and we should abandon it. I feel that this is a loophole that we perhaps should close. That is my position. There are other people saying well, what about those positions in the context of treaties that Canada has signed onto with regard to refugees? The point is that we have not had a debate on this issue at all. The government has not even acknowledged that this has been an issue. It is absolutely absent from this bill, and that is a huge problem.

As we go into the summer season, experts are anticipating a very high number of people who will be coming to Canada in this fashion. I visited communities in my former province of Manitoba which have been experiencing this. There have been some members of the Canadian community who have been trying to paint the raising of concerns such as this as a xenophobic activity. I remember having a conversation with three women on the street in Gretna, in front of a facility that was designed to house senior citizens and had been used to house and process people who were crossing the border illegally. Members of this community are saying that their community is very small, and they are now seeing the equivalent of roughly a third of their population being processed through the centre on a daily basis. That is not sustainable, not only for the community, but for the people who are crossing into this country. I have had conversations with the provincial government in Manitoba, and it is saying that the province needs more financial support from the federal government. My question and my push-back to them is on whether we need more financial support, or does the government need to make a call on how it is managing these asylum seekers writ large?

I have great concern that without the government providing some direction or some notice to the international community on where it stands on this issue, we are never going to come to a resolution on either a process fix or a legislative fix, or even on an awareness or education campaign, that is going to prevent trafficking groups from ramping up activities. These are all legitimate policy concerns the government has been entirely silent on in the context of Bill C-6.

The problems along the Manitoba border show a failure of our ability as parliamentarians to address a critical issue. We had a tragic and insightful moment during the federal election campaign of 2015 when we saw the body of a small child washed up on a beach because his family was trying to migrate away from an area of crisis. We should be equally outraged about the fact that a woman died under the processes we have in place for trying to seek asylum in Canada. We need to have a hard conversation about how many refugees we allow into the country and under what circumstances. That includes the components I raised earlier in my speech with respect to long-term support.

There is a cost. We need to have a plan. The government needs to be transparent to Canadians about that and not just say it is the responsibility of the provincial governments. My colleagues in the Manitoba legislature have a point in saying that we are abdicating responsibility to the provincial government in not addressing this issue.

The Minister of Public Safety has said in the House that they are monitoring the situation, etc., etc. However, monitoring the situation is not cutting it, because someone has died, and we cannot continue to allow that to happen. The bill is silent on this issue, and the Minister of Immigration has also been silent on this issue.

My colleague from Vancouver who sits on the immigration committee with me has raised a salient motion at the committee to study this issue, yet every time she has brought it forward and made impassioned arguments to have the study completed, she has had the issue curtailed and debate cut off. We have not even voted on the motion.

We are here today looking at Bill C-6, one of the most pertinent public policy issues of our time, and the bill is completely silent on the topic of the safe third country agreement or long-term support for refugees. I find that atrocious.

How can government members continue to get up and say that Canada is a place where we welcome refugees, or go to international forums and say that Canada is the best model for how to deal with refugees, and realize that we are not exceptional? Canada is exceptional in our naïveté and our arrogance to think that our process cannot be fixed.

I look at the failures of our country when the going got tough in dealing with the question of refugee admissions, such as the MS St. Louis, when the federal government had a policy of none is too many. When we say never again, we have to mean it, but we also need to ensure that there are adequate processes in place to ensure that never again does not happen and that we have long-term support and social licence for Canada to continue to be a welcoming country.

Where are we in this? We are at talking points. That is all the government has offered. I have colleagues in the Liberal caucus who feel strongly about this and want to be compassionate, but we cannot be compassionate without having a conversation about how. I might not have all the answers, and they might not have all the answers, but surely we can use our time for debate and our time for bill study for issues like this. The government has tabled a piece of legislation, and the Senate has sent back amendments, that are silent on these most pertinent issues. That is an abdication of responsibility.

I would like to know how the government plans to deal with fixing the issue of the long-term prioritization of refugees. I would like to know how it plans to support them, but there is nothing in the bill.

I will transition to the bill's requirement for language proficiency. I do not even know where to start, because we have seen so many iterations of this. To become a citizen, there is a language proficiency requirement. At present, I believe the age is 65. Someone under the age of 65 has to be proficient in one of our official languages, either French or English. I remember in the first debate I gave a lot of evidence and testimony that language proficiency is a unifier. People coming to our country need to have proficiency in one of our official languages to obtain employment and participate in the economic fabric of our country but also to ensure that they are not isolated.

I worry, especially in the context of a Syrian refugee study done by the parliamentary committee, that many women come to Canada and do not have the opportunity to obtain language-training services and then become isolated in ghettoized communities because they have not been able to learn English. The whole rationale behind the age requirement of 65 is that many people are expected to work, and do work, well into their sixties. People in this place are in their sixties and work very hard, but to participate in Canadian society and in the workplace, they need to be proficient in one of our languages. The bill originally purported to reduce the age at which refugees needed to demonstrate proficiency in one of our official languages before they could obtain citizenship.

Some of the points I have been emphasizing is that language proficiency binds us together in Canadian pluralism for the long term and that rather than reducing the age limit we should talk about how to ensure that new Canadians integrate into Canada. If age is a barrier to learning the language, how do we overcome the barrier? These were the questions I asked the minister at committee. I asked what evidence the minister had to show that this was somehow going to be beneficial, rather than talking about access to language training services. This is material to the Senate amendments, because the Senate amendments are directly pertinent to the age by which language proficiency training happens.

Mr. Paul Attia, a spokesperson for Immigrants for Canada, stated:

...we at Immigrants for Canada view citizenship like being a member of a team. Everyone has the opportunity and the chance to try out for that team, but you have to meet certain requirements. You have to show up to practice—that's residency. You have to be able to communicate with your teammates—that's the language issue.

Former Minister McCallum stated:

I think it's a question of balance. I accept totally the evidence suggesting that mastery of one of the two official languages is a good thing, that it promotes and enhances an individual's ability to do well in Canada, to get good jobs, to integrate. On the one hand, we do favour language requirements. On the other hand, I think for older newcomers it's less important.

I think one has to take into account cultural issues....

I don't regard 55 to 64 as super-old, but those above the average age will not necessarily be required to do this, even though as a general principle we believe that the mastery of English or French is important for the success of newcomers.

In his statement, the minister did not provide any evidence or rationale as to why the reduction of the language proficiency requirement at a certain age was a good thing.

I remember asking both the IRCC officials and the minister about whether there was an economic analysis of the impact on the Canadian economy this language proficiency requirement would have. Ms. Catrina Tapley, an IRCC official, said, “to continue on with the previous questions, a full economic analysis of changes on language is not something the department has undertaken”. That is important. She pointed to other countries in terms of the language proficiency age for citizenship, but there was no justification for why this was happening in the Canadian context, especially given that Canada is a pluralistic country.

We welcome people from around the world under different streams of immigration processing. If we are going to lower the age of language proficiency to obtain citizenship, what will that mean for the Canadian economy? We are going to have people who likely self-deselect from the economy, because they are not able to communicate in one of our official languages in the employment sector. That would have been an opportunity to prove me wrong.

A witness from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Sheryl Saperia, said,

I would just add, though, that language is the key to success in a new country, so I would never want to impose unduly high standards, but you do want to encourage new citizens to learn so they can succeed and make the best possible life here.

I introduced on the front end of my speech evidence and commentary on the Syrian refugee initiative. One of the things we heard over and over again in witness testimony was that to see success for people who entered Canada through the Syrian refugee initiative, language training and language proficiency would have to be top of mind in government planning. This is a quote from Sandy Berman, from the Or Shalom Syrian Refugee Initiative, said:

We are very frustrated. We are ready to support, but we are also trying to be innovative. We have approached people who would donate apartments in the interim as a way of addressing the housing issue. All our refugees who are privately sponsored, even the family of six, are not going to get their housing needs met, because we cannot afford to support them in the apartments they need to be living in, which are three- or four-bedroom apartments. We recognize that they are going to have to make a compromise about where they live.

In terms of English language training access, I really support your concern. Getting access to English or French is of critical importance in getting employment. There are refugees, for example, who are working for Arabic-speaking construction companies here, but many people do not and cannot rely on Arabic-speaking people within an employment situation to help them through the process. Access to English and French is of critical importance.

It is very clear that at the heart of any policy or legislative change we make, we need to ensure that language training is an issue. When the former minister, Minister McCallum, was in front of committee, I remember asking him point blank about this. Why are we focusing on lowering the age of proficiency when we are not focusing on having a stronger, more robust national framework for language-training services for newcomers to Canada and also seeking a mandate from Canadians to spend money on it? Again, going back to the campaign platform, the government said the Syrian refugee initiative would cost $250 million. We all know that this is very low. I want to make sure that the government acknowledges that by waving its magic wand with this bill, it cannot erase the need to have language-training services.

Ms. Leslie Emory, the board director for the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, said:

The Syrian refugee resettlement initiative highlighted the need for affordable and appropriate child care, more language classes for different levels of learners, and different service times outside of the usual daytime classes in many more locations.

Ms. Leslie Emory also said:

I can't speak to the costing that is happening on the government side.

None of us can. That is very clear. She continued:

I can certainly say that, with the large number of refugees in the community needing language instruction, child care, and all those things, there isn't the full capacity to support them at this point in time.

She also said:

I think that in the case of Syrian refugees, women without the language and often with large families, with those factors together, tend to be isolated. What we need to do is introduce programs that work for them and work with their lifestyle to bring them into the community, and offer, for example, alternative language instruction models with child care.

That is really at the heart of why we need to oppose this particular component of Bill C-6. The point that Ms. Emory makes here is that without talking about that other side of the coin, the long-term support for integration, we actually are not getting the question of how we integrate right. Again, I do not understand why the government has provided no compelling arguments, no evidence, and no research to show that the reduction in age of language proficiency to obtain citizenship is something that is positive.

This is a very blunt quote, and it was from a Syrian refugee. This is taken from interpretation in Arabic. He said:

No, I am not working. How can I work if I don't know the English to communicate?

Again, I am trying to build an argument on the front end of my speech talking about how the government's position on Bill C-6 on the reduction of age of proficiency for language for citizenship, because it has not addressed the issue of language training, is the wrong policy approach. We should be keeping that high, and then looking at and examining the systemic barriers that people encounter to learning a language to ensure that they have long-term employment prospects. To me, that is how we continue to build the case for immigration in Canada.

Here is another quote from a refugee:

In my case, I went to a different centre, and again they told me that it was full, that I had to wait. When I told them that I am a newcomer and that I wanted to register for ESL classes, they told me: “That's good, but again, we don't have any vacancy now. We don't have any seat for you. Can you go and come back?”

Why? It's because, they tell me, there is a very big number of Syrians, the newcomers, and that's why all the classes are full. Apart from that, there are some immigrants who had been living there before the coming of the Syrian refugees, and now these immigrants also have started going back to ESL classes. This has created a different situation to ours.

To me, there is a complete lack of evidence. To all of my colleagues in this place, this is very serious. I know I am going on at length, but there is a lack of evidence to show that the reduction in the age of proficiency is the correct policy vehicle. Rather, the evidence that has been before us in committee testimony, as well as writ large, is that we should instead be looking at the systemic barriers to integration when it comes to language and addressing those.

On that, my understanding is that Senator Griffin, in the other place, proposed an amendment to Bill C-6 that would come up with, for lack of a better term, a happy medium. Rather than having, as Bill C-6 originally prescribed, the age of language proficiency for citizenship be 55, that it be 60. She has provided some excellent rationale for that.

This is my summary of it. The previous Conservative government was the first to define the age cut-off in statute at 65. Prior to that, in the early 1980s, the criteria for a routine waiver, this is the proficiency requirement, was set at 65 and over. By 1994, the waiver was lowered to 60. At some point between 1994 and 2014, the waiver was again lowered, this time to 55. My colleague in the other place argues that these were never political decisions but rather mid-level management decisions that stem from the bureaucracy.

Taking from her speech in the Senate:

According to the Library of Parliament, the age of 55 for an exemption from the requirements is a more recent trend that was not decided at either the political or the senior departmental levels.

Therefore, age 55 seems to be an arbitrary number without any evidence for this decision. Senator Griffin continued:

As well, the Library of Parliament analyst cannot find any record of age 55 being transmitted through ministerial instruction. The age of 55 appears to have been decided at a middle management level via an instrument of delegation.

She has based her argument on a June 1994 committee report and this was under the majority Liberal government of the time. The report was entitled “Canadian Citizenship: A Sense of Belonging”. To paraphrase the findings of that committee report, it argued that lowering the voting age would arbitrarily lead to misplaced compassion that could isolate new Canadians and hinder participation in Canadian society. Lowering the age for routine waivers from 65 to 60 led to a 10% to 15% drop off in attendance at language and citizenship classes, according to a judge who testified at committee. The witnesses all stressed in that report the importance of language to the integration process and to the sense of belonging that is the essence of citizenship.

I know that people might say that 1994 was a long time ago. It does not feel like a long time ago to me. It has gone quite quickly, but that said, what I find interesting is that whenever the government is talking about justification or examples of integration of previous refugee cohorts into the country, it references refugee cohorts who have come to this country in a much different context than we see today.

The reality is that language proficiency is even more important today than it was in 1994, given the fact that our modes of communication have greatly changed. We are expected to be able to use a wide variety of electronic communication devices in order to be proficient or work in many jobs. If people do not have that language proficiency, that precludes them from being able to fully participate in the workforce or to have any sense of being able to move upward in their career progression.

The report is an interesting read and I encourage my colleagues to look at the report. There were two recommendations that I want to highlight. First, it says:

The Minister should retain the discretion to waive on compassionate grounds the requirements of knowledge...and/or an official language; this discretion should, however, be exercised on a case-by-case basis and only following a genuine effort on the part of the applicant to comply.

It continues:

The power of the Governor in Council to enable citizenship to be granted to alleviate cases of special and unusual hardship or to reward services of an exception value to Canada should be continued.

The point is that even back in 1994 the case that was being made was that language is a unifier and helps people participate in the Canadian economy; ergo, we should not be lowering the age of the proficiency requirement. I do not understand why the the government is doing this here today. I would rather have my colleagues support the amendment that has come from the other place, from Senator Griffin, because it acknowledges the need to encourage people and to provide the services to have people become proficient in the language.

I understand the government is not supporting this. I took that from the minister's speech. I would urge my colleagues to think about that. It is not in our best interests. I will address some of the pushback and rationale that could be used. There were some witnesses who talked about people who did not have access to becoming citizens because they had circumstances in their lives that precluded them from learning the language. We heard many witnesses at committee talking about circumstances in which people cannot learn the language, but again, the recommendation that I just read from the 1994 report shows the minister already has discretion to be able to waive the requirement. He can do that on a case-by-case basis under situations of compassion.

To reiterate my point, we should be undertaking a study to look at why people experience barriers to learning language in Canada. Instead of seeking to change the age, we should be seeking to overcome the barriers to programming, and then relying on civil society and the communication of expectations to people coming to Canada that this is very important.

By lowering the age, we are sending a value statement to the world that at 55 years old we no longer expect people to be productive and employed members of society, and that somehow we are passing people by. Perhaps that is not the intent of the government. However, that is how it feels to me without that justification, that case the minister could have convened a committee but did not, from the quote that I read. Therefore, I really feel strongly that this particular Senate amendment should be supported.

The large amendment is with respect to the appeals process for people who are about to have their citizenship revoked because of fraud or misrepresentation. It was an amendment that was put forward by the Senate and it came up at the committee stage. Therefore, I will provide some context as well as a position on it. We have not even touched on this issue at committee or in the House at all.

All of us here maintain constituency services. We have immigration processing and casework as part of our responsibilities. This has a huge impact on the immigration system in Canada, both in terms of the integrity and the capacity of our immigration system to manage this change.

Bill C-6, in its original form, removes the requirement from Bill C-24 for people convicted of terrorism to have their citizenship revoked. As I mentioned at the outset of my speech, this would affect somebody like Zakaria Amara. However, throughout the debate on Bill C-6, in its original format, and at committee, my understanding was that the government would always retain the ability to remove citizenship from people who had obtained their citizenship through fraud.

I would argue, and I hope no one would disagree with me, that if people lie on their citizenship application or provided fraudulent information they should not be entitled to keep their citizenship because they lied to get it and were not entitled to it in the first place. It is a different argument than revocation of citizenship for terrorism or other acts. We could have an entire other debate on that, and we have had debates on that. However, in this instance, the revocation of citizenship for fraud or misrepresentation is right and just because people were never entitled to it in the first place. The decision by the government to grant them citizenship was predicated on the provision of false information. Nobody wants that to happen, yet we know that it does happen.

Citizenship fraud is a very serious issue. We started to look at citizenship fraud in the previous government. It was early in the last Parliament. I believe it was in Toronto, in 2013, that there were thousands of instances where people had been found to have cheated the system.

Citizenship fraud is a matter of great concern. This was highlighted in the Auditor General's report of 2016, in which the Auditor General found signicant instances of citizenship fraud.

This was an article written by Stephanie Levitz in early 2016, which stated:

People with serious criminal records and others using potentially phoney addresses are among those who managed to secure Canadian citizenship, thanks to a system that doesn't do enough to root out fraud, the auditor general has found.

Michael Ferguson's audit of citizenship applications between July 2014 and last fall found the Immigration Department has granted citizenships based on incomplete information or without all the necessary checks because it's not applying its own methods to combat fraud.

The issue isn't the department's alone--the auditor general found they weren't getting timely or enough information from border officials or the RCMP either to help flag suspect cases.

“This finding matters because ineligible individuals may obtain Canadian citizenship and receive benefits to which they are not entitled,” Ferguson wrote in his spring report, tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons.

“Revoking citizenship that should not have been granted takes significant time and money.”

The problems range from immigration officials not routinely checking travel documents against a database of known fake papers to a failure by officers or their computers to flag problematic addresses that could point to residency fraud.

This blew my mind when I read this.

In one instance, it took seven years for an official to realize that a single address had been used by at least 50 different applicants during overlapping time periods. Of the 50, seven became Canadian citizens.

A review of 49 cases where an individual's address had been flagged as problematic concluded that in 18 instances, citizenship officials didn't follow up to see if the applicant actually met residency requirements.

In four cases, the RCMP failed to tell the Immigration Department about criminal charges laid against people who'd already passed the criminal records check step of the citizenship process. Two eventually became citizens; a third failed the knowledge test while the fourth abandoned their application.

The auditor general also found four people who should have been ineligible because of their criminal records, but were granted citizenship even though the officers had access to the information.

It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether any of the red flags raised by the auditor general's office have resulted in new fraud investigations.

In response to the audit, the Immigration Department, Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP all say they are working to improve their efforts and a better system should be in place by the end of this year.

Tuesday's collection of audits also flagged problems at the start of many people's path to citizenship -- the Immigration and Refugee Board, which handles asylum claims

As part of a review of appointments to government tribunals, the auditor general found ongoing and lengthy vacancies at the IRB, as well as at the so-called specific claims tribunal, which handles decisions on First Nations claims against the Crown.

In both cases, the vacancies are contributing to delays in tribunal decisions--at the IRB, 21 positions are vacant, leading to wait times of an average of 18 months, up from the last study of the appointments process in 2009

When it comes to filling vacancies, the auditor general flagged the fact that for part-time positions, there was no evidence of a selection process or an assessment of candidates against required qualifications.

In 2016, early last year, the Auditor General, and I would love to read the whole report, but I am not quite sure if there is the appetite for that, found significant failures within departments. I do not want to make this political. There is a huge bureaucracy here. Where it becomes political is what political oversight will do to rectify the problem.

I have had some colleagues ask me if citizenship fraud really is that much of a problem. This was an article which I wanted to find. It is what precipitate us to make some changes in the citizenship, the revocation appeals process.

It is a CBC News article written September 10, 2012. It states that 3,100 citizenships were ordered revoked for immigration fraud. Then the lead was that 19 individuals were stripped so far as Jason Kenney's department investigated some 11,000 cases. The federal government had started the process of revoking the citizenship of 3,100 people suspected of lying to become Canadians. It said:

Speaking at a news conference on Ottawa Monday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the federal government is "applying the full strength of Canadian law" to crack down on individuals suspected of obtaining citizenship fraudulently or falsifying information required for permanent residency.

Canadian citizenship is not for sale," Kenney told reporters. "We are taking action to strip citizenship and permanent residence status from people who don't play by the rules and who lie or cheat to become a Canadian citizen."

There are a few other quotes in this article I want to highlight, which state:

This crackdown on fraudulent citizenships is part of an investigation into some 11,000 people who may be lying to apply for citizenship or maintain permanent resident status....Of these, nearly 5,000 people with permanent resident status have been flagged for additional scrutiny should they attempt to enter Canada or obtain citizenship, a departmental release said Monday. The majority of these individuals suspected of residence fraud are believed to be outside the country.

Clearly, fraudulent applications and misrepresentation are not an anomaly in Canada.

There is also a famous case that theNational Post wrote about in 2014. The article is titled, “Blatant lying loses family its citizenship—but earns them a $63K bill from Canadian government” details how a Lebanese family was stripped of its Canadian citizenship, “after they were caught blatantly lying about living in Canada, part of a government crackdown on bogus citizens that could extend to thousands of cases.”

In this case, the family, a father, mother, and their two daughters, signed citizenship forms, claiming they had lived in Canada for almost all of the previous four years when they really lived in United Emirates, a fact posted online in the daughters' public resumés on LinkedIn.

The point I am trying to make is that the amendment brought forward by the Senate, which was debated in the House committee, has significant implications because both the incidence of fraud is high and the Auditor General has found serious deficiencies in the government's ability to detect citizenship fraud.

We have these two issues. We know citizenship fraud happens. We know there are deficiencies in the government's ability to detect it. The government has been silent on what it is doing to address this to date. Why is this important? The amendment would ensure that a court hearing would given to people facing citizenship revocation on the grounds of false representation or fraud. That is from a Globe and Mail article on May 3, 2017.

The next is from a Nation Post article on March 9, 2017, which states, “the amendment requires the immigration minister to inform them of their right to appeal that decision in Federal Court.”

After the government's Bill C-24, revocation processes were streamlined such that people were not automatically granted a right to defend themselves if their citizenship was about to be taken away. That content is from a senate motion aims to restore due process to Liberal citizenship bill.

I will start laying out my argument on why I believe we have a problem here.

Our priority should not be to increase appeal mechanisms for those who have cheated the system to obtain citizenship. This will lead to further backlogs to the already inundated federal court and will cost Canadian taxpayers significantly in order of magnitude to both process and to maintain the benefits of people who are here under fraudulent circumstances.

Already applicants have the right to appeal an IRCC decision in federal court if the immigration department erred in the interpretation and application of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The process of stripping citizenship should be left to officials, not to an arbitrary appeal board.

This is the problem I have, and for all of us who do casework in our office. This could incent someone to lie on his or her application when the focus should be on educating people about the consequences of fraud and how to properly obtain citizenship.

All of us, regardless of party affiliation, have had casework in our offices where people have come and said that their citizenships are being revoked because they lied on their applications. Usually it is a variation on these stories, such as they have received bad information from an immigration consultant to put fraudulent information on the application. In that situation, it is very difficult for members of Parliament to intervene because they lied on their citizenship applications.

The second thing we sometimes hear is that there are extenuating circumstances. For example, people felt they were convicted of crimes in countries where they were fleeing persecution and they felt the courts were corrupt or they were unduly found guilty of crimes that they chose to hide those convictions on their application. After they have been found out about this and their citizenships are at risk of being taken away, they say that their citizenships should not be taken away because of the circumstances in their previous country. In those situations, many of us would say there is a generous and fair process to evaluate their situations, including criminal records if they are truthful on their applications to begin with.

The original amendment from the Senate and the reason why it was not brought forward by the government as an amendment during the House of Commons review at parliamentary committee was that if we put the emphasis on the appeals process and gave people who were cheating the system an additional layer of complexity around appeal, not only were we potentially gumming up our federal court system, but we were telling people not to worry, that if they lied, they had a second chance.

That should not be the message. So many people are coming to Canada. They play by the rules and will be amazing contributors to the Canadian fabric, either our economy or our social fabric. However, the finite resources we have to review applications or the finite resources we have for benefit provisions will be provided to people who have made a conscious choice to provide false information on their citizenship applications.

I understand there are going to be circumstances by which people might hesitate to put something on their applications, but the consequences of lying on their applications are their citizenships could be revoked. That is where we should be spending our time. That is where the government should be focusing its resources, in educating, promoting and saying that if people lie, there are serious consequences and citizenship will be taken away. Not that we are going to have a long appeals process. I think there is cross-party agreement on this.

It was a harrowing committee study on the issue of immigration consultants and some of the fraudulent activity. Some of the testimony was mind-blowing. Many members who listened to it were convinced they had to do something to fix this. While there are many positive, strong immigration consultants, people who give advice for a fee to navigate Canada's immigration system and citizenship process, there are also people who abuse the system. I do not want to send any sort of message to those people that it is somehow okay to provide false information on a citizenship application.

We should think about this. We now have started to say that with this amendment, we will put the focus on the appeals process on the back-end. We know there is a high degree of immigration fraud. We also know the government does not have the capacity or the processes in place to detect fraud. This is a material change to the integrity of our immigration process and the government has been completely silent. To a large extent, the media has also been silent on this. This is a fundamental change to how we operate and what values we place on the process by which we obtain citizenship in Canada.

This amendment and the government's response have unfortunately made further complex and that is because there was a federal court ruling that came out about a month ago related to this situation.

There was a Federal Court ruling that states there is a need for an appeals process in instances of citizenship revocation. However, there are a variety of problems that this ruling could pose, which includes that it could increase backlogs, as I have said, incentivize lying on one's application, and bringing into question whether fraudulent recipients have a right to Canadian citizenship.

In regard to the Federal Court ruling and what it does, the government has now allowed the period of appeal on this Federal Court ruling to expire. The ruling itself essentially said that what was in Bill C-24 was not applicable. It argued that everyone has the right to appeal citizenship revocation. In its 62-page ruling, Justice Jocelyne Gagné found that new provisions, I believe in Bill C-24, violated the Canadian Bill of Rights.

This is interesting. It is violating the Canadian Bill of Rights, not the charter, which is a quasi-constitutional document. The decision affects more than 200 individuals who have lost their Canadian citizenship since May 2015 under this shortened administrative process. Many will now be entitled to full hearings and may be able to get back their revoked citizenship.

The decision addresses eight test cases that challenged the constitutionality of the changes made in May 2015...over alleged lies on their residency or citizenship applications. The changes also barred them from reapplying for Canadian citizenship for 10 years after revocation.

The government had 30 days to appeal this ruling, and the clock ran out late last week. To date, the minister has not appeared before committee or answered in the House as to why the government let the clock run out on this. I believe there is a very strong argument that could be made to appeal this decision. Again, and I have talked to a couple of constitutional lawyers on this, it is really the definition of citizenship. I believe this ruling, and I would love to have a debate with someone on it, is predicated on the notion of the right of Canadian citizenship.

If this decision is predicated upon that understanding, an argument could be made that a citizenship that has been obtained fraudulently was not someone's right to begin with because they obtained it under false circumstances. To apply the logic and notion to making a court ruling that somehow we should be extending rights of a citizen to someone who has obtained their citizenship fraudulently and therefore is having it revoked, I think is grounds for appeal. However, the government has not actually talked about this.

Some people have said that we need to talk about this on compassionate grounds. I think there is a myth out there that there is not already a form of appeal. I am going to quote the current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. He was at the Senate committee on March 1 of this year. He said, “In fact, the whole point of sending the revocation notice—

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, I disagree strongly with the hon. member's contention that the bill would make dramatic changes to the immigration system. In fact, what made dramatic changes to the immigration system was Bill C-24. Bill C-24 introduced barriers to citizenship when the barriers did not exist. Bill C-24 made two-tier citizenship possible in our country, something that is completely unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians. They feel that two-tier citizenship is the wrong thing to do. Bill C-24 created a system in which people would have to wait longer and jump through so many hoops to become citizens.

Bill C-6 would address those issues and contribute to more integrity within the citizenship system. For the first time, it would empower immigration officers to seize fraudulent documents. I encourage the member opposite to support our amendments.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I can't speak to the anticipated costs. What I can speak to is that Bill C-6 remains a priority for us because it removes the obstacles to citizenship that were implemented by Bill C-24.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

On Bill C-6, we anticipate and are hopeful that the Senate will pass C-6 so that we can move very quickly on removing obstacles to citizenship brought in by Bill C-24. Whatever is in C-6 that would require changes to the regulations is something that we will also move very quickly in the—

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for her question.

As the member is aware, our government is already moving forward with its commitments to repeal certain provisions of Bill C-24, including provisions relating to the revocation of citizenship on national interest grounds.

That said, while we want to ensure that citizenship requirements are fair and flexible, Canadians also want to protect the program from abuse. I understand the member's comments related to both citizenship revocation and cessation provisions, and I will address both of those.

On the citizenship revocation, that is available under four grounds: misrepresentation, fraud, knowingly concealing material circumstances, or where national interest grounds are at stake. As part of Bill C-6, which has been voted on and passed third reading in this House, provisions relating to citizenship revocation under national interest grounds are being repealed, which is a step in the right direction I think we would all agree.

With respect to the other grounds related to misrepresentation, fraud, and knowingly concealing material circumstances, the most serious cases are prioritized, such as those involving serious criminality or organized fraud. There have been several large-scale fraud investigations across Canada, which have led to the increase in citizenship revocations.

Canadians are proud of their citizenship, and our government is committed to upholding the integrity of that citizenship. The ability to revoke based on fraud has been in place since the inception of the act in 1947, and will continue to do so.

This tool is very important in ensuring that the program remains effective, as the Auditor General indicated in his report.

As things stand now, the minister has the authority to revoke citizenship in basic fraud cases, such as residence fraud, identity fraud, and criminality. The Federal Court has the authority to decide on more complex cases where the misrepresentation is in relation to concealing facts relating to inadmissibility for security violations, human or international rights violations, or organized crime.

With respect to the revocation process, which has been underlined here by the member opposite, under the authority of the minister, once individuals receive a notice of intent advising them that their citizenship may be revoked, along with the evidence that the notice is based on, they are given the opportunity to provide submissions and evidence relating to the case to the decision-maker, which can be taken into consideration.

These are some of the due process components that have to be emphasized to the member opposite. While we are open to suggestions on how to improve the due process protections, certain protections exist at present. In certain circumstances, for example, an oral hearing may be held. Personal circumstances of the individual, including any hardship that may be caused, can be taken into account by a decision-maker.

With respect to the cessation provisions, I know the member opposite has spoken about this. She is an advocate for this provision. We are looking at the cessation provisions, because certain aspects of those cessation provisions, including the retroactivity component and including the ability to revoke not just the refugee status but also the permanent residency of an individual, are aspects that are concerning to this government. We will, indeed, be analyzing those very provisions that have been raised by the member opposite.

I want to underscore, once again, there are due process protections in place for revocation of citizenship, including what I have outlined, but also the fact that a judicial review can be sought with leave to the Federal Court of Canada.

The minister has said publicly many times in this House, and in the Senate where Bill C-6 is currently, that we are open to considering enhancements to the current process for revocation for citizenship fraud, and that is exactly what we will do should those suggestions be made.

[Rana Zaman, As an Individual]

I'm a little nervous. I'm not as learned as the other gentleman that was here. I'm here as one of the people, one of the immigrants. I'm not a political person. I just got a wake-up call with the last government when this bill was passed. It made me jump out of my complacency and my trust in the government was just eradicated because I thought you were all very wise, caring people who looked out for the benefit of everyone and I mean everyone. You passed a law that I couldn't imagine, it was like George Orwell's1984 kind of thing coming through for me, but it affected my children directly who are born and raised here and never have been back home, which I call home. I've only been back twice myself.

The whole idea under this law gives such unlimited power to a body that doesn't really have to answer or show proof really of anything except suspicion of intent. Please correct if I'm not as versed as I should be about this law, but I just have the basics, as I've said.

I couldn't believe that. I said these kids, how are they not as Canadian as anyone else who was born and raised here, who has never been anywhere else. If they, in their youth, in their stupidity, did something as a protest or anything that was somehow defined as a terrorist act by this body, what would happen to them? They'd be sent home where they have never been. I thought that's not possible and yet someone here, who was considered old-stock Canadian, would not be considered under the same law because they were considered Canadian.

I think that's where the second-class citizen idea came from. Bill C-24 and Bill C-51 were the two ones that really made me understand. As I said, I apologize, I'm not a politician yet, so I'm learning.

My whole point is that listening to that gentleman, I learned a lot right now. Basically we're giving power—according to the first gentlemen and the second—to an entity that really is not answerable in many ways and we know that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. You just have to keep in mind that it affects you as well. I can't imagine how a government passed something that would interfere in your own personal information. I understand people are saying, "Well, I'm innocent, it doesn't matter". How many people in the past who have been innocent have been railroaded for a crime they didn't commit or for some reason they were on the wrong person's radar? We have to look at this very carefully.

Also simple things such as the fact that they can observe you at any time based on any comments that you can make. How do you know the person on the other end is absolutely of a moral fibre that they won't abuse that power for their own benefit, if they have a personal beef against somebody? “I'm going to go in and tune in on that person and see what they're doing.” How do you know that their children...? God forbid, if someone who's a pedophile or something is not zooming in using your cameras and things to just basically get information about you and your family. These people are human beings. They're connected to other human beings. The possibility of abuse of power exists at any level. So my whole thing about this whole bill is the fact that it really infringes on a person's right and their privacy. It's just too much power for one organization to have. They can go to that level and not be answerable or not have to go to a judge or somewhere to get one to say we need to look into this person because they made these comments, they've made this kind of background.

And we're really kind of monitoring now even simple comments that we're making by phone or trigger words. It's just a frightening concept in a frightening future and I think you can hear it in my voice. We look up to you as our leaders and this affects you as equally, so how are you not afraid of it?

That's all my questions.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

First of all, thank you very much for sharing that with us.

I just wanted to let you know that with regard to Bill C-24, the House of Commons did pass it on third reading, so it is in the Senate right now being debated. That's just a matter of clarification for you.

[Kathy Shimizu, As an Individual]

Hi, my name is Kathy Shimizu. I'm also not very.... I was very prepared, but I think now I'm not very prepared.

I just wanted to speak because I'm also a member of the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association human rights committee. I'm a Sansei—I'm a third generation Japanese Canadian—and both my parents and their families were interned during the Second World War. So I ask you to repeal Bill C-51, which I guess is now a law, along with Bill C-24.

The rights of Canadians have been violated in the past, and this law is the same. It goes down that road, and it's dangerous to the rights of all Canadians. Bill C-51 is not needed because the Criminal Code covers all of the illegal activities that it purports to help us fight. If people are doing illegal activities in Canada, the Criminal Code covers this. You don't need this. As other people have said, this is draconian. It's about racism, and it's about fearmongering, and I ask you to learn from history. Don't make the mistakes of the past.

As a Japanese Canadian I am proud of my heritage and the Government of Canada has already acknowledged that it was a totally wrong act to imprison its own citizens. This kind of bill leads to the same kinds of things, and I ask you to stand on the right side freedom and the rights of all Canadians.

Thank you.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the minister and his staff for coming before the committee.

First I would like to ask the minister why at this time the ministry is continuing to revoke the cases of up to some 60 individuals each month who have been found to have misrepresented their citizenship application. The minister acknowledged publicly that there isn't procedural fairness for processing these cases because they don't have that under Bill C-24 and it has not yet been fixed under Bill C-6, so an individual family could be impacted including children who may have, through no fault of their own, been caught up in the situation through the misrepresentation. Will the minister agree that a moratorium should be put in place with respect to revoking citizenship applications based on misrepresentation until such time as the process has been addressed?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for raising the point about the litigation. However, I believe she would be aware and members of the House should be informed that the litigation was actually placed on hold pending our government's commitment to reform Bill C-24 by Bill C-6, and we have done exactly that. In its most glaring constitutional violation, Bill C-24 jeopardized people's citizenship based on their places of origin in terms of the ability to revoke, based on national security grounds, the citizenship only of people who were not born here. That change has been made and the litigation has been put into abeyance.

The submissions made by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and other members who attended at committee have been heard. We have received those documents, we are reviewing them, and we look forward to enabling better and more constructive due process provisions going forward in respect of citizenship revocation when it arises in the case of misrepresentation.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, the issue is about revocation of citizenship without providing due process.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers have been fighting the blatant violation of the constitutional rights of Canadians since the Harper Conservatives brought in Bill C-24. It has been almost a year since the Liberals were elected and they have failed to deliver in making the changes. There is no question that immediate action is needed, and what is more, it is possible. It is not too late to act.

As reported on CBC:

If [the Minister of Democratic Reform]'s birthplace was misrepresented on her citizenship application as well, that would be grounds for revocation of citizenship, regardless of whether it was an innocent mistake or the fault of her mother, said immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman.

And if the misrepresentation was on her permanent residence and refugee applications, she could even be deported....

This has to change for everyone and I would urge the government to take action now.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, the question on the Order Paper of the member for Vancouver East actually dealt with a substantially different issue, so I will address both in my comments.

The question on the Order Paper related to a matter that relates to funding for language instruction classes for newcomers and settlement services. She received a response from the minister at the time, which I can reiterate and add to. The government takes very seriously the issue of the settlement of all newcomers, particularly in the case of Syrian refugees. On top of the $600 million in funding that was provided in 2016-17 to settlement agencies, an additional pocket of $37 million has been dedicated just for Syrian refugees and their resettlement. We take very seriously the issue of people not only being housed but also being linguistically trained so that they can access the workforce.

In respect of the comments of the member for Vancouver East regarding Bill C-24, I obviously have a very different description of what has transpired with respect to our tabling of legislation, Bill C-6, the significance of that tabling, what it has done, and what it will continue to do for Canadians.

The member made extensive submissions at committee with respect to one particular issue, and I will get to that issue in a moment, but by tabling Bill C-6, we have shortened the time frame for which people are eligible for citizenship. It has been reduced from four years to three years. We have rendered citizenship more accessible by restricting the citizenship testing requirements only to persons aged 18 to 55. It used to be required for anyone as young as 14 and anyone as old as 65. We have also given credit to individuals, such that time spent here prior to becoming a permanent resident can be attributed to one's citizenship eligibility on a factor of 50%, such as temporary foreign workers and international students.

Most importantly, we have also emphasized something that affects me and many members of the House, which I spoke about already in respect of Bill C-6, and that is that we have eliminated the part of the legislation brought in by the previous government which implemented a system whereby one's citizenship could be revoked based on grounds of national security, only for those people who were not born in this country. That is the point about making sure a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. I am very proud of that legislation, and the minister and the department stand behind it.

With respect to issues about revocation of citizenship based on fraud or misrepresentation, it is an important point highlighted by the member for Vancouver East. The issue of revoking citizenship for fraud has existed since 1947, since the Citizenship Act was created. Revoking for fraud maintains an important aspect of what we must do as a government. We revoke for fraud in certain instances, for example, if somebody hides the fact that they participated as a war criminal in some foreign conflict. If that is not presented to officials and is later discovered, we will intervene and revoke that citizenship. It is something Canadians expect us to do and something that this government will continue to do.

The important point raised by the member for Vancouver East, however, is the procedural protections and due process that are or are not available in such revocation contexts. I was at those committee meetings with the member opposite and we heard the submissions. They were important submissions and those changes are not taking place in this form of the bill at this juncture because of the structural and regulatory changes that would be required in terms of the overall apparatus and machinery of government.

Does that mean that they are off the table? It certainly does not. The minister answered a question on this just today in question period in respect of the possibility of looking at such changes going forward.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to further debate the issues related to our immigration policies. At different junctures, different administrations have adopted different approaches and values to Canada's immigration policies. Irrespective of the actions of different administrations, Canada is a democratic country based on some very fundamental principles. Canadians value our constitutional rights.

Under the Harper Conservatives, in June 2015, Bill C-24, Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act passed and became law. The law created two classes of citizens, those who could have their citizenship revoked and those who could not. Under Bill C-24, some Canadians are more Canadian than others, because some Canadians are afforded more rights than others simply because of where they were born.

On June 9, 2014, the Minister of Immigration while in opposition stated:

We object in principle to the arbitrary removal of citizenship from individuals for reasons that are highly questionable and to the very limited opportunity for the individual to appeal to the courts against that removal of citizenship.

When the Liberal government was elected the Prime Minister stated very clearly that there would be real change. Real change should have meant that the government kept its promise to repeal Bill C-24. That did not happen. Real change should have meant that at minimum Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, introduced by the minister on February 25, 2016, fixed the major problems under Bill C-24, especially the sections that violated our constitutional rights. That did not happen either.

There is a gaping hole in Bill C-6. It failed to fix the lack of procedural fairness and safeguards for individuals facing citizenship revocation due to misrepresentation or fraud, whether or not the misrepresentation was the result of an honest mistake. Even if a child's parent presented misinformation on the application for whatever reason, the child's citizenship could still be revoked and the case could not be argued based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Simply put, they have no right to a hearing. This is because the Harper government, under Bill C-24, eliminated the right for an independent and impartial hearing. It also eliminated consideration of equitable factors, or compassionate and humanitarian factors, that could prevent a legal but unjust outcome.

At committee, I tabled substantive amendments to ensure that individuals who face citizenship revocation have the right to a fair and independent hearing and an appeal process. These had broad support, included from the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Legal Aid Ontario, and many others. As long as the rules established under Bill C-24 remain, the Prime Minister's declaration that a Canadian is a Canadian remains elusive. The unfortunate reality is that individuals currently in the citizenship system facing revocation due to misrepresentation still lack the fundamental right to judicial process. It is not a joke that people fighting a jaywalking ticket have more rights than those at risk of losing their citizenship.

Even though the Minister of Immigration acknowledges this is wrong, the Liberal government is aggressively pursuing citizenship revocation of up to 60 Canadians each month under the unfair and unconstitutional process established by Bill C-24. This needs to change.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to strip someone of their Canadian citizenship is a very serious matter.

Stephen Harper's Bill C-24 took away due process for Canadians, even in the case of an honest mistake. The Liberals promised a full repeal of Bill C-24, but so far they have failed to deliver. In fact, the government is aggressively pursuing citizenship revocation for up to 60 Canadians every month.

When will the minister fix Bill C-24? Will he halt citizenship revocation until fairness has been restored?

Citizenship Act

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, it seems, from past experience, that the Liberals are always on the aggressor's side but never on the victim's side. This is what our party and Conservative MPs bring, they are more for the victims rather than the aggressors.

Going back to Denmark, and many other countries, that sort of punishment makes a difference. That sort of thing puts fear in their minds that if they do certain things, they will no longer be living in this country of Denmark or wherever.

This is exactly why the Conservative Party of Canada brought in Bill C-24. It was to put the fear in those people who want to commit crimes against humanity, against Canada, against all those things. We want to make sure the fear is there so they do not commit those crimes.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Madam Speaker, everyone in the House would agree that the main argument the Conservatives are giving is that they want to keep Canadians safe, and I understand that argument. Do they not feel that all Canadians who commit crimes should face the consequences of their actions through the Canadian judicial system? That would keep Canadians safe. If someone commits a crime, that individual should be subject to our judicial system and should be put in prison. That would keep everyone safe.

My colleague mentioned the Toronto 18. I want to give him an example. A family comes to Canada. One child was born overseas and another child was born in Canada. Say both of those children committed a crime here. Under our Canadian judicial system would they both not be considered equal under our laws? Under Bill C-24, one of those children would have citizenship revoked but the other would not. That would not be considered equal justice under the law.

I wonder if the member could comment on that.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am also puzzled by the same situation. I had a call two weeks back from somebody in Scarborough. The person claimed that somebody had made a minor mistake on an application for citizenship 25 years ago. That individual has kids and grandkids and has been told that he has to leave the country.

The member talked about balance. Bill C-6 has no balance. Is committing fraud worse than committing a crime against humanity or a crime against the country?

I talked to another colleague who said that nothing has changed in Bill C-6 compared to Bill C-24. Before the Conservatives took office, the citizenship application fee was $1,500. We brought that down by $500. The Liberal government has not brought anything down.

There are many other issues—

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that those who have committed treason or terrorism and are convicted of doing so face tough punishment and should be punished. There is, however, a problem under Bill C-24. That is why Bill C-6 seeks to revoke the two-tier citizenship.

Does the member opposite subscribe to equality before the law? Does he believe that in the eyes of the law each and every person should be treated the same way, should be put through due process, and should have fairness and justice under the law?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my serious concerns about Bill C-6.

Canada is the greatest and the most generous nation in the world. Our diversity is our competitive advantage, and having strong evidence-based immigration policies is vital as we continue that tradition.

We must have the right policies in place to ensure that Canadians and new Canadians can take pride in their citizenship for generations to come. However, the Liberals have literally ignored this fact, despite their commitment to transparent evidence-based policies. The Liberal government has consistently demonstrated the exact opposite since coming to power. They are recklessly politicizing Canada's immigration policy, despite the important role it plays in safeguarding the future security and prosperity of all Canadians.

The bill before us would reverse changes to the Citizenship Act enacted by our previous government, with the most notable changes being the ability of the government to revoke the citizenship of a dual national convicted of a terrorist act and the requirement that new Canadians sign an oath declaring that they intend to reside in Canada.

We believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives make us stronger. Immigration is an important part of who we are as a nation and of the strength of our nation's future. We want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed, with opportunities for economic success, the experience of our many freedoms, and the experience of safe communities.

However, I am concerned that the Liberals' first priority, when it comes to tabling immigration and public safety legislation, is to effectively give back citizenship and protect the rights of a convicted member of the Toronto 18, Zakaria Amara. Bill C-6 would overturn the previous rule of stripping Canadians of their citizenship if they are charged with plotting against their adopted country. These charges include treason, acts of terrorism, and armed conflict against Canadians. As members can see, these are very specific instances.

It is baffling to me that the Liberal government would prioritize restoring Canadian citizenship to Zakaria Amara. Mr. Amara has so far been the only individual whose Canadian citizenship has been revoked under the changes made by the previous Conservative government.

To provide some context as to why this is important to me and to Ontarians, Mr. Amara had been previously sentenced to life in prison for his role in a bomb plot against a number of high-profile targets in Toronto and southern Ontario. This included a plan to rent U-Haul trucks, pack them with explosives, and detonate them via remote control in the Toronto area. Police thwarted the plot when they arrested Amara and 17 other people in the summer of 2006.

For many families, including mine, the news of the plot was very unsettling. Why would the Liberal government make these changes and not consider the opinions of Canadians in the GTA and how it would impact them, given what happened a decade ago? Other experts in the field have similar views.

Ms. Sheryl Saperia, director of policy for Canada for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies does not believe the provision should be repealed. In committee testimony, she stated that in cases where the crime is not just a crime under the Canadian Criminal Code but a crime against Canada as a national entity, by virtue of a person's actions, this might forfeit the right to Canadian citizenship. She said:

This has nothing to do with discrimination. This has nothing to do with putting up roadblocks, certainly not for any particular community. This is about people's actions. What they choose to do has certain consequences, which may include the revocation of citizenship.

She continues to claim, “I believe that, when people commit a crime against the country itself, then they are potentially forfeiting their right to that citizenship.” She also believes that it is not unreasonable to revoke citizenship for someone who is convicted for crimes of treason, espionage, armed conflict, and terrorism against Canada.

Finally, she states:

I don't believe that Canadian citizenship should just be so easy to receive. I believe it is truly a privilege and a gift. Canada is the most wonderful country in the world to live in. I don't believe it is unreasonable to create minimal standards for what it takes to retain that citizenship. I stand by my defence of the ability to revoke citizenship for those crimes against Canada....

Furthermore, when Mr. Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, last appeared before the committee to testify regarding the previous Conservative government's Bill C-24, he articulated a position in support of the revocation of citizenship from dual national Canadians who have committed certain offences including terrorism offences. This position was a reflection of his belief that in the case of certain particularly heinous political crimes, the perpetrator is actually guilty of two distinct offences. First, they are guilty of the particular crime they have committed. Second, they are guilty of the fundamental betrayal of the core values on which Canadian citizenship is based.

To quote Mr. Fogel:

Our support for this provision [to revoke citizenship] reflects the desire to address not just the crime but also the grievous insult to Canada and Canadian identity that has taken place.

There is only one class of Canadian citizen and all Canadians deserve to be protected from acts of terror. It is also extremely worrying that under the bill a dual national's citizenship cannot be revoked for committing a terrorist act, but can be for simple fraud.

Bill C-6 also removes the requirement that an applicant intends, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada. Applicants for Canadian citizenship will no longer need to intend to remain in Canada upon gaining citizenship.

I believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives make us stronger. Immigration is an important part of who we are as a nation and the strength of our nation's future. We want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed: opportunities for economic success, the experience of our many freedoms, and the experience of safe communities.

The “intent to reside” provision likely does not restrict mobility rights guaranteed under the charter and instead reinforces the expectation that citizenship is for those who intend to make Canada their permanent home. We hope that those seeking Canadian citizenship intend to bring their personal experiences and contributions to our country and enrich it by residing here.

In addition, Bill C-6 seeks to reduce the number of days during which a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship. Under the existing Citizenship Act, the physical presence requirement was fulfilled if an applicant resided in Canada for 183 days in the four out of six years prior to making a citizenship application. The Liberal government proposed changes to reduce the physical presence requirement to three out of five years before the date of application.

We want newcomers to Canada to be successful and experience all that Canada has to offer. The longer an individual lives, works, or studies in Canada, the better connection that person will have to our beautiful and special country. I believe that strong residency requirements promote integration and a greater attachment to Canada. Participation in Canadian life for a significant period of time before they become citizens helps enrich both their experience and our country's future.

Finally, Bill C-6 limits the requirement to demonstrate a knowledge of Canada and of one of its official languages to applicants between the ages of 18 and 54 from the current ages of 14 to 64.

I cannot emphasize enough my belief that an adequate knowledge of either French or English is a key factor in successful integration into our communities and the labour force.

When I arrived in Canada, I began working in a factory. At the time, I was shy and spoke limited English. I have said this before and I will say it again. As a result, I had to rely on those around me to help me communicate with both my co-workers and supervisors. One day I needed help to ask my supervisor for some nails to complete the project I was working on. The young man I asked for help responded by demanding that I buy him lunch first. In this way, I was made to purchase lunch for this young man every day just to keep my job.

This is a situation that I hope other new Canadians never have to find themselves in. For myself and many others, learning the language allowed me to move past this difficult situation, further my own career opportunities, build a number of successful businesses, provide for my family, and support my own children as they pursue their hopes and dreams.

It is because of this experience that I support the immigration language requirements as they currently exist within the Canadian Citizenship Act. To change these provisions without thoughtful evidence-based research is both reckless and irresponsible. As I have repeatedly said, we want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed, opportunities for economic success, and the experience of safe communities. Adequate knowledge of either English or French is a key factor in successful integration into our communities and labour force. Language proficiency promotes integration and a greater attachment to Canada. Proficiency in our official languages helps enrich both their experience and our country's future.

Does the Liberal government not value immigration and new Canadians enough to prioritize their successful integration? Are new Canadians simply a number in a politicized immigration levels plan, tabled without thought to what their lives will look like once they receive Canadian citizenship?

Part of successful integration is the opportunity to pursue meaningful employment. When questioned by committee members if any quantifiable consultation had been done into the economic implications of reducing language requirements, the Minister of Immigration answered that his government had not done so. My caucus colleagues and I demand the government implement sound, well-researched policies. The changes to the Citizenship Act as outlined in Bill C-6 fail on all fronts.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from across, but from the same party, for his question and also for the tremendous work he has done over the years in the Middle East.

Often this term is not used correctly, but the GTA is unique in the fact that half of our population was born outside our country. Half of the citizenry of this megalopolis of the GTA, 6.5 million people, were born outside of Canada. They feel it. They understand this. When Bill C-24 was enacted, all of a sudden they felt somehow they did not have the same equal rights to citizenship as their children, for instance, would have.

Therefore, people were extremely happy that under a Liberal government we delivered on our commitment. It will be a proud moment this Canada Day when in Etobicoke Centre we once again swear in new Canadian citizens and we can say, “Welcome. In Canada a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Willowdale.

I rise to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. Bill C-6 would make specific and targeted changes to legislation passed by the previous government in Bill C-24. The objectives of those targeted changes are twofold.

Before I expand on those two objectives, I wish to state the following. We live in the best country on the planet: Canada, which we share with our first nations and on whose shores generation after generation landed. We are a Canada of first nations, immigrants and refugees, and their progeny. These were and are freedom's shores and the land of opportunity. It is a great privilege and good fortune to be a citizen of our country.

I state this as the son and grandson of refugees. Both of my parents and all four of my grandparents were refugees who arrived from displaced persons camps. My paternal grandmother called Canada freedom's shores, where everyone was equal before the law and where for the first time in her life she had the vote. She had a voice as an equal citizen. It is with this very personal legacy in mind that I speak to Bill C-6.

One of the two objectives of Bill C-6 is to make the journey toward citizenship less onerous and to bring it back to the standards and requirements of a system that worked well previously. There are changes such as reducing the length of time required to be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It would be reverted back to three of five years as opposed to four of six. It would also allow time in Canada before permanent residency to count as half-days toward the physical presence requirement. This would allow people who came here to study or work, or are under protected persons status the comfort of knowing that they are welcome to begin the process toward citizenship. As well, it would amend the age range for language and knowledge requirements from age 14 to 64 back to the previous 18 to 54 age requirement. These are important changes.

However, the most important objective of Bill C-6 is to address the dangerous precedent set by Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizen: first-class citizenship for those who obtained citizenship through birthright; and second-class, revokable citizenship for those became citizens by choice, often by difficult choice and through hard work.

During the last election campaign, our Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada made clear to the millions of Canadians whose citizenship had been denigrated to second-class status and done so retroactively by the previous government's Bill C-24 that we would rescind the offending clauses of that legislation. Simply put, under a Liberal government a Canadian would be a Canadian would be a Canadian once again.

A foundational principle of western liberal democracies is the concept of égalité: that every citizen is equal before the law and is to be treated equally by the law. No citizen has an inherent birthright privilege. This runs counter to historical feudal notions of hierarchical rights granted to different groups based upon birth: caste born into; ethnicity born into; wealth born into; or, in the extreme, the birthright of royalty and the absolute, the divine right of kings. In the liberal democratic west, we are beneficiaries of a system built upon the sacrifices of those who revolted against the injustice of feudal birthright inequality.

The concept of equality was at the core of the French and American revolutions and succinctly put into the American Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, “all men are created equal”. I would with humility paraphrase today that all humans are created equal.

In Canada, the principle is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We live under a system of rule of law. However, all laws must subscribe to the fundamental principles of the Charter of Rights.

When expert witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration during our review of Bill C-6, I asked the panellists, those who both criticized and supported the Conservative Bill C-24, a simple question: “One of the fundamental principles of our justice system is that every citizen is treated equally before the law... Do you subscribe to this principle?” I asked for a simple yes or no.

Surprisingly, both critics and proponents of Bill C-24 responded yes. Only one did not state yes, prevaricating that “For me, it really reflects...the force of that argument, of the position the government has staked out. I still think there are circumstances in which the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy...”.

Even within this prevarication, the only “no” among the witnesses to “should every citizen be treated equally before the law”, one finds an embedded logical disconnect. If the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy, as was stated, should this other remedy, assuming it is a more arduous legal penalty for a fundamental breach, not apply to a Canadian-born terrorist or person engaged in treason, as well?

However, there are other rational disconnects and legal, ethical pitfalls to this section of Bill C-24; for instance, the penalty for a terrorist or treasonous individual who is a dual citizen of a country that is a state sponsor of terror. What would deportation to such a country result in? Would it be a hero's welcome?

On the other end of the spectrum, would we strip Canadian citizenship and deport to a country that subscribes to torture or a country in whose prisons individuals “disappear”?

The question then becomes this. Why did the Conservative government, in the year leading up to an election year, enact a law so deeply flawed; a law that not only offends the fundamental principle of equality before the law; a law that would not stand up to a charter challenge; a law whose penalty in practice could create moral jeopardy or lack of consequence?

Perhaps the answer lies in the observation that it was the same governing group that established a snitch line for barbaric cultural practices during the last federal election campaign—a slightly more camouflaged attempt at the dangerous politics of division and demagoguery that we are currently seeing in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.

However, would a Canadian government knowingly resort to undermining the fundamental principle of equality before the law for electoral gain?

As our Prime Minister pointed out not long ago in this House, it was the same Conservative Party that took away the fundamental right to vote from Canadians in the 2011 election.

During the election campaign, I was proud to be part of a team that pledged to do politics differently; whose leader would not succumb to the temptation of dividing Canadians against themselves; who spoke to our better angels.

As I speak today, I think back to the principles my grandmother imbued me with. She was a hard-working refugee who loved her Canada, who loved our Canada, a country that, for the first time in her life, had given her a voice and the same equal rights of every other citizen. She never missed a vote, and she taught her grandchildren to stand against the injustice of inequality, which had been her lot in life prior to landing on freedom's shores.

Our government, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration worked hard and diligently on this legislation.

It is with pride that, this upcoming Canada Day, we will be able to declare that our Prime Minister and our government have fulfilled their commitment and under the current government, once again, in Canada, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank my hon. colleague for all of her hard work and dedication. It is a wonderful thing to work with people who are so dedicated to making a difference and looking after these issues that are so important to the people we serve.

I am glad to rise in the House and speak on Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

As a former executive director of an immigrant-serving agency in my riding, I want to convey to members here the sense of betrayal that the former Bill C-24 had on our sector and on the people we served.

In my role as executive director, I spoke at many citizenship ceremonies and worked with people as they prepared for their citizenship here in Canada. I was constantly overwhelmed by the immense sense of pride and dedication people felt as they prepared and finally became Canadian. It was events like this that really made me the proudest to be a Canadian citizen.

However, Bill C-24 created a second class of citizen. In fact, it institutionalized systemic discrimination. It was a bill that was so unconstitutional that it had no place in our democratic foundation.

Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all Canadians are equal. It will be good to see this idea begin to be reflected in our legislation again. As our leader said in the 2015 campaign, “...a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”.

During the last election, the NDP promised to repeal Bill C-24, and I thank so much again my colleague from Vancouver East who worked so hard to really make that happen. I was very sad when all of those amendments were not heard.

Bill C-6 in its current form aims to rectify these missteps, but the bill does not do it entirely. After reflection, I am mindful that the bill is not ideal but it will repeal some of the harmful and unconstitutional changes to citizenship made by the previous government. Therefore, I will support its passing in the third reading.

While this is a step in the right direction, there are also many challenges that remain for immigrants. We call on the government to take urgent action on lengthy wait times and huge backlogs, on family reunification, and on the barriers to citizenship that still remain in place.

In the last session of Parliament, the NDP firmly opposed Bill C-24. We called on the Conservatives to withdraw it from the very beginning, but the Conservatives refused to listen.

While some of the changes implemented by the former bill were, in some cases, overdue and addressed some of the deficiencies in the system, others were so draconian that Bill C-24 was widely opposed by respected academics and experts in the field of law, including the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and UNICEF.

During the time of canvassing across my riding, and in the work I did previously, I met many members of the communities I served. I heard stories of people who were choosing to not venture toward becoming citizens, because they were very hurt about this second class of citizenship, and many parents were very concerned for their children.

One parent told me that his children had dual citizenship. He was choosing not to get Canadian citizenship, but he had married a Canadian woman and they had children who had both the citizenship of his first country and hers. Now he is worried about how much their Canadian citizenship actually means. He said to me that his children live here, that they will be raised here, and that this will be the only country they will ever know as home. What if they do something and Canada decides to take away their citizenship? Where will they go?

Other people said to me that it felt as if the government did not want them to become a citizen. They felt that they were a potential risk simply because they were born in another country.

These stories illustrate the real fear that people are feeling and the total disregard for their dedication to this country of Canada.

Bill C-6 begins to make some of those changes, but it still leaves that hesitancy. It still has so many barriers to citizenship. It still provides too many things that create fear for members.

I hope the government will listen and make the amendments in the fall that my hon. colleague suggested. Let us move forward in a positive way in this country.

I am glad that these provisions will no longer be law. Nevertheless, I am disappointed that Bill C-6 does not go far enough. It would still allow the minister to revoke someone's citizenship without the right to a judicial hearing. No matter how good their intentions, ministers simply should not have secret discretionary powers.

Prior to Bill C-24, individuals who were accused of fraud and risked having their citizenship revoked could request a hearing before a Federal Court judge. A final decision would be made by the Governor in Council. Bill C-24 allowed the minister to make a decision based on a review of paperwork, with no right to a judicial hearing. The Liberals' failure to address this feature in Bill C-6 means that there may still be a constitutional challenge to the Citizenship Act.

The NDP believe that a citizen facing revocation should always have the right to a hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker as part of a process that considers humanitarian and compassionate factors.

I remember that the Prime Minister, during the campaign, talked about decentralizing the powers purposely accumulated in the PM's Office. The last government concentrated power in its different omnibus legislation. What happened to the right to a hearing and to due process?

In my last job, I served many newcomers to Canada. Some of the stories I heard were sad, and the commitment to becoming Canadian, in a country seen as free and inclusive, was tangible. The fact that the minister had the power to give or take away citizenship was a level of power that many people came to Canada to escape. Having a fair, transparent process is absolutely imperative.

When the bill was studied at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, New Democrats proposed a total of 25 amendments. Only two of them were eventually passed, and I am so grateful that they were: the duty to accommodate for individuals with disabilities, and adding statelessness as a factor to be considered when granting citizenship based on exceptional circumstances. The remaining amendments were voted down and the Liberals did not give a reasonable rationale for opposing them.

The Liberals need to do more. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has repeatedly acknowledged the considerable shortcomings of his ministry. He promised to take action on the long wait times, but we have still not seen a concrete plan.

Now that this legislation is at third reading, let us start to have this discussion in terms of how to reform it correctly.

The minister should disclose the reasoning for and the frequency of discretionary grants of citizenship. There must be action on cleaning up the mess at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, including speeding up family reunification, putting an end to lengthy backlogs, removing the cap on parent and grandparent sponsorship, and speeding up processing times for immigration and citizen applications, especially in light of the high fees paid by applicants who receive very poor service in return. The challenges I faced in my last job would have tested the patience of any normal human being.

The narrow scope of Bill C-6 prevented many amendments recommended by expert witnesses, including the Canadian Bar Association, from being admissible at committee stage. The minister has acknowledged this and suggests that the Liberals will need to introduce another immigration bill in the fall to address these shortcomings. I certainly hope to see it.

I would like to conclude today by urging the minister to work with us to table a truly comprehensive bill that will improve the Canadian citizenship process. It needs to happen, and it needs to happen soon.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague for those very kind comments. That is very encouraging.

Indeed, Bill C-6 failed to bring forward proper due process for those who face losing their citizenship. In a normal set of circumstances, people who are given a parking ticket or a speeding ticket could appeal that process by going to court. Under this system, with the Bill C-24 changes by the Conservative government and the failure of Bill C-6 to rectify them, those who lose their citizenship would not have the opportunity to appeal this process. That is simply wrong. The Canadian Bar Association and many organizations came forward at committee to say that this needed to be changed. In fact, when Bill C-24 was debated in this House, the current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship also said that was wrong.

Therefore, it is a mystery to me how the government neglected to include that important change in Bill C-6. However, that is exactly what happened. I tried to advance a series of amendments related to that. Unfortunately, they were deemed to be out of the scope of Bill C-6, and therefore not before us. However, I did get a commitment from the minister that the government would rectify this, and I look forward to it bringing forward a government bill in the fall to adopt those amendments I tabled at committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I still intend to support the bill, although it could have been made a lot better had the government been thoughtful about it and incorporated some of those essential amendments that I had tabled at committee.

The other amendment that the government did adopt at committee was the recommendation to address, in part, the issue of statelessness. Therefore, those who are found to be stateless would actually have some means for a pathway to citizenship on a case-by-case basis. Much work still needs to be done in that area. For example, those who are born second generation to Canadians in some instances will still be deemed to be stateless. That needs to be rectified. Therefore, I am really hoping that the minister, in his oversight in bringing forward those important amendments in Bill C-6, will actually bring forward a new bill in the fall so that we can rectify the many problems that were created under Bill C-24.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East for her contribution at committee and to this debate on Bill C-6, which I think is an incredibly important part of the commitment we made in the last election to roll back what we thought were many of the oppressive elements of Bill C-24 that had been passed in the 41st Parliament.

I would like to ask, given the contributions that my friend from Vancouver East made at the immigration committee with respect to some of those amendments—and I noted that some of her amendments were not accepted by the government—whether the member will still be supporting the overall intent of Bill C-6, including some of the amendments she had proposed that were carried at committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for North Island—Powell River.

At the Standing Committee for Citizenship and Immigration, I had the opportunity to hear witnesses from across Canada and they offered their expertise on how we could make Canada's immigration laws better.

As a result of those important testimonies, I tabled 25 amendments to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. Significant amendments were required because Bill C-6 failed to remedy many of the problems created by the Conservatives' Bill C-24.

One gaping hole in Bill C-6 is that it failed to address the lack of procedural fairness and safeguards for individuals facing citizenship revocation. This is because Bill C-24 eliminated the right for an independent and impartial hearing. Furthermore, Bill C-24 also eliminated consideration of equitable factors or compassionate and humanitarian factors that could prevent a legal but unjust outcome.

The system we have defies common sense. How could it be that individuals fighting a parking ticket are afforded more procedural fairness than the person having their citizenship revoked? Yet this is the case.

On June 9, 2014, the minister, while in opposition, stated, “We object in principle to the arbitrary removal of citizenship from individuals for reasons that are highly questionable and to the very limited opportunity for the individual to appeal to the courts against that removal of citizenship.”

Fast-forward to today, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has further reconfirmed that the lack of judicial appeal and review rights for those in the citizenship process still needs to be addressed, yet this concern was not corrected by the government in Bill C-6. Because Bill C-6 failed to address this, I tabled substantive amendments to ensure individuals who face citizenship revocation have the right to a fair and independent hearing and an appeal process.

If passed, the amendments would have created a system modelled after the current process being applied to permanent residents who are subject to deportation on the grounds of misrepresentation. This system, which uses the immigration appeal division, would not only have provided the rights to an independent appeal process, but is also considered more cost effective and efficient than the old system.

Despite broad support to achieve this goal from experts that appeared at the committee such as the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Legal Aid Ontario, and others, the narrow scope of Bill C-6 resulted in these important amendments being ruled inadmissible.

I have asked the minister to adopt my amendments in a government bill in the fall and I hope that happens.

In the meantime however, the unfortunate reality is that some individuals currently in the citizenship system faced with revocation will still lack the judicial fairness provided to people in Canada fighting a parking ticket.

On the issue of procedural fairness, Bill C-6 also failed to address the minister's ability to indefinitely suspend citizenship proceedings. The former Conservative government under Bill C-24 added section 13.1 to the Citizenship Act, which permits the minister to suspend citizenship applications and other proceedings indefinitely while additional information or evidence is gathered.

Under this process, someone could literary die before a decision is made about their citizenship application. I know that recent Federal Court decisions demonstrate the need for a statutory time frame for making decisions to avoid inordinate and unexplained delays. Again, I had attempted to resolve this issue through amendment at committee, and again, the narrow scope of Bill C-6 prevented me from doing so, and the amendment was deemed inadmissible.

Another misstep of Bill C-24 was to place all justice systems around the world on equal footing. This was done by barring individuals from citizenship if they have been charged with or convicted with offences equivalent to indictable offences in Canada.

While this might sound reasonable, it is incredibly important to remember that not all justice systems in the world are equal. Most importantly, some countries deal with corruption at various or even multiple levels of the justice and political system, from local police to lawyers and judges to national leaders. This can, and does lead to unjust charges and convictions. In my view, these situations should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

In its submission to the committee, the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic wrote:

Implementing additional immigration and citizenship penalties for individuals being charged or with convictions is inherently dangerous in that it leads effectively to situations of double jeopardy—that the individual will be punished once by the criminal justice system and then a second time through the immigration and citizenship system.

There are many countries around the world where rule of law is underdeveloped or completely inadequate, or where individuals are charged and convicted for purely political reasons.

While those appearing at committee used the example of Canadian citizen Mohamed Fahmy as an example of how not all justice systems reach the same verdicts as ours, I would also like to draw to the attention of this House that, in 2001, the House voted almost unanimously in favour of awarding Nelson Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship. Under the current laws, if someone like Mr. Mandela immigrated to Canada, he would have been automatically barred from applying for citizenship to Canada through the regular channels.

At the committee, the issue of minors coming to Canada without parents or legal guardians was highlighted to members as an area of significant concern. Unless applying for citizenship as part of the application with parents or guardians, individuals must be 18 years of age or older to become Canadian citizens. While the government argued that there is already a remedy in place to address this, at issue, as explained by Justice for Children and Youth, is as follows:

Section 5...allows for an applicant to make a request to the Minister on humanitarian grounds for a waiver of the age requirement. ...this humanitarian exemption poses a generally insurmountable barrier for children wishing to access citizenship and is not a reasonable limitation or a satisfactory solution to issues raised by the age requirement provision.... The provision in effect restricts access to Canadian citizenship for children—solely on the basis of age—who otherwise meet all the requirements. It restricts access to citizenship for the most marginalized children, i.e. unaccompanied minors, children without parents or lawful guardians, and children with parents who do not have the capacity to meet the citizenship requirements or do not wish to apply.

My proposed amendment would have provided a pathway to citizenship for youth under 18 years of age without a parent or guardian who is, or is in the process of becoming, a Canadian citizen. Addressing this issue was supported by organizations such as Justice for Children and Youth, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and UNICEF Canada, among others. Unfortunately, the amendment was not adopted by the Liberal members on the committee.

While we are on the subject of minors in the citizenship process, in a brief submitted by Justice for Children and Youth, it was noted that the citizenship process fails to adhere to the principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It states:

Youth criminal justice records and ongoing proceedings before the youth criminal justice court cannot and should not be considered for the purpose of citizenship applications because to do so is contrary to the Youth Criminal Justice Act..., specifically violates the privacy protections afforded to minors by the YCJA, and is inconsistent with the fundamental purpose of the YCJA.

Once again, the narrow scope of Bill C-6 deemed this amendment inadmissible.

On the theme of pathways to citizenship, another issue that was brought in when Bill C-24 was tabled and was not rectified by Bill C-6 is the issue of double-testing in language. There is no doubt that acquiring skills in one of Canada's official languages is an important aspect of building a successful life here. However, under changes made by the Conservatives, the knowledge test of Canada required to obtain citizenship now amounts to a double-testing of language skills.

Prior to the Conservatives' changes, individuals had the ability to take the knowledge test with the aid of an interpreter. Due to the changes, the interpreter is no longer provided, and this amounts not only to second language testing, but to a language test that, as we heard from experts who appeared at committee, is arguably more difficult than the actual level of English or French someone must have to pass the actual language test.

My amendment to address this problem and go back to the old system, which would have been the case had the Liberals followed through on their election promise to repeal Bill C-24, was rejected by the committee. I do think this is most unfortunate, as the current rules only serve to maintain the barriers for the pathway to citizenship.

I am pleased that I was successful in advancing and passing two amendments to Bill C-6, which will now enshrine in the law the duty for reasonable accommodation, ensuring that the citizenship process adheres to the principles of the Canadian Human Rights Act for those with disabilities. This will make disability accommodation a right, not something provided out of mercy or on the basis of compassion, as it formerly was.

My amendment clarifies the requirement of the duty to accommodate those with disabilities as they navigate through the citizenship process. Currently, vague words of required “proof” and discretion around accommodation can lead to individuals, who would otherwise be able to become Canadian citizens, being denied due to a lack of disability accommodation.

There is much more to—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand and speak on behalf of the New Democratic Party to this important piece of legislation.

During the 41st Parliament, the previous Conservative government brought in Bill C-24 that made a number of changes to the Citizenship Act. The most controversial of those changes, Canadians are well aware, was the change that effectively created two classes of citizens. There was one in which naturalized Canadians, or Canadians who were born abroad but became a Canadian citizen here, were treated differently than a Canadian citizen who is born in Canada. The Prime Minister expressed it quite eloquently when during the campaign he talked about a Canadian being a Canadian being a Canadian. That resonated with Canadians as well. However there are many other parts of that bill that also were seriously flawed and problematic. Many experts pointed out that the bill was in a number of ways unconstitutional and/or did not respect international law.

From a political point of view, the bill was ill conceived. It was conducted in haste, and in many ways proposed changes to the law where there had been no demonstrated problem. It was a repeated attribute of the previous Conservative government to make decisions not based on evidence but based on ideology. Bill C-24 was a classic example of that. The bill turned out to be very unfair, divisive, was ideologically driven, and most important it was unfair.

The NDP opposed Bill C-24 from the very beginning, and we called for it to be withdrawn and amended. We proposed dozens of amendments, all of which were rejected by the previous Conservative government. The bill before us today, Bill C-6, would amend that flawed and very damaging piece of legislation, so the New Democrats are very happy to support this bill at third reading.

Bill C-6 will amend Bill C-24 in a number of ways, but not in all of the ways that we think it ought to be amended. I will cover both of those.

I will start with where it would amend Bill C-24 in a positive fashion.

Bill C-6 will remove the ability to revoke citizenship based on certain specified grounds. It will remove the obligation for a new citizen to declare the intent to reside in Canada. It will restore the length of time that a permanent resident must actually be present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It will restore it back to the three-year period over five years, from the desire of the previous government, which wanted to expand that to be permanent residents of Canada for four years out of six years. This bill will restore the right to count up to two years of temporary residence before one becomes a permanent resident toward the amount of days that someone has to be resident in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It will eliminate the requirement that an applicant must have been present in Canada for 183 days in four of the last six years. It will remove the requirement for the language and knowledge examinations, which the Conservatives broadened to apply to young people aged 14 to 17, and seniors aged 55 to 64. I will expand on that.

Bill C-6 would also add to Bill C-24 by preventing offenders from counting time served for conditional sentences—that is a sentence served in the community with conditions—toward the calculation of required presence in Canada. That was a very large gap in the bill that the Conservatives missed. Bill C-6 will also give citizenship officials the power to seize fraudulent documents, which is another important provision that would allow our administrators of citizenship to be able to do their job.

This bill, as I said, is not perfect, and we would like to see additional changes. Bill C-6 does not address certain provisions of Bill C-24 regarding the following: the power that Bill C-24 granted to the minister to revoke citizenship based on a paper review with no judicial hearing; and it does not address provisions in Bill C-24 that provided a prohibition on citizenship for people charged with or serving a sentence for a criminal offence abroad, which also has to be an indictable offence in Canada. This bill also would leave in the minister's discretion to privately grant citizenship to individuals, which is another power that the New Democrats do not believe ought to be exercised in such an executive and non-transparent manner.

The New Democrats are pleased to support the bill because it repeals many of the harmful and unconstitutional changes to citizenship made by the previous government. We are disappointed that the bill does not go quite far enough in the ways that I just mentioned and we also point out that the narrow scope of the bill did prevent many amendments recommended by expert witnesses, including the Canadian Bar Association, from being admissible at the committee stage.

The Minister of Citizenship has explicitly acknowledged this and suggested that the Liberal government will need to introduce another immigration bill in the fall to address those shortcomings. We want to encourage the minister to keep his word on that and we look forward to working with the minister as he tables a truly comprehensive bill that will improve the Canadian citizenship process and comprehensively restore proper, sound, and fair law to this very vital part of Canadian political life: citizenship.

I am going to talk about the background to the bill. It was introduced by the Conservative government in February 2014, so essentially within a year or year and a half of the last election. The reason I point that out is that the previous Conservative government tended to act on ideological and political wedge reasons, not on sound evidentiary-based reasoning. We think that the bill was motivated politically as Conservatives tried to speak to a base and intolerance in Canadians by creating wedges between people. I will talk about that in a few moments because we think it is always a very unsound way to create legislation in this place.

At second reading in the last Parliament, the NDP tabled a broad amendment calling on the government to withdraw that bill and we also asked the government to send that bill to committee before completing second reading to allow that bill's obvious flaws to be addressed before continuing debate.

Not surprisingly, the Conservatives refused and despite our opposition, they adopted Bill C-24 without amendment. Bill C-24 received royal assent in June of 2014. Since then, the New Democrats have been asking for the bill to be revoked, especially regarding the provisions that increase the powers in the hands of the minister, including the authority to grant or revoke citizenship in executive fashion without a judicial process, the provisions to eliminate the recognition of time spent in Canada as a non-permanent resident, the parts of the bill that prohibit the granting of citizenship to persons who have been charged outside Canada with an offence, and the provisions that increased the residency requirements and the knowledge and language requirements in the bill.

Once again, the Liberals have addressed most but not all of those issues in this new bill. I am going to drill into some of these important issues. First, let us examine the provision that we support in the bill about repealing the national interest grounds for citizenship revocation. Legislative changes of that former bill that came into effect created a new ground of citizenship revocation that allowed citizenship to be taken away from dual citizens for certain acts against what was described as the national interests of Canada. These grounds included convictions for terrorism, treason, spying offences, and for membership in an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada.

The bill repealed those grounds. I want to say at the outset that the New Democrats and I think every member in the House acknowledge the seriousness and unacceptability of those crimes. There is no question about that. Treason, terrorism, spying, acting in a foreign army engaged in conflict with Canada, these are all crimes that I think every Canadian would condemn in the most strenuous way possible.

However, the issue becomes what the proper remedy for that is. What the New Democrats, many members, and obviously the new Liberal government have now acknowledged in the bill is that the proper response to anyone who commits those acts is to be dealt with harshly and appropriately by the Canadian legal system. That is the proper way to deal with citizens, not to strip a citizen of their citizenship rights, which hearkens back to the old medieval concept of a king in the 12th century banishing a citizen from the kingdom as punishment.

That is the kind of spirit that infused the Conservative government with this law. Instead, any person who believes in modern democracy and modern concepts of statecraft, would agree that once people become citizens, they are citizens. Citizens should be dealt with together.

Here is the rub. I have heard the Conservatives say the word “equality” in the House before. They have never been able to satisfactorily explain this to anybody. If a Canadian citizen born in Canada committed a terrorist act, or a Canadian citizen born in Canada spied against Canada or a Canadian citizen born in Canada fought for an armed forces against the Canadian Armed Forces, why he or she would not be stripped of his or her citizenship, but a naturalized Canadian who committed exactly the same act could be stripped of his or her citizenship.

This was the essence of the objection to that provision. It created two tiers of Canadian citizenship. I will stand in the House, and all MPs will stand here, and condemn each one of those heinous crimes, but we will equally stand in this place and say that it is a Canadian value to treat Canadian citizens equally before the law.

I am very happy to see the Liberal government enforce that very important concept.

I want to talk about repealing the intent to reside provision. Since June 2015, adult applicants must declare on their citizenship application, because of the Conservative law, that they intend to continue to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. This provision created concern among some new Canadians who feared that their citizenship could be revoked in the future if they moved outside of Canada. The Liberal government is proposing to repeal this provision, and I congratulate them on that because it is absolutely the right move.

All Canadians are free to move outside of this country and live where they wish. Again, we have another example of discrimination in law by the Conservative government where I, who was born in this country, could move to France if I wanted to and never have to worry about my citizenship being revoked. However, someone who was born in a different country and was naturalized here would have to worry. That is discriminatory. I am glad to see the government repeal that discriminatory provision.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and address this important debate; and certainly an honour for me to follow my friend, the parliamentary secretary from Parkdale—High Park. I did not agree with much of what he said in his speech, but I appreciate his work in this place, and particularly the opportunity we have to work together on Parliamentary Friends of Tibet.

Before I get into the specific provisions of this bill, I want to spend a bit of time setting the philosophical groundwork, at least in terms of how I see it and many on this side of the House see it, on the substance of this debate, underneath these provisions, in terms of what Canadian citizenship is all about.

I will say at the outset that I believe that we live in the best country in the world. I do not say that lightly. I have lived abroad and I have travelled quite a bit. For many reasons, we live in the best country in the world. One of the proof points of that is the fact that we have so many people who want to come here. Over the last 10 years, we have had the highest sustained immigration levels in this country's history. However, comparatively as well, many more people want to come to Canada relative to our population than want to go to many other countries.

As we think about what our citizenship is and what it means, perhaps it is important to start by asking why Canada is such a great country, and what we can do to ensure that in the context of our ongoing definition and redefinition of citizenship we preserve what is essential about our country. We are all very proud of Canadian diversity. The parliamentary secretary spoke eloquently about the diversity that we have in this country. However, many countries around the world have diversity and perhaps have a different experience of that diversity. I was thinking as I prepared for this about the visit of the Chinese foreign minister. China is a very diverse country, but a country in which religious and ethnic minorities face significant difficulties. Russia is a very diverse country. Syria, in fact, is a very diverse country. So we have many countries around the world that are diverse where perhaps the experience of that diversity is not positive for those in the minority.

It is clear, if we look at this comparison, that it is not diversity alone that makes us great and it is not diversity alone that makes us who we are; but it is in fact what we do with that diversity, how we work together in the context of that diversity, and in particular our ability as a nation to build together around shared values. If we have diversity without any kind of shared values, there is always a risk of conflict. I am very proud of our history as a country that has both great diversity and has managed to maintain a strong sense of shared values. That is particularly important for our success.

It is worth underlining what some of these shared values are. We have a belief in this country in freedom. We have a belief in democracy, in basic principles of human rights and, to some extent, in universal concepts of human dignity that underline those ideas of human rights. We have a belief in the rule of law; in universal human equality and value regardless of race, religion, caste, ethnicity, linguistic background, et cetera. We have a belief as well in gender equality, which is very important to who we are in this country. We have unity around these common values in the context of our own diversity. Our experience of not just political unity, not just sort of general accommodation of one another, but of practical community and common purpose, is quite unique in this country.

I will just share this anecdote because it is important. I was in a European capital a number of years ago, meeting with a Canadian friend of mine who was working there. We were in a very diverse part of this city. There were people from all different parts of the world. We noticed around us all of a sudden that we did not see any mixed-race social groups. We saw a group of people from one racial group together, and then a group of people from another. We looked around us in the crowded centre of this European capital and it was a bit jarring to realize that in spite of the fact that this was a very diverse place there were no obvious signs of community, of at least people sitting together within that place.

The advantage we have in Canada is in building substantive community between different people of different backgrounds.

I thought about that experience later when, at the time I think it was the British prime minister, similar comments were made by French and German leaders, talking about the alleged failure of multiculturalism in the European context. As much as I would regard that as not correct, even in the context of Europe, it is worth understanding that there is a different experience of multiculturalism in Europe compared to the Canadian experience.

Canada, from the moment of its founding, was a country founded on shared values and on ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity. We can compare that to many European states, which obviously emphasized elements of shared values, but also have measures of ethnic nationalism built into their founding as well.

We have to welcome newcomers in a way that understands that background without compromising what George Cartier called our concept of one political nation. I will read from a book called Straight Talk, which is a book on federalism that I captures this well.

That dual quest for the universal and for cultural diversity has been with us since the birth of our Confederation. We have often strayed from it since then, and committed grave mistakes and injustices, but the result is this admirable human achievement that is Canada.

We have had this history from the beginning of combining the universal values in the context of diversity. The same book continues with:

Finally, Cartier wanted Canada to be a “political nation”, a nation of solidarity which transcends race, religion, history and geography to ensure that the French in Quebec would never want to break their solidarity with other Canadians. If we seek a contract at the birth of our federal union, it is certainly the one expressed by Cartier, which has inspired all of Peter Russell's work. Quebecers of all origins have helped other Canadians a great deal to achieve that ideal; they must not renounce it.

Straight Talk was written by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I think he has had some very good things to say in the past about the importance of common values in the context of this diversity.

Where are we going from here then? What is the philosophy which underlines this legislation advanced by the government?

Early in the new government's term, the Prime Minister was talking to the The New York Times about aspects of Canadian identity. Here is what he said, which is something very different than the words I just quoted from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He said, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada...Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.”

Therefore, we have in the House, at least between our side and the Prime Minister, very different visions of what the Canadian nation is supposed to be.

Ours is one of unity around shared values in the context of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other forms of diversity. However, the Prime Minister's concept is one that goes beyond or outside of this idea of shared values and emphasizes the diversity, but at the same time wants to perceive Canada as a postnational state, not as a political nation.

It is with that in mind that we come to legislation put forward by the government, which would allow convicted terrorists to retain their Canadian citizenship. I think we can understand what the Liberals' thinking is on this bill in light of the Prime Minister's comments to The New York Times and in light of that underlying philosophy.

It is clearly a problem to our historic concepts of Canada as a political nation to say that convicted terrorists should be able to retain their citizenship. A terrorist is not just someone who wants to do violence and mayhem. Terrorists are people, in our current conception of it, who disconnect themselves from our Canadian values, who embrace a wholly distinct set of values than the ones I have outlined, gender quality, universal human dignity, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and instead commit themselves to fighting for the destruction of those very values. A terrorist is not someone who is pushed outside of the fold of Canadian values. A terrorist is someone who chooses to leave the fold of Canadian values, and that is very clear.

Our concept of diversity that emphasizes shared values says that diversity does not extend to those who wish to destroy us. There have to be parameters or limits ensuring that we remain the country we have always been, a country of unity in the context of our diversity.

The Liberals view of diversity in many ways bends over on itself. It permits those who are deeply at odds with things in which the Liberals themselves clearly believe, gender equality, human rights, the rule of law, democracy. Yet it allows people who reject those things, who want to fight against those things, to remain in the Canadian family and to use the advantages of their membership in the Canadian family, of their Canadian passport, for example, to then wreck havoc against the very values that we espouse.

I think all of us in all corners of the House deeply believe in the idea of diversity, but we also believe the diversity is necessarily bounded as a practical matter, as a matter of our own survival. There are certain things we must agree are simply not welcome here and they include the desire to destroy our way of life.

I ask Canadians who are watching this to reflect on these differences of vision, the one espoused by the Prime Minister and the one espoused by George Cartier, the question of Canada as a postnational state or of Canada as being part of a common political nation.

It is important to specifically counter some of the arguments that were made by my friends across the way. Members of the government have said many things on this that are substantially true but do not really apply to this legislation. My friend, the parliamentary secretary, praised the importance of having a path to citizenship. We have always had a path to citizenship in our country. Nobody is proposing, or has seriously ever proposed, the creation of a sort of UAE-style of citizenship where an individual would have to be born here. We believe very much in a path to citizenship, and we can disagree over the difference of one year here or there in terms of being in a country without disagreeing on that fundamental point.

For those who have a commitment to Canada, there is no substantial problem with saying let us wait another year. Those who do not have a commitment to Canada will perhaps have a different perspective. All of those who have a commitment to Canada, whether it is an additional year, it is not clear to me what the breaking point is about those changes.

There is an important issue alleged by the government, and we hear this talking point many times, of two-tiered citizenship. There are two things that need to be said about this. First, the government has been clear that its intention is to retain the ability to revoke citizenship that was acquired on the basis of fraud. This means that people who acquired their citizenship could have it stripped from them on the basis of fraud.

Fraud is in my mind a much lesser crime than terrorism. For the government to say that on the one hand citizenship is irrevocable for someone who clearly parts ways with Canadian values and then say on the other hand, citizenship can be lost if someone cheated on a form is just not consistent.

If the government really takes this idea that citizenship is irrevocable to its logical extreme, it is hard to understand why it would be dealing with a more extreme issue, yet leaving in place the revocation possibility for a relatively less extreme offence.

I want to say this as well about the regime the government put in place. The government's bill would institute a system of two-tiered citizenship that did not exist before. Under its system, people who acquired their Canadian citizenship could have it stripped on the basis of fraud. Under our system, anybody could have their citizenship stripped on the basis of fraud or involvement in terrorism.

Under the Liberals' citizenship process, nobody who was born in our country or who was born with Canadian citizenship could ever lose their citizenship. Our system treats equally those who were born abroad and those who were born here. Therefore, I am perplexed by the Liberals continuing use of their talking point, in spite of their total unwillingness to actually implement the fullness of this supposed principle that they are espousing.

The fact is that where an individual was born does not matter for our original legislation. People could lose their citizenship if they were involved in terrorism, and it did not matter if they were born here or somewhere else. The value of Canadian citizenship is dependent on their commitment to our shared values, not on where they were born. That is an important principle and a principle for which we have stood.

Of course, as a practical matter, we cannot strip the citizenship of someone who only has one citizenship, and that is true whether individuals obtained their citizenship by a fraud or whether they obtained their citizenship in spite of then going on to commit or be involved in some form of terrorism.

That is a practical matter, and obviously we are limited in the House by certain features of the practical world in what we can do and cannot do. However, as much as possible, we should hold fast to that principle, that Canadian citizenship has value. It expresses the substance of who we are as a country, a country that has unity around shared values in the context of our diversity, and this, unfortunately, is simply not appreciated by the arguments made on behalf of the bill.

Some more clarifications need to be made about the original system we had in place. It is a bit perverse, frankly, that members of the government talk about new Canadians being worried about the provisions of the bill because of misinformation about them, and then go on to continually imply things about the bill that are incorrect. If some Canadians were worried about the provisions of the bill and did not have a proper understanding of what the original bill would do, I would hope the members of the government, who were maybe talking to these Canadians in the context of a campaign, would have provided correct information about the bill.

They might have clarified that actually there is no restriction whatsoever in the original Bill C-24 on mobility rights. There is no possibility whatsoever that people could lose their citizenships for a minor crime. In fact, people who commit a major crime, a violent crime, still could not have their citizenships revoked, regardless of where they were born, regardless of whether they were duel citizens. It is only in the case of terrorism.

The crucial point with respect to terrorism is that this is where individuals have stepped fully outside the parameters of Canadian values. They have said that they have no interest in being part of the Canadian family. They have acted in a way that put themselves fundamentally at odds with it in terms of their values.

One of the arguments we have heard as well from my friends across the way is the assertion that putting them in jail is enough, that someone should not face both imprisonment and then the loss of citizenship. However, these are two completely different kinds of sanctions to deal with different kinds of issues. Of course, somebody who is involved in violent crime or terrorism should be punished through incarceration, but there is also the issue of whether this person has retained his or her commitment to be part of the Canadian family or not. These are different issues that should be both dealt with and certainly both considered.

However, there is another practical matter that I think the government ignores in its reasoning. It is the fact that individuals could well be outside of the country and become very involved in terrorism, be fighting for Daesh, perhaps, or another terrorist group, and clearly, in the process of their actions and their involvement in that, take themselves outside the Canadian family. Those people, as long as they retain their Canadian citizenship, have the benefits of Canadian citizenship, can ask for assistance by diplomatic staff and Canadians would be on the hook to bail that sort of an active terrorist out.

Of course, we do not have the ability to incarcerate people if they are abroad fighting on behalf of another terrorist organization. This is perhaps a context in which this would have to be considered, and it do not think is properly considered by the government's arguments.

It is important to underline in that context at the same time that it is not the conviction in a foreign court that would lead to these considerations. It would only be a decision of the Canadian courts or an adjudication on the basis of equivalency, an evaluation that was done based on Canadian law with respect to terrorism. It still would not require someone to be in the country.

In terms of the underlying philosophy, Canadians should go with George Cartier, not the postnational anti-identity fantasies of the Prime Minister. It is also important to dig into the substantive provisions of the bill and realize that it does not fix problems that were real, that we were addressing significant problems. Terrorists should not—

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I applaud the diversity of this chamber that is represented by all parties in this House. It is a testament to the kind of electoral system and the kind of Parliament we have created here.

In response to some of the comments raised by the hon. member, I would reiterate a couple of things because sometimes the nuance gets lost in the discussion. If one is applying for citizenship and commits a Criminal Code offence, including a terrorist offence, one is prevented from accessing citizenship in this country.

That is the law in Canada. That has always been the law in Canada. The Liberals believe in that law. The Conservatives believe in that law.

The difference is that once one has already obtained citizenship, what was added by the Conservative government, which we fundamentally and ideologically disagree with, is that once one is here and is a citizen here, if one had naturalized, one was given an extra penalty after the commission of crimes against the national interest.

We believe that the Criminal Code and the criminal justice system can address terrorism and crimes against the national interest, and that is the vehicle for addressing those crimes. That is a fundamental difference which we do not agree on, and that is what this bill represents.

Also, importantly, there is a very fundamental distinction between the 1947 Citizenship Act and what was enacted under Bill C-24 by the Conservatives. That difference is that until Bill C-24, there was only one means of revoking citizenship, and that was based on fraud. Sometimes the fraud was less dramatic, and sometimes it included people who pretended they were not war criminals in World War II. We believe that is the only basis for revoking citizenship, and that is what this bill restores.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, congratulations to the member opposite. I am glad he mentioned that he is among the 41 members of Parliament who are immigrants and I am one of them too. One thing I like to highlight is that we succeed in this place and in Canada and are able to come to the Canadian Parliament and become parliamentarians because we consider Canada our home. Just because of that we have succeeded.

Someone who is considering Canada a target of terrorism does not deserve Canadian citizenship, does not deserve to be Canadian. Our Canadian citizenship has the highest value of integrity and of honour. If someone wants to use it to go across the world to have access to all the other places in the world just because he is a Canadian citizen, he does not deserve to be a Canadian citizen. If someone does not want to commit to live in Canada, he does not deserve to be a Canadian.

I would like to remind the hon. member of the 1947 immigration act, which at that time was presented, implemented, and adopted by a Liberal government. Bill C-24 is a similar act to the 1947 act that was introduced.

Whether it is three to five years, or four to six years, members opposite agree that Canadian citizenship deserves to be worthwhile for those who decide to take it or not.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

I would like to begin with a list.

This list includes Afghanistan, Argentina, China, Germany, Grenada, Haiti, India, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, Trinidad, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

What do these countries have in common? They are all nations from which members of the House hail. Forty-one members of the chamber, spanning four different parties, are citizens of Canada who were born outside of this country. I am one of that group of 41 members. I was born in Uganda and arrived here as a young refugee in 1972.

Bill C-6 says to me and 40 of my fellow MPs that our citizenship is no different than that of our Canadian-born colleagues. In fact, Bill C-6 says to millions of Canadians who naturalized here after arriving from overseas that their citizenship has the same value and is accorded the same respect as the citizenship of those born in this country. It tells them that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. Allow me to explain.

Bill C-6 would reverse the divisive legacy of legislation enacted by the previous government. Under what was then Bill C-24, the previous government enacted legislation that allowed persons born abroad to be stripped of their citizenship on the basis of acts against the national interest—treason, spying, terrorism—but this applied only to those born abroad. Therefore, if someone was born in Canada and committed the exact same criminal act against the national interest, their citizenship could not be stripped. Canadian-born individuals would be dealt with by the criminal justice system alone, whereas foreign-born Canadians were subject to a double penalty: punishment under the criminal justice system, together with revocation of their citizenship under the Citizenship Act.

The old legislation, enacted by the previous government, was wrong for two reasons. The first is that it was unfair and unequal. We heard about the unfairness of the old Conservative legislation from strong immigration advocates, such as Legal Aid Ontario's refugee law office and Romero House in my riding of Parkdale—High Park. The inequality of the old legislation was laid bare by the litigation it caused. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers brought a charter challenge to Bill C-24 contending it created two tiers of citizenship.

The second and more important reason is that the old Bill C-24 was flawed because it sent the wrong message to newcomers. People like me, who fled their homelands to make a fresh start in Canada, are thankful for the opportunity to be here, but ultimately, we all seek the same thing: full and final integration. The previous government's Bill C-24 failed such Canadians, precisely because it rendered them more vulnerable. It told them that they are citizens, but citizens with an asterisk. By retracting the odious legislation the previous government passed, I and millions of Canadians who came here from other countries are being told that the politics of division are over and that they do, indeed, belong.

That is enough talk about the old legislation. I now want to talk about the merits of Bill C-6.

Bill C-6 meets what we like to call the triple-E test. It is evidence-based, it makes economic sense, and the bill is ethically sound. Allow me to address each of these points in turn.

The first point is that Bill C-6 is evidence-based. Our government campaigned on a commitment to return to evidence-based policy, and that is precisely what Bill C-6 represents. Studies demonstrate that facilitating a path to not only obtaining but maintaining citizenship promotes a better integration of newcomers and their sense of belonging. This point has been reinforced to me time and time again by settlement and community groups doing important work in Parkdale—High Park, such as Ukrainian Canadian Social Services, the Four Villages Community Health Centre, the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society, and the Canadian Polish Congress.

The second point is that Bill C-6 is good economics. These very same studies show that the bill would have clear economic benefits for Canada. Immigrants who are given a path to permanence through citizenship have higher educational and economic outcomes. This point has also been communicated to me in my riding by terrific organizations on the front lines of settling newcomers in Toronto, like the Parkdale Intercultural Association, the Parkdale Community Recreation Centre, CultureLink, the Parkdale Community Health Centre, and Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services.

Bill C-6 is also ethically sound. Until the previous government's decision to enact the old Bill C-24, we never had two tiers of citizenship in this country. It is not morally justifiable to divide citizens among those fortunate enough to be born here versus those who naturalize after arriving from overseas.

Our new bill does a lot more than just eliminate the two classes of citizenship created by the Conservatives. As I said, Bill C-6 also makes it easier to obtain citizenship in several important ways, which I will now address.

The barriers to citizenship that would be removed by this bill are many. I propose to address four.

The first relates to the length of time required to qualify for citizenship. Our legislation will require an applicant to be present in Canada for three years over a five-year time span, rather than the current four-year requirement over a six-year time span. Therefore, the bill would expand the pool of potential citizens and allow them to apply earlier.

More specifically, Bill C-6 is more flexible. It does not require a person to be in Canada for at least 183 days per year over each eligible year. Instead, one needs simply to be here for 1,095 days over a five-year period. What does that mean? It means flexibility. If one's job takes one overseas for an extended period, this would not make one automatically ineligible for citizenship.

Second, Bill C-6 would restore the knowledge and language testing requirement to the previous age range. The previous government passed legislation indicating that testing would be required for any applicant aged 14 to 64. We are restoring that age range back to the previous norm, which is age 18 to 54. This change would improve access to citizenship for the very young and for those 55 and over, thereby helping to speed up their formal integration.

Third, the intent to reside provision is being removed. Bill C-6 would no longer make it a requirement to declare one's intent to reside in Canada before becoming a citizen. That requirement was unmerited. All Canadians have mobility rights. More importantly, the old requirement created a great deal of confusion. Over 200 applications were returned to individuals who failed to complete the intent to reside portion of the application, because they did not understand it. They feared their citizenship could be revoked if they moved abroad. It cannot.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, Bill C-6 would allow time spent in Canada prior to becoming a permanent resident to count towards one's three-year requirement to become a citizen. This provision allows for a 50% credit for time spent in Canada prior to becoming a permanent resident, up to a maximum credit of one year.

Who will this help? It would help temporary foreign workers, international students, and protected persons by speeding all of these groups on their path towards citizenship. This makes sense. These people have already spent time here. They have already worked and studied here. They have already built an attachment to Canada.

I turn now to one of the criticisms we have heard about the bill, which is safety.

Allow me to be crystal clear. Bill C-6 would not imperil the safety of Canadians. Our government's commitment to safety is unwavering. We have a place for terrorists and it is called “jail”. We have a place to prosecute terrorists and that is called the “criminal justice system”. When one commits a crime in Canada, one is prosecuted by the criminal justice system. We do not need a Citizenship Act tool to address a Criminal Code problem.

However, there is also a broader more philosophical underpinning to Bill C-6. When we boost integration and put in place mechanisms for success, we strengthen ties and loyalty to this country. This does not threaten our safety. It is part of a host of initiatives, such as our response to the Syrian refugee crisis, which demonstrates Canada's openness, our inclusivity, and our compassion. These efforts counter radicalization and reduce threats to our safety. In fact, I would say we do this better than any country in the world, and I am proud to be part of a government that is restoring this reputation both here and abroad.

It is also important to understand that Bill C-6 is not an outright rejection of all aspects of its predecessor, Bill C-24, passed by the previous government.

What, from Bill C-24, have we decided to keep? There are provisions we have kept, but there are also provisions we have actually improved.

For instance, we have kept the physical presence requirement rather than the term “residence” because physical presence is easier to verify.

Revoking citizenship based on fraud and misrepresentation has existed since 1947, and this power remains in Bill C-6. Bill C-24, passed by the previous government, facilitated fraud detection, which is very important, and we have kept provisions that make this possible, as well as provisions that permit government to strip people of citizenship quickly when they have committed fraud. More importantly, we have also enhanced some of these provisions. For example, we have added a section that allows us to seize documents used in the commission of fraud. Finally, we have also committed to implementing all of the Auditor General's recommendations regarding preventing citizenship fraud.

Another improvement relates to conditional sentence orders. If convicted, time served in the community on a conditional sentence order can no longer count toward the three-year residence requirement and if one is on a conditional sentence order, one cannot take the oath of citizenship. Again, these are improvements on the predecessor legislation.

Let us talk about the committee. The bill has just returned from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We are also a government that believes in working across the aisle. At committee when amendments were proposed that made sense, that conformed with the policy direction we are pursuing with this legislation, that improved the bill, we did not hesitate to accept those amendments. Those amendments help us create a more diverse and inclusive Canada.

One of the amendments by the NDP added the term “statelessness” as a ground on which citizenship may be granted at the discretion of the minister. Another NDP amendment requires the minister to consider reasonable measures to accommodate the needs of citizenship applicants with disabilities. Those are amendments proposed by the opposition that we accepted on their merit and we welcome them as part of this new bill.

In conclusion, I want to return in my remarks to where I began.

When I provided a list of the 22 different nations that make up the homelands of members of the House, it was simply to provide a snapshot of the diversity of this chamber. This chamber serves as a proxy for this country, a country that is made up of literally millions of individuals whose provenance extends to every corner of the globe. To that diverse group, Bill C-6 says, “Your citizenship is no less valuable, no less respected, than that of a citizen born in this country”.

I believe one of the lasting attributes of the bill is one that has been rarely discussed. In facilitating pathways to citizenship, Bill C-6 also facilitates pathways to participation. Only citizens can cast votes in this country. Only citizens can stand for election to this chamber. By breaking down barriers to citizenship and putting in their place opportunities to obtain and retain citizenship, Bill C-6 promotes the highest level of engagement possible, engagement in our democratic process.

The ultimate job of any government, regardless of its political stripe, is to promote an engaged citizenry. That is precisely what Bill C-6 would do. I am proud to endorse the bill as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

[Robert Orr]

Well, if the applicant moves, then we might do it.

The reason for that is they must do the knowledge test and the interview. Thus, it is important to have the file where the person is, so we can do that.

It's also perhaps worth pointing out that Bill C-24 did ensure that all consultants must be in good standing with the regulatory body as well. That was a change that happened in 2015, which did perhaps reduce some of the risk in that area.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I was just going to stress Mr. Schmale's point about conjecture. Another more recent example that I thought was quite interesting occurred when the federal government under Harper introduced the citizenship law, Bill C-24. This is a quote from an article on January 24, 2014:

The federal government will introduce several changes to Canada's citizenship rules after members of Parliament return to Ottawa next Monday following a six-week hiatus, says Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander.

He goes on to give very specific examples for several pages in the article. I won't read the whole thing. I don't have that much time.

It's clearly the minister saying in advance of the bill what's going to be in it, very specifically, and nobody considered that a breach of privilege at the time. The Conservative caucus itself could have raised this if they thought it was such a big deal. They didn't.

I think there's an immense amount of precedent that says this is not a breach of privilege. That's the position I will stick with. I don't have any further comments.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Hello, Mr. Bosc.

I just want to continue with my colleague's thought.

As a new member, I've been hearing a lot about various government bills on the news, and we continue to hear a lot of information. Even before, as a non-member, I gathered what the government was about to do when the Conservatives had introduced Bill C-24. There was tons of news around that. For the most part, we knew a fair amount of what was going to be in that bill. We knew that they were going to cover the issue of lost Canadians. We knew they were going to cover shorter wait times, and a longer time to qualify for citizenship. There were tons of comments made about dual citizenship and taking away someone's citizenship if terrorism or other acts of criminality had occurred. This was buzzing around in the news for quite some time, and I thought it was quite normal for there to be some buzz in the media, and some talk by members and ministers about introducing certain bills. The Prime Minister had tweeted about Bill C-24, and there were video clips of the minister giving little tidbits of what to expect in that upcoming bill, whether a month or two days prior to the bill.

This all seemed to be quite normal. There were no questions of privilege.

I understand that you're saying you only address the question when it occurs in the House, but it seems that a certain standard has been set for a long time now. Whether or not that's right is something this committee has to decide, but I think it is important for us to figure out how we continue from this point.

The way I see it, a lot of bills are discussed, perhaps not in that much detail. To me this seems very similar to what was discussed about Bill C-24, and maybe a lot less than that. That may not be the standard we should look to or adhere to in the future, but certainly I think we need to define more clearly, going forward, what is a question of privilege, when it necessarily arises, and what the responsibilities of members are regarding a bill.

Obviously within caucus and in the House there had been a lot of talk about this and a lot of other bills. What is the defining line? Where do we set the parameters as to what goes outside and is a breach, and what is inside? Is that something you can shed more light on?

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for raising this important issue in the House and for her continued advocacy on the part of immigration issues as the opposition critic.

This is an important debate on cessation issues in the former Bill C-31 enacted by the previous government, and the impact it has on permanent residents.

The hon. member for Vancouver East has asked a very important question, and has raised this previously with our government. In fact, the government is in absolute agreement with the hon. member for Vancouver East on the need to review this very important piece of legislation and its impact since it was enacted under the former Bill C-31.

We have, in this country, a long and proud tradition of providing protection to those in need. We have one of the fairest and most generous immigration and asylum systems in the world. Our immigration laws are applied impartially, they are based on facts, and they are meant to accord with due process.

The authority of the independent and quasi-judicial IRB, the Immigration and Refugee Board, to determine whether an individual's refugee protection has ceased is not itself a new provision. It actually predates the 2012 asylum system reforms. As well, it is important to specify that the authority to revoke permanent resident status, including the permanent resident status of a refugee, also existed before Bill C-31.

However, what is very troubling about Bill C-31 is that under the 2012 reforms enacted by the previous government, cessation of protected person status was added as grounds for losing one's permanent resident status. That effectively meant it was double-barrelled. That meant that both protected person status and permanent resident status now end simultaneously once a refugee in Canada has demonstrated that they are no longer in need of protection.

The minister, himself, has said in the House that he agrees that the legislation, which has been identified by the member for Vancouver East, is part of a long legacy of matters inherited from the previous government that our government desperately wants to review, and will review.

As members know, we are not at liberty to discuss particulars of a specific case due to privacy considerations, but the minister has expressed public sympathy with the point the hon. member is raising. I can assure the House that the government is reviewing policies and legislation introduced in recent years with a view to developing proposals to improve them.

In a relatively short time, and I will demonstrate to the House a number of measures we have taken in short order to address the legislative initiatives of the previous government that were very problematic.

For example, in terms of the government's respect for the rulings of the Federal Court, the Federal Court had found in December 2011 that the policy requiring the removal of face coverings to take the oath of citizenship was unlawful. We agree with that decision; the previous government did not. We dropped the appeal of that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. That is the case of Ishaq v. Canada.

Another example of us being more than willing retract and retrench on legislation by the previous government is rescinding the legislation that came in under Bill C-24. We have introduced amendments to the Citizenship Act that members of the House will be familiar with. Bill C-6 makes it easier for applicants to meet citizenship requirements and helps encourage their sense of belonging and connection to Canada. It also eliminates the two classes of citizenship that were perpetuated by the previous government, which we stood fundamentally against and campaigned against.

Another example of our government's review of existing procedures that help to promote greater openness and better processing is our response regarding Haitian and Zimbabwean nationals. On February 4 of this year, the Government of Canada announced that Haitian and Zimbabwean nationals in this country would be provided another six months to apply for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to speak against clause 14.

This makes the bill retroactive to the date of coming into effect of Bill C-24. Opposition has been expressed in the House, but I'd like to express it again.

Effectively, the bill means that the government will be returning citizenship to Zakaria Amara, who was the ringleader of the Toronto 18 terror group that planned al Qaeda-style violence in southern Ontario to push Canada to abandon Afghanistan. The faction led by Amara built detonators and acquired explosive materials for large truck bombs, which were to be detonated in 2006 near the Toronto Stock Exchange and CN Tower. An Ontario military base was also to be attacked. Parliament was on the list of targets, and the Prime Minister of Canada was a target to be beheaded.

There was a piece in the National Post, Mr. Chairman, on February 25 of this year. I'd like to quote from part of it. Essentially this clause will reinstate this man's citizenship, as outlined here:

The plot by the al-Qaida-inspired Toronto 18 to detonate truck bombs, storm the CBC and the Canadian Parliament, and then behead prime minister Stephen Harper was foiled 10 years ago.

As the trial judge said, the potential for loss of life on a scale never seen before in Canada was “spine-chilling.”

Those were the judge's words.

Right-thinking Canadians everywhere will then, be relieved to learn that the man who masterminded these terror attacks, and was subsequently given a life sentence, is the main beneficiary of the Liberal government’s citizenship act reforms.

Because that's what this clause 14 will do.

Zakaria Amara had his Canadian citizenship stripped under a bill brought in by the Conservative government in 2015.

Under the legislation just introduced by the Liberals, he will have that Canadian citizenship reinstated. The Conservative Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act ensured dual citizens convicted of terrorism, high treason or spying could have their citizenship revoked.

So, Mr. Chairman, I just draw it to the committee's attention that by passing this legislation, the citizenship of this man, who intended to do all these “spine-chilling” events, to use the judge's words, to institutions, the CBC, and Parliament, and to behead the Prime Minister, will be reinstated.

Quite frankly, that's not good. In fact, it's terrible.

I urge members to vote against this retroactive clause.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

If I may speak to clause 3 for a minute, and again to get this on the record, Mr. Chair, I'm going to vote against clause 3 because I do think it is fundamentally flawed and an amendment needed to be brought forward. I trust that it will be at a later date.

With that being said, there could have been a better way to deal with an entire bill, which is of course for the government to repeal all of Bill C-24 and then bring forward provisions that are supported within Bill C-24, as opposed to the other way around. That may save us a lot of grief.

In any event, we are here where we are at, and I am going to vote against clause 3.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Chair, I will speak to this amendment.

This amendment is consistent with the original set of amendments I put forward to restore the old Federal Court appeal system prior to Bill C-24. That included amendments 1, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, and 23, if we were to address this issue comprehensively and to restore the appeal process to what it was prior to Bill C-24. I did not end up moving these amendments because I have some understanding from the minister—in his presentation at this committee, as well as in second reading, and other conversations—that there is interest from the government in pursuing a better path.

That better path would include enhanced amendments that are incorporated in what I call CARL amendments under NDP-10 and NDP-2 that were deemed to be out of scope and out of order, Mr. Chair.

To that end, while I don't disagree with the need to enhance the appeal process, many people have spoken to it, and they've raised legitimate reasons as to why it needs to be dealt with. Given that we have an opportunity to bring in better legislation in this regard, I am hopeful, and I'm going to take a leap of faith that it will happen in short order in the fall sitting of the House. To that end, I will not support this amendment, not because of its intent, but because I think a better amendment will be forthcoming at a later time.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

This amendment seeks to reverse and repair the damage done by Bill C-24 in removing the right of appeal for someone whose citizenship has been revoked. This was supported by numerous witnesses before the committee, including the BC Civil Liberties Association, the immigration section of the Canadian Bar Association, and the Canadian Council for Refugees. The new process under which we're working with Bill C-24 creates a paper process. There is only one opportunity to seek leave to appeal to the Federal Court for a judicial review of the decision, but there isn't meaningful oversight to the decision a minister makes. My amendment is straightforward. It restores what we always had before Bill C-24, which is a right of appeal to the Federal Court to a decision made by the minister under this act.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

This particular amendment seeks to repair the damage done to the citizenship process under the previous parliament and Bill C-24. Prior to Bill C-24, a minister would always consider factors of equitable concerns. In the words of the Canadian Bar Association's immigration law section's testimony at this committee, due to Bill C-24, neither the minister nor the Federal Court has discretion to consider humanitarian or compassionate factors. Some form of safety valve is warranted for deserving cases. The amendment I'm putting forward speaks to this absolutely crucial ability of a minister to exercise discretion. There is no requirement of the minister to stop the renunciation of citizenship. Without this amendment, no matter how much the minister might recognize the situation would create grievous humanitarian and compassionate harm, the minister wouldn't have the power to decide not to renounce, unless you give the minister this discretion by accepting this amendment.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

This amendment, NDP-10, reference number 8222883, attempts to address the lack of procedural safeguards in the revocation of citizenship by creating a new process where appeals and reviews can be made at the immigration appeal division.

This amendment comes with two amendments. The organizations in support of this change are many. They include the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, The BC Civil Liberties Association, the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and Legal Aid Ontario. Individual supporters include Peter Edelmann, Stephen Green, Audrey Macklin, and Richard Kurland.

The goal is to ensure that individuals facing citizenship revocation for misrepresentation or fraud should have at least the same degree of procedural fairness and safeguards that are extended to individuals facing revocation of permanent residence or fighting a parking ticket. Prior to Bill C-24, individuals could appeal to the Federal Court. Because of the cost, duration, and availability of the courts, this has been called an inefficient system by many experts. The immigration appeal division currently undertakes similar appeals and reviews of decisions for statuses such as permanent residence. For that reason, this board is adequately situated to handle citizenship cases as well and can handle them more effectively and efficiently than the Federal Court system.

These amendment would institute this concept. It provides for a number of procedural processes in the amendment itself. I won't go through all these processes, but I do want to highlight a couple of them.

One of these allows for humanitarian and compassionate considerations related to the person, particularly in situations where the best interests of a child are directly affected. I feel quite strongly that this ought to be considered.

With respect to making a report to the appeal division, this amendment calls for the minister to provide the person, before that report is made, with a written notification that specifies a) the person's right to make written representation, b) the period within which the person may make his or her representations and the form and manner in which they must be made, and c) the grounds on which the minister is relying to make his or her decision to make a report. The minister shall provide his or her decision on whether or not to make a report to the person in writing.

Bringing forward these procedures allows for a better approach to revoking someone's citizenship. With something as serious as citizenship, it is important for notification to be provided to the individual as well.

I won't go through every aspect of the amendment, but that's the thrust of it. I would move this amendment, amendment NDP-10, reference number 8222883.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, it's hard for me to put into words how devastated I am by the motion that was passed, so I will put on the record that I'm here under protest and would have preferred to have tabled my amendments at report stage.

However, I do want to commend the Liberal government for this bill overall. I didn't get a chance to speak to it—I speak to these amendments one at a time—but let me say how thrilled I am to see that the damage done in BillC-24 has largely been removed and that citizenship is citizenship is a principle. Much in this bill is to be celebrated. It's doubly hard for me to be so sad at a moment when I thought I would be enjoying a sense of restoration of good principles in our Citizenship Act.

Let me move quickly to this particular amendment before I run out of time.

This amendment seeks to deal with criticisms that you've heard in committee testimony, particularly from the Canadian Bar Association, about injecting, as we do here, in subclause 1(4) the bill....

My amendment is very simple. It essentially removes subclause 1(4), which sets out requirements for income tax returns and ties income tax returns to applications for citizenship. The Canadian Bar Association brief was very clear on this point in its concern that any innocent mistake in an income tax return could have a negative impact on citizenship applications or could even cause confusion such that someone either delayed applying for citizenship or delayed filing their tax return because of an unnecessary linking of the two.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

In fact, this amendment comes with a number of others: numbers 1, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, and 23. This first one is actually a consequential amendment to the main changes. It was aimed to bring back the old federal appeal court system prior to Bill C-24.

I will actually not be moving this set of amendments because later on I have another set of amendments, amendments NDP-10 and NDP-21, that will propose a better appeal system that I would wish the committee to consider. It may be that the latter amendments, numbers 10 and 21, when I move them, may be deemed to be inadmissible, but we will deal with it at that stage.

If they're not admissible, I am very much hopeful that the government would consider taking those amendments and putting forward new legislation, perhaps in the fall, to address the issue of ensuring that there's an appeal process in place that addresses the many issues that witnesses have brought forward.

To that end, Mr. Chair, for the clarification of committee members, I will not be moving amendments 1, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18, and 23. All those amendments deal with a package of changes to bring back a federal appeal court system related to this bill.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you to all for being here today.

My first question is for Ms. Go and Mr. Green.

Some constituents of mine have come here. Their families are Canadian citizens, but unfortunately one of the members who has to travel overseas is not. Could you give the committee examples of what you've encountered where otherwise desirable or worthy citizenship applicants would be unable to acquire citizenship as a result of Bill C-24's restrictions and physical residency requirements?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to ask a question to Mr. Green and Mr. Kurland, in particular, and it has to do with subclause 1(8) of Bill C-6, which repeals the requirement that a person intend to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. This was established in Bill C-24. Are you concerned that Canadian citizenship might be sought by those looking for a citizenship of convenience, without the intent of living in Canada once it's obtained?

It appears there are many citizens who get their citizenship and then they're gone. They go to Saudi Arabia and make a lot more money there. I don't mean to pick on Saudi Arabia, but they go to another jurisdiction where they make substantially more funds than they do here.

One of the witnesses in the first round gave the example of Lebanon. In July of 2006 there were 34 ship evacuations of Canadian citizens who left Lebanon. That's ships; that's not individuals. There were 34 ship evacuations and 65 air evacuations. It's interesting to know that many of the people who had the air evacuations, even though it was paid for by the Canadian government, wanted the travel points. That amounts to approximately 15,000 Canadians at a cost of about $75 million. Many of those people returned to Lebanon when things settled down. That's just one example.

That section is gone. I think it was raised by Mr. Wong about this whole issue of citizenship by convenience. It's a great thing to have a Canadian passport. Many people on this planet would love to have a Canadian passport.

Those are my questions for Mr. Green, and then Mr. Kurland.

[Vincent Wong, Staff Lawyer, Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic]

Thank you. I'll dive straight into the issues.

Firstly, it's our position—and we support Mr. Green's eloquent arguments on this—that an overly rigid application of the physical residency test would leave otherwise deserving applicants unfairly barred from citizenship. We see these cases all of the time for clients who spend time abroad for business or schooling, but what I would outline is that it's also for those situations of compassionate care, for example, cases where clients go back home to take care of their ailing parents.

Therefore, we recommend that whatever test the committee deems appropriate in this situation, whether it be the Koo test or the centralized mode of existence, really gets at the heart of providing that flexibility in situations where it's deemed just. We believe that putting in a deemed residency test that focuses an analysis on a centralized mode of existence would get to the heart also of the concerns surrounding so-called citizens of convenience. We also submit that putting in a deemed residency test will balance the interests of legal clarity and processing efficiency on one hand, with concerns of fairness and equity on the other hand.

The second issue that I'd like to get into is that we recommend the right of appeal to be reinstated for all citizenship decisions. Previously, the Citizenship Act allowed for an automatic right of appeal to Federal Court for essentially all citizenship decisions. Bill C-24 replaced this automatic right of appeal with a far more limited judicial review only with the permission or leave from the court. We submit that it is of critical importance for the rule of law that there be proper judicial scrutiny of all citizenship decisions to ensure that they are legally sound and that discretion is being exercised in a reasonable fashion. This is only possible when effective avenues exist to challenge these decisions.

Finally, my third point relates to that of the policy of requiring an upfront language test to prove language skill for citizenship, and we recommend that this policy be completely scrapped. The reason is that the policy is a double whammy for immigrants because it erects a language barrier, but also a financial barrier to citizenship in that applicants would actually have to pay for testing as an a priori matter before their application is even processed by CIC. We recommend that it be placed within a pre-Bill C-24 system, which allows decision-makers to determine whether there is sufficient knowledge of language through an oral hearing or interview.

We also recommend that the requirement of a written knowledge test to be taken in French or English be repealed, as this requirement essentially amounts to a second language test, which we heard a little earlier about. We agree with the CBA submission on this that, “Language competency required to pass a knowledge test is significantly different than that required to live and work [practically] in Canada.” Previously, language requirements have always focused on practical listening and speaking skills. Requiring applicants to pass a written test in English or French creates additional reading comprehension and written language requirements, areas that historically, prior to Bill C-24, had not been deemed necessary for naturalization.

Now, I appreciate that there are members of the public who, out of good intention, want to promote acquisition of English and French among immigrants in order that they can better improve their socio-economic outcomes. We agree that language acquisition is an important goal for successful settlement; however, this is a situation where you already have the carrot, you don't need the stick. When you use the stick, unintended consequences may happen. Many immigrants and refugees arrive at the bottom of a socio-economic ladder. They don't have time when they're working multiple jobs and taking care of family to get formal language testing done.

[Avvy Go, Clinic Director, Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic]

Thank you.

My name is Avvy Go. I'm the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, which is a not-for-profit, community-based organization providing free legal services to low-income people in the greater Toronto area. With me is Vince Wong, who is a staff lawyer at our clinic. We're very pleased to be here and we thank you for the opportunity to comment on the bill.

For us, the Citizenship Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation in our country. Citizenship defines who we are as a people and therefore what Canada is as a nation. Being able to become a Canadian citizen is important, particularly for many immigrants, because our legal system reserves certain benefits, rights, and privileges to those with citizenship status, and of course, the most important, which is the right to vote.

Citizenship also gives immigrants to Canada a sense of belonging and it reaffirms their place in the country they call home. It's important for many of our clients at the clinic—many of them are racialized, many are non-citizens—to be reassured that our Citizenship Act does not promote injustice and exclusion. In fact, I will argue it's in the interests of all of us in our country that our citizenship law signals to all of our immigrants that Canadian society is a welcoming place for all people, regardless of their race, gender, socio-economic status, and so on.

We are pleased to see that Bill C-6 repeals many of the provisions that previous Bill C-24 had put in, for example, resetting the language and knowledge requirement so that they only apply to applicants aged 18 to 54, repealing the intent-to-reside provision, and reinstating a half-day credit for time spent prior to acquiring permanent resident status. These and others are positive changes, but many serious problems still exist with the current framework, and I'm going to turn to my colleague to address some of those problems.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Good.

Currently there are two organizations that have launched a lawsuit. They argue the current process for citizenship revocation under Bill C-24 is not only problematic for the stated grounds that are related to national security, but they argue that charter rights are violated. They believe these elements of the current law are out of line with a free and democratic society.

What is your opinion of their claims?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

What was the system before Bill C-24?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In the same vein, might this argument not also apply to those with a criminal record abroad? As it stands right now Bill C-6 did not make any changes relative to Bill C-24 in that if you have a criminal record abroad for an indictable offence, you are automatically exempt from consideration. You will not become a citizen here in Canada.

We have seen situations like Mr. Fahmy's, whereas in other jurisdictions the judicial system might be different. There might be other factors that should be considered. I wonder what your thoughts are on that issue, and whether or not there should also be a proper process to deal with that as opposed to an automatic decision.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You have supported the revocation provisions of Bill C-24. How can you justify supporting a provision that seems to target particular minority groups and has been shown to generate suspicion and mistrust of many minority groups by the broader population?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Winter.

My next question is for Mr. Fogel. I am confused by your support of the intent-to-reside provision of Bill C-24, which is being proposed to be repealed in Bill C-6.

I think we all dislike the concept of the so-called citizens of convenience. As you know, the Charter of Rights grants all Canadians mobility rights. That is part of the Charter of Rights. The intent-to-reside provision would seem to be unenforceable symbolism.

How do you reconcile it with the charter?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our witnesses for providing their valuable input.

My first question is for you, Ms. Winter. In your testimony before this committee on Bill C-24, you referenced research you were conducting regarding the raising of suspicion against dual nationals and the detrimental impact legislation, such as Bill C-24 and others, has had on some communities, particularly Muslim and Arab Canadians. You mentioned numerous rants against Muslims in print media, online fora, and social media, with negative stereotypes being extended and amplified by Bill C-24.

As a Muslim Canadian, I have seen these stereotypes first-hand. Could you update us on this research and on any conclusions your team has reached?

[Peter Edelmann, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the members of the committee for inviting me to appear before you today.

I had the opportunity to have a discussion with your Senate colleagues about Bill C-24. At that time, I expressed serious reservations about the bill, which was subsequently passed by Parliament. So I am pleased to see that a lot of changes are proposed in the bill you are studying today.

I was born in Canada, but my parents were immigrants from Switzerland. I am eligible for Swiss citizenship, as are my two sons. Like many Canadians, we can claim another nationality. But under Bill C-24 and the legislation as it currently stands, we incur a risk that other Canadians do not, and that is not fair.

When I was before the Senate, Senator Eaton told me that all I had to do to keep my citizenship was to refrain from committing terrorism-related crimes. The issue is not whether or not I want to commit terrorism-related crimes. A person who commits a crime has only to give up his other citizenship in order to maintain the stability of his Canadian citizenship. That is not a solution.

So I am really happy that this legislative change is being dealt with today.

I'd like to speak to you in a bit more detail today with respect to some of the things I think would be helpful to see the bill go a little bit further either by going back to the system we had or by making some other changes that have been suggested by other witnesses before this committee. I'm going to focus my comments on revocation.

It's important to understand that in a world of nation-states, and as long as we live in a world of nation-states, citizenship is one of the most fundamental of statuses. It's the status upon which your ability to sit in this committee is predicated. It's the status upon which the ability to choose the people who sit around this table is predicated. It is the right to have rights. It's the right to have full rights as a participating member of Canadian society. It's a fundamental status and it's deeply important to the people who hold it. Many Canadians and many of your colleagues are naturalized citizens. For naturalized citizens to lose that status is one of the most fundamental losses they can have.

Under the current law, there is more procedural fairness built into our law around parking fines and traffic tickets than there is around loss of citizenship. The revocation of citizenship, under the current law, happens with a decision by a single officer. You get a letter in the mail that says, “Please tell us why we shouldn't take away your citizenship”. Then you send submissions to the officer, and the officer can decide whether or not they want to hold an interview. They may interview you or they may not. You may just get a letter in the mail saying that you're no longer a citizen. At that point, you are no longer a citizen. You can go to the Federal Court and you can ask the Federal Court to hear your case and to judicially review that decision from the officer, but you're doing that from the position of a non-citizen. At that point, you may well be in the removal stream. I'll talk about the situation of permanent residents at that point. That process is very fast and one with very few procedural safeguards and very little transparency.

Prior to Bill C-24, the process was very different. You would get the notice in the mail and you would have the opportunity to convince the minister why they should or should not seek the revocation of your citizenship. You could then ask to go to the Federal Court. Then the Federal Court would decide whether the misrepresentation or the fraud upon which you obtained your citizenship was in fact serious enough to warrant the loss of citizenship. Then the Governor in Council would ultimately decide whether to revoke the citizenship.

There are examples of cases that have taken a long time. In the Oberlander case or other cases, there are a number of reasons why there may have been some delays, but the process itself does not require those types of delays.

We have procedural safeguards for the loss of permanent residence that are much more rigorous. In the vast majority of cases, a permanent resident who's going to lose their status will get a notice and an opportunity to make submissions. They then get a hearing before the immigration appeal division, where they not only can present an argument as to why they shouldn't lose their status, but also get an opportunity to present humanitarian and compassionate or compelling reasons for why, despite the misrepresentation, they shouldn't lose their status.

Not all misrepresentations are equal. Some are very serious. Others are relatively trivial. The question is whether a single officer should be making a decision as fundamental as the one we're talking about.

In the law as it currently stands, there is a particular problem with respect to persons who are found to have misrepresented when they got their permanent residence.

Before you get your citizenship, if you are found to have misrepresented when you got your permanent residence, you get access to the immigration appeal division. You get an opportunity to present humanitarian and compassionate factors and to say that despite the fact you misrepresented 20 years ago, you now have children and a family here. Under the law as it currently stands, once you become a citizen, you go straight back to being a foreign national if you are found to have misrepresented when you got your permanent residence. You don't go back to being a permanent resident; you go straight back to being a foreign national. Therefore, your status is more precarious once you become a citizen than it was when you were still a permanent resident.

I would urge this committee to make some amendments with respect to those two aspects.

I thank you for your time.

[Shimon Fogel, Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs]

Thank you. I am grateful to be here representing the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy agent of the Jewish Federations of Canada, to discuss Bill C-6.

As I noted in my testimony before this committee regarding Bill C-24, Canadian citizenship is one of the most valuable and highly respected commodities in the world, but it is far from being just a prestigious status one acquires. Citizenship in this country is an unparalleled package of balanced rights and responsibilities based on a set of core values designed to ensure dignity, freedom, and equality for all. I am certain that everyone around this table agrees that immigrants are among the proudest patriots and shapers of this country, a source of cultural vitality and economic strength.

Despite the dark era of Canada's “none is too many” immigration and refugee policy for Jews, we have come here from all corners of the globe for more than 200 years. Our community has made a positive contribution to the Canadian story, like so many others whom we join in appreciating the extraordinary opportunity and privilege of being Canadian.

We are glad that Bill C-6 will once again allow time spent in Canada as a temporary resident to count towards the residency requirement for citizenship. This will be particularly beneficial with regard to retaining talented international students who come to this country to advance their education and skills while simultaneously integrating with Canadian peers. They would seem to be ideal candidates for citizenship, and there should be no unnecessary obstacles in their path.

As this committee considers the merits of repealing many of Bill C-24's other provisions, I would like to highlight some elements that Bill C-6 quite correctly will leave in place, the importance of which cannot be overstated.

Retaining a physical presence standard in determining residency requirements for citizenship is an important principle that can enhance integration and decrease marginalization of new immigrants and, as Minister McCallum has mentioned, can also help counteract the problem of citizens of convenience. Bill C-6 will also maintain basic language and knowledge testing requirements for citizenship applications. Coupled with physical presence, this can make a significant contribution towards counteracting the importation of anti-Semitic and other extremist views, which, though marginalized here in Canada, are unfortunately still prevalent in many parts of the world.

We are very pleased that Bill C-6 does not seek to repeal Bill C-24's streamlined provisions for revoking citizenship from those who obtained it through fraud or misrepresentation. These provisions consolidated a process that has been routinely abused by those who hid their Nazi past when coming to Canada. The ongoing case of Helmut Oberlander is a timely example. Oberlander was a decorated member of the savage Nazi mobile killing unit responsible for the murder of more than 90,000 Jewish men, women, and children. When he applied for entry into Canada in 1954, he misrepresented his wartime past and fraudulently obtained Canadian citizenship. Oberlander has avoided the final revocation of his citizenship and removal from Canada by exploiting a flawed system for more than 20 years.

This ongoing experience demonstrates the need for Bill C-24's revocation provisions to be retained, and the government's commitment in this regard should be universally supported.

In this regard, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the government for seeking leave to appeal the latest Federal Court of Appeal's decision regarding the revocation of Oberlander's citizenship to the Supreme Court.

There are other components that Bill C-6 seeks to repeal that we believe merit further consideration. We supported the introduction of measures to ensure that those who apply for Canadian citizenship actually intend to maintain a meaningful connection to Canada. The intent-to-reside provisions that Bill C-6 will repeal are an important element in this regard and could continue to have an impact on reducing the problem of citizens of convenience.

That said, the current articulation of this provision does indeed create a potential for abuse. Safeguards are needed to preclude a minister from commencing a revocation proceeding for someone who declared intent to reside but then went abroad to study, work, or tend to an ill relative. People should not fear being penalized for such eminently reasonable actions, even if the chances of a minister actually doing this are remote.

In reference to this provision, Minister McCallum when he was a member of this committee in the previous Parliament noted, with regard to:

...the question of citizens of convenience. We want measures in place to deter that. I sympathize with that goal, in principle. We want measures in place to deter that. I sympathize with that goal in principle.

Instead of repealing “intent to reside”, the existing law could be amended to more closely align this provision's substance with its principle. This could be achieved with a check on ministerial discretion, a requirement for the minister to seek a court declaration in cases of misrepresentation of intent to reside, similar to the requirement included for other cases of fraud.

When I last appeared before this committee to testify regarding Bill C-24, I articulated a position in support of the revocation of citizenship from dual national Canadians who commit certain offences, including terrorism offences. This position was a reflection of our belief that in the case of certain particularly heinous political crimes, the perpetrator is actually guilty of two distinct offences. First, they're guilty of the particular crime they have committed; but second, they're guilty of a fundamental betrayal of the core values on which Canadian citizenship is based.

Our support for this provision reflects the desire to address not just the crime but also the grievous insult to Canada and Canadian identity that has taken place. This is why we advocated for the revocation provisions to be expanded to include those convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

My question is for you, Mr. Pagtakhan.

When you last appeared before the committee on Bill C-24, you were generally in support of that bill. However, you disagreed with the failure to allow certain parts of that time outside of Canada to count as time inside Canada for the purpose of residency calculation. You said you believed that time spent outside of Canada by a permanent resident employed on a full-time basis by a Canadian business should be counted as time in Canada.

I know that you're an immigration lawyer, and some of your experience is with issues you've had with business individuals who came as a permanent resident and established themselves here. Their families might have received citizenship, but due to their working overseas, they're unable to then obtain citizenship.

Could you share some of your experiences and maybe give us some examples, and can you share with us some of your suggestions on how to deal with that issue?

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing my time with Mr. Tabbara.

Mr. Collacott, you have tremendous experience in the field of education, from your work at the Ontario Ministry of Education, to your work in setting up ESL programs and teacher training. You might know that all across Canada we teach school-aged children that to complete a basic science or research project, you set a hypothesis, conduct a study, gather evidence, and then come to a conclusion.

To follow up on my colleague's question, what evidence do you have to support your very public claim that the proposed changes to Bill C-24 are for the purpose of securing Liberal votes?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On the issue around criminality, Bill C-24 brought in a change whereby if you have committed a crime abroad, an indictable offence abroad, you would not be able to access citizenship here in Canada.

Mr. Pagtakhan, you actually touched on that a little bit in your presentation.

I'm curious to know whether or not you agree, Ms. Dench and Ms. Stone, with the notion that those with the offence charge abroad should be excluded from access to citizenship, or should it be assessed on a case-by-case basis, given, for example, the situation that we have learned about from Mr. Fahmy's situation?

[Jennifer Stone]

Yes. My understanding as well is that Bill C-24 brought in the requirement that the citizenship exam be passed in English or French without the availability of an interpreter.

The CCR's experience from its 180 member organizations across the country is really informed by those experiences on the ground. One of those organizations is the one that I'm a part of. It's the Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group. We are the immigration practitioners at legal aid clinics across Ontario.

Since 2012 when those upfront language proficiency proofs had to be submitted with the citizenship application or the application was returned, and since the citizenship knowledge exam was redrafted to make it considerably harder and we saw a 30% jump in fail rates, it's a real area of growth practice for legal aid clinics. Now it seems to be more the norm that you need to hire a lawyer to access citizenship. It's a real access to justice issue.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On that basis, would you say that we should do away with the upfront requirement to prove language proficiency? Then, on the question around knowledge, Canadian knowledge, in order to pass that test, would you support the approach prior to Bill C-24 where interpreters were made available for people to prove knowledge, and not so much on the question around language?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay.

With regard to changes to language and knowledge testing in Bill C-6, you were quoted in the Vancouver Sun on February 10 as saying that this change was designed to increase the pool of Liberal voters, adding, “They’re more concerned with getting votes and not so concerned that they (new Canadians) will integrate socially and economically”.

Can you share with this committee what if any evidence and research you have to support this theory? It seems unlikely, given that Bill C-6 returns to the previous system under which the previous government won a majority government.

Also, is there any evidence you can cite to support the idea that fourteen-year-olds have integrated more successfully into Canadian society since Bill C-24 came into force?

[Jennifer Stone, Secretary, Canadian Council for Refugees]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to make submissions to you.

To continue on equal access to citizenship, I wish to bring your attention to three additional recommendations from the CCR.

First, no one should be excluded from democratic civic participation—i.e., citizenship—because of an inability to pay. The increased citizenship fee, up from $200 a few years ago to $630 presently, and the 2012 upfront “proof of language proficiency” represent a disproportionate burden for refugees and others who are overrepresented among the working poor and those in chronic low-income circumstances.

The CCR proposes that these burdens could be alleviated first by introducing a process such as exists in the U.S. whereby recipients of social assistance can request a waiver from the citizenship fee; and second by reintroducing oral language testing for those who are otherwise unable to provide documentary proof of language proficiency.

Second, provide better accommodation for applicants with disabilities by right. People with disabilities, including cognitive or learning disabilities, can presently only ask for a waiver from the language or knowledge eligibility criteria on compassionate grounds. This is a backwards framework that is at odds with well-established human rights principles. The CCR recommends that Bill C-6 introduce language confirming the need for accommodation for people with disabilities who, but for the disability, would meet the eligibility criteria.

Third, the CCR supports reverting to the pre-Bill C-24 ability for applicants to challenge a citizenship refusal directly to the Federal Court without having to hire a lawyer effectively to request leave.

Further, the CCR supports the equality and equally fair treatment of all citizens. As such, we are glad to see in Bill C-6 that people cannot lose their citizenship in cases of criminal offences such as treason or terrorism and that applicants for citizenship do not need to show an intent to reside in Canada.

We believe that Bill C-6 could go further to ensure equality of all citizens in Canada, and as such we have two further recommendations.

You heard from several witnesses last week how troubling the current citizenship revocation process for fraud or misrepresentation is from a procedural fairness point of view. We appreciate that Minister McCallum has indicated he is open to amendments on this point. The CCR recommends that full appeal rights be introduced for citizens facing loss of status.

Despite the welcome measures introduced earlier to address the so-called “lost Canadians” cases, the CCR proposes restoring the right to citizenship for second-generations born abroad, reverting back to the pre-2009 rules. In the alternative, the government should at least provide the right of citizenship for those who would otherwise be stateless.

Finally, we commend the government for making this a priority piece of legislation so early in its mandate.

Thank you. We look forward to your questions.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

It made a change with respect to the age. That's one aspect of it, but there remain outstanding concerns. For example, others have presented in the other committee meetings on the issue around offering proof of your language capacity. You have to have certification to prove that you have level 4 language capacity. That didn't exist prior to Bill C-24, and Bill C-6 does not address that. That's one example.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On the question around statelessness, there are individuals here in Canada who are stateless. Bill C-6 does not address this issue. Those were provisions that were brought forward by Bill C-24 as well.

I wonder whether you have any comments with respect to the issue of statelessness and if there should be remedies put in place to address this.

Ms. Lenard.

[Bernie M. Farber]

I have just a very brief comment.

There does remain in place, as I understand it, judicial review on revocation of citizenship. For example, I was talking earlier about an individual who has now gone through 20 years of having his citizenship removed because of his work as a translator in a Nazi death squad. That began in 1998, and he's still a citizen here in Canada because he was able to avail himself of reviews and judicial reviews all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

I'm not exactly sure where the situation lies in terms of Bill C-6 and Bill C-24 and the issue of protection, but it is clear to me that judicial review is permitted because it's permitted under fraudulent access to citizenship. There is still a way to ensure that justice is being done and is being seen to be done.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for their presentations.

I'd like to focus on the process after grounds have been established, or perhaps categories of individuals whose citizenship would be revoked.

In our previous presentations from other witnesses, the issue around process and due process was key. None of you has really touched on this, so I'd like to inquire whether or not, with the change of Bill C-24, the process is also altered. Bill C-6 does not bring back the process prior to Bill C-24, which is that for the persons whose citizenship is being revoked to go before the Federal Court for a decision, to be assessed on a case-by-case basis in terms of the due process to be followed.

I'd like to ask this question to you, Ms. Lenard, to see what your thoughts are with respect to that aspect of it.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

All three of you have addressed the issue of the revocation of citizenship, and there are obviously different views among the three of you. The comment, of course, that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian seems to be the justification for Bill C-6 in repealing the relevant section of Bill C-24.

Ms. Saperia and a witness on Tuesday morning raised the issue of the oath, which says:

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

That's important for dealing with the statement that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, because if you're born in Canada, you don't take that oath. If you're a new Canadian, you have a choice. The law, notwithstanding Bill C-6, still allows revocation for fraud and for misrepresentation.

I would like all of you to comment on that. Perhaps we'll start with Ms. Saperia, although most of what I've said has been in her statement.

Maybe I'll go further, however. Is it really proper to repeal the clause in Bill C-24, or should it be amended?

We'll start off with you, Ms. Saperia.

[Bernie M. Farber]

Thank you for the question. The statement I made back in regards to Bill C-24 has not changed.

I would like to reiterate what my colleague Professor Tamara Lenard has stipulated.

When people like immigrants, refugees, stateless people come to this country, they're not looking for ways not to become citizens. They're not looking for ways in which they can throw roadblocks and involve themselves in criminal terrorist activities. It's not to say that the odd one might, but truly we should not be using a cannonball to stun a flea.

The fact of the matter is that if somebody commits a criminal act, and let's make no mistake about it, a terrorist act is a criminal act, then they fall under criminal law, and they should be handled by criminal law. If citizenship becomes the goal that everybody must reach, and there's impediments put in the way, especially if those impediments are pointing at or targeting one specific group of people—and again the professor is quite correct, the group of people that it was targeting in Bill C-24 were the Canadian Muslim population, I've seen no evidence to suggest otherwise—we have to retrench, and we have to look back.

I have to say that I was both amazed and quite gratified that a decision was made by the minister to revoke that concept and put back into law the importance in the power of citizenship.

When my late father came here he was stateless. What does that mean to be stateless? He didn't revoke his Polish citizenship. He was just not interested in continuing to be a Polish citizen, so he became a Canadian citizen in incredible ways. He had a little flagpole in the front of his grocery store, and every Dominion Day, as he called it, he would raise the flag. He became a strong citizen, and everything that I've seen, from Muslims to Somalis to Southeast Asians, all these new immigrants who have come here, all I've seen is them embracing Canada. That, to me, is what we should be looking at: the glass half full, not the glass half empty.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions.

First of all, I'd like to ask Mr. Farber a few questions. Allow me to start off by saying welcome back to Ottawa. We are very happy to have you here, given your rich experience that has obviously informed your work at the Mosaic Institute.

I was going over the testimony that you provided back in 2014, I believe it was, and you were very articulate. At one point, when you were considering Bill C-24, you did say that Bill C-24 will, “make citizenship not a rewarding end to their long and difficult journey, but an unreachable destination filled with roadblocks and diversions.”

I was wondering if you could kindly explain to us if you've had the opportunity to review Bill C-6, and if there was anything in particular that stood out for you and is of interest to you.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Hi, and thank you for inviting me to speak to you again. As the chair just said, I'm an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. My areas of expertise are in political theory and practice in immigration policy, and also multiculturalism.

I have focused the last two years of my research on the so-called power to revoke citizenship across democratic states in Europe and in Australia, and of course, in Canada. Bill C-6 proposes to undo the most controversial change, in my view, to the Citizenship Act adopted during the Conservative government's time in power. That is, the power to revoke the citizenship of those who commit a long list of crimes, including treason, spying, and terrorism.

When the Conservatives opened debate on Bill C-24 at this committee, I was invited to speak, and I spoke against it. I said that the power to revoke citizenship has absolutely no place in democratic states. I believe I used an expression that my colleague used, “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. I believe that. I said that citizens in a democratic state have the absolute right not to be expelled against their will.

It is only slightly an exaggeration that I have held my breath since the election of the Liberal Party, waiting for them to fulfill their promise to revoke the revocation bill. I am gratified by the content of Bill C-6.

I want to respond here briefly to three defences of the power to revoke offered by Conservative MPs in the House when this Bill C-6 was open for discussion. Then I'd like to offer a piece of advice to the Liberal Party about how to announce this bill when it finally passes into law.

The three Conservative objections that I'd like to consider are these: that revocation protects democracies and makes citizens safer; that in adopting a revocation law, we were finally catching up to states that permit revocation, mainly European ones; and that this has large-scale public support.

First, does revocation protect democracy and make a citizen safer? There is no evidence that is true—not one iota of evidence. The Canadian criminal justice system is an excellent one. I think we all agree with that, and it possesses the resources necessary to punish individuals who are convicted of all kinds of heinous crimes.

More generally, and this is important, there is no evidence that states that presently possess the power to revoke citizenship are safer than those who do not. Indeed, recent events in Europe, for example, in Belgium, where the state possesses the right to revoke citizenship, including the right to render its citizens stateless, suggests the opposite. The fact that revocation would have targeted dual citizens only fundamentally undermines the equality to which the Canadian democratic state is committed, in ways in which I'm happy to elaborate in our discussion, and which in my view fundamentally undermines the security of Canadians.

Second, is it true that we were catching up to other states by adopting a revocation law? I have two things to say about this. First, it is profoundly relevant that where European states do permit revocation, these laws have been on the books for decades. In most cases, they were adopted before or after the two world wars.

Second, they are almost, with the exception of the U.K., entirely in disuse. The trend is toward abandoning these laws, not in adopting them, in spite of recent public discourse that makes the contrary appear true. We all know now that France has just recognized this and has backed down from adopting a revocation bill, having acknowledged that it is fundamentally democratic. Of course, it did so in the face of a devastating terrorist attack on its soil.

Truly, the advantage of the Liberal bill before us now is that it can be at the forefront of an international commitment, a recommitment to the right of individuals to their own nationality. It is a commitment adopted in international law to respond to the massive human rights violations, to put it mildly, that followed denationalizations during World War II, which my colleague spoke about earlier.

Three, what should we make of the claim that there's public support for revoking citizenship? It's not surprising that a bill like this would have widespread support. Punishing perceived criminals is very popular, but it is a feature of democratic states that the rights of minorities, especially unpopular ones, are not subjected to majority vote. The strength of the Canadian Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, are that they protect the rights of all Canadians regardless of how others feel about them.

I teach this in my introductory course on democratic theory. The people who are at issue here are individuals who have committed heinous crimes. They are the most hated of Canadians, but they're still entitled to have their rights protected. The strength of the criminal justice system in a democratic state is determined by whether it protects the rights of the criminal.

Regarding my advice, here is the context. For the past three years, like my colleague, and with the financial support of the Kanishka project at the Department of Public Safety, I have been studying the effects of counterterrorism policies on the Muslim community in Canada. In particular, I have been evaluating their responses to a whole range of policies that have been adopted in the counterterrorism era.

We have interviewed over 100 prominent Muslims from five major Canadian cities about a range of specific policies, including the recent use of security certificates, the expanded range of CSIS investigative powers, the passenger protect list, and of course Bill C-24, which permitted the revocation of citizenship.

We also asked questions about the experience of being a Muslim in Canada right now in this era of counterterrorism. So many of our respondents spoke of being devastated—and that is the language that they used, devastated—by the ways in which the pursuit of these policies has served to undermine the trust of Muslim citizens in the Canadian state.

Further, in their view, these policies, and just as much the discourse surrounding the adoption of these policies, has seemed to them to perpetuate an idea of Muslims as dangerous and disloyal citizens, and that they can and should be treated with suspicion and distress by others. They believe this discourse has created a climate in which discrimination against them has been made legitimate and in which it goes unpunished. They believe their charter rights are not protected.

Fundamentally Muslim Canadians believe the intent of Bill C-24's revocation clause was to permit and encourage discrimination against them. They believed that it would be used only against Muslims, and they could point to public discussions of people considered as possibly eligible for revocation, all of whom were Muslim, and they pointed to that as evidence of their claim.

The revocation of the so-called revocation bill presents the Liberal government with an opportunity to continue its mission to protect and rebuild an inclusive Canadian identity that can again underpin trust among citizens of all religions, races, and colours.

The language that it has chosen to announce this bill is just as important as the fact of it, if not more. When the Liberal government explains why it has gone forward in this case, it must stand up to declare that Muslim Canadians are full and loyal citizens. The language must be the lofty language of inclusion deployed throughout the entire Liberal election campaign.

I look forward to when the power to revoke has been put to rest.

Thank you.

[Sheryl Saperia, Director of Policy for Canada, Foundation for Defense of Democracies]

Good morning, distinguished members of the committee.

On behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank focused on national security and foreign policy, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today.

My comments will focus exclusively on the provisions in the Citizenship Act that revoke citizenship for treason, terrorism, and armed conflict against Canada, which Bill C-6 seeks to repeal.

As I explained in my testimony on Bill C-24, I believe it is reasonable to predicate Canadian citizenship on a most basic commitment to the state that citizens abstain from committing those offences considered most contrary to the national security interests of Canada. Treason and armed conflict against Canada are actions clearly intended to damage the country as a national entity and political community. It seems fitting that one consequence of these crimes might be the loss of citizenship to the country the offender seeks to harm.

However, there are areas where the current law could be improved. Rather than repeal outright the provisions allowing citizenship to be stripped on national security grounds, I would propose several amendments. For instance, I recommended in my previous testimony, and in various newspaper publications, that the law should be amended to stipulate a tighter connection between the terrorist crime and the consequence of losing one's citizenship. Specifically I suggest the stripping of citizenship for terrorism be triggered only by terrorist offences in Canada, against a Canadian target, or when committed in association with a listed entity. Listed entities have been publicly designated by the Canadian government as terrorist organizations and are in effect public enemies of the state. Committing a terrorist act that meets one of those three criteria is, to my mind, a clear attempt to damage Canada, for which loss of citizenship is appropriate. If the terrorist act has nothing to do with Canada, the revocation of citizenship should not be the consequence.

I would also suggest an amendment with regard to foreign terrorist convictions. I can understand Canada giving credence to a terrorism conviction from a like-minded country with legal standards similar to our own, but while the original legislation was clear that the substance of the foreign offence would be examined to ensure its equivalence to a Canadian Criminal Code terrorist act, the law failed to require an assessment of the fairness of the process by which that conviction was achieved.

I would like to take a moment to address Minister McCallum's most vociferous objection to the current law, namely that it creates two classes of citizens: those with dual or multiple nationalities who are at risk of having their Canadian citizenship stripped, and those with only Canadian citizenship who may be punished in a variety of ways but cannot lose their citizenship.

First, that distinction is not arbitrary. It only exists because there is a law that prohibits rendering a person stateless. Second, for dual nationals who have chosen that status, often because of personal connection to, or benefit from, more than one citizenship, this is not a compelling argument. Dual citizenship was not forced upon them, and they are not being subject to discrimination as a result of any inherent trait. It is a choice they have made, just as they can choose to renounce their other citizenship, so as to be solely Canadian and therefore not subject to these provisions.

In cases where a Canadian citizen is also citizen of a country that does not enable renunciation of that citizenship, that's a different story. In that case, the minister or department could use their discretion to assess the extent of what I call the active relationship to that second citizenship. Does the individual maintain deep ties to the other country? Has the individual invoked any of the rights of that citizenship? Has the individual travelled with the passport of that country, or served in an official capacity only open to citizens? The less active that second citizenship, the weaker the argument the Canadian citizenship should be revoked.

In short, it is simply not always true that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. It is not an absolute category. Naturalized Canadians are Canadians only so long as they are not found to have lied on their citizenship application. Those who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide can have their citizenship removed as well. Consider also that naturalized citizens must pledge an oath of allegiance to the Queen as the personification of Canada. By committing treason, armed conflict, or terrorism against Canada, are they not renouncing that oath through their actions?

Canadians with more than one nationality have a very easy way to retain their Canadian citizenship under this law, do not commit criminal acts of treason, armed conflict, or terrorism that are directed at Canada as a country.

Lastly, if the government believes that our national security interests are better served by keeping dangerous terrorists in Canada where we can watch them properly, rather than potentially letting them loose in another country, I urge them to follow that commitment through. The safety of the Canadian public demands that if those involved in terrorism are to remain in this country, they need to be closely monitored while they are imprisoned and afterwards. Canada must develop a strategy for preventing convicted terrorists from radicalizing and recruiting members of the general prison population. The threat of Islamist prison radicalization is an important feature of modern counterterrorism, with prison being a unique incubator for violent radicalization. As more terrorists are incarcerated in this country, the related threat of prison radicalization will also rise. This issue is all the more potent now that there are Canadians who have travelled abroad to wage jihad, and whose narrative might be more compelling than that of a foreign recruiter.

If indeed we are going to keep in Canada those who have demonstrated their allegiance to the destruction of Canada, we cannot hide from developing the necessary strategies to protect the public from the consequences.

Thank you again for inviting me to appear before you today. I look forward to your questions.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My next question is for you, Mr. Bissett. Earlier, you indicated your support for the lengthening of the extended period of naturalization that was created in Bill C-24. We have now had some time since that legislation came into force. What changes in the quality or the other attributes of new citizens have you observed since then that you can link to this change and that justify the decision to make permanent residents wait a longer period before being able to apply for citizenship?

[Debbie Douglas]

The 14- to 18-year-olds are enrolled in our school system. If they came in at that age as new immigrants without either of our official languages, they are often enrolled in English as a second language. But for us, the majority of these kids actually have been in the school system for a number of years and do have English.

The problem is about having to pay for a test to prove they have that language ability, which we find problematic. Also, there is no evidence for why that requirement was put in place through Bill C-24. If parents are applying for citizenship and including their 14- to 18-year-olds and they go in and write their tests, we hope that our school systems are teaching our kids enough civics that they would understand how our country operates. As for the fact that now parents have to take on this extra cost of proving language, we never did understand why that was necessary. That's why we support the changes that are happening in Bill C-6.

Also, as you've heard me talk about, on the other end of the age spectrum we do have permanent residents who come into Canada and who have had such traumatic experiences, especially our refugee seniors, that there is absolutely no way that they will ever acquire enough language skills or be comfortable in writing in either of our official languages, and especially when literacy is an issue. We've heard from Ms. Kwan, whose mother had a grade 6 education. That's not unusual with some of our older immigrants and refugees.

[Ihsaan Gardee]

In terms of the impact, many immigrants to the country from the Muslim community are dual citizens and they're citizens of another country by birth. They may not even want to keep the citizenship. They may not even have the option of revoking that citizenship. So this previous bill, this legislation, Bill C-24, when it was introduced, it made them feel like second-class citizens, and it stoked fear in the Muslim community about being treated as second-class citizens.

As I said earlier, Canadian Muslims are as committed to national security as our fellow citizens and they've paid a disproportionately high price for anti-terrorism measures enacted in the name of national security. We just need to look at the case of Maher Arar, which is emblematic of everything that can go wrong when the balance between legitimate security concerns and civil liberties is treated as a zero-sum game. It's important, from our view, that we move towards a comprehensive and balanced pursuit of safeguarding national security while promoting Canadian citizenship in a manner that upholds the rule of law and protects the human rights of all.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and I would like to thank our witnesses for their patience today.

My question is for Mr. Gardee. Your organization, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, includes as one of its objectives “protecting the human rights & civil liberties of Canadian Muslims (and by extension of all Canadians), promoting their public interests, building mutual understanding and challenging Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia.”

In this context, could you discuss the impact that the two-tier citizenship aspect of Bill C-24, which Bill C-6 seeks to revoke, has had on the Muslim community in Canada and its perception by other Canadians?

[James Bissett]

The first change in the Citizenship Act came in the 1970s, when the domicile requirement was reduced basically to three years. Bill C-24 extended that. I didn't think it extended it quite long enough. I still would have preferred five years, but I think if you value your citizenship and allow it to other people to apply for, shortening the time period somewhat devalues the concept of citizenship—

[Debbie Douglas]

We've asked, and that was the conversation I wanted to have about issues of disability. There are folks who do have disabilities who may not be able to write, or even speak, or sign about the test. With the introduction of Bill C-24, we were active in advocating, together with some of our agencies who work with folks with disabilities, and then had processes put in place for those who are hard of hearing as an example. There are other folks with disabilities who may also need a waiver. It is certainly something that Bill C-6 is silent on and that we want this committee to take a look at in terms of the barriers that exist for folks with disabilities in being able to meet language requirements or being able to pass the citizenship test.

[Debbie Douglas]

We have a robust language training system here in Canada. Resources are always a problem because of scope and scale, more so than content and quality. It is interesting that you are asking the question, because that was exactly what our concern was when the changes were made to Bill C-24—that it was not based on any evidence, given the many years when we had the language requirement and the writing of the test for those between 18 and 54. The fact that Bill C-6 goes back to a proven system is why we support the changes that were made.

[James Bissett]

No. I was aware that the Canadian Bar Association expressed concern that it might not comply with the charter, but as far as I know, it does comply with the charter. I'm not sure if it's been tested, but certainly, the Department of Justice officials would have looked into that very carefully. If they thought there was a chance that it did not comply, they would have been reluctant, I think, to let the government of the day go forward with that bill.

Of course, there are always two opinions on legal issues of that kind, and I would have thought that Bill C-24 would have been challenged by now. It's been in effect for some time. Indeed, it has been enacted in one case, as far as I know, where one Canadian has had his citizenship taken away.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay. Perhaps I could ask Mr. Bissett a question.

Mr. Bissett, you obviously have many years of experience insofar as immigration matters are concerned. You're probably aware that when Bill C-24 was introduced, the Canadian Bar Association prepared lengthy submissions. One of the issues that they were very much concerned about was safeguards in ensuring that Bill C-24 was consistent with the charter or, more specifically, with section 7 of the charter. I was wondering if you have any comments on that situation.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'd like to thank everyone for appearing before the committee. Obviously, one of the issues that we did have surrounding Bill C-24 is that there was very little input from experts such as you, so I'm very grateful that we've been provided this opportunity to determine if there are any gaps in Bill C-6.

I wanted to follow up on the testimony that you provided, Mr. Gardee. I understand that you're very much concerned about revocation of citizenship. I'm not quite sure whether you were here in the first hour when Professor Macklin provided a mechanism that would deal with revocation of citizenship. I was wondering if you would have any comments, and if you can think of any proposed mechanism to make sure that there are safeguards in place.

[Ihsaan Gardee, Executive Director, National Council of Canadian Muslims]

Good afternoon, honourable Chair, and respected members.

On behalf of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, I'm pleased to have this opportunity to offer the committee our organization's perspective on Bill C-6 and the Citizenship Act.

Briefly the NCCM is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit grassroots organization that is a leading voice for Muslim civic engagement and the promotion of human rights. Our mandate is to protect the human rights and civil liberties of Canadian Muslims, promote their public interests, build mutual understanding between communities, and confront Islamophobia. For over 15 years, we have worked to achieve this mission through activism in four primary areas, including community education and outreach, media engagement, anti-discrimination action, and public advocacy.

At the outset, the focus of NCCM's submissions today will be on the provisions in Bill C-6 that repeal the grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship as related to national security. We do not take a formal position on the bill's other proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act.

As a civil liberties organization, the NCCM supports the proposed legislative changes under Bill C-6 in order to remedy the problematic and legally dubious elements introduced by Bill C-24. Specifically, in our view and that of many other respected Canadian human rights organizations, including Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to name a few, removing the grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security upholds Canada's democratic ideals and ensures the protection of our deeply cherished and hard-won civil liberties.

The law as it exists today has created, in essence, two classes of citizenship. That dual citizens are more vulnerable to losing their citizenship means that some individuals and groups are less Canadian than others and therefore are less deserving of equal protection of the law. This is completely antithetical to the equality rights guaranteed by section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, namely equality before and under the law, and equal benefit of the law. In effect, exposing dual citizens to banishment, something not faced by Canadians holding no other citizenship, makes dual citizens unequal before the law.

The Citizenship Act allows for a dual national found guilty, and incarcerated for a national security-related criminal offence, to be punished again with banishment through citizenship revocation and deportation. In our view, and that of many legal experts, this is inconsistent with the rule of law and the protections of the charter.

Aside from these human rights concerns, there is also the larger context to the social implications of the citizenship revocation provisions, which our organized is cognizant of, as we regularly receive and hear the concerns of Canadian Muslims. Simply stated, these laws do not exist in a vacuum and have harmful consequences. Stripping dual citizens of their citizenship for national security reasons unfairly targets immigrant and racialized groups, particularly those belonging to Muslim communities. It does little to enhance our national security by effectively unloading our problems on the doorsteps of other countries, many of whom may be our allies in the fight against violent extremism.

Make no mistake, the implications of the current law also go beyond dual citizens. Canadian Muslim individuals, families, and the broader community have been disproportionately affected by ostensible anti-terrorism measures enacted in the name of national security. In some cases, citizenship revocation proceedings have been commenced against individuals who were born in Canada and held only Canadian citizenship, merely because it was theorized that they would be able to obtain citizenship in a foreign country through their parents, even though they had never held such foreign citizenship or even lived in a foreign country.

This is an astonishing and deeply draconian and archaic development. Such an arbitrary and dangerous interpretation and implementation of the citizenship revocation provisions speaks to the urgent need to repeal them.

It is in this context that we remind the committee of what the Arar commission report warned about in 2006:

Given the tendency thus far of focusing national security investigations on members of the Arab and Muslim communities, the potential for infringement on the human rights of innocent Canadians within these groups is higher.

Since 9/11, Muslims have been living under a microscope and are subject to heightened suspicion, which is perpetuated by negative stereotyping and discrimination in Western countries, including Canada. The potential reliance on terrorism convictions outside of Canada to revoke citizenship further exacerbates the issue. Had the citizenship revocation provisions been fully in effect, it is not difficult to imagine that someone like Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy could absurdly have been stripped of this citizenship after being convicted in what was widely described as a flawed legal process. That should give us all pause.

Ultimately, while Canadian Muslims benefit as much as our fellow citizens from our shared national security and public safety, Canadian Muslims also pay a higher cost for any benefit that may be derived from national security measures. This is also true when we take into consideration the impact of other national security measures, such as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2015.

NCCM strongly believes that repealing provisions that revoke citizenship for national security related criminal offences is both a necessary and critical step in protecting the constitutional rights of Canadians. It is imperative, as a democratic and free society, that Canada upholds equal treatment for all under the law. At the same time, the NCCM supports measures that effectively enhance security and public safety while respecting civil liberties and the protections afforded under the charter.

To be clear, all Canadians agree that people should be held accountable for the crimes they commit. There is no question that the offences listed under the existing act are serious crimes; however, these crimes are appropriately punished by the criminal justice system, founded on a robust and transparent adversarial system and due process. In stark contrast to this principle of fundamental justice, the power to enforce banishment, as the law currently stands, is profoundly unjust and discriminatory.

In keeping with the spirit of Bill C-6, we would also like to take this opportunity to encourage Parliament to, at best, repeal or, at worst, significantly amend other harmful pieces of legislation that threaten the principles of democracy, equality, and the rule of law. Bill C-6 would have little meaning if the same principles are undermined through other legislative measures such as the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, and if any changes made to these are only cosmetic in nature.

As mentioned, given the disproportionate impact that previous security measures and legislation have had on Muslim communities, it is not unreasonable that they fear they will be the collateral victims in a web of unchecked power and unbridled information sharing, if not the direct targets of unfair scrutiny.

The temptation to create more powers of enforcement, detention, and punishment to make the general population feel safer can be appealing, but represents a slippery slope in a liberal democracy. The Citizenship Act provisions for citizenship revocation—

[Debbie Douglas, Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)]

OCASI, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, welcomes the amendments introduced in Bill C-6. I was here for Bill C-24, and it's good to be back.

We hope it will remove certain barriers to citizenship, particularly for disadvantaged groups, such as racialized immigrants and refugees, and immigrant and refugee women, children, and seniors.

We welcome the potential for the bill to move toward a more inclusive and accessible citizenship process and remove the two tier citizenship created as a result of changes introduced through the previous Bill C-24. We are pleased that the present government made the repeal a priority and has moved so quickly to bring this forward.

Bill C-24 extended the residency eligibility from three out of the previous four years to four out of the previous six years. It required six months of physical presence in Canada for each of the four out of six. It took away the pre-permanent residence credit that could be counted toward residency to a maximum of one year for those legally in Canada prior to becoming permanent residents, such as refugees, international students, live in caregivers, and in Canada, sponsored spouses.

Bill C-6 will change the residence requirements to three out of five while maintaining the six months physical residence requirements for each of those three out of five years. It returns the pre-permanent residence credit of up to one year.

The bill reduces the waiting time required to become eligible for citizenship and allows immigrants and refugees to become citizens more quickly. It will let them participate more fully in Canadian society to become full members and to contribute to their full potential. This is particularly important for refugees who may not have any other country in which to turn to for protection, and it will meet practical needs such as a passport for travel.

Reducing the time is especially important for future citizens, such as live-in caregivers, other migrant workers, and international students. They would have been living and working in Canada for a certain period even before they became permanent residents, getting to know the country and the people, and contributing to the communities in which they live, including by paying local taxes.

Maintaining the strict physical presence requirements removes any discretion, even if extraordinary circumstances have forced potential applicants to travel for too many days.

OCASI supports the proposed residency eligibility period of three out of five years and supports allowing applicants to count at least one year in Canada before becoming a permanent resident.

We do not support the strict physical presence requirement. We recommend a citizenship judge should be allowed to exercise flexibility to approve an application when an applicant has met all other requirements and has a compelling reason for missing certain days of physical presence in Canada, particularly for applicants who are otherwise stateless.

On the issue of language, Bill C-24 extended language and knowledge test requirements from those aged 18 to 54 to those aged 14 to 64, thus extending it to more people. Older applicants may very well learn English or French enough to function, but have difficulty in passing the test. Those with limited formal education and literacy will have the most difficulty in passing the test. Learning a new language and passing a test is often difficult as one gets older.

OCASI believes it is important to encourage and support all residents, including older residents, to learn one of the official languages and acquire knowledge about Canada, but making this a condition of citizenship would exclude many from full participation in our society. Given the general vulnerability of older people, we should support improving access to citizenship so more residents have secure status and the additional rights, entitlements, and protection citizenship would give them.

Younger applicants aged 14 to 18 would still be in high school, and in that process will be learning one of the official languages as well as about Canada. It was never clear to us why Bill C-24 reduced the age requirement to 14 years. Reversing this requirement is the right thing to do.

OCASI supports the proposed amendment to require language and knowledge tests for those aged 18 to 54. We also ask the committee to recommend that particularly older applicants, and I will add here particularly older refugees, should be allowed the use of an interpreter in the interview with the citizenship judge to satisfy the knowledge requirement. This element was in place before the Bill C-24 changes.

Through Bill C-24, the previous government changed citizenship application rules in 2012 to require up-front proof of language ability. We suggest that the requirement for up-front proof also be eliminated. Many potential applicants have been excluded from applying for citizenship because of this requirement. For example, applicants who have been working in more than one job to support themselves and their families, and who therefore have found it difficult to also fit in language classes, have not even attempted to take the test. Some others could not afford the testing fee. Yet others live and work in communities that don't have a test centre. Those who don't have the time or money to travel to a test centre have not been able to take the tests either.

We have heard from immigrant and refugee settlement workers that because of a variety of difficulties, their clients are opting to wait until they are older so that they can apply for citizenship without having to take a language or knowledge test. Refugees, especially refugee women in particular, are those who are most impacted. Often they have met all other requirements for citizenship. These are Canadian residents who are living and working here. They are part of our communities. They are contributing to Canadian society in many different ways, and yet they are excluded from citizenship because of this language requirement.

OCASI asks the committee to consider a recommendation that would remove the up-front proof of official language ability. Instead, we ask you to recommend that having met all other criteria, the citizenship judge should be given the flexibility to determine through an interview if the applicant has sufficient official language ability and knowledge of Canada to satisfy these requirements of citizenship.

Other amendments in Bill C-6—

[James Bissett, Former Ambassador, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I might add that my interest in the subject is from my experience as head of the Canadian immigration service for five years and having spent most of my public service career dealing with immigration and refugee issues.

I have been before the committee before, and I have to confess that I defended Bill C-24. I defended it on the basis of two provisions that I think are important: the first was the length of time it takes to acquire Canadian citizenship, and the second was whether we should take away the citizenship of dual citizens who commit acts of terror or treason.

I can see no valid reason for extending the length of time for citizenship. I think the most compelling reason seems to be that—and the members of the committee will probably appreciate this—it enables them to vote in elections, but other than that I don't see a strong reason. I think many Canadians feel the same way. It's a short time to grant the precious gift of Canadian citizenship to people who have been only here for three years.

If members of the committee found themselves by chance as immigrants in let's say India or Egypt, in 10 years would they feel that they knew enough of the language, the customs of the country, the rights and responsibilities, and the social and political institutions of those countries to be able to vote in elections? I rather doubt it. That's what we're expecting the immigrants that are coming here to Canada to do, that in three years they should be able to know all of those things and also the obligations and the responsibilities of citizenship.

This coming year we're going to be letting in roughly 300,000 new immigrants. They're coming from roughly 190 different countries, and many thousands of them are coming from countries that have no traditions of democratic government. They don't have that opportunity. They haven't had it, and I think it's naive to think these people will be ready in three short years to accept all of the responsibilities of citizenship.

The reduction of residence encourages what is becoming more and more common, and that is the citizens of convenience: people who spend just enough time in Canada to acquire citizenship and then go back to live in their home country.

The Asia Pacific Foundation has estimated there are roughly 2.8 million Canadian citizens outside of Canada. Many Canadians remember that in 2006, with the trouble in Lebanon, we had 15,000 Canadians from Lebanon brought back to Canada at the expense of the taxpayer of roughly $94 million. Shortly after events in Lebanon settled down, 7,000 or more of those people returned to Lebanon.

On the question of whether we strip citizenship from dual nationals, I remind the committee that not everybody in Canada who's a legal permanent resident and applies for Canadian citizenship can get it. We don't let criminals, who have serious criminal records, obtain citizenship. We don't allow people who've even been charged with crimes against humanity to accept citizenship. Those qualifications to be met ought to be met as well for people who acquire citizenship later on and then commit horrendous acts of terror against their own citizens.

I think the primary argument used against revocation of citizenship has been the usual argument that it creates two classes of citizenship. I don't buy that argument because it's inherent in the very nature of citizenship that there is going to be more than one class. There are the natural born Canadians. There are the citizens who apply and receive it by meeting the naturalization requirements, and then you have a third category of dual citizens. You already have three categories of citizenship.

As a matter of fact, some natural Canadians can have their citizenship revoked under the provisions of Bill C-24, because many thousands of Canadians today have derived another citizenship through their father or their mother. If your father was a German citizen, you have automatic citizenship of Germany. So you have natural citizens as well as those who are naturalized who can be affected under the old Bill C-24 law.

I think there is also a fundamental, inherent difference, whether we like it or not, between natural-born and naturalized citizens. A natural-born citizen acquires citizenship by accident, by birth. They have no choice in the matter. A naturalized Canadian has to apply for citizenship. It's a voluntary choice and an option they have. It also requires a formal undertaking, an oath of allegiance to the new country. Natural-born Canadians don't have that choice, and they can't lose their citizenship. There are no penalties, that is true, but a naturalized Canadian has taken an oath of allegiance to their country, has made a choice to become Canadian, and if they violate that oath and that allegiance, it seems to me logical that there should be penalties attached to it.

Certainly we're not the only country that takes citizenship away from dual citizens who've committed or are suspected of having committed acts of terror. In England, for example, the Home Secretary has the power to strip the citizenship of a dual citizen without giving reasons, or, if they do give a reason, it's a very vague one—

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I was going to ask a few other questions, but maybe I'll ask a question to help my colleagues on the other side and some others who don't understand why we want to change Bill C-24.

You're all lawyers, and I'll ask you to put your minds in a devil's advocate or a reciprocal mode. What if other countries were to adopt Bill C-24, not Bill C-6 but the original bill, similar to Great Britain and Australia, or as France was about to do, and a Canadian born from Canadian parents here was adopted and moved to and became a citizen of Australia—moved there for a job—but later became radicalized by a crazy ideology, became a terrorist there, and blew up something? Do we think that as Canadians we would like it if after he was convicted there, they were to revoke his citizenship and say that he was born in Canada and we should take him back? Do you think Canadians would like that?

I would like to hear from the Bar Association first and perhaps Professor Macklin afterwards.

[Christopher Veeman]

They're set out on pages 6 and 7 of the test from that manual. These apply, for example, to a person who is travelling on business, but their family lives in Canada and their children go to school here and they have a house or a residence here. It depends on whether they've centralized their mode of existence—that's the language from the case law—in Canada. It depends also on the extent of the absence from Canada. If you've got a large gap, it may be harder to justify.

The last factor that's listed—and this is again from the citizenship processing manual prior to Bill C-24—is what is the quality of their connection with Canada? Is it more substantial than that with another country? For example, if your constituent is more established in the Gulf, then it would be harder for him to be accepted as a Canadian citizen.

[Christopher Veeman]

This was a submission we made at the time that Bill C-24 was coming into effect. We're still proposing, in what we call the “hard cases”, that there be a provision to allow the department to grant citizenship.

The test that existed prior to Bill C-24 I described as a bit of a vacuum. Nobody really knew, but there were multiple different tests that were applied. As a compromise position, we proposed what IRCC had in citizenship policy manual 5, which were some allowable exceptions to physical presence in Canada. They're set out there on pages 6 and 7.

It's a bit more of a nuanced assessment of the persons's connection to Canada, and potentially could allow someone like your constituent to qualify for citizenship. On the other side of the coin, the physical presence test makes things very black and white for officers who are processing cases. I think that may have contributed to the speed with which they can process them. There's a bit of a trade-off in terms of having discretion on the one hand, to allow those cases to be processed, and the fast processing that everybody wants. CBA's position is that there are those cases where deserving potential citizens should be heard.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Can you also comment on the question of humanitarian and compassionate grounds being considered at all stages of citizenship revocation? There have been changes made with respect to Bill C-24 related to that. In your experiences, why is it important that humanitarian and compassionate reasons be considered, and at what stages should they be considered?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would like to thank all the witnesses for their thoughtful presentations, as well as for the written presentations.

I'm not going to rehash some of the issues that were brought forward with Bill C-24 because we now have Bill C-6, which I'm very happy about. More to the point, there are issues that we need to focus on and address with C-6 that still need to be remedied.

On the issue of revocation, I think we've dealt with that. On the issue around independent and impartial hearing, I think we have the full sense of it. On the issue around statelessness, we have full sense of it as well.

There are a couple of other issues that were not touched upon due to time limitations, I think. One is the issue of knowledge of official languages. I know that was in the brief from the Canadian Bar Association. I wonder whether or not you could elaborate on the requirement to pass a knowledge test in one of the official languages. Would it amount to double testing, and what is your remedy for this issue?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chairman, speaking through you, my understanding of these three jurisdictions and of Bill C-24 is that this would happen after a conviction—not before a conviction, but after a conviction.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Some of you have been here before for Bill C-24. Welcome back. All of your presentations are legal, but I can understand why: you're all lawyers.

I want to ask a question on the issue of revocation, which deals with terrorism. It's happening more and more, particularly in Europe, but it has happened here.

Canadians want to feel safe. I just want to outline—you probably already know this, but I'll outline it anyway—three other jurisdictions that have similar legislation to Bill C-24, and if we have time, perhaps you could comment on them.

In the United Kingdom, under the provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981, a natural-born British citizen could have their citizenship revoked if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good to do so and the person would not be rendered stateless. Naturalized citizens of the United Kingdom could have their citizenship revoked if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good to revoke citizenship because the person engaged in conduct seriously prejudicial to the U.K.'s vital interests and the Home Secretary had reasonable grounds to believe that the person could acquire another nationality.

The latter provision, which would leave a person stateless, came into effect two years ago. The term “conducive to the public good” includes involvement in terrorism, espionage, serious organized crime, war crimes, or unacceptable behaviours.

In France, where it's still being dealt with—their legislation has passed through the lower house and is now in the Senate—the French law allows naturalized citizens to have their citizenship revoked if doing so will not render them stateless.

All states seem to be concerned with the issues that you've raised on statelessness.

Article 25 of the Code Civile provides that citizenship may be revoked for persons convicted of certain crimes related to national security; however, citizenship can only be revoked if it was acquired less than ten years before the conviction, or 15, depending on the crime. In other words, I suppose there's the issue of fraud, which I don't recall any of you having commented on.

The current debate in France is over a new legislative proposal to allow for revocation of the citizenship of natural-born French citizens with another citizenship when they are convicted of a crime of a serious attack on the life of the nation. The law passed the French lower house of their parliament in February and is now before the Senate. It's quite controversial. It hasn't passed, that I know of.

Following the passage in both houses, the law would require a constitutional amendment, and this in return requires a two-fifths majority vote in their two legislative houses together. That may not happen.

In Australia, there were changes in December of last year. Dual-national Australians may lose their citizenship for national security reasons. The specific grounds for losing citizenship are engaging in specified terrorist-related conduct, fighting for a declared terrorist organization, and being convicted of a specified terrorism offence.

These laws seem to be similar to what was put forward in Bill C-24, although the French law may not happen. I'll ask particularly the representatives from the Canadian Bar Association—maybe we'll start off with Mr. Veeman—whether you have any reaction to this. I expect you're going to say, ah, but we have the Charter of Rights, although to my knowledge there's no jurisprudence on that subject as of yet.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My question is for Ms. Macklin.

I would like to touch on the revocation of citizenship for acts that demonstrate the [Inaudible--Editor] “Canadian values” that was introduced to the Citizenship Act by Bill C-24 and that Bill C-6 proposes to remove. In an op-ed in the Toronto Star on April 25, 2013, you likened this provision to the “medieval practice of banishment”.

Could you discuss how allowing a politician to revoke citizenship for a vaguely defined [Inaudible--Editor] of values opens the door to a slippery slope of grounds for revocation and opens the provision to a likely challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms if it is not removed from the act?

[Christopher Veeman, Executive Member, National Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear.

I'm assuming that everybody has the submission. I'm proposing to highlight some of the points that we make in the submission, but it's there for you to review at your leisure.

Over the time I've been practising in this area, it's possible to discern two phases in Canadian citizenship law. The law was largely unchanged after the major rewrite in 1977—with the exception of the lost Canadian issue in 2009—until Bill C-24 came into effect. Leading up to Bill C-24, the perspective of practitioners in this area was that the system was in its “Byzantine” phase, if you can use that word. I say this because nobody knew what the legal test was for residency and how you qualified to become a citizen. There was a problem with the jurisprudence. The courts couldn't solve that problem, the processing times were backlogged, and Canada's interests were not being served by the old system.

The CBA supported the efforts in Bill C-24 to improve that situation. To its credit, Bill C-24 did fix a lot of those problems. The definition of residency was clarified, so we now have the physical presence definition. The decision-making process was streamlined, and also the government committed resources to processing. All those things led to the decline in processing times that we've seen.

Back in 2014 the CBA opposed many of the other parts of Bill C-24. While Bill C-24 brought citizenship law out of its Byzantine phase, in the view of some practitioners it moved it in a sort of Kafkaesque direction where, as we've heard, a person can have their citizenship revoked by a government official without any hearing. In a point that wasn't touched on yet, section 13.1 was introduced into the law, which allows the department to suspend processing of an application essentially indefinitely. These are features that in our view do not support the rule of law. Another thing we heard under the changes that came in with Bill C-24 was that the system of appeals for citizenship matters was changed to judicial review instead. From the point of view of practitioners, that's an inferior system. As we've heard, you need to get leave, and in all cases where you don't get leave, you don't get reasons. People can get an application refused, and they don't have the opportunity to get an appeal with reasons.

Our section supports many of the aspects of Bill C-6 that reverse some of those changes, in particular the national interest revocation. We were strongly opposed to that. Rather than listing all the points that we do agree with, which are in our brief, I want to point out some of the things where we think the bill can be improved.

The first one has already been touched on today by Professor Macklin, and also by the minister in his remarks last Tuesday, which is the question of ensuring there is a fair and independent process for persons subject to revocation of citizenship for misrepresentation or fraud. Professor Macklin outlined that, so I'm going to skip over parts of this. Our solution for this problem is slightly different from what Professor Macklin has proposed. The overall goal is the same, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to at some point have their case considered on humanitarian and compassionate grounds prior to the revocation of their citizenship. In our view, it may be appropriate to consider granting the department official that discretion when they're reviewing the case and have that decision directly reviewed by the Federal Court on a reasonableness standard.

In some situations under the current law, people can have their citizenship revoked for misrepresentation, and they go directly back to foreign national status. This is the case where the misrepresentation occurred in their permanent residency application, and then they subsequently obtained citizenship.

We say that all persons who have their citizenship revoked should revert to permanent resident status, and then have an appeal before the Immigration Appeal Division to retain that status and try to remain in Canada.

In our brief we have advocated, in terms of the grant of citizenship process, for some residual discretion to grant citizenship in deserving cases where people cannot meet the physical presence test, despite strong connections to the country and a desire to become Canadian citizens. In 2014 we proposed certain definitions that might be used.

I'll just give you a couple of examples of cases that might be problematic. A pilot who lives in Canada but is flying overseas for work may have trouble meeting the three in five standard. Just as an aside, the three in five standard is an improvement from the four in six. It's slightly more flexible, but still, there may be these hard cases that will arise.

[Andrew Brouwer, Senior Counsel, Refugee Law, Legal Aid Ontario]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be back before the committee.

I work for Legal Aid Ontario, or LAO. Legal Aid is the country's largest legal aid plan. Our mandate is to ensure access to justice for the most vulnerable and marginalized Ontarians. We do that through staff legal services, community and specialty legal clinics, and of course, funding private bar lawyers on certificates to represent our clients. Legal Aid Ontario helps almost 4,000 low-income Ontarians each day, accessing justice in the areas of criminal, family, immigration and refugee, and poverty law matters.

Legal Aid Ontario also has a law reform mandate directed to the core goal of access to justice for the most vulnerable. We have a number of key priority areas in the area of refugee and immigration law. Those are, first of all, equal access to and effective protection of charter rights; protection of mentally ill non-citizens; protection and promotion of the rights of the child; domestic implementation of international human rights law; and access to and protection of citizenship, particularly for naturalized Canadians.

We applaud the government today for introducing Bill C-6 so very early in its mandate, and we support much of what's in the bill. We're particularly pleased about the provisions scrapping the intention to reside requirement and removing the power to strip citizenship for national security grounds. We also support the changes to the language and the residency requirements for naturalization.

That said, in our view the bill's not perfect. There are some significant problems and gaps that we hope this committee can address. Of particular concern to us are five areas. I've handed out a summary in English and French of the specific recommendations we have, and I hope those are before you. I'll just go through very briefly what we're suggesting.

The first issue I know has been a topic of a great deal of debate. I'll rely on Professor Macklin on the issue of the revocation process. Legal Aid Ontario shares Professor Macklin's position on the best remedy for that, and I know that Minister McCallum has also expressed interest in looking at how to reform that provision.

The second is with respect to remedies for refused citizenship applications. Bill C-24 stripped refused citizenship applicants of their right to appeal refusals to the Federal Court, and introduced instead a remedy of judicial review by way of leave. That change imposes unjust and costly barriers to access to justice, particularly in an area that really goes to the core of what it means to be a member of society. Leave requirements in Federal Court can double the time it takes to get a remedy and double the cost of seeking that remedy; and leave refusals, as I'm sure you know, are made without reasons by the Federal Court judge, which does an injustice to the individual applicants who naturally will perceive the leave requirement as being arbitrary. They don't know why they get refused. We therefore urge the committee to amend Bill C-6 to reverse the amendments that were introduced in section 20 of Bill C-24 and return to the Federal Court appeal provisions that existed before.

Our third area of concern is with respect to the first generation born abroad limitation. We were very pleased to hear Minister McCallum affirm before this committee that there should be one class of citizen. There's no place in Canadian law, in our view, for provisions that treat citizens born on our territory differently from those who are naturalized. My grandchild will be a Canadian citizen no matter where she's born. Mr. Virani's grandchild—he is my MP—will not be, unless she's born on Canadian territory. That's an unjust distinction. We ask, therefore, that the committee amend Bill C-6 to include a provision that strikes down the first generation born aboard provision in section 3(3) of the Citizenship Act.

The fourth area of concern is with respect to the residency calculation. We supported the change to the residency requirements that were set out in Bill C-6. We ask that they be expanded so that credit can also be given for Canadian residency to those who have made a refugee claim that's been found eligible but are waiting to have their hearing. As you know, there is a massive backlog right now. People are waiting for three or four years to have their claim heard. They should get credit for that time.

As well, those who have been accepted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds at stage one should also get credit for the time. It's a two-stage process, and people sometimes wait for years to get the final approval. That period of delay is not the fault of the applicant; it's a problem at Immigration, which is just taking too long to process them. We ask that they also get half-time credit for that period.

Finally, I'd like to ask the committee to consider seriously the issue of statelessness and how this act can be amended to deal with the stateless within Canada.

We are certainly hopeful that the new government's renewed recognition of the importance of international law and global engagement will result in our signing the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, but there is something that we can do right now with this act to make sure that we are better protecting stateless persons and coming into better compliance with international law and norms.

We have three recommendations.

The first, which is critical, is to include a definition of “statelessness” within paragraph (a) of subsection 2(2) of the act. We ask that this include both de jure or legal statelessness as well as de facto statelessness. Practically speaking, the whole point of dealing with statelessness and assisting stateless persons to get protection is to make sure that every member of society has a connection to a state.

Concerns have been expressed by various people, including in a case in the U.K. called Pham, which shows the problems when we have an overly legalistic and narrow definition of statelessness. We are proposing the following definition, which is also included in the materials handed out. It's that “stateless” means that the person is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law and includes both de jure and de facto statelessness.

I've handed out a little printout from the website of CIC, which includes this government's understanding and definition of those two terms, de jure and de facto.

The second provision with respect to statelessness is that we're asking for an amendment to subsection 5(4) of the act, the provision that allows discretionary grants of citizenship in special cases. We propose that statelessness be identified specifically within the act as a factor that would justify a grant of citizenship under subsection 5(4).

Finally, we are proposing an amendment to section 10 of the Citizenship Act, the revocation process. We propose adding a restriction on revocation when it might result in a person's becoming stateless, whether de jure or de facto. We believe this would provide a very significant protection against an unexpected result of a revocation decision, and we ask that you seriously consider it.

Those are my submissions.

[Mary-Ann Hubers]

There's nothing in Bill C-6 that talks about the first-generation limit, but there is in the law a first-generation limit that applies to children born abroad to a Canadian citizen. There were a number of reforms done that gave citizenship back to lost Canadians. The first one was in Bill C-37 in 2009. Then there were additional changes in Bill C-24 that gave citizenship back or gave it for the first time to a number of other lost Canadians. There were a number of individuals who were fixed by those provisions.

For those who are impacted now in terms of being themselves first generation born abroad, and they have a child abroad who's therefore not eligible for citizenship by descent, there are some avenues available to them. For example, they can sponsor that child for a permanent residence to Canada. If the child is stateless because they don't have access to any other citizenship, there's a grant in the Citizenship Act for stateless children of Canadians.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Also, I want to thank you for the energy you've brought to the task and for the important and timely changes you are making to the Citizenship Act. This was a very lively issue in my riding of Willowdale, so it's very nice to see that some of the excesses of Bill C-24 have been addressed in Bill C-6.

Now if I could, I will focus my question on the credit that is being provided to those who are temporary residents in this country and who intend to apply for citizenship. I find that to be a very useful change, and I have every confidence that it will have a discernible impact on attracting some of the best and brightest from around the world to apply for Canadian citizenship. One could think of international students, or of course, people who are experienced workers.

I had an opportunity to look at the changes being contemplated and to compare them to provisions that are also available in the American and Australian citizenship system. My colleague had a chance to ask you whether there was some consideration of providing more than 50% credit for that period.

My question is whether there was any consideration of having a cap that would not be for 365 days, but actually for a two-year period. Is that something that was contemplated?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Through Bill C-24, convicted terrorist Zakaria Amara lost his Canadian citizenship. Is that correct?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

My next question, Mr. Minister, is in regard to the revoking of citizenship.

Through Bill C-24, convicted terrorist Zakaria Amara lost his Canadian citizenship. Is that correct, Bill C-24?

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for being here.

Minister, you appeared in the committee on February 23, and I congratulated you for restoring the interim federal health program for refugees. I just want to thank you once again for restoring that.

Then I asked you when you would reintroduce the legislation to repeal Bill C-24, and you responded, “In the coming days, and not very many”. Then two days later, you introduced Bill C-6, so again I want to congratulate you for that.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for joining us today as we examine this important legislation, Bill C-6.

This is a very important issue for me and for my constituents in the riding of Scarborough Centre. After the Conservatives passed Bill C-24, effectively creating two tiers of Canadian citizenship, as a mother I had to explain to my two sons why they were second-class citizens in the country they have grown up in. They love their country.

This was wrong, and it went against the fundamental values of the country that has shaped them into the fine young men they have become. As a mother, a parliamentarian, and a Canadian, I am proud to see the integrity of Canadian citizenship restored. Could you please explain why it is so important to defend the integrity of Canadian citizenship, which is a beacon for people around the world?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would urge the minister to look into this issue. Hopefully, action will be forthcoming.

Let me move onto another issue. Bill C-24 eliminates the right to a judicial hearing for anyone who could have their citizenship revoked. Those involved with the civil liberties movement are calling on the government to make changes in this regard. Bill C-6 leaves this provision untouched.

Would the minister agree with the Canadian Bar Association that someone who is about to lose their citizenship should always have the right to a hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

I would advocate for a change. Even though it's not part of Bill C-24, it's still part of the set of legislation that we're dealing with in respect of Bill C-6.

With that, I want to move on to another area, which is the fees issue. Under changes to regulations that were made by the previous government, fees were increased to such a degree that a family of four could expect to spend nearly $1,500 on citizenship processing fees. On top of that, there's a $100 right of citizenship fee as well. For many families, this is equivalent to greater than a month's rent. It's significant.

I wonder whether or not the government has any plans to examine the high fee structure. Is there any action that the minister might be undertaking to correct that?

[Catrina Tapley]

The changes to requirements to provide upfront evidence of language at the Canadian language benchmark 4 level were a change that was made prior to Bill C-24.

I believe, Mary-Ann, that it was about a year before Bill C-24?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

I'm told that change came before Bill C-24.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Was the double-testing a new concept under Bill C-24?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Prior to Bill C-24, what was the language proficiency level?

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Okay.

Bill C-6 also allows time spent in Canada as a temporary resident to count towards the residency requirement for citizenship. Periods of temporary residence had been eligible prior to Bill C-24 as well. Before the provisions excluding time as a temporary resident came into force, approximately what percentage of citizenship applicants included periods of temporary residence in their application?

Citizenship Act

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what his experiences in the election campaign were like and what he thinks about the hundreds of thousands of Canadians with dual citizenship who will be affected by Bill C-24.

I talked to Americans, people from Europe, and a lot of people from the Middle East in my riding who felt, to be honest, let down by the government. They wonder why they are a different class of citizen than Canadians born here. They think this bill only affects one person, but it does not. It affects millions of Canadians who have dual citizenship, and they feel slighted by this act.

When I knocked on doors during the election campaign, I heard many people say that they could not believe a government would do this to its own citizens. I wonder if his experiences were similar in his riding during the election campaign.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in support of Bill C-6. The bill will restore the fundamental principle of equality of citizenship, and also restore common sense to the process of becoming a Canadian citizen.

There are few privileges on earth greater than being a citizen of Canada. In our country, we cherish our freedom, our democracy, and our inalienable rights that attach to our citizenship. Canada has long been a beacon of hope and opportunity to many around the world. Our country is blessed to have been enriched by people who have become Canadians by choice.

In my riding of West Nova, we have an incredible history which started the foundation of the country, with rich contributions from Acadian, Mi’kmaq, Métis, British, and African Canadians. Also, we know that through many generations at Pier 21 in Halifax, many more immigrants began their lives as Canadians and together helped build this great country.

The most fundamental principle of the rule of law is that all citizens are equal before the law. We cannot have two classes of Canadians. Once someone is a citizen of our country, certain rights and privileges attach to that. They cannot be taken away. Bill C-6 restores the fundamental principle of our system of citizenship. It rightly seeks to reinstate this principle, which was taken away under the Conservatives' Bill C-24 in the last Parliament.

I have heard all kinds of claims by the opposition members in the debate so far on Bill C-6. However, the most intellectually frustrating argument I have heard is their claim that Bill C-6 leaves in the law the ability for revocation of citizenship in some cases. Therefore, the argument we are making on this side of the House, that it is fundamental that we cannot revoke citizenship, is somehow inconsistent with leaving that provision in the law. I have heard this from the other side. The argument has been made that Bill C-6 in fact creates two tiers of citizens. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the opposite is true. The bill remedies the fact that in Bill C-24 there are two classes of citizenship.

Does the opposition not see the obvious difference between taking away citizenship from someone who never would have or should have obtained citizenship but for fraud or misrepresentation, and revoking the citizenship of an otherwise valid citizen for egregious behaviour done after they have been conferred with all rights and privileges that come with citizenship? To my mind, there is a clear distinction between something being void ab initio, that meaning from the beginning. They were never citizens. That is the difference between something void ab initio and something voidable in the future for future behaviour.

Furthermore, do they not see that maintaining the integrity of our citizenship application process requires a mechanism to prevent those who would lie in order to become a citizen? What kind of system is reliable if there is no mechanism to withdraw from it people who have lied, committed fraud, or misrepresented the statements made in order to obtain the thing conferred upon them? Of course, to have a proper system of citizenship requires a mechanism for those people who have misrepresented themselves to the government to obtain the citizenship to take that away.

That is vastly different from saying that someone should have their citizenship revoked for something done after they have become a citizen. There is no causal link. There is nothing between their bad behaviour afterwards and their citizenship. Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to suggest that because there are provisions that remain in the law to revoke citizenship for someone who should never and would never have been conferred citizenship, versus someone revoking their citizenship for egregious behaviour after the fact, that the law is flawed

Let me be clear about this. There is no question that the behaviour associated with revoking citizenship in Bill C-24 is egregious behaviour. It is intolerable. It is criminal. It is repugnant. That is exactly why the criminal law in this country, to the fullest extent, should make sure that those people go to jail. That is where they belong. It should not be used as a punishment to revoke their citizenship because it does in fact create two tiers of citizens. It creates citizens who have dual citizenship who could be subjected to having their citizenship revoked on future behaviour, versus those who are Canadian and only Canadian citizens.

There is a big fundamental difference. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. I know that line has been used on both sides of the House, but it is true. It is true that if we go down the road of having more than one class of citizenship, it will render less valuable the fact that someone is a Canadian citizen.

Being a dual citizen means that an individual is a Canadian citizen. However, a Canadian citizen is the same, whether or not they have more than one passport.

I submit that most Canadians understand this obvious difference. It is unfortunate that it is being advanced as a proper argument to maintain these elements from the previous Bill C-24. I note that these elements were part of the election campaign, and Canadians rejected those ideas in the last election.

Bill C-6 also reduces the length of time that someone must be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. This would help immigrants achieve citizenship more quickly and change the requirements to three years within five years total. It will mean that applicants can apply one year sooner in order to join the citizenship of this country. This offers greater flexibility for immigrants who travel outside of Canada but maintain the timelines. It does ensure that a new Canadian has significant ties and links with our country to be a full and proud Canadian.

Another element of Bill C-6 that I find very good is the part of the bill that restores the 50% credit, for international students in particular, who spend time at one of our amazing schools in this country. It does not make any sense to take away the credit for those individuals whom we hope to attract, for whom we are competing with other countries around the world to have them live in Canada, to participate in our country. It does not make any sense at all to make it harder for them. We are competing with other countries around the world to attract the best and brightest, and we must do what we can to ensure that they stay here.

They have links with Canada. They obviously have a linguistic connection, either English or French, or perhaps both, in order to attend one of our universities or post-secondary schools. Therefore, it makes sense with those links, those connections, their intelligence and innovation, that we should be attracting and doing everything we can to encourage these students to become part of the Canadian family.

We know that Bill C-6 also amends the age range for the language requirement. Bill C-6 proposes to amend the age range for those required to meet language and knowledge requirements from 14 to 64, to those aged 18 to 54, removing a potential barrier to citizenship for applicants in both the younger and older age groups.

All Canadians are free to move outside of Canada, of course, and this is a right guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many Canadians enjoy that privilege and maintain their strong ties and connections and pride in Canada. It is right and correct that Bill C-6 repeals the June 2015 change that required adult applicants to declare that they intend to continue to reside in Canada. This is a prime example of previous modifications to our law that treat certain citizens differently.

Bill C-6 attempts to remedy changes that were made that are against the rule of law, against the best traditions of this country, and that is why I will proudly support Bill C-6.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion with which my colleague speaks. It adds greatly to this debate.

My colleague has been vigorously defending Bill C-24, and I get a sense from the questions and the speeches that perhaps it did not go far enough for him.

Can he envision a bill that is stronger than Bill C-24 that he would perhaps like to see replace Bill C-6?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated in the past, it is always a pleasure to address the House on what I believe are important issues. Bill C-6 is a very important issue.

I spoke against Bill C-24, which was passed not long ago under the Conservative government. I felt fairly passionate about the fact that the government was taking the issue of citizenship in the wrong direction. Today we have a bill before us that would rectify a number of wrongs that the previous government put in place.

I want to pick up on the point of my colleague from the NDP. I appreciate his comments and support of this bill, recognizing the importance of citizenship and that we get it right. Citizenship is very important. It is something in which we have a vested interest. In the Liberal caucus, it is an issue about which we are all very passionate. We look to the current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to be progressive in making the changes that are so badly needed to fix the system, and it goes beyond the legislation before us today.

A few weeks ago, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship addressed the House and made reference to the processing times for citizenship. It is a serious issue. It was not that long ago, a number of months, when the Conservatives allowed the processing of a citizenship to go far beyond two years. We should keep in it perspective that this is after someone technically qualifies to get citizenship. He or she has to then put in an application requesting it. People are putting in their applications today and having to wait a minimum of two years. The actual percentage is a guesstimate, but it was closer to two and half or three years, and 15% plus were waiting four to six years, depending on whether they required their residency calculator to kick in while spot checks were being done. Those are unbelievable processing times.

The minister has been very straightforward and transparent in saying that the government wants to deal with this processing time. We recognize the desire of people who call Canada their home. They have taken interest in our great country, are productive while they are here, and contribute to our lifestyle in a very real and tangible way. We want them to take on the responsibility of being citizens, and they have a desire to become citizens. I was pleased when the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said that we would be reducing the processing time.

Now we are debating a bill that is yet another step in the right direction to deal with citizenship. For example, the legislation would change what the Conservatives put in place, which was that in order to qualify to be citizens, people had to have lived in Canada for at least four years out of the most recent six. It used to be three out of five years. This legislation would bring it back to the way it was.

There was no demand to change it in the first place. I was the critic for immigration a number of years ago. I sat in committee and no one talked about it. Why the Conservative government made that decision is beyond me. In fact, a Conservative MP introduced a private member's bill to reduce the amount of time required for citizenship for individuals who chose to join the Canadian Forces. That member received a great deal of sympathy from members on all sides of the House. Therefore, I was somewhat taken aback when the government made this decision.

Another very smart move in the legislation is the recognition of the valuable contributions of people who come to Canada to work and to study. I believe Canadians are quite passionate about this. We recognize those valuable contributions made by individuals who make those sacrifices, often leaving family abroad to come to Canada, to get money, to get that job, to fill a void in the Canadian economy. We are talking about significant numbers of people.

As the immigration critic a few years back, I used to argue that if people were good enough to work in Canada, they were good enough to stay in Canada. There was overwhelming support for statements of that nature. There needs to be criteria, and the criteria will be there. I believe we will see more on that front.

However, the legislation recognizes those students and those workers. For example, someone who has been working in Canada for two years will be able to take one of those years and apply it to the three of five years. That is a progressive move recognizes the valuable contributions these workers have made.

When we look at the student component, these incredible young people have made a commitment to further their education in Canada. Why should we not allow them the opportunity to get their citizenship a little earlier? I would challenge the Conservatives to answer some of those questions about why they made those changes.

There was no demand. No one was coming to the table saying that we needed to make those changes. We have heard a great deal about the whole issue around terrorists, and why we would accept the two-tier system as proposed by the Conservatives proposed when in government.

Let there be no doubt. Under Bill C-24, the Conservatives created a two-tiered citizenship system. They said that if people had dual citizenships, they could lose their Canadian citizenship. If they did not have dual citizenship, then they could not.

I do not care what the official opposition benches say. The Conservatives created a two-tier system.

This legislation recognizes that a Canadian citizen is a Canadian citizen. All we need to do is look at the election results, because this issue was often referred to at the door. This bill would right a number of wrongs, as members of the Liberal Party and other parties have said.

This legislation is yet another step in what I believe is a move for real change, which the Prime Minister committed to during the last federal election. We are seeing those commitments materialized.

We believe that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, strengths we have in Canada is our diversity. If we capitalize on that diversity, Canada will continue to grow and prosper well into the future. There is so much potential here. We cannot underestimate the importance of immigration.

I was especially pleased when I heard the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship earlier today in question period. He made very positive statements about improving processing times for families and improving the number of immigrants. I believe I even heard him say that in 2016 Canada might receive the highest number of immigrants in its history.

We recognize that good, sound immigration policy that leads to citizenship and good citizens is the direction in which to take our country. We are a country of immigrants. Immigrants built our country. We need to have immigration to continue to prosper in the future. We in the Liberal Party recognize that and, as a government, we will put in sound policies to feed that growth. By feeding that growth, we will be building a healthier, stronger economy, and a better society for all of us.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very clear that the changes in Bill C-24 passed by the Conservative government in 2014 turned millions of Canadians into second-class citizens with fewer rights than other Canadians. The changes were discriminatory, anti-immigrant, and un-Canadian. Bill C-6 would simply undo these changes.

No government should have the right to revoke citizenship, whether one is born in Canada or abroad.

Does the member opposite not agree that Bill C-6 simply restores equal citizenship in Canada to Canadians?

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a lawyer, I am of course supportive of the charter and agree that it is an important facet of our life and our legislative process in Canada, and it needs always to be taken into consideration when we deliberate legislation in this chamber. I agree.

If members recall, the CBA spoke out and was highly critical of BillC-24, for many reasons. Part of it was that it got rid of the Federal Court of Appeal being able to hear appeals under the revocation of citizenship.

So, our new bill, our new act, would be in line with charter values, would be constitutionally sound, and has been vetted. I appreciate the member raising this question because it is important, as we deliberate, that we ensure that all legislation in this House is aligned with charter values. I am a proponent of that. I thank the member for that question.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Newmarket—Aurora, for his fine speech, and I would like to congratulate the Liberal government for bringing forward this bill. There are a lot of provisions that we, in the NDP, can support.

However, there is one thing I would draw to my colleague's attention. I want to reference the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because I think that is a very important document when we deliberate in this chamber, specifically section 11, under legal rights, which states that anyone charged with an offence has a right to a trial before a court that is unbiased and independent of political or any other influence.

I realize that an offence is different from revocation of citizenship, but I think in this chamber we have to look at all of our laws with the spirit of the charter in mind.

Bill C-24 eliminated the right to a judicial hearing for people who are about to have their citizenship revoked. Civil liberty groups, including the Canadian Bar Association, were against this. I would ask my colleague if he agrees with organizations like the Canadian Bar Association that people who are about to lose their citizenship should always have the right to a fair hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker, keeping in line with the spirit of the charter, specifically section 11.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the Liberal Party promised to repeal the unfair and reprehensible parts of the previous Conservative bill, Bill C-24, and that is exactly what we are doing with Bill C-6.

The two-tier citizenship provisions that were contrary to the Canadian values of equality and inclusiveness will be gone. We are allowing hard-working permanent residents who are contributing to Canadian society to become citizens more quickly, and we are making it easier for grandmothers and grandfathers to join their children and grandchildren without language testing.

To repeal the bill entirely would be irresponsible and rash. The legislation did several things that I agree with, and I hope that the hon. member would as well. For example, the act restored the citizenship of so-called lost Canadians, such as the descendants of Canadian citizens, who were born abroad and were shocked to discover they were not Canadian citizens. The legislation also allowed for a faster path to citizenship for those who were serving or had served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Surely, the hon. member would agree that these are measures worth keeping.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, oftentimes today, as we have sat through this debate, we have heard references to the effect that what Bill C-24 did was effectively designate people as second-class citizens.

This morning my colleague from Durham talked quite eloquently about the privileges of having citizenship. The expectation is that those who become citizens of our country would live by the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

Why should those who wish to do harm to Canada, to their fellow citizens, be able to keep their citizenship?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a pleasure to rise in the House today in support of Bill C-6, for this is very much a bill that speaks to the heart of why I am so proud to be Canadian and what makes our country the envy of the world.

In my first speech in the House as the member of Parliament for Scarborough Centre, I spoke about how my husband and I came to Canada from Pakistan about 16 years ago to provide better opportunities for our children. Before we moved here, there was one big thing we knew about the country, which is why we came here, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

People around the world know two things about Canada. We love hockey and we are the country of the charter. This is a document that says every Canadian and everyone within our borders have certain inalienable rights: the right to associate with whom we wish, communicate what we wish, and worship how we wish. The charter speaks to choice and equality, that whether we are Canadian by birth or by choice, we all are Canadian.

I live in Scarborough, one of the most diverse communities in Canada, where many people have chosen to settle and build better lives for their families. During the election campaign, I heard from many families who were deeply concerned by some of the provisions in the previous Conservative government's Bill C-24. Of particular concern were the so-called two-tier citizenship provisions, which allow government ministers to strip dual citizens or those eligible to obtain one of their Canadian citizenship.

Let me be clear that terrorism is abhorrent and should be punished to the full extent of the law. However, let me be equally clear that terrorists belong in jails, not on a plane overseas. This is a matter of principle. We cannot create two different tiers of Canadian citizenship and we cannot ship our problems overseas for other people to deal with. That has never been the Canadian way.

My husband Salman and I have two sons. Umaid is 17 years old and Usman is 15. They are like many Canadian children. They love basketball and the Toronto Raptors, and were two of my best door knockers during the campaign. Usman was born in Canada, while Umaid was born just before we left Pakistan and came here as a baby. They have much in common with their classmates, but there is one difference. While Usman was born here and Umaid was not, both are still dual citizens and both could be stripped of their citizenship under Bill C-24.

How can I tell my two sons that they are different from their classmates? They both feel Canadian to their core and deeply love this country and all it stands for. Should Umaid and Usman really be treated as second-class citizens? This is wrong, and it goes against the fundamental values of the country they both grew up in, which shaped them into the fine young men they have become.

That is why I was so proud, not just as a candidate but as a mother, when the Prime Minister came to my campaign office for a rally during the first week of the election campaign and promised to repeal this provision of Bill C-24. My sons and many more sons and daughters heard the Prime Minister reassert those core Canadian values when he told us, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. With Bill C-6, none of our children will ever again have to feel like second-class citizens in the country they love.

Our diversity is our strength and we are stronger, not in spite of our diversity but because of its diversity.

There are a number of other worthy elements of Bill C-6 that I would like to draw to the attention of the House. Of particular interest to my constituents in Scarborough Centre are the changes to the language testing requirements, returning the age range required to pass the language testing to the age group 18 to 54.

Encouraging family reunification is an important goal of this government, including parents and grandparents, and these provisions will make a major difference in this regard.

I know many Filipino and Gujarati families in Scarborough where the grandparents have come to Canada to join their children and grandchildren, and are making vitally important contributions to both our society and our economy.

With one Filipino family in my neighbourhood, the grandmother comes to take the kids to school first thing in the morning, and then takes them home afterwards and looks after them into the evening. In the summer, she takes the children to summer camp and on activities and outings around the city. By taking care of her grandchildren during the day, she allows her son and her daughter-in-law to both work full time, contributing to our economy and allowing them to provide more opportunities for their children.

I know one Gujarati families in Scarborough grandmother who looks after six grandchildren. I do not know how she does it, but these grandmothers and grandfathers and the child care they provide, as well as the emotional support they provide to their children, are invaluable to our economy.

I agree that new Canadian citizens should be required to meet a certain level of English or French proficiency. However, do we really want to force the 64-year-old Filipino grandmother to pass a demanding language test? I would rather have her grandchildren teach her while they are at the park.

Finally, I would like to touch on the various changes to residency requirements to applying for Canadian citizenship that would be made by Bill C-6. The proposed bill will help permanent residents become Canadian citizens sooner by reducing the time they must be physically present in Canada before being able to apply, from four years to three years. Applicants will also receive credit for time they were present in Canada without being a permanent resident, for example, if they were studying on a student visa or a skilled worker.

My feeling is this. If individuals are hard-working contributing members of society, if they love our great country as much as we do and want to take that next step and join us as a citizen, then I see no reason to make them wait so long. They are exactly the kind of person we want to join our Canadian family.

With Bill C-6, this government delivers on its promise to restore the integrity of Canadian citizenship and reaffirms our Canadian values of openness, fairness, and equality. Today, we can proudly say once again, with our heads held high, that we live in the greatest country in the world, and that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, the bill before the House will create two-tier citizenship. The current law, law as amended by Bill C-24, levelled the playing field of citizenship. It meant that whether or not an individual was native born or an immigrant who became naturalized, both of those types of citizens could have their citizenship revoked if they had another nationality, or held dual citizenship, and had committed certain acts.

The bill will create two-tier citizenship because it will remove the right of the government to revoke citizenship for native-born Canadians, but keep it in place for those immigrants who come here and become naturalized Canadian citizens. That is two-tier citizenship.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

The NDP is obviously very pleased to be able to help fix mistakes made by the Conservatives with Bill C-24, which attacked fundamental rights and created two classes of Canadians.

I would like to ask my colleague a question about citizenship. Since February 2014, processing fees for citizenship applications increased from $100 per person to $530 per person, which can result in very significant costs. For example, a family that would like to apply for Canadian citizenship could well pay more than $1,500.

I would like to know what the member thinks of this fee increase. Would he consider reducing the fees to what they were two years ago, that is, $100 per person?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is hard to speak after listening to my colleague from Brampton East with his passionate speech, but I will do my very best and attempt to emulate him.

Diversity, inclusion, immigration: these are pillars of this great country and should always inform any debate in this chamber. I am rising today to speak in support of this bill with these fundamentals in mind.

When this House considers a subject as important and as fundamental as citizenship, we should treat these debates with the importance they deserve. Today I am rising to support this bill. My constituents will be thrilled to hear that our government is addressing serious errors that Bill C-24 created, whether they were purposeful or not. I thank the minister for swiftly reversing these errors and addressing these concerns.

One of our nation's many pillars is the successful integration of immigrants into new Canadians. Our country is stronger because of our diversity, and our government encourages all immigrants to take the path to full and permanent membership in this country and Canadian society.

Bill C-6 achieves just that. These changes would provide newcomers to Canada more flexibility to help meet their requirements for citizenship. I know I am not alone in this House when I say that, day in and day out, as members of Parliament, we hear about the unique paths that newcomers have taken to end up here in Canada. A number of these paths have been filled with hardship, challenges, and roadblocks.

As a government, we have a responsibility to ease immigration to our country, especially when it comes to reuniting families with their loved ones. For the past number of years, we have seen processing times for applications balloon. Now, as a result, I hear about constituents in my riding who have waited not months but years for decisions on their applications.

My family's immigration story is similar to that of millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It is a story I share with many of constituents in my riding of Surrey Centre. My father, Mohan Singh Sarai, emigrated here from India in 1959, 57 years ago, and my mother, Amrik Kaur Sarai, emigrated in 1969. They came to this country to participate fully in Canadian society. My brothers are transportation workers, sawmill workers, and truck drivers, and one is a postman, all active in their communities, coaching, volunteering, or working in community kitchens around the great province of British Columbia.

I look around this chamber, and I know that many have similar stories to tell, and that is exactly what makes this place and country so great. The government recognizes that newcomers often begin building an attachment to this country long before they become permanent residents. This includes students who study in our great institutions, such as Simon Fraser University and Kwantlen Polytechnic University in my riding.

They would now receive credit for their time while they study in schools in our great land. This bill proposes allowing applicants to receive credit for the time they were legally in Canada before actually becoming status permanent residents.

Let us be clear about what this legislation would accomplish. This bill removes the unnecessary barriers to becoming full members of Canadian society. Our government has taken action by narrowing the age range of those required to meet language and knowledge requirements, so more newcomers have the chance of being granted Canadian citizenship.

Our government has demonstrated leadership by repealing the intent-to-reside provision of citizenship applications. I know there was a period of time during the previous Parliament when the government of the day conveniently forgot about a pesky little document called the charter. However, our government recognizes that all Canadians are free to move wherever they choose, and this right is guaranteed in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I want to talk about something I find to be deeply troubling. Let us imagine a country where people who were born and raised in this country could have their citizenship taken away. That country does exists, and its name is Canada.

Now this might come as a shock to my colleagues from across the aisle, but I agree with them. I will go slowly here so my colleagues can follow.

When terrorists commit a crime against our country, we should lock them up and let them pay for their crime, because when people commit a crime in this country, we lock them up, we prosecute them, and we sentence them to jail. This is the Canada my parents immigrated to, the place I am proud to call my home, and in this country we have a justice system designed to do exactly that: provide justice to Canadians.

I have had this debate with many during and after the election: citizenship is akin to adoption. When parents adopt a child, they take the child not knowing what he or she will become. Some may become doctors, lawyers, nurses, electricians, or maybe even members of Parliament, but some may also end up becoming criminals. However, the adoptive parents cannot, all of a sudden, tell the biological parents from whom they adopted their children that the kid is now a criminal and they want to return the child, as he or she is not their child anymore. Their child is their child is their child.

The same goes for citizenship. When people come to Canada, we assess their medical histories, perform deep and extensive criminal histories and security assessments, including criminal record checks, histories, backgrounds, and we watch them for at least five years. For the first five years they live in Canada, we monitor them and are able to see their actions. Only after completing that long assessment and a written test, and in some cases an interview with a judge, do we decide that they are worthy of our citizenship. After that point, they are ours, period.

Subsequently, if people get radicalized or become terrorists or criminals of any kind in Canada, they are our problem, not the country from which they came. Why should another country take our criminals? Why? They become a problem in Canada, so why should the countries of their birth or their parents' birth take them back? Their act of terrorism or criminality happened or was conceived on Canada's soil, while being Canadian.

Therefore, we cannot just do a brain drain from countries by taking their best and brightest and then deport those who become rotten apples here in Canada. If this were the case, then we should deport the hundreds of mass murderers, serial rapists, pedophiles, and other criminals who are in Canada, in Canadian jails, back to the countries from which their parents came.

With that in mind, do we wish to have people of Canadian descent, who have migrated and become citizens elsewhere, such as the United States or European countries, be deported back here when they do heinous crimes in their new country of choice? No, they should pay for their crimes there.

Let us recap. Should Bill C-6 become law, it would give more flexibility for newcomers to Canada to apply, more newcomers would become full and permanent residents of this great country, and they would become citizens faster. Finally, it would remove and end a shameful second class of citizenship that should never exist in a country such as ours.

I hope my colleagues in the House will support our government's initiatives because our country is stronger not because we have no diversity but because of it.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is obviously very passionate about the topic.

I am pleased to hear the hon. member raise the concern about lack of due process and rule of law. This is something that we stand for proudly in Canada. When I worked overseas in other countries, we tried to encourage them to move in that direction.

I am sad to say, though, that apparently this law still leaves some unilateral powers vested in the minister without a judicial hearing, and perhaps they will revisit that provision.

One thing I would like to raise is that it is one thing to improve the law, and as my colleague previously said, many of my constitutents were also very concerned about Bill C-24 and will be pleased that I am standing here supporting changes in that law.

We are deeply concerned about the delays in bringing on immigration staff to expedite applications for family reunification and so forth. In my jurisdiction, we are now facing, for the second time, having no citizenship judge. We went through this a year ago. We had to wait a year for a citizenship judge, and now we are without one again.

What is the hon. member willing to do to get his party to employ people and get people appointed so that we can move on making people citizens of Canada?

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the context of the statement that was made, it was the arbitrary notion of Bill C-24 that went to the core of what was wrong with that bill. It could unilaterally take away citizenship from any Canadian who held dual citizenship and was not born in this country. It was arbitrary. It was not fair.

I want to say to the member opposite that it was not a reference to the previous government. I apologize if he may have construed it in a way that I did not mean. I want to focus on the fact that Bill C-24 was arbitrary, not fair, and that it could unequivocally take away citizenship from people who did not deserve to fall under that law.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the hon. member for Surrey Centre. It is a pleasure to be able to speak in support of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act .

As the member of Parliament from a riding where immigration is the number one concern for many of my constituents, I am proud to support this bill. During my 11-week campaign and the two years leading up to it, I heard time and again of the issues that people were facing concerning bringing their loved ones to Canada, or their struggles in gaining citizenship while they were completing their residency requirements.

Since the good people of Brampton East sent me to this chamber, my constituency office has received over 400 cases, and 99% of them deal with immigration. They are families who have waited seven years to be reunited. There are thousands who have waited 18 months since they were married to begin their life together. There are genuine visitor visa cases that are being denied time and again. There are also PR holders who have filled out the application, met the residency requirements, and suffered under the unnecessary changes to the Citizenship Act made by the previous government.

I am the proud son of immigrants. My family's story is similar to that of many families across this great nation. My parents immigrated to Canada in the late 1970s in search of social and economic opportunities. They worked hard. My dad was a taxi cab driver, and my mom lifted boxes in a factory. My parents realized that in Canada anything was possible with a bit of hope and a lot of hard work. At the core of their story is the day that they became Canadian citizens. It was not just a document to them. For my parents, it was security and a sense of pride that they were finally part of the Canadian family. At the ceremony, they proudly sang O Canada, and called their relatives for a party to celebrate the occasion.

Time and again, my father tells me that I won the lottery by being born in Canada, that I am a Canadian citizen by birthright, and that being a Canadian citizen is the envy of the world. I could not agree with him more. When asked on the campaign trail how I enjoyed the process, I responded that I am living the Canadian dream.

Brampton East is the second-most diverse riding in the entire country. The strength of our country has always been our diversity and building upon one another's experiences. Yet, at the same time, no matter where we come from or what we believe, we are all united by our Canadian values.

A few weeks ago, I had the honour and privilege of welcoming our new Syrian brothers and sisters at Pearson International Airport. I had the opportunity to chat with some of them, and the hope and joy in their voices was priceless. They knew how special it was to come to Canada as permanent residents. One parent spoke about how her children would now have the opportunity to live out their dreams. One day, a young Syrian refugee will study hard, become a professional, gain citizenship, and become a member of Parliament and sit in this very House. His or her life story will be a story of the Canadian dream.

Day in and day out, my team in Brampton East helps our constituents understand the immigration process, helps them determine their eligibility, and supports them through any challenges they face. Gaining citizenship is a cherished goal for many of my constituents, as well as the associated objectives such as family unification, which our government is also improving upon.

When the previous government announced the changes to the Citizenship Act, it redefined the narratives of citizenship and what it meant to be a Canadian. As a result, it pitted Canadians against one another in the ugliest of ways in order to serve political purposes. This greatly affected the citizens of my riding, many of whom are first generation and second generation Canadians. Their families moved here with the hopes and dreams of building a secure and prosperous life in Canada and providing the best foundation for their children to contribute to Canadian society.

Bill C-24, introduced by the previous government, tore into these hopes and dreams, as well as the hard work my constituents had put into building successful lives for their families. It created a fear and discomfort that is not the norm for Canadian society, and it certainly should not be.

Former citizenship and immigration minister Chris Alexander defended this bill by arguing that citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Simply put, he is wrong. It may come with responsibilities, but citizenship is a right. Once legitimately acquired by birth or naturalization, it cannot be taken away.

Bill C-24 gave the government the kind of sweeping power that is common in dictatorships, not in a democracy built upon the rule of law where all citizens are equal. The previous government used national security as a justification for the bill, but Bill C-24 could easily have been used against Canadians who were innocent under the laws. That was the danger in the lack of clarity and overreaching scope of that bill. That is the slippery slope that we must avoid at all costs.

Under that bill, the only Canadians who could not lose their citizenship arbitrarily were those born in Canada who did not have another nationality. The double standard and inequality that the law inflicted was immediately obvious to most Canadians. Revoking citizenship is one of the most serious consequences that a society may impose and should remain an exceptional process. It should be conducted with the highest degree of procedural fairness, as rightly noted by the Canadian Bar Association and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. We must trust our justice system to ensure that all criminals of Canadian nationality face the consequences of their actions, but that should not come at the expenses of their civil liberties.

I cannot say strongly enough how proud I am of the government for introducing Bill C-6, which aims to right the wrongs of Bill C-24 committed against dual citizens, potential dual citizens, and those looking to become citizens. Canada is, and always has been, and always will be, a country that opens its arms to others, whether it be immigrant families or our new Syrian refugee brothers and sisters. It is also in our nature to support these individuals to become integrated members of our society until they are settled and contributing to their community.

I would now like to focus on the importance of other parts of Bill C-6 that may not get as much attention.

I applaud the government for eliminating unjustified barriers to achieving citizenship. Allowing applicants to receive credit for the time they are legally in Canada before becoming permanent residents is a huge step in the right direction, if we value the talent and work ethic of the people who come to work or study in Canada. I am sure we have all met a bright, young international student with a promising career whom we would like to call Canada home, as we do. This improvement to the immigration system would create economic growth in communities, as we have the best and brightest of the world's population joining our workforce.

Allowing applicants to apply for citizenship one year sooner by reducing the number of days of physical presence has already been very well received in ridings like Brampton East.

Bill C-6 would correct a wrong. I am proud of the government for making this commitment during the campaign and now fulfilling its promise.

We can never forget that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member on his speech. He spoke with sincerity.

During the election campaign I too heard about Bill C-24. Obviously I was hearing different things. Members of my riding were supportive of the revocation of citizenship for acts of terrorism, treason, or espionage.

While I will congratulate the Liberals and the NDP on one thing, which is changing the narrative on the bill and making it seem to be more than it was, I was interested in the member's comments with respect to not supporting the revocation on the basis of treason, espionage, or terrorism.

Bill C-6, as it currently stands, does allow for the revocation of citizenship that has been gained through fraud. Could I ask the member why it is any less important to revoke citizenship for treason, terrorism, and espionage than it is for fraud?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak in support of Bill C-6 today, although I do feel that it falls short in a number of areas.

As has been said by several speakers here today and yesterday, most Canadians come from immigrant families, and many of us have stories of parents and grandparents who came to this country to ensure a better life for their children. My mother's family, the Munns, came from Scotland to Newfoundland in 1837, and I was very happy and honoured to hear the member for Avalon read a statement on Tuesday regarding my great-great-uncle John Munn, who came here in 1837 as a young entrepreneur and started Munn and Co., one of the greatest merchant companies in the storied history of Newfoundland, a company that was taken over by my great-grandfather, Robert Stewart Munn, in 1878.

My father's father, on the other hand, came from more humble beginnings, the slums of Bristol. He went to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia in 1907, and I am proud to use the leather case that he was given by his colleagues when he left England. I use it in recognition of the courage that he showed in giving up his life in England and moving to the wild west over a century ago.

To my way of thinking, Bill C-6 and its attempt to fix some of the serious shortcomings in citizenship law in Canada is a very welcome step. I would like to talk about the provisions in this bill that repeal the parts of Bill C-24 that relate to people who hold dual citizenship in Canada.

During a very long election campaign, like everyone in the chamber, I talked to thousands of people across my riding. As we found out on election day, most of them were desperate for a change in government. When I spoke with citizens on their doorsteps or answered questions at forums, they had a long list of concerns with the former government, but what really surprised me about the depth of these concerns was the fact that many people actually knew the names and numbers of a couple of the bills that bothered them.

I was not so much surprised that they knew about Bill C-51, as there had been a number of local rallies in my area and the bill had been well covered in the news, but I was really surprised to find out how many people immediately named Bill C-24 as their biggest concern. It is not often people know the names and numbers of bills. They were particularly vehement in their discussions around its provisions for stripping people with dual citizenship of their Canadian citizenship. It did not matter that this bill supposedly targeted only terrorists and spies; when taken in context with Bill C-51, there was a lot of concern at the time over who might be considered a terrorist, a spy, or a traitor.

A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting of environmental activists in a church basement in the Okanagan Valley. Most of the people there were elderly folks who were worried about the impacts of oil tankers along the Pacific coast. They were learning the basics of door-to-door canvassing. We found out some years later that a federal agent had attended the meeting and that some of the volunteers were followed and photographed as they canvassed neighbourhoods.

The previous government clearly treated anti-pipeline activists as traitors, and Bill C-51 came close to legalizing that view. Who is to say what future governments may decide about the definition of these serious charges? That is why I am very happy to see that Bill C-6 will repeal those parts of Bill C-24 that created two kinds of Canadian citizens: those who were safely Canadian and those who could lose their citizenship at the whim of some future minister.

This section of Bill C-24 has been denounced by the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and many respected academics. Many of these experts feel that Bill C-24 does not comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or international law. Like many other bills from the previous government, it was given a rather Orwellian doublespeak name. In this case it was called the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, when it clearly did the opposite.

When we welcome immigrants to Canada and grant them citizenship, they become Canadians, citizens like every one of us here in this chamber. They deserve to be given the same rights of citizenship as all of us, whether or not they choose to retain the citizenship of another country.

On top of that, one has to wonder why we would want to strip people of their citizenship and deport them, even if they have been convicted of treasonous or terrorist acts. Would we want them plotting against Canada from some foreign country, where they could easily be drawn into terrorist groups to harm Canadians and other citizens, or do we want them to be safely behind bars in prisons here in Canada?

I would like to turn now to talking about welcoming new immigrants. We all know the great benefits that immigrants bring to our country. Their hard work helps build this country, and we should remove unnecessary barriers to citizenship. I am happy to see that Bill C-6 begins to address some of these issues.

One of those barriers is the requirement that most new citizens be proficient in one of our two official languages. My daughter works in an immigrant support centre teaching English to refugees and new immigrants. Lately her classes have included refugees who have come to our region from Syria. I have met her students and can attest to their enthusiasm for learning English so that they can become fully integrated into the local community, get jobs, and become productive members of our society.

That said, I do support the provision in Bill C-6 that returns the age restriction to this requirement to 54 years of age, since older immigrants have strong family support and in turn are supporting their children's family at home. Many of these older immigrants have difficulty learning a new language and can contribute to Canadian society through their relationships with their children and other community members.

On that note, I would like to bring up the extreme difficulties just mentioned by my colleague that face young families of new Canadians who are trying to reunify their families and bring their parents to Canada.

I have had numerous representations, as I am sure many here have, from constituents who have been trying for years to bring parents to live with them in Canada. I have one family that has been trying for almost 10 years to bring their parents to join them in Canada. It breaks my heart to tell them that they have another six and a half years to wait. In the meantime, their parents are getting older and older. They do not think it is useful to continue the process because it is just so frustrating, so I hope the government acts on its promises to quickly clear up this backlog by replacing the present system with one that is fair and really works.

I would also like to note that many immigrant support centres across this country have had their federal funds cut over the past two years, making it difficult for these centres to help refugees and new immigrants get the language lessons and the other help they need to integrate into our communities.

To conclude, I urge the government to continue to remove unnecessary barriers to new immigrants in Canada, both through legislative action and through proper funding for immigrant support.

I would like to reiterate that Canada is a country of immigrants that should continue to welcome new Canadians from around the world. Bill C-24 was a giant step in the wrong direction, and Bill C-6 is a good step back toward making Canada a welcoming country, a country that we can all be proud of.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comment. I disagree with a few of his comments on Bill C-24. The bill really has not been around long enough to measure any of its impacts, positive or negative. I know he mentioned those in his speech.

The path to citizenship remains the same. It was just a little longer in our past bill compared to the bill proposed today. Why does he feel that the requirement is reasonable? Is it so unreasonable to live and work in this country 183 days a year in four out of six years? In addition to that, why are they taking out the clause to compel immigrants to live in the country? Part of being a citizen here is to live and work here, not to get citizenship and then go somewhere else. What would he like to say to that specific point in Bill C-6?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

I am pleased that Bill C-6 is moving through the House of Commons. As New Democrats, it is not exactly all that we want, but at least it will result in some movement on a number of different initiatives that have not only hurt this country economically, socially, and culturally, but also hurt the individuals we need to be a successful country.

I come from a riding that has over 100 organized ethnic cultures that have been part of the foundation of our border town, which basically has a third of the nation's trade go through it a day. It also has some of the most diverse areas. It is where the War of 1812 took place and was the end of the Underground Railroad, where people came to Canada to escape slavery in the United States. A number of times we contested bounty hunters coming into Canada to remove individuals back to the United States to collect a bounty and return them to slave owners. In many respects we had become a refuge against the acts and activities that we, as a part of the British empire at that time, clearly viewed as needing to change, such as the slave trade. That opposition of ours is very much a part of our cultural element. Although we were geographically large, at that time we were a small colonial country in terms of population. We were standing in the wings of the United States and offering something called freedom against its very controversial republic of union and the southern states, which eventually led to the Civil War. It was quite a stand for the people, communities, and so forth, of our country to take at that time.

Therefore, when we talk today about the changes called for in Bill C-6, we must keep in mind that if we were to continue with the policy brought in under the Conservatives in Bill C-24, we would be harming our ability to be successful in the world.

I will point to a couple of local examples that are also somewhat national in nature because they happen in many other border town facilities.

We have not only had many immigrants and refugees come to our region and contribute in recent years, as we have discussed over the last two years with respect to Syrian refugees, but we have also had a steady stream of immigrants come into our region who have helped to build the national footprint of this country and make significant local progress on many different issues.

Bill C-24 was basically more than just a fly in the ointment with respect to the Canadian dream of being a multicultural country; it became adverse to our economy and to the families that we need because we do not have a growing population ourselves. It is the reality of our future.

It is interesting when I hear some pushback about this from certain members of the public who ask the honest and interesting questions they feel the need to ask, such as who will pay for their pensions in the future if we do not have skilled labour and other types of labour coming to contribute back to the Canadian economy.

Interestingly enough, in a border town like mine we have seen the harmful effects of the extension of days and time required to be spent in Canada before a residency gets completed. In my riding alone, the issue was so bad that we received a budget for a single position in my constituency to hire someone four days a week to deal with immigration itself. We are not funded for that position in the overall budgeting of the House of Commons, which is sad because we had a new Walker Road immigration facility open up in Windsor eight or nine years ago. It also had a room for ceremonies. People could go and get their file looked after and could get updates. That office was not only subject to staffing reductions by the past regime, but we have also seen it close to the public.

A number of people have English as a second language. Let us be clear on this. They may be doctors, engineers, or teachers. They come from all walks of life. Some are skilled workers, some are not. These people are trying to get information about their cases. They may have a spouse, children, or parents who do not know what the h-e-double hockey sticks is happening. That is unfortunate, because they are trying to move on with their lives. The process takes far too long. This has been a habitual problem since I have been here in Parliament. Hopefully the changes proposed in this legislation will improve this to some degree. I hope staffing levels will get augmented. Hopefully, the office will be opened up so that people can get processed quickly.

How would this affect people in Windsor West, Toronto, Montreal, northern Ontario, or any other place in Canada? Employment will be delayed for these people. Their contributions back into our tax system will be delayed. Ironically, over 10,000 workers cross over to the Detroit region every day because that city is short of skilled labour. Some of these people are doctors, nurses, accountants, and marketing consultants. A lot of them have value-added skills, but their skills are not recognized in Canada. Some of these people have degrees but they cannot practice here. They cannot use their experience here. They can do so in the United States.

Thousands of people in the health care industry go over to the United States. These are doctors and nurses and other types of health care professionals. If Canadians need urgent hospital care, they are sent to Detroit to get help. We will pay a premium here in Canada for them to be treated by Canadians working in Detroit who are not allowed to practice their skills in our country. We pay a premium to send individuals over there, where they quite likely will receive treatment from people who have been denied a licence to practice here in Canada.

These delays in our immigration policy over the last number of years and the issue with Bill C-24 have created a shroud around families that makes it difficult for them to contribute.

I listened with interest to the previous speaker who said that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. I was at the U.S. embassy with Raymond Chrétien, who was the ambassador at that time. It was the first time an announcement was made that five countries would be put on a watch list. People who were granted Canadian citizenship but came from a third country might be exposed to fingerprinting and having their picture taken and other security checks done. I argued about this at the time, but to this day nothing has ever been done about it. That was the first step that took place. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian was not the case. We now have two-tier citizenship. We need to change that policy as well, and we can work toward that in the future.

Bill C-6 provides us with an opportunity to work on different things. We want to work on a few points contained in the legislation. It is not appropriate for the minister to unilaterally act with regard to someone's citizenship without judicial oversight. That is not appropriate in terms of an individual's rights. No minister of any political party should have that type of influence over a process that should be carried out in the courts. There should be accountability for the person, because he or she is a Canadian citizen. They should be entitled to their rights. We need to make sure that those rights are thoroughly reviewed, not only for them but for the rest of Canadian society.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that my NDP colleagues and I are very pleased that the Liberals introduced this bill because, from the beginning, we were strongly opposed to the Conservatives' Bill C-24, which created two classes of Canadians among immigrants. It contained many harmful and probably unconstitutional measures.

However, there are still many things that need to be improved. Do the Liberals plan to reduce fees for families in their next budget? For a family of four, for example, the fees are now almost $1,500. That decreases opportunities and makes it more difficult for immigrant families to become Canadian citizens.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour and pleasure to rise in the House today to speak about the government's plan to repeal provisions in the Citizenship Act. As this is a concern relating to citizenship, which is so central to Canadian identity, and matters of immigration, which are essential to the Canadian story, it is especially an honour for me, as the son of immigrants, to be here today.

Mr. Speaker, I want to also mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Davenport,

As the provisions only apply to Canadians with dual or multiple citizenships, they contribute to the creation of a two-tiered system. It is unacceptable in a democratic society that dual or multiple nationals are vulnerable to losing their citizenship.

This is a point that was raised time and again by stakeholders and private individuals when the previous legislation, Bill C-24, was first introduced.

Groups were as varied as the Canadian Bar Association, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, and Amnesty International. I would like to quote a few of these concerns.

David Matas of B'nai Brith, who testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration stated that:

We should not be revoking the citizenship of Canadians for crimes committed after the acquisition of citizenship, no matter what the crime.

I want to emphasize that point that Mr. Matas made.

I will continue with his quote:

Once a person becomes a Canadian citizen and commits a crime, then he is our criminal. We should not pretend otherwise.

Barbara Jackman, speaking on behalf of the Canadian Bar Association, stated before the same committee that:

For people who are born here and who have grown up here, it can result in banishment or exile.

She went on to observe that we punish people through the criminal justice system.

In its submission to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Bill C-24, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants stated that, in its view:

Treating dual citizens differently is discriminatory and violates the fundamental principle that all citizens are equal. Citizens should not face different consequences for committing the same crimes. Creating separate rules for dual citizens creates a two-tiered citizenship, with lesser rights for some citizens.

These are just a few of the many examples of organizations and individuals publicly expressing their view that the revocation measures created two different kinds of citizenship.

Many of my constituents in London North Centre have told me that this is unacceptable. I heard it throughout the election campaign, and I have heard it since. There is great support for this bill in London North Centre. My constituents want all Canadians to be treated fairly and with a high level of respect. London, Ontario, was built on immigration, and many Londoners hold dual or multiple citizenship. These are extremely proud Canadians who value and respect this beautiful country. We have an obligation to be fair and respectful to them, as well.

Our government has listened to these concerns and Bill C-6 clearly addresses them.

No government should ever have the ability to take away an individual's Canadian citizenship. Any Canadian who commits a crime ought to be punished. There is no debate on that point, at all, on this side of the House and, I am happy to say, with my hon. colleagues in the NDP.

However, the revocation of citizenship crosses a line that we must never accept. Without citizenship, the rights and equality we all enjoy become meaningless. Canada is a country that prides itself on solid democratic principles and foundations and is an example for other nations. However, playing fast and loose with the definition of citizenship is a very slippery slope and inevitably calls into question our leadership in this area.

I again point to the importance of my constituents. I am here to represent them and I want to reference what I have heard on the ground, as their MP.

I have heard loud and clear from my constituents in London North Centre that fair treatment of all Canadians and dedication to the principles of democracy, tolerance, and equality are what they expect in their elected officials and, more than this, in the Government of Canada.

I would also like to add that, while this position reflects my stand and that of our government, it was a former Conservative prime minister, John Diefenbaker, who held this view, and I am glad to continue that point in the debate that will follow, I assume.

By introducing this bill, we are taking concrete steps to return to a system where all citizens are treated equal, regardless of whether they are dual or multiple nationals. This is a commitment my party made before forming government, and we are following through now. This is a matter of principle and fundamental values for us. There should be one tier, only one tier, of Canadian citizenship.

I have no doubt that members in the House are concerned about security, and I want to turn to that point now for a moment. I can assure all of them that we remain unwavering in our commitment to protect the safety and security of Canadians. Canadians convicted of treason and terrorism will be dealt with through our justice system. As the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has stated, we have courts and prisons in Canada, and offenders will not go unpunished.

As well, there are measures in place before someone becomes a citizen. A person may be denied a visa or other travel document, refused entry to, or removed from Canada for security reasons or criminal activity, preventing him or her from becoming a citizen. Furthermore, prohibition grounds in the Citizenship Act remain in effect, barring individuals convicted of certain offences or engaged in activities against the national interest from acquiring citizenship in the first place.

Moreover, repealing the national interest grounds would not affect the ability to revoke citizenship where it was obtained fraudulently. The minister would continue to have authority to revoke citizenship in basic fraud cases. Furthermore, the Federal Court would continue to have authority to decide on cases where the fraud is in relation to a fact regarding security, human or international rights violations, or organized criminality. The ability to revoke citizenship where it was obtained fraudulently has been in place since the first Canadian Citizenship Act came into force in 1947, and it will continue to be in place.

Three additional proposed amendments included in this bill would further enhance the integrity of the citizenship program. The first is to include conditional sentence orders in the prohibitions provisions. The second is to ensure that the need for applicants to meet citizenship requirements, from the time their grant of citizenship is approved to the time they take the oath, applies to all applicants. The third would provide authority for the minister to seize documents that are fraudulent or are being used fraudulently when provided for the administration of the Citizenship Act.

As we have emphasized, Canada's commitment to diversity and inclusion is an essential, powerful, and ambitious approach to make Canada and the world a better and safer place. A Canadian is a Canadian, and that must never change.

Bill C-6 would bring us closer to putting this principle into action and to remaining the open, tolerant, and diverse country that we have been throughout our history and, I hope, we will continue to be.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like to know whether he is concerned about the fact that the Conservatives' bill created two classes of citizens: those who could lose their Canadian citizenship and those who, like me, have only Canadian citizenship and could not be subject to the type of punishment found in Bill C-24.

Does the member think it is right that there should be two classes of citizens?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by outlining my family history to some degree. My grandparents both immigrated from the Netherlands separately and were married in Canada. They went on to produce a large family of 10 children. I have over 80 cousins from that set of grandparents. They have been a very productive Canadian family.

I would like to thank and recognize in particular two of my aunts who worked tirelessly on my campaign. I would not be standing here today without their help, that is for sure.

I rise today to discuss the integrity of some of the proposed changes to our Citizenship Act. The previous Conservative government brought in Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. The measures enacted in Bill C-24 reinforced the value of Canadian citizenship and gave us a means to protect our country and citizens by revoking citizenship of dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason, and certain spying offences, or who have taken up arms against Canada.

A NRG poll of over 1,000 Canadians showed that 83% of Canadians and 85% of immigrants to Canada supported revoking citizenship from convicted terrorists. Many groups representing new Canadians endorsed the bill as well.

We believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives as immigrants strengthen an important part of who we are as a nation. They are the strength of our nation's future. We want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed and to have opportunities for economic success.

A constituent of mine, Ray Galas, a hay farmer from northern Alberta, called me yesterday. He wants the government to focus on the economy so that newcomers arriving in Canada have every opportunity to contribute to our great country. A strong Alberta makes a strong Canada, a place for all to succeed.

We also want newcomers to experience many of our freedoms. All the new Canadians agree that we want to experience safe communities. Dual nationals convicted of terrorism erode the public safety we all cherish.

There are choices when it comes to penalizing dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism. One of them is jail. Revoking the right of citizenship is a penalty that fits the crime. The legislation that the Liberals seek to repeal allowed Canada to revoke the citizenship of the convicted terrorist Zakaria Amara, a member of the Toronto 18 . Members may remember that Mr. Amara was sentenced to life in prison after admitting to his role in the plan to attack sites in Toronto. He was convicted of knowingly contributing to a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the group to carry out an act of terror.

In 2007, Canada revoked the citizenship of two Nazi war criminals, enforcing the principle that Canada will not be a safe haven for anyone convicted of war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity.

The Liberals want to strike down this law. Canadian citizens have a responsibility to embrace Canadian values. A part of this responsibility that we all share as citizens is the special responsibility for the preservation of the principles of democracy and human freedom. These are cornerstones of our nation.

We are a law-abiding, generous, and compassionate country. The measures in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act were enacted to better protect our country and better combat the ongoing threat that countries worldwide are grappling with. Most of our peer countries have similar legislation in place.

I would point out that Bill C-6 is the Liberals' first bill dealing with immigration and public safety. It is extremely worrying that under this legislation, dual national citizenship cannot be revoked for the commission of an act of terrorism, but can be revoked for fraud. We are concerned about the Liberals' lack of focus. The ability to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism and similar offences is a sound, good, and commonsense law. It is law that helps to maintain the integrity of Canadian citizenship. We do not support the Liberals' attempt to weaken our country. We will continue to push to keep our country one of the best countries in the world.

Another component that concerns me is the removal of the requirement for an applicant to continue to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. The intention-to-reside provision likely does not restrict the mobility rights guaranteed under the charter. What it does do is reinforce the expectation that citizenship is for those who intend to make Canada their permanent home. This is not an unreasonable expectation. We want to ensure that citizenship applicants maintain strong ties to Canada.

There is a reason that Canadian citizenship is the most sought after citizenship in the world. We have a reputation as one of the best places to live, a place where jobs, security, hope, and freedom are available to all. Every year we receive thousands of applications from people who want to live here. We hope that those seeking Canadian citizenship intend to bring their personal experiences and contributions to our nation, just as many of the preceding immigrants did during the course of our nation's history.

The sum of our experiences has made us a better country. We hope that future immigrants will also contribute to our nation and enrich our country by residing here. It is disappointing that the Liberals have chosen to focus on the intent-to-reside provision when there are more pressing issues facing us in immigration, such as the shortage of applications from skilled labour immigrants.

There is another component of Bill C-6 that gives us cause for concern. That is the provision that reduces the number of days during which a person must be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship. Currently, the physical presence requirement is fulfilled if an applicant resides in Canada for only 183 days in four out of six years prior to making a citizenship application. The Liberal government proposes to change the physical presence requirement to three out of five years before the date of application.

The Conservative Party believes that stringent residency requirements promote integration and a greater attachment to Canada. We are opposed to any provision that weakens the integrity of Canadian citizenship, and we recommend that this component be struck from the bill.

Another component of Bill C-6 seeks to prevent applicants from being granted citizenship while serving conditional sentences, or allowing such time to count towards meeting the physical presence requirements for citizenship. We agree that these measures are reasonable and we support this component of the bill.

We also support the provision that all applicants must continue to meet the requirements of citizenship until they take the oath, regardless of when their application was received.

The Conservative Party believes that the strength of our nation lies in the strength of our citizens. Gaining citizenship by means of fraud undermines our nation and leaves us vulnerable. We support the component that gives citizenship officers the authority to seize fraudulent documents provided during the administration of the act, including during in-person interviews and hearings. The integrity of our Citizenship Act is not something we can take for granted.

If we allow dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism to remain Canadian citizens, we weaken our public safety. If we reduce the number of days during which a person must be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship, we weaken integration within Canada.

In closing, we will examine the bill in detail, but we are extremely concerned about these changes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree. People who want to become Canadian want to contribute to the country. In my riding, we enjoy welcoming people and love having them move to our area. There are not very many immigrants in my riding of Mégantic—L'Érable because the town is not very big. However, the immigrants who do move there have talents and skills that we want to make the most of. People who want to come to Canada want to stay here. The requirements were completely reasonable, and I do not see why anyone would want to come here only to leave again. It is therefore legitimate to have some kind of minimum. In that regard, there was nothing wrong with Bill C-24.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and for his appreciation of the debates and discussions we have been having so far in this 42nd Parliament. However, I do want to ask him a question.

Most rights and freedoms advocacy groups and civil liberties organizations, such as the Barreau du Québec, the Canadian Bar Association, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council for Refugees, questioned the validity of the Conservatives' Bill C-24 in terms of complying with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law. I find that troubling.

How does my colleague explain the fact that the Conservative bill created two classes of citizens? People with dual citizenship risked losing their Canadian citizenship, although people with only Canadian citizenship could not lose theirs.

How can he support such a discriminatory principle that creates two classes of citizens?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that I will share my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock. I look forward to hearing him speak to this bill.

Not a single day goes by that I do not think about what a huge privilege I have to sit in the House and represent the people of my riding, Mégantic—L'Érable.

As a new member of Parliament from a small region of Quebec, I must say that this place is rather impressive. This is where elected officials contemplated the laws that have defined the Canada we know today. This is where they discussed and debated. Each government, each Parliament, and each parliamentarian had the opportunity to contribute to making our country, which is still a young one, one of the most admired democracies in the world. We are admired for our values of equality, compassion, justice, hospitality, and openness.

I am also impressed by the quality of the parliamentarians in this 42nd Parliament of Canada and by the diversity of its members. Just take a look around during question period and listen to those talking, and it becomes clear that Canada is a unique place in which everyone, regardless of where they come from, can help contribute to our country's future.

I would like to quote the Minister of Democratic Institutions, who spoke to the House yesterday about Bill C-6:

Whether an international student, or someone who works at GE, or a new Syrian to our community, we should acknowledge, encourage, and reward the choice that individuals make to come to Canada and to call this place home. They are experiencing Canada, especially before citizenship matters. Their choice to be here matters.

This will not always be the case, but the minister is absolutely right. I agree with her thoughts on this. Many people from around the world have chosen to live in Canada. Out of all the countries in the world, they chose Canada. This is the first country they chose to come to, as a new host country. I completely agree with the minister that we must acknowledge, encourage, and reward the choice that individuals make to come live in Canada.

What we must ask ourselves is why did these people choose Canada as their country? Why did they make that choice? The answer is obvious. They did so because Canada has always been a welcoming country, not just for the past 10 years or 100 years, but from the beginning.

It may not seem like it, but I am a very distant descendant of a German immigrant, a mercenary who came here to fight in a war and who chose to stay.

That is the nature of our Canadian citizenship. It is recognized around the world. When we travel, being Canadian is a little bonus wherever we go. Therefore, in my humble opinion, we must do everything we can to protect our values and this identity.

As I said earlier, as parliamentarians it is our role to make good decisions for future generations, just as parliamentarians in the previous 41 parliaments did before us. We have a responsibility towards Canadians. I would like to quote the member for Calgary Midnapore, the former minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, who said in his speech yesterday:

Canadian citizenship should be the gold standard; it should not be the bargain basement of citizenship in the world.

That brings me to Bill C-6. I am sure that the government's intentions are very honourable. Every single one of us is here to try to make things better, but we have to admit that sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes it is because we want to do too much a little too fast. We rush into things that we will regret sooner or later.

Unfortunately, the consequences of such precipitous actions cannot be undone. When a government makes a promise, such as a slight $10-billion deficit, and then realizes that it did not look at the books properly and that its promises will cost Canadians a fortune, it cannot break its promise. It has to live with that and try to explain to Canadians why a slight deficit is now a huge one. Actions and words cannot be undone. There is no going back. It is a broken promise.

Fortunately, there is still time for the government to avoid making a mistake with Bill C-6. I would like to take the Minister of Immigration up on his offer. Yesterday, he said, “We do not claim perfection.” We suspected as much. Then he said, “If some members on the committee, of any party, have ideas for how to improve it, we would be open to such suggestions.”

Here is my idea. I urge the government not to rush this, to take its time and listen to the official opposition's point of view on this bill.

For example, yesterday, the member for Calgary Nose Hill gave the minister some excellent suggestions based on her personal experience as the daughter of immigrants who chose Canada. I invite all of my colleagues to read her story and her reasons for opposing many aspects of Bill C-6.

My hon. colleague was quite eloquent, and there was a great deal of wisdom in her comments. She said:

My concern with the bill is that it puts the cart before the horse in a lot of ways. It looks at issues that perhaps are not of the utmost concern with regard to immigration policy in Canada. I hope we can come to some sort of consensus because this is something that is going to affect our country over the next 10 years.

Those are wise words of openness and collaboration that our critic said here in the House yesterday. The government still has a chance to show wisdom by taking the necessary time to introduce a bill on citizenship that will help maintain the high standards of Canadian citizenship.

What are we to make of a bill that allows an individual to keep his citizenship after he has been found guilty of terrorism and wanting to kill and spread fear in his adopted country? Is that the type of bill that should be hastily passed without consultation? Since the beginning of the session, every time there is talk about reform, we have heard, “We will consult Canadians on electoral reform, we will consult Canadians on the budget, we will consult Canadians, we made promises, and we will consult Canadians on those promises as well.”

It is good to want to consult Canadians, but sometimes, in other cases, the government says, “This is how it is. We are not holding consultations, we made a promise and we are taking immediate action to forget the bad years of the Conservatives”.

In this case, the government members would do well to consult people and listen. As the minister suggested in his speech yesterday, they should take the time to listen to the official opposition and understand the issues behind this decision to abolish Bill C-24 in the way that they have done.

Canada continues to be one of the safest countries in the world. That is why thousands of people from around the world choose us as a safe haven. However, Canada will not be a safe haven to anyone who wants to destroy it through violence and hatred. We need to send this very clear, straightforward message to anyone who wants to become a Canadian citizen.

To be Canadian means to want success for all one's fellow Canadians, regardless of race, gender, religion, beliefs, or culture. That is what it means to be Canadian. There is only one type of Canadians: those who share these values, as every one of us here in the House does.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague if she thinks that one of the greatest concerns with respect to Bill C-24 is that bureaucrats could revoke the citizenship of ordinary Canadians and not the courts, as it should be.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

Before going any further, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.

I am proud to speak in support of the bill. I am proud to do so as the son and grandson of first generation Canadians, as a former public servant who fought against organized crime and terrorism, and now as a member of Parliament in the House, at the very heart of our democracy.

Make no mistake, Bill C-6 is very much about protecting our democracy. It is about showing respect for the generations of immigrants who helped build our country up from its very foundations. It is about protecting the pathways to citizenship for future new Canadians. It is very much about ensuring that equality of citizenship remains a right enshrined by the charter.

On this side of the House, we believe, as the Prime Minister has said, that Canada is strong not in spite of its diversity but because of it. The new policy measures introduced by our proposed legislation will safeguard this value through and through. This was a key promise during the election, and Canadians are right to expect that we would deliver on it.

Nevertheless, there are some on the side of the official opposition who object to the bill. In brief, they say that our proposed legislation will make Canadians less safe and it diminishes the value of Canadian citizenship. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the law passed by the party opposite drastically overreaches, introduces hierarchical classes of citizenship, does nothing to keep us safe, and does nothing to enhance the value of citizenship.

Let me highlight the flaws under the old Bill C-24.

Under the law as it stands, Canadians who are convicted of certain serious crimes, and yes, including terrorism, may be stripped of their citizenship, but only if they hold citizenship in another country or could hold citizenship in another country. Therefore, it is not just Canadians who are dual citizens, but also Canadians who could be dual citizens, whom the opposition considers less equal than others.

It is not just terrorism, either. In the latter stages of the last election, a number of leading voices from the opposition were calling to expand the list of offences which could trigger revocation. Therefore, when the member opposite asks for evidence and facts about the slippery slope, there it is. It is part of the public record. It is not hard to see why some on the other side of the aisle say these things. Who does not want to punish a murderer, let alone a terrorist, and who does not want to denounce those who denounce Canada by their violent actions, motivated by a twisted ideological purpose?

As we reflect on these questions, I think of my own experience in prosecuting terrorists. I worked on the Toronto 18, along with some of the finest public servants I have never known. This case involved a plot to detonate bombs in Toronto and to wage an attack on Parliament Hill. It was a serious and complex case and alarming to the public.

One of the ringleaders of this conspiracy was Zakaria Amara. He was convicted. Some of my hon. colleagues across the way have referred to Mr. Amara frequently of late. This is because Mr. Amara was born in Jordan and was, thus, caught under the dual citizenship provisions of Bill C-24. Just weeks before election day, he received a letter from the then government by the then minister of citizenship and immigration that he would be moving to revoke his citizenship.

The opposition says that Mr. Amara is the only one who stands to win when we pass Bill C-6, as it will have the effect of reversing the revocation process and allow him to maintain his Canadian citizenship. Mr. Amara is no winner. Mr. Amara is a convicted terrorist and he is serving a life sentence. I helped put him and his co-conspirators behind bars, which is where he remains to this day. The only winner is the Canadian public that saw an individual convicted following a fair trial and due process.

Let us put aside the winners and losers rhetoric. The opposition goes on to argue that revoking Mr. Amara's citizenship and deporting him to Jordan or some other place will make Canada safer. They are wrong. Where is the logic in deporting a convicted terrorist from our soil to some other place, where Canada has a diminished capacity to prevent future terrorist activity and where the deportee would only have an increased capacity to continue to recruit, to radicalize, and potentially to return to do more harm to us should he choose to resume his agenda?

I challenge my friends across the way to come up with a credible answer to that question. I think they will find it difficult to do so.

Even looking at their own policies, one finds inconsistencies. For example, the Conservatives also sought to make it a crime for Canadians to travel to some of the very same regions to which they would banish domestic terrorists. How can they reconcile that for the average Canadians? They cannot. Indeed, not only would deporting convicted terrorists not keep Canadians safer, I fail to see how it would keep any of our friends or allies safer.

I want to spend my remaining time talking about one of the central focuses of Bill C-6, which is to uphold the equitable principle of Canadian citizenship.

Taken at its highest, the opposition argues that if we do not strip away citizenship from convicted dual citizens and those eligible to be dual citizens, we are somehow tainting citizenship for those citizens of the “old stock”, to quote one expression coined by the opposition party. The thrust of its position is that it undermines citizenship to allow a convicted terrorist to remain in our midst.

Let me be clear. We in the House are united in our resolve against terrorism. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that terrorists belong behind bars. No one should ever doubt his resolve, nor that of the government, to confront any individual or any organization that would bring harm to our country and to see them brought to justice.

The previous government may not have liked to admit it, but all members, on all sides, take seriously our responsibility to keep our country safe. Bill C-6 would do just that. It would subject all criminals to the full force of Canadian law and the Canadian justice system. It would eliminate the former government's exception for those who hold, or could hold, citizenship in another country. It would mean that every Canadian, whether born here or naturalized, must obey the same laws or face the same consequences. It says that if people are convicted of terrorism in our country, they will go to prison in this country and they will stay there.

The opposition says that we should compromise the equality of our citizenship, but all it offers in return is a false promise of security.

Canadians have rejected the politics of division and fear. They have said, clearly, that there is no place in our laws for discrimination between those of us who were born here and those of us who were not. It now falls to us in the House, with this bill, to say the same.

My support of the bill is based upon the rule of law. My support of the bill is a vote of confidence for all the professionals who work in the law enforcement, intelligence, and corrections communities. My support of the bill is based upon the fundamental principle that it is the bedrock of who we are and the basic measure of what we share. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

To be clear, I do not begrudge the members opposite for being angry, or even afraid in the face of terrorism. Those are the basic human responses to seeing our laws broken and our freedoms abused. However, we must not allow our fears to erode the principles and values on which our country was founded: equality, fairness, and compassion.

We are better than the law that is now on our books. It does not make us safer, but it does make us less equal. That is why Bill C-6 must pass.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the hon. member talks about the need to not electioneer, but in fact this issue arose in what seemed to be an endless pre-election period last year.

It was an electioneering issue. Certainly people saw through it. A particularly interesting moment occurred just at the beginning of the campaign. I was in a studio of a South Asian station in Surrey. I was due to go on the air and talk about a variety of things, including Bill C-24.

Just prior to my segment, the member for Calgary Midnapore was interviewed over the phone. He made a point about Bill C-24 to the host and the audience listening to that South Asian station that the listeners did not have to worry because they could not have their citizenship stripped, because India did not permit dual citizenship.

That really twigged it for me. Okay, now all of a sudden, we have one group that can suffer a particular sanction, whereas another group, basically due to a technicality, cannot. Everyone saw through that.

How could the hon. member and his party support that kind of approach?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it bothers me to hear the Conservative Party members keep defending former Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizens. People who had dual citizenship could lose their Canadian citizenship, while people who had Canadian citizenship only could not lose it. The former immigration minister was even dismayed that Canada had signed international agreements preventing it from creating stateless people. We see how far the previous government was willing to go.

Why is the Conservative Party still not defending the principle of equality before the law? Why is it going against the advice of the Canadian Bar Association, the Barreau du Québec, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council for Refugees, which felt that Bill C-24 was inconsistent with our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and international law?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Durham invited a lot of responses and questions.

First of all, he started his commentary with respect to the intent-to-reside provision actually posing no conflict or confusion in the minds of newcomers. Simply put, currently, if one does not indicate an intention to reside, citizenship is not granted. If that does not sow confusion, I am not sure what does. It readily displays how out of touch my friend opposite is with the concerns of immigrants and newcomers to this country.

Second, he stated that revocation has not ended altogether and that we are therefore not principled as a government in what we are proposing in Bill C-6. However, revocation on the basis of fraud has existed in legislation in this country since 1947. We are returning to the status quo ante. The reason revocation for the purposes of fraud is the only provision that has existed, until the previous government decided to up the ante, is that we treat fraud in the context of citizenship with a citizenship sanction. We treat other acts, such as criminal acts and the litany of items raised by the member for Durham, with a criminal sanction. In fact, he said so himself that revocation is not a criminal sanction. That is right, and that is the point. It is why revocation on the basis of criminality has no place in this legislation.

On the last point, the member indicated at length that the record of the previous government on diversity was quite good. However, I find it incredible that one would start with an oath of citizenship reference and recite the oath of citizenship, when the previous government in fact limited the taking of that oath of citizenship for certain women from certain religious communities based on what they wore.

Why does the member continue to defend a diversity record that is in fact lamentable and not recognize that Bill C-24 was a barrier to integration of newcomers, as opposed to some sort of lever to promote it?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. Obviously, we New Democrats think that this government bill is a step in the right direction. We were extremely critical of the Conservatives' Bill C-24, which was divisive and created two classes of citizens. We are pleased to be fixing that mistake now, with the bill currently before us. I do have a question, however. In February 2014, the Conservatives raised the processing fees for citizenship applications from $100 to $530 per person, which means that the costs could well go over $2,000 for one family. We in the NDP believe that those fees are too high. Will the Liberal government commit to bringing down the cost to a reasonable price, which used to be $100?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for participating in this debate, but it is unfortunate to see what has been the strategy of the Liberal Party when it comes to the original Bill C-24 and then continuing on. That strategy was to spread misinformation about the bill and the effects of those provisions, and then to warn us that the bill was creating fear when in fact it was the misinformation about the bill, not the bill itself, that was creating fear.

It was clear again in this member's speech. He talked about the expectation of residency. Let us be clear. There is absolutely no requirement that Canadian citizens reside in Canada, whenever they acquired their citizenship. That was the case before Bill C-6 and that was the case under Bill C-24, as well as before that. To suggest that this is not true or that there is a fear means that if there is a fear out there we all need to step up and clarify that it was not in any way part of Bill C-24. There was an expectation that people reside in the country, but there was absolutely no such requirement. I wonder if the member is willing to acknowledge that fact and correct the record in terms of his speech.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. Bill C-6 leaves untouched the 1976 revocation provisions for those naturalized citizens who obtained their Canadian citizenship through misrepresentation. This would include, for example, the Nazi war criminals who did not disclose their participation in crimes against humanity in applying for and obtaining their Canadian citizenship.

However, I who was born in this country could never have my citizenship revoked under the provisions of the bill, but an immigrant could. The member is absolutely right: if we want to play the game about two-tier citizenship, it applies far more clearly to Bill C-6 than it did to Bill C-24.

My father was a fourth generation Canadian who had an Irish passport. He had dual citizenship. If he had joined the IRA, heaven forbid, and been convicted of that, with a penal sentence of two years, even though he was a native-born Canadian, he could have had his citizenship revoked. However, immigrants to Canada from India or China, for example, who automatically lose the citizenship of their country of origin in being naturalized to Canada could never have their citizenship revoked under the provisions of Bill C-24, because it excluded its application to people who did not have dual nationality pursuant to our obligations under the international Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-24 provided for the revocation of citizenship for both native born Canadians and immigrants. To be clear, the bill in front of the House would restore a two-tier citizenship, because it would provide for revocation of citizenship only for immigrants. It would return us to the system that we used to have in place. Revocation would not be allowed for people who were born here but only for immigrants to this country who have become naturalized and hold a second citizenship.

Liberal members of Parliament need to be clear on this. We would be going to a two-tier citizenship with the bill in front of the House. Native-born Canadians would never have their citizenship revoked. Only the citizenship of immigrants to this country who are naturalized and hold a second citizenship would be revoked.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on his re-election. He is always a very serious participant in the debates in this place.

First of all, it was the member's own Prime Minister who said that there is no such thing as a Canadian identity and that this is a post-national state. None other than the Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, the former Liberal minister, upbraided him for that ridiculous assertion.

Second, the member is wrong in asserting that the United States does not have a power of revocation. There are limited grounds for revocation in the United States. They are not based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision but on a constitutional amendment that dealt with the granting of citizenship to slaves following the U.S. Civil War.

Here is the thing. Our Prime Minister is meeting with President Obama tonight. President Obama and the American administration have a rather less delicate way of dealing with American terrorists abroad. It is true that they do not go through the hassle of the paperwork and judicial applications to revoke their citizenships; rather, they send missiles, launched by drones, and eliminate them. I think the kinetic elimination of U.S. citizens who have committed terrorist offences rather makes the point.

As well, virtually every one of our peer liberal democracies has provisions analogous to those in Bill C-24 for the revocation of citizenship from traitors or terrorists.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are ambitious for new Canadians, for all Canadians, to know what our identity is and how, through the struggle of generations, through the organic development of these remarkable parliamentary institutions, through the core values of our society, such as the rule of law, the equality of opportunity, and equality before the law, we managed to develop this country that is something of a model for the world. It did not happen by accident, and this country is far more than just some kind of a post-modern reflection of the world. It comes from a particular set of institutions and values that are incarnated in our laws, and we are ambitious for new Canadians to know that history.

Canada is maintaining the highest sustained levels of immigration in its history. In the past decade, Canada welcomed over 2.6 million new permanent residents and swore in over 1.6 million new Canadian citizens. That was during the prime ministership of the now member for Calgary Heritage.

We are maintaining the highest per capita levels of immigration in the developed world. Some countries have aberrant years when they are a little higher, but on a sustained basis, what we are doing with respect to immigration in this country is unprecedented in our history and, indeed, in the modern history of the developed world.

I maintain that we cannot take for granted the success of our model of unity and diversity, that we must be very deliberate, intentional, about ensuring that there is unity in our diversity, that we do not end up replicating the failed experiences of certain other western countries which are struggling with problems of social exclusion, ethnic enclaves, ghettoization, often which become the precedent factors for radicalization, extremism, social discord, and even violence.

We must not, through happy talk, pretend that there are no challenges to maintain social cohesion. This is not and should not be considered an exclusively conservative value or idea. It was, after all, the late Prime Minister Mackenzie King who adopted the Citizenship Act in 1947 with these clear obligations for new Canadian citizens. It was former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who, in 1997, spoke in the chamber about the need for civic literacy as one of the factors to bind us together. What did he mean by civic literacy? He meant a certain common vocabulary about who we are as a people, about our institutions, about from whence we came.

The citizenship program, the citizenship law, is designed, in principle, to help develop that sense of social cohesion, of common Canadian values. I reject categorically the notion of the Prime Minister that there is no such thing as a common Canadian value. There is. This country, this culture, rejects completely the attitude of certain cultures around the world which treat women as property rather than people, for example. That is why, as minister of citizenship and immigration, I was proud to work with new Canadian communities.

I was also proud to work with experts and departmental officials to renew the citizenship program by making legislative and administrative changes.

When I became the citizenship and immigration minister in 2008, I discovered that many new Canadian citizens could not speak even very basic French or English. They could not communicate with their fellow citizens. In a way, they were excluded from the Canadian community.

I discovered that even though they had received 100% on the exam to test their knowledge of Canada, some people knew very little about our country, because unscrupulous immigration consultants were selling the test answers to people who were applying for citizenship.

I also learned that there were networks that were helping people who did not live in Canada and had never lived in Canada to commit fraud.

They remained outside the country in tax havens but hired unscrupulous consultants to arrange for testing and fraudulent documentation for citizenship applications. That is appalling and unacceptable.

We are a generous and open country and we simply ask for those who seek to join the Canadian family that they respect our basic laws, customs, know something of our country, and ideally are able to communicate in one of our languages. That is why we needed to reform the program.

One of the ways in which we did so was a modest expansion of the residency requirement in Canada from three out of four years to four out of six years. That still gave people a great deal of flexibility, one-third of the time spent outside of the country to address the kind of exigencies mentioned by the previous speaker. However, I do not think four years is an unreasonable request for people to develop a durable, meaningful attachment to this country. Four years was still the lowest threshold for residency to obtain citizenship of any major democracy in the world.

Canadian citizenship should be the gold standard; it should not be the bargain basement of citizenship in the world. I do not think it is unreasonable to say 48 months is a period in which to develop a meaningful attachment to our country.

With respect to the provision on declaring the intention to reside in Canada, the regulations and the legislation were absolutely clear that people who became Canadian citizens, having signed that declaration, who had to leave for any reason, would not be penalized, and their citizenship would not be revoked. We simply wanted them to consciously declare that their citizenship was not just about obtaining a Canadian passport as a political insurance package.

Millions of Canadian citizens live abroad, including members of my family and most of our families. Most of them maintain a durable attachment to our country. However, regrettably many hundreds of thousands of them who the moment they obtained their Canadian passports left this country and have never come back. We can use politically correct happy talk to pretend this does not happen, but we all know that it does.

We all know cases where we have had to organize massive evacuations for tens of thousands of people who had not lived in our country for years, who had not paid taxes to it, who had not contributed to it, but who pulled out their Canadian passport as a document of political convenience. I believe that passport represents far more. It represents a loyalty of Canada to the citizen and a reciprocal loyalty of the citizen to our country. It is not a document of convenience. It should never be that.

That is why we simply said to these applicants to please express to us that it was actually their intention to reside in Canada, their new country. We welcome them.

I spoke as minister to citizenship judges who quite literally told me that they had seen people coming to take the oath at the ceremony with their bags packed. They were going directly from the ceremony to the airport to return to their countries of origin. That is not consistent with what we consider the sense of a durable connection to Canada. Therefore, I find it regrettable that the Liberals are eliminating this.

Perhaps what I find most regrettable in this is the perverse priority given by the government to the bill to restore citizenship to convicted terrorists. We have heard a lot of demagoguery from the government about the notion that the previous Bill C-24 in the last Parliament created some ostensible two-tier Canadian citizenship. What complete rubbish. Ever since the 1947 Citizenship Act was adopted by Parliament, there has been a power to revoke citizenship or to renounce it. When people say that citizenship is irrevocable, they simply do not know the law. It is revocable in this and every other country and always has been.

In the original 1947 act, adopted by a Liberal government, among the grounds for the revocation of citizenship was the conviction for treason or acts of war against Canada. That was a provision in our law under multiple Liberal governments from 1947 until amendments to the Citizenship Act in 1976 when that was repealed.

Essentially, what we did in 2014 in Bill C-24 was to re-establish the original Liberal law to say that if individuals violently hated our country we would take a conviction of their violent hatred as evidence of their voluntary, willful, and deliberate renunciation of the obligations implicit in their Canadian citizenship. That is what that provision, to be repealed in Bill C-6, permitted us to do, under judicial review and in compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I mentioned a case that was immediately dismissed, because they do not want to address this issue. It was dismissed out of hand. However, I would invite any member and anyone viewing this to go on line and simply Google “Canadian burning passport in Syria”. They will get two or three images of Canadians who have travelled to join a group. It is not just some group of militants, but a genocidal terrorist organization that has declared hostility and war on Canada and inspired an attack on this very Parliament. It is crucifying children, beheading members of religious minorities, and raping girls as young as eight. They have gone to join that organization, whose membership is illegal in Canada. In more than one of those images we can see these “Canadians” burning and shooting their Canadian passports.

The position of the members opposite appears to be that, if those men who are clearly expressing their violent hatred for Canada were to download a form from CIC's website to renounce their citizenship, fill out the form, sign it, put it in an envelope, and send it to Ottawa, they could therefore renounce their citizenship. That is a terribly cramped and legalistic view of the facts and of citizenship.

I am sorry, but if individuals deliberately go and join an organization at war with Canada—parenthetically, committing genocide—destroy their Canadian passports as a clear indication of their renunciation of those passports and the citizenship they symbolize, we should have no compunction about saying we read their actions for what they are, they constitute renunciation, and we will renounce their citizenship if they are engaged in such acts of terrorism.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for whom I have great respect, raised a completely ridiculous, demagogic argument. This is not about having a sign of Che Guevara on a website requiring a conviction in a Canadian court of a terrorist offence or treason that would carry at least a two-year penal sentence. No one in the history of our legal system has faced a terrorist conviction of two years for expressing views. This is about violent terrorism.

What the government is telling us in the bill is that someone can take up arms against our country, so violently do they hate it, like that man in Toronto whose citizenship has been revoked. He was the ringleader of a plot that planned to kill thousands of his fellow citizens in an act of extreme political violence, to demonstrate his violent hatred for our country. In so doing, he renounced his citizenship. He did so through his volition.

The power of revocation simply reflects the volition of those who renounce it violently through such acts of treason or terrorism. The power of revocation does not apply to immigrants versus native-born citizens, as the demagogues in this debate have implied. The only reason it is limited to dual citizens in this application is our legal obligation under the international convention on the prevention of statelessness.

Therefore, I appeal to the members opposite and around this place to think seriously about the meaning of our citizenship and to oppose the provisions of the bill.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to raise two hypothetical situations for the hon. member for Surrey—Newton.

I want to say on the record how pleased I am that the new government is bringing in Bill C-6. I wish that the Liberals would repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety.

I will give another example to the member for Calgary Midnapore, who paints the worst case. I will take that worst case and ask how does it benefit world peace and security to take someone who is dangerous and put them back in their country of origin? Would that government feel well with them? Are they barred from ever coming back to Canada?

Let me take another example. The reckless Bill C-51 passed by the previous government included offences of so-called terrorism. Part 3 of Bill C-51, which I call the “thought chill section”, deals with things placed on websites that might encourage “terrorism in general”. It could include a Che Guevara poster the way it is worded. Therefore, a person who is innocent, but might have dual citizenship, could be found guilty of a terrorism-related offence for something as innocuous as an image on a website. It is anti-democratic and wrong, and thank God the current government is bringing it down.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Madam Speaker, as an immigrant to this country, I fondly remember the day, July 17, 1987, when I became a Canadian citizen. It was one of the proudest days of my life and something I had dreamed about ever since I moved to Canada in January of 1984.

This is my frame of reference in speaking in support of Bill C-6. I always understood Canada to be a country that welcomed refugees and immigrants and inspired them to strive to become Canadian citizens, to take that step toward full membership and permanent belonging in Canadian society. This is why Conservative Bill C-24, introduced in 2014 by the previous government, is so concerning to Canadians across Canada.

Even the hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn, a former parliamentary secretary and the longest continuously serving Conservative MP in the House, has publicly said that he has always opposed the bill.

The member has been quoted as stating that he was “taken to task” by members of his own party for being one of the few MPs on that side of the House to vote against Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 was an attempt by the Conservative Party to fundamentally change what it meant to be a Canadian as part of political branding exercise. The act created two classes of Canadians: those that only had Canadian citizenship and those who were at risk by having dual citizenship. Using their typical rhetoric of being tough on terrorism as justification, the Conservatives completely devalued what it meant to hold a Canadian passport.

One of the most troubling aspects of the act is the way that Canadian citizenship could be so easily revoked. For example, convictions abroad that convinced a government official that an individual was a national security threat may prompt a process where Canadian citizenship could be stripped away.

By no means does our government support citizens involved in terrorist offences, or espionage, or treason inside or outside of Canada's borders. However, this ability to remove citizenship from dual citizens is a problem.

First, a Canadian citizen without dual citizenship from another country could never have their passport revoked for the same crimes committed abroad.

Second, it makes Canadian citizenship a tool for the criminal justice system. Punishment for crimes should be decided in courts of law, either in Canada or outside of Canada, but the possibility of losing one's Canadian passport as a form of punishment is completely inappropriate.

Last, for the minister to have such wide discretionary powers in the review and revocation process is a complete breach of due process and fairness.

There are also aspects of the Conservative's Bill C-24 that only serve to discourage immigrants from wanting to become Canadian citizens. Immigrants want to apply for Canadian citizenship are automatically treated with distrust. The act measures their loyalty and attachment to Canada by the days they were physically present in the country. As a result, thousands of immigrant applicants are forced to sacrifice academic and employment opportunities or family obligations abroad just so they do not put their citizenship application process in jeopardy.

Bill C-6 will correct and repeal many of the wrongs contained in Bill C-24. Allow me to outline some of the significant changes being proposed by sharing stories I have heard over the past few months in my riding of Surrey—Newton.

To the young man I met in November who was scared about travelling to the country of his dad's birth for fear of being targeted and arrested by a repressive government regime, I say that Bill C-6 will remove the grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security.

To the immigrant mother of two young children who came to my constituency office worried about what might happen to her application if she temporarily returned to her homeland to care for her sick mother, I say that Bill C-6 will reduce the number of days that someone will have to be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship, and that they will receive credit for the time they have spent in Canada before becoming a permanent resident.

There was also a man who was very nervous about applying for citizenship for his quite elderly, sick mother, who struggled with English.

When the Minister of Immigration was giving his speech, I got a call from one of my constituents, Dawinder Mann. He came to this country many years ago as a refugee. His mother, sister, and all his brothers and children are settled here, but unfortunately his wife was not able to apply for Canadian citizenship. She is in a position where her country of origin will not issue her a passport. Now she is not able to pass the English requirement. She is 54. Therefore, she would not be able to get a passport either from Canada or her country of origin. Now her husband is very happy that his wife, Harjinder Mann, under the new legislation, in a year's time will be able to apply proudly for Canadian citizenship and be able to carry a Canadian passport.

These are the types of stories that encourage me to support the Minister of Immigration, the work he is doing, and the bill he has brought forward.

I believe passionately in the power of Canadian citizenship. I believe that the Government of Canada should do everything in its power to encourage newcomers to become Canadian citizens. The Canadian passport is sacred and highly sought after across the globe.

This is why using Canadian citizenship to fearmonger or as a means of control or simply as a political prop is so very wrong. As our Prime Minister has said, and I say again, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and our Minister of Immigration has also said that. This is why he brought Bill C-6 forward, so that every Canadian can feel that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

I encourage all members to support Bill C-6 so that what it means to be a Canadian can once again to be used to unite rather than divide us.

I am thankful for this opportunity to share my thoughts with my fellow members.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my friend from Surrey—Newton.

It is a pleasure to rise today to speak to the government's plan to repeal the unfair provisions found under the Citizenship Act that were passed in the previous Parliament under Bill C-24, which allowed for the revocation of Canadian citizenship of dual or multiple nationals on the grounds of national interest.

Once again, our government is delivering on the commitments we promised Canadians during last year's federal election. From my perspective, Bill C-24 is not only a bill that personally affects the lives of many of my constituents but it also affects many Canadians across this country.

I note that in the speech by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, he articulated two broad principles that governed the intent behind Bill C-6.

First and foremost, he enunciated the concept of a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, which was something that we had heard throughout the campaign, and that we found the notion of two different types of classes of Canadian citizens to be offensive.

The second concept that was articulated by the minister was with respect to peeling back the changes found in Bill C-24 that imposed new barriers on welcoming immigrants to this country and becoming Canadian citizens.

There are a series of four provisions within Bill C-6 that attempt to bring back a much more welcoming atmosphere to becoming a Canadian citizen. Those are very important principles. However, I want to focus on two different principles.

I first want to note that I appreciated the speech made by my friend from the New Democratic Party, the member for Vancouver East, who I thought articulated in very clear terms the reasons why her party would be supporting the provisions of Bill C-6. She also put forth some legitimate criticisms that she found, namely, that we did not necessarily go far enough in Bill C-6.

I take the point the minister raised that this government remains open to making reasonable changes, which is a reflection of this particular government. For example, this government would definitely entertain some of the issues the member articulated.

I want to get to those two broad principles that I would like to articulate in the short time I have to talk to Bill C-6 that I feel were particularly offensive under Bill C-24.

The first concept I want to advance, which was a central theme that had been articulated by the previous government and in particular by the former minister of citizenship and immigration, Chris Alexander, is the concept that citizenship is a privilege as opposed to a right. I strongly disagree with the former minister's position on this substantive fate.

The whole concept of strengthening the Canadian Citizenship Act, as minister Alexander had framed it, was that citizenship was somehow a privilege. From my perspective, once it is conferred, it attaches rights. There are obligations and responsibilities that come with citizenship, but it confers rights that are protected specifically under the charter, as my friend from Vancouver East had noted. Therefore, once it is legitimately acquired, the concept of citizenship should not be taken away capriciously.

That brings me to the second concept. My friends in the New Democratic Party touched upon this particular theme both in the comments made by my friend from Vancouver East and in the question from the finance critic for the NDP, which is the concept of the encroachment of executive power and the lack of procedural due process that was found under Bill C-24. Again, I deeply oppose this concept.

I take the comments that my friend from Vancouver East noted seriously. She remains concerned that there needs to be procedural due process whenever citizenship is stripped away. This government would be amendable to those kinds of amendments to the legislation.

I found particularly odious the previous government's perspective to grant the minister the arbitrary right to decide which individuals would get to keep their citizenship and which ones would not. It was particularly odious because it could be done capriciously and without any sort of procedural due process. There would be no capacity to appeal. There would be no capacity to bring new facts to the table.

I know what members of the Conservative Party are ultimately going to say. They are going to say we would only be stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists. All we heard in the debate in the House from the previous minister and from my friends in the opposition is that at the end of the day once individuals are convicted of a particular crime, they should serve their time, and that is the ultimate sanction. Stripping citizenship from certain classes of individuals is not fundamentally appropriate. More important, it would undermine the whole concept of the fundamental principle of rule of law, where all citizens are treated equally. I note that concept was very well articulated earlier, and I want to reinforce that principle in my comments today.

These are really the fundamental issues of why I will be supporting Bill C-6 in addition to the principles that were enunciated by the minister.

My sense is that this is about what it means to be Canadian, what it ultimately means to create conditions where we are a welcoming society, as noted in the opening comments of the minister, a society that values people who come from around the world. My friend from Calgary Nose Hill articulated the same principles.

I do not agree with my friend from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan that somehow this is about an elevation of values. This is very much a values debate, but the value we are attaching is to the protection of fundamental principles, principles that are found in the charter, the principle of rule of law, the principle of equality. That is why we are here in this place. If we cannot protect those fundamental principles for the people we find most offensive in our society, then why are we here? That for me is the core of the debate and why Bill C-6 must be supported.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member that during the campaign the Prime Minister made a commitment to the Chinese community, particularly through the Chinese media, that if the Liberals formed government he would repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety. If we use that as a barometer to what is happening right now with Bill C-6, it actually falls short.

That being said, I do support the measures brought forward under Bill C-6 for the most part. There are areas I have identified where it needs further action and I hope I can count on the member's support in that regard.

I know the member made a comment in the media regarding the citizenship language issue, particularly the proficiency, or the level of the language. I hope I can count on his support to get his government and his minister to move in the right direction to reduce the proficiency level and to recognize the contributions of immigrants in that regard.

I hope I can also count on the member's support on the financial barriers and reducing the citizenship application fees.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, the critic for finance. He has a history, having been here when Bill C-24 was tabled, and has gone through the debate. I appreciate the concern around discretionary powers given to the minister.

Bill C-6 does not actually address that. It still allows for the minister to have the discretionary power to revoke a citizenship. What I hope the government will do and would urge it to do is to, in fact, go back to the way the system was and put the authority to revoke citizenship before an independent body through the Federal Court system and for a Federal Court judge to make that decision.

That is the best way to do it, openly, with accountability, and to ensure politics stays out of somebody's citizenship.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent speech, which I think most members appreciated.

I am very pleased that we are going to vote in favour of Bill C-6 at second reading. I was here during the previous Parliament when the House passed Bill C-24, and this bill does address a number of problems.

However, like most members of the NDP, who made up the official opposition at the time, I opposed the discretionary power that the bill gave to the minister. Bill C-24 was not the only example of this. Various other bills gave discretionary powers to the finance minster, the public safety minister and, in this case, the immigration minister. I remember quite well that, at the time, the Liberal opposition agreed with us and was opposed to giving ministers new discretionary powers that would allow them to make decisions without necessarily going through the proper channels.

I would like to ask my colleague what she thinks of the provisions that grant this sort of discretionary power and how important she thinks they are. How does she suggest we make the process fairer than just allowing the minister to make decisions at his or her discretion?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has gone to great lengths to tell us why Bill C-24 was a terrible bill, and I appreciate her support on this issue. The Conservative government went to great lengths to devalue Canadian citizenship, to make Canadians unequal, and to separate Canadians by the age of their stock. The minister warned that revocation of citizenship on the basis of a particular crime is a slippery slope, a sentiment with which I could not agree more.

I have citizenship in two countries and eligibility for citizenship in two more. I have never been to any of those other three countries where I either have or am eligible to have citizenship. My two-year-old daughter has multiple citizenships as well. Among my wife, me, and my daughter, we are either citizens of or are eligible to be citizens of Canada, Ireland, the Philippines, Spain, and Israel. This is the result from being from families of immigrants from all over the world. It does not even list the numerous countries like France, Turkey, Poland, and Australia where I have ancestry but not citizenship.

I am the result of that very Canadian story of immigrants coming from everywhere, getting together, and creating new generations of Canadians. Why should my daughter be subject to a slippery slope whereby she could be stripped of her Canadian citizenship and sent to another country in which she has theoretical eligibility for citizenship, but has never been and may not even have the intention to explore because of breaking that law the particular government has passed? I will ask her in a few years.

What value has Canadian citizenship if we give the government the right to revoke it at will? What is a Canadian if not a Canadian? The member's comments on Bill C-24 are essentially correct, and I want to thank her for helping us on the road to fixing a decade of mistakes by the last government on this file. It is not the only error it made and is not the only one on which we will be seeking help to rectify.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-6 is an act that would amend the Conservatives' Bill C-24, the so-called strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. To put Bill C-6 in context, we must first examine the content of Bill C-24.

During the 41st Parliament, the Conservatives made significant changes to the Citizenship Act under Bill C-24. Effectively, the Conservatives' Bill C-24 created two classes of citizens in which Canadians with dual citizenship were treated as second-class citizens. Many experts repeatedly pointed out that the bill was likely unconstitutional and did not respect international law.

The NDP opposed Bill C-24 from the beginning and at second reading, the NDP called on the Conservatives to withdraw the bill. The Conservatives refused and, despite our opposition, rammed Bill C-24 through without amendment. Then, in June 2014, Bill C-24 received royal assent. Since then, the NDP has been asking for the bill to be repealed.

As it happens, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister made the promise, particularly in the Chinese media, that he would repeal Bill C-24 if he formed government. Well, as members may have guessed, Bill C-6 does not repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety.

The NDP is disappointed that the Prime Minister is failing to deliver on his promise to repeal Bill C-24, but we welcome the provisions of Bill C-6.

Worth mentioning are the following amendments: removing the ability to revoke citizenship on national interest grounds; removing the obligation for a new citizen to declare intent to reside in Canada; restoring the length of time a permanent resident must actually be present in Canada to qualify for citizenship to three years, which is 1,095 days over the last five years; restoring the right to count two years of temporary residence toward the required presence in Canada; eliminating the requirement that an applicant must have been present in Canada for 183 days in four out of the six years; and removing the requirement for the language and knowledge examinations to permanent residents aged 14 to 17 and 55 to 64.

The NDP supports these provisions. First and foremost, we fundamentally believe that all Canadians should be treated equally under the law.

The Conservatives' Bill C-24 created two classes of citizens, some with more rights than others. Disproportionately, immigrants to Canada, their children and grandchildren, and those with dual or multiple citizenships are deemed to have less rights than those who were born in Canada.

If a Canadian is charged with a criminal offence, let him or her be brought in front of the Canadian judicial system and be tried fairly, independently, and equally under the Canadian judicial system. If found guilty, let him or her be sentenced under the same principles of fairness, independence, and equality.

The Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and many respected academics all said that the former Bill C-24 was likely unconstitutional and did not respect international law. In fact, there was already a court challenge on Bill C-24. Josh Paterson, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said:

All Canadian citizens used to have the same citizenship rights, no matter what their origins. We were all equal under the law. Now this new law has divided us into classes of citizens—those who can lose their citizenship, and those who can’t. Bill C-24 is anti-immigrant, anti-Canadian, and anti-democratic. It undermines – quite literally – what it means to be Canadian.

I am glad that Bill C-6 addresses this concern and this concern will be no more after the passage of Bill C-6.

Building from that basic fundamental principle, repealing the intent to reside provision of Bill C-24 is also a step in the right direction. The freedom of mobility, including the ability to leave the country, is very clearly enshrined in section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The intent to reside provision in Bill C-24 was vague, difficult to prove, confusing for citizenship applicants, and ignored the changing realities of people. Somone can intend to reside, but life circumstances, such as a relative in another country becoming severely ill could interrupt that intention.

Work obligations could also alter that intention. In fact, during the campaign, I came across someone who has dual citizenship in the United States. As it happens, she is in the film industry. She travels a lot with her work. Sometimes she is away for a week. Other times, she may be away for a year or more. There is no telling. It is all subject to her work.

With Bill C-24, she was concerned that her intent to reside in Canada could be challenged and that she might lose her citizenship. This is just plain wrong. I am glad that Bill C-6 addresses this concern.

The Conservative Bill C-24 also made the pathway to citizenship for immigrants harder, longer, and frankly with other measures, more expensive to obtain. Accessibility to citizenship is the ultimate pathway to a person's right to fully participate in a democratic society. The cornerstone of a democracy is imbedded in having the right to vote. Creating additional barriers to access this citizenship only serves to undermine our democratic institution.

To that end, the NDP also supports the measure in Bill C-6 that returns physical presence requirements to what they were prior to Bill C-24, allowing time in Canada prior to obtaining permanent residence to partially count toward the physical presence requirement.

As I previously mentioned, there is a countless number of legitimate situations that would require a permanent resident or citizen to leave the country for an extended period of time. Restoring the old physical presence requirements is a step in the right direction, as is giving at least partial credit for the time spent in this country before obtaining permanent residence.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, IRCC, officials take their work seriously and work judiciously to ensure that every permanent resident meets the requirements to become a new Canadian.

The Conservative former Bill C-24 was brought in under the pretext that the provisions within the bill strengthened the meaning of being a Canadian, when in fact I would argue it served to undermine many of our strongly held Canadian values and principles.

As stated by Mitch Goldberg, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, “Instead of welcoming new Canadians, the new Citizenship Act discriminates against them”.

Bill C-6 would rectify this, and the NDP welcomes the amendments proposed under Bill C-6.

With that being said, I would be remiss if I did not turn my attention to what is missing in Bill C-6 as well. First, on the right to judicial review before losing citizenship, I was glad to hear the minister reference this, and his willingness to entertain amendments.

Prior to Bill C-24, individuals who were accused of fraud and risked having their citizenship revoked could request a hearing before a Federal Court judge who would review the minister's evidence. A final decision would then be made by the Governor in Council.

Bill C-24 allowed the minister to make a decision based on a review of paperwork with no right to a judicial hearing. The NDP believes that a citizen facing revocation should always have the right to a hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker.

Under Bill C-6, which was tabled, we believe that the Liberals agree with that as well. In fact, the Liberals tabled an amendment to Bill C-24, which would provide the right to a full appeal to the Federal Court in the case of citizenship revocation proceedings. In support of the amendment, a Liberal member stated quite clearly that Canadians deserve the right to appeal with regard to citizenship.

However, today the Liberal Bill C-6 does not deliver on that sentiment. The Liberals' failure to address this feature of Bill C-24 means, I am afraid, that there may still be a constitutional challenge of the Citizenship Act, which would be viable.

Second, on the issue regarding people charged with a criminal offence abroad, Bill C-6 does not amend the provision that prohibits granting citizenship to anyone charged with or serving a sentence for a criminal offence abroad. This broad measure fails to account for countries dealing with corruption within government and the judicial system, as well as governments engaging in political prosecution.

The Canadian Bar Association and others have further argued that this prohibition was far too broad and created significant inequalities between applicants, depending on their country of origin.

Additionally, the Canadian Bar Association has suggested that these cases are best dealt with by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Immigration and Refugee Board, where cases can be determined upon their individual merits, and the NDP agrees with the recommendation of the Canadian Bar Association.

Third is discretionary citizenships granted by the minister. Bill C-6 would not require the minister to disclose cases where citizenship is granted for discretionary reasons, the frequency of citizenships granted, or the reasons for granting citizenship at all.

We want to ensure that privacy rights are respected, and we should work within those boundaries. However, it is problematic to not make information available, because it speaks to the lack of transparency. Given the recent example we have seen of, I think, the hyperpartisan former minister of citizenship and immigration, under the Conservatives, I think we need more transparency and accountability.

Fourth is the issue of language. While Bill C-6 would revoke the changes made by Bill C-24 by bringing back the language knowledge requirements for applicants aged 18 to 54 instead of 14 to 64, the threshold for language proficiency under Bill C-24 remains.

Under the current system, they must send in results of an accepted third-party test at the equivalent of Canadian language benchmark level 4 or higher in speaking or listening, or provide proof of completion of a secondary or post-secondary program conducted in French or English. If they do not send in documents to prove that they have met this requirement, their application for citizenship will not be accepted.

The higher language requirement does not demonstrate that they are somehow more Canadian.

As well, Bill C-6 would maintain the requirement for citizenship applicants to pass a knowledge test about Canada in one of the two official languages.

Effectively, this would amount to double testing and would not really represent an individual's ability to function and succeed in Canada.

Many immigrants have come to Canada who have not been able to read and write in French or English at the proficiency level that is currently required, but they have worked hard, paid taxes, raised their families, contributed to our society, and become an integral part of our communities.

I can share with members the story of my own family. We all came, and none of us spoke English. To this day, I would say that, if my mother were put to a test such as the one that exists right now, she would likely fail that test. Yet, all of her life since she immigrated here, she worked, first as a farm worker, making $10 a day to support a family of eight. Then she got a minimum-wage job at a restaurant, which she retired from at 65, and she supported her family every single day with those efforts. She spoke minimum English—enough to get by, enough to support her family, enough to vote and understand what voting means and what democracy means.

With that being said, I would argue that the proficiency test is way too high for far too many immigrants, and that must change.

Fifth is the issue of financial barriers. Bill C-6 does not address how much permanent residents should pay for their citizenship applications to be processed by the ministry.

Citizenship processing fees have increased from $100 to $530 since February 2014, under the Conservatives. This is on top of the additional $100 right of citizenship fee. A family of four would have to pay $1,460. That is more than a month's rent for many. A family's bank account should not be the deciding factor on whether or not they can become Canadian citizens.

I really hope that the Liberal government will change this. Access to the pathway to citizenship is critical for all immigrants. Let us make it easier, not harder, to attain.

Bill C-6 would not make access to citizenship financially accessible for many permanent residents and their families. I do hope that the Liberal government acts to reduce the financial barriers along the path to citizenship.

Sixth is ensuring fair processing delays. Under the Conservatives, the processing delays for citizenship applications exploded to 24 months for regular cases and 36 months for non-routine cases.

The Liberals have committed to processing all applications received before April 1, 2015, by March 31, 2016, and to processing new applications within a 12-month period.

However, this one-year delay does not apply to non-routine cases, which are often only called this because a residence questionnaire was issued. This creates an enormous gap of 24 months, perpetrating a two-tier system, and we believe this should be changed as well.

The NDP will continue to push the Liberal government to take these measures and to act urgently on lengthy wait times, huge backlogs, the issue around family reunification for parents and grandparents, and the barriers to citizenship that still remain in place.

New Canadians provide countless benefits to this country every single day. We see many of those Canadians in this very chamber, some elected for the first time. Others are returning members. That is the testimony of who we are, and it speaks about the strength of Canada to harness that. Those rules that create barriers for access to citizenship must be changed.

This deserves a system that recognizes all immigrants for their contributions in making Canada the wonderful country it is. We are built on a multicultural community basis. Let us harness those strengths, eliminate the barriers, and make sure Canada in its process, in its policies, and in its approach is truly Canadian and reflects our multicultural values.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

moved that Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a pleasure for me to rise to speak to Bill C-6, which is an act to make major amendments to the previous government's Citizenship Act, better known in some circles as the noxious Bill C-24.

We are making these major changes for two general reasons: one, we promised to do that in our election platform and in my mandate letter; and two, the acts that we are carrying out in this new law are consistent with what we promised to do.

From the government's point of view and my point of view, we are doing what we said we would do. What is more important is why we want to do this. On this side, I would say there are two basic principles at stake.

That is unacceptable to us. There should be only one class of Canadians, not two. That is the first principle.

As far as the second principle is concerned, we want to welcome new citizens to Canada. The Conservative legislation put up a number of roadblocks that we believe made it unreasonably harder for permanent residents to become Canadian.

Therefore, there are two points of principle. First, there must be one class of Canadian, not two. Second, we want to welcome new citizens. We believe the Conservatives erected a number of barriers that were unreasonable to the welcoming of new people to become citizens of our country.

Let me go through each of these general areas one at a time.

In the previous Conservative bill, the minister of citizenship and immigration had the authority to revoke an individual citizenship if that person was convicted of a terrorist crime or some other crime. However, and this is a crucial point, the minister only had the power to revoke citizenship if the person involved was a dual citizen, not if the person was a citizen only of Canada. Similarly, the Federal Court had the right to revoke citizenship in other cases, but again only for dual citizens.

This is the nub of the point because once we say we can revoke one type of Canadian citizenship but cannot revoke another, then we have two classes of Canadians. We believe very strongly, and we fought long and hard during the election on this issue, that there is only one class of Canadian, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. All Canadians are equal and there cannot be two classes of Canadians, which is why we found this law unacceptable and why the new law would revoke that right to revoke citizenship.

We have said it for many months with the conviction of our beliefs, and once the law passes, we can also say it in the spirit of the law. It will say there is only one class of Canadian, not two.

In fact, we believe this so strongly that we are going to reinstate the citizenship of the one individual who had his citizenship revoked for reasons of terrorism. That individual, according to the new law, will have his citizenship reinstated.

It is a point of principle. When we say a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, that includes good and bad Canadians.

The bad Canadians who are convicted for terrorism should go to prison. If there are bad terrorists, they should go to prison for a long time, although it is the judges, not the politicians, who determine the sentences. The place for a terrorist is in prison, not at the airport. It is our strong belief that if a person is sent to prison for terrorism, there should not be two classes of terrorists: those who go to prison and have their citizenship revoked and those who only go to prison. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, for a terrorist and for others, and therefore in our view we will not have any citizenship revoked for this reason.

I would also make the supplementary argument that to revoke citizenship in this way is to launch oneself on a slippery slope, because the rules might be clear today about for what crime we have citizenship revoked and for what crime do we not, but those laws can change over time. I remember the former prime minister in the election campaign speculating about additional crimes that might be added. Who knows? It might be terrorism one year, and something else—whatever catches the attention of the government of the day—could be added the next year. It is a slippery slope, and one does not know where on that slope one will end up.

The definition of what constitutes dual citizenship is also a slippery slope. I am not a lawyer, but I know legal minds have debated the issue of who is a dual citizen and who is not. Some individuals might be born in Canada, have never been to some second country, but are nevertheless dual citizens of that country because of the laws of that country. Some people have claimed that Jews are dual citizens in a sense, because they have the right to live in Israel. Does that make them dual citizens of Canada and Israel? Under the previous law, that might have been a question that went before the courts.

Our view is that we should just terminate this slippery slope. We should abolish 100% the practice of revoking citizenship for any kind of terrorism or other crime. The debate would therefore be moot. It would not matter who is a dual citizen and who is not, or which crimes are included, because under no circumstances would a person have his or her citizenship revoked for these reasons. These other secondary, slippery-slope arguments would simply not arise.

The last point I would make on this issue is that there is one reason that is still the case for individuals to have their citizenship revoked, and that has always been on the books, and that is if individuals misrepresent who they are when they become citizens. In that situation that would imply that the individuals do not deserve to be citizens because they gave false information in order to become citizens. If that is the case, then their citizenship can be revoked. That has been the case in Canada since 1947, and that will remain the case.

There is one thing I might mention that the parliamentary committee may wish to consider. After we came out with our law, certain legal individuals said that, when a person has his or her citizenship revoked for this one remaining reason that is allowed, that person may or may not have sufficient right to appeal. If after listening to witnesses, the committee agrees that there is insufficient right to appeal such a decision, then the government and I would certainly be prepared to contemplate such an amendment to our bill.

This makes a more general point, unlike the previous government; but allow me to just talk for this government. We are certainly open to amendments, if there are amendments from either the Liberal side or the opposition side that would improve the bill. We do not claim perfection. If some members on the committee, of any party, have ideas for how to improve it, we would be open to such suggestions.

I just mentioned this one as a case in point: I heard in the debate following the introduction of the bill that there may not be an adequate right to appeal in the case of citizenship revocation flowing from providing false information.

That covers my first general point about citizenship revocation. The second area concerns barriers that we think in some cases are unnecessary or inappropriate barriers to citizenship, and there are four areas where we will change the previous bill, in some cases, substantially.

I can read the four items that we are going to change.

First, the 2015 measures required anyone applying to become a Canadian citizen to declare their intent to live in Canada once citizenship was obtained. We are going to get rid of that.

The measures also prolonged the residency requirement for applicants, requiring them to stay in Canada for a much longer period before being able to apply for citizenship. We are also going to change that, as I will explain.

They also eliminated the possibility of applying half of the time applicants spent in Canada before becoming permanent residents in the calculation of the duration of their physical presence here. This affects international students.

Finally, as for the fourth item, the measures required applicants 14 to 64 to meet language and knowledge criteria. Previously, only applicants 18 to 54 had to meet those criteria. We are going to reinstate the previous age requirement, 18 to 54.

Let me quickly go through each of these in turn. The first point concerns the intention to reside, that people have to declare before they become a citizen that they intend to reside in Canada. Some people in the legal profession were concerned that it could then become a reason to revoke citizenship. Let us say people stated an intent to reside in Canada, and let us say they were telling the truth, then their company shifted them to New York or whatever and the circumstances changed. It was feared that, having invoked this intent to reside, they could subsequently be challenged if their plans changed. The simplest way to deal with that is to get rid of that provision, which is what we are doing. We are repealing it. We think that was a legitimate concern, and we do not think there is merit to retaining that element of the bill.

The second part is the physical presence requirement. We believe that people should be required to be physically present in Canada for a certain length of time. We believe there is significant citizenship fraud or citizens of convenience, so we do want to continue to attack that. We do not dispute the principle of having a certain length of time in which people have to be physically present in Canada, but we are bringing it back to where it was, or at least changing it from what the Conservatives had, that they have to be physically present in Canada for four out of the past six years. We are moving to three out of the past five years, which is somewhat more flexible and also allows citizenship applicants to become citizens one year earlier than was the case under the previous bill.

The third item is one where I feel there is a particular lack of intelligence in the previous bill. If we look at international students, we see they are one of the most fertile grounds for new Canadians. We have an aging population. We really need more immigrants, and who better than international students, in the sense that by definition they are educated, by definition they know something about Canada, and almost by definition they can speak English or French? What better group to solicit to become Canadians than international students?

Why then do we sort of punch them in the nose, instead of courting them, by taking away the entitlement they previously had that 50% of the time they had spent in Canada as international students would count toward becoming citizens? I think they have clearly earned that entitlement by being here, learning about Canada, and so on. Therefore, I do not see why that entitlement should be removed, and indeed, in this bill, we are restoring it.

Someone asked me why not 100%, and we can have that debate. I think 50% might be a good number, but certainly not zero. I think we should go back to where it was, 50%.

Finally, this is a simple point on language. Again, we agree in principle that knowing English or French is really important, and we are not abolishing that requirement at all. Research has shown that knowledge of one or more of the official languages helps to predict an individual's success in this country, economically and job-wise. Therefore, we are not eliminating that, but we are restoring the age range to where it was, which is the age of 18 to 54, rather than 14 to 64.

In sum, we disagree with the Conservative government's legislation based on two general principles. First, a Canadian is a Canadian. All Canadians are equal. We must not have two classes of citizens. Second, we want to welcome newcomers as Canadians, and we do not want the conditions for becoming Canadian to be too rigid or too difficult.

In summary, it is for those reasons that I am pleased to present to the House our proposals in Bill C-6.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to inform the House that we are meeting this important campaign commitment.

Bill C-24, enacted by the previous Conservative government, set a very dangerous precedent. It created two tiers of citizenship in this country. Regardless of whether one is born here or whether abroad, like myself and many members of the House, we deserve a government that values and respects our citizenship.

A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. The Liberal Party believes this. Canadians recognize this. With Bill C-6, we will be implementing this important fundamental principle and putting it back into our immigration system.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my riding of Scarborough Centre is one of the most diverse communities in Canada. The Prime Minister came to my campaign office during the election and promised to repeal the second class citizenship provision of Bill C-24, telling my constituents that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship update the House on his progress on this promise to restore the integrity of Canadian citizenship?

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you ever so much, Minister, for appearing before this committee. I'm sure I speak on behalf of many Canadians in congratulating you for the energy that you have brought to the task at hand. It has been incredible to see your approach to incoming refugees from Syria and to restoring health benefits to refugees, and also your comments today that we will be seeing changes to Bill C-24.

I'm sure that everyone on this committee will agree that the Canada we have today is really the result of the entrepreneurial spirit of many who have come here to live their lives. Immigration is critical to job creation and economic growth for the middle class. The fact is that Canada needs immigration to maintain our population levels, and we do have an aging population and Canadians obviously are living longer lives.

Given all of that, despite all the foregoing, Canadians have been deeply concerned during the past decade about application processing times for various streams of immigration, as you alluded to in your opening comments. To illustrate the point, the processing time for citizenship applications doubled over the past decade. To take another example, which is something that I know you attach a lot of significance to, family reunification processing times are up by 70% for spouses and children since 2007, and then an even a more staggering 500% for parents and grandparents.

Given your invitation that this committee assist in seeing how those timelines can be streamlined, I was wondering if, after having had your consultations with senior civil servants in your department, you could provide us with your early initial impressions as to how the system can be improved.

Thank you.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Just to tag on as well to my colleague's question around Bill C-24, under the previous government the language requirements were made extremely challenging for new immigrants applying to become Canadian citizens. I know that in my riding of Scarborough North, which has one of the highest populations of new immigrants, it's extremely challenging for families who are sponsoring grandparents or parents to have them successfully transition to Canadian citizenship.

How will you and your ministry address this system to make it more inclusive with respect to the strict language proficiency requirements that are currently in place as a result of the last government?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

In the coming days, and not very many, is my answer to when we will introduce changes to C-24.

In terms of the interim federal health program, we really had no choice but to repeal it. I'm glad the Conservatives have found a new commitment to the charter, but their own interim federal health program was entirely inconsistent with the charter when the judge said that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment and was, therefore, unconstitutional and contrary to the charter.

We had no choice but to get rid of it for that reason, but we wanted to anyway because we think it's only right that refugees receive health care. It was economically ridiculous for the federal government to save some money only for the provincial governments to have to spend more money. So net, it cost taxpayers money. It was unconstitutional, and it's certainly the right thing to do to provide health care.

Finally, on the subject of the charter, clearly the interim federal health program was unconstitutional. We now have concern that the designated countries of origin—the discrimination between refugees in terms of what kind of appeal they may have—which the Conservatives set up, may also be unconstitutional, and there have been some court cases. As a result of that charter uncertainty, we are actually reconsidering whether to keep the designated countries of origin at all.

In the election we committed to setting up an independent panel to determine which countries should be on that list, but now, in light of court challenges to the constitutionality of designated countries of origin in the first place, we may even remove them, in which case we would not need any outside body to advise on which countries, because we wouldn't have any designated countries of origin.

This is something that is charter related—and we've been talking about charters, so I raise it—on which we have not yet come to a decision. But the whole issue of designated countries of origin clearly does raise charter issues that we are reviewing now.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

That's correct.

Minister, first of all, on behalf of myself and all the refugees, asylum seekers, service providers, and dedicated health care professionals in the field I want to thank you for restoring the interim federal health program. Canadians were ashamed of the previous government's petty actions in denying health care to refugees. Our actions have restored the pride we take in our national generosity.

There is a lot more work to do. In particular, I'm referring to the infamous Bill C-24—as you just mentioned—which created a two-class citizenship: one class for those born here, and another class for those who choose Canada as their home and earn their Canadian citizenship.

Minister, how soon can we expect the government to introduce legislation to repeal the provisions of Bill C-24?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

There are a number of questions there.

I might just mention in response to an earlier question that the number of Syrian refugees pre-November 4 is approximately 3,000. That's a partial answer, and we will endeavour to get the rest of the answer soon.

In terms of Bill C-24, this will be coming soon, and we will make very major amendments, as we committed to in the election. We like one or two things in Bill C-24, like the lost Canadians provision, so we would not want to repeal that element of it, but we will certainly honour our campaign commitment.

In terms of the settlement of refugees, I don't have exactly how many settlement workers there are in every community across the country. I can tell you that those settlement agencies are working extremely hard to get the job done and that we are also expanding the number of cities that are settlement communities, to Victoria and other places to be announced very soon. A lot of effort is under way on the part of all those cities and settlement agencies.

I can also say on the settlement issue that we have recently acquired numbers, and 52% of refugees who have arrived from Syria so far have proceeded to permanent housing. That is a precise number, which my department only recently obtained. That will give you an additional piece of information.

Finally, on your question on the IRB, they have received funding to reduce their legacy cases, and they continue to work on those legacy cases, as well as new ones that are coming before them.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay, then I'm going to plough through my questions very quickly.

My first question is related to Bill C-24. The minister will recall that during the campaign the Prime Minister announced in the Sing Tao, Ming Pao, and World Journal media in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver that he would repeal Bill C-24 should he form a government. Will the government act accordingly and repeal the entire Bill C-24?

I'm going to ask my questions very quickly and I'll let the minister answer them all at once.

My next question would be on the legacy files. When the Conservative government's Balanced Refugee Reform Act came into effect in December 2012, it created a two-tier system for refugee claimants who applied under the old laws before 2012 and the new claimants in terms of the time for them to process applications. More than three years have passed. Claimants under the old legislation are still waiting to receive a verdict, whereas new claimants receive a decision after only a few months. According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada all legacy files, as we call them, should be finalized by 2018.

My question to the minister is this. Will there be change in addressing this? If not, why are refugee claimants from 2012, who are now integrated into Canadian society, still waiting for a decision on whether or not they can stay in Canada, when last year's claimants already know their fate and can breathe easily? If there were a change, I wonder if the minister can advise when we can see that change take place.

My next question deals with the resettlement services. At a technical briefing on February 3, 2016, an official said that Syrian refugees who had arrived here would not have to wait more than two weeks to be permanently settled. I've met many families who've waited more than two weeks, and they're still waiting. Some of them have missed appointments with immigration officials because the officials simply didn't show up three weeks after they've been here. My question to the minister is this. How many immigration officers does he have working on the ground to process the applicants, the new arrivals? How many settlement workers are on the ground in each of the cities to provide resettlement services to the refugees?

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his excellent speech and I congratulate him on his election.

Given the member's comments, I believe that he will join with me when we comment on the previous government's policies of division and fear and say that we want something new and different. Canadians are ready for that change, and we want to signal to our communities, sooner rather than later, that it is a new day for Canada.

Part of that old regime of division and fear was Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizenship here in Canada. I would like to ask the hon. member if he would, along with me, advocate as soon as possible the repealing of that bill.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.

As this is my maiden speech in the House of Commons, I would like to thank the people of Vancouver East for giving me a strong mandate to represent them in the House of Commons, in the people's House.

Vancouver East is a wonderfully diverse group of neighbourhoods and communities that come together to form an incredibly diverse part of our city, our province and our country. Whether refugees, immigrants, new Canadians, retirees, young people working to make a start, artists and writers from the creative community who feed our soul, or people who are homeless, grappling with addiction issues or mental health challenges, or grass-roots activists who give strength to the fight for a better tomorrow, in Vancouver East everyone makes a contribution to our community. The activism in Vancouver East is unparalleled. We fight hard for what we believe in. We are so proud to be a pro-democratic movement for social, economic, and environmental justice in an unequal world.

In Vancouver East, we know that addressing the social determinants of health is key to healthy communities. We are never afraid to fight to be the agent of positive social change for the entire nation. The way forward for a better future demands that we address the root causes of past injustices. Canada has a shameful chapter of how indigenous peoples have been treated. The effects of colonialism have had a profound effect for the first peoples of this land. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report to say, “The disappearances and murders of indigenous women in Canada are part of a broader pattern of violence and discrimination against indigenous women in the country.”

It makes my heart sing to see in the throne speech the government's commitment to a national inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. I do hope, with all my heart, that this nation will finally address the root causes that exacerbate the violence against indigenous women and girls. The New Democrats stand ready to work with the government to fulfill this important election promise.

The throne speech stated, “...the Government believes that all Canadians should have a real and fair chance to succeed”. If this statement is to ring true, and I do hope that it does, is it not time to have a national plan with real targets and progress reports to end poverty? After all, it is 2015, and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent's motion to eradicate poverty, supported by every member of the House, was made in 1989. It is startling to me that in Canada 19% of the children live in poverty. That is 1.3 million children. In B.C. alone, that is 170,000 children.

It is a myth to say that people choose to be on welfare. People do not choose to live in poverty. A parent does not choose to send his or her child to bed hungry. The majority of the people on income assistance are people with disabilities, people who are just trying to make ends meet, and people who are working multiple low-income jobs, minimum wage jobs. It does not have to be this way. If we ask the people of Vancouver East, they will tell us that closing stock option loopholes and investing in a plan to eliminate poverty is an easy choice for governments to make.

Though the throne speech did not mention child care, I do hope that the government will recognize that an affordable national universal child care program would ensure that we are taking care of future generations by laying a strong foundation for success.

In East Vancouver, it is a struggle to find accessible, affordable, quality child care, yet we know that early childhood development is good for the child, the family, and the economy. Families and business leaders know that a national child care program equals economic prosperity for the nation. What goes in tandem with that is a national housing program. We do not have to be rocket scientists to know that ending homelessness is not just plausible, but possible. It requires political will.

During the campaign, Liberal candidates promised to renew the co-op housing agreements that were set to expire and to bring back a national housing plan. While housing was not mentioned in the throne speech, I do hope those are not just empty words. It is important for Vancouver East that the federal government gets back to being a committed housing partner and starts building safe, secure, affordable, social housing, and co-ops once again.

From the young to the old, our seniors deserve dignity and support in their golden years. They should not have to worry about not being able to access health care, prescription drugs, home support or having a roof over their heads. Lifting seniors out of poverty by increasing the guaranteed income supplement and returning the retirement age from 67 to 65 is what the government has promised them. In the days ahead, I hope the government will lay out its plan to deliver on that promise. We are worthy of a Canada that honours all those who have sacrificed so much so we can have a better future.

My parents immigrated to Canada because it was a beacon of freedom, hope and opportunity. They dared to dream for a better future for their children, they dared to seek opportunities to make a better life, and they dared to cherish our freedoms and civil liberties.

I am honoured to be the NDP critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship. I look forward to working with the minister and his parliamentary secretary, along with the Conservative critic and deputy critic, on this important portfolio. From honouring the commitment to bring 25,000 government-sponsored Syrian refugees to Canada, to eliminating the backlog for family reunification, to spousal sponsorship applications to getting rid of arbitrary quotas, to addressing concerns with the temporary foreign workers program and removing barriers to citizenship, there is much work to be done.

No Canadian should be made to feel that they are second-class citizens, not immigrants, not those with dual citizenships, no one. The Liberal government promised to repeal Bill C-24. It promised to reverse the invasion of privacy and threat to civil liberties in Bill C-51. Canadians are ready for change. In the days ahead, I hope to see concrete plans and timelines for these election promises, because it is important for the government to deliver on what it promises. The plans that were campaigned on were ambitious, but the expectations need to be met post-election.

We have a collective responsibility to leave our country a better place than what we inherited from the last generation. I look forward to working with all members of the House to do just that.

As the final words in my maiden speech, I want to also thank everyone who worked on my campaign team: the volunteers, the staff, the people who put their trust in me and who toiled in a long election campaign to send me here. I will live by the words of the late Dr. David Lam to “bring honour to the title” that the people have bestowed in me with the work that I do.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to congratulate the member opposite on his election.

Bill C-24 provides the right to revoke citizenship to the minister. The minister is a politician, who does not ally with the Canadian courts or Canadian judges. The provisions of Bill C-24 would allow a politician to revoke citizenship based on the charges faced by a Canadian citizen anywhere in the world. Under Bill C-24, it is possible that the citizenship of Greenpeace activists could be revoked if they were convicted in Russia on trumped-up terrorism charges. We have committed that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and we will revoke the unfair provisions of Bill C-24.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on his election. I understand that he opposes Bill C-24. However, he did not say what it does. To be clear, this bill strips citizenship from convicted terrorists.

Our view on this side of the House is that, if individuals are flying around the world seeking to advance terrorist purposes, they should not be able to use Canadian passports to facilitate their agenda. Therefore, I would ask the hon. member why he wants to give Canadian passports back to convicted terrorists.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.

I would like to congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on your appointment to the position of Assistant Deputy Speaker.

As this is the first time I am speaking in the House, I wish to thank all 34,000 citizens of Nepean who voted for me to represent them in this august House. I pledge to work hard to serve all people of Nepean irrespective of their background and political viewpoints.

I would like to thank my friend, my partner, and my wife, Sangeetha, and our son, Siddanth, without whom I would not be here.

I would also like to thank the team of volunteers who committed so much time and energy to my campaign and who shared my vision for the great riding of Nepean.

I am also honoured to be one of only three Hindu Canadians who are members of the House. I am probably only the second person in the history of the Canadian Parliament to be sworn in by taking the oath on the Hindu holy book of Bhagavad Gita.

Canadians spoke loud and clear on October 19, echoing our call for real change. Of the several things Canadians voted for, I would like to highlight three issues. First, Canadians overwhelmingly voted against the politics of fear and division. Second, Canadians rejected the creation of second-class citizenship in Bill CC-24. Third, Canadians voted for economic development through massive investment in infrastructure.

As I said, Canadians rejected the politics of fear and division. As the right hon. Prime Minister has said:

Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state, there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.

Canadians also rejected the second-class citizenship that was created by Bill C-24. The previous government created two classes of citizenship, with the power to revoke citizenship resting with a politician. As has been said, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. We will repeal the unfair portions of Bill C-24.

Canadians also voted to stimulate the economy through massive investment in infrastructure to create long-term economic growth.

I have several objectives as a member of this esteemed institution. The first is to bring respect back for the public service and allow public service employees to deliver to the best of their ability. We will create policies based on scientific evidence, not ideological dogma. Prudence and pragmatism and not political ideology will influence decision-making. We will not legislate changes to service terms but work through the process of collective bargaining.

My next objective is to work on affordable housing. The wait time for affordable housing in my riding of Nepean is 15 years. There are more than 10,000 people on the wait list for affordable housing in the City of Ottawa. Research has shown that every dollar invested in affordable housing saves several dollars in long-term social costs.

My long-term objective is to work to develop a viable, alternative sector for the creation and sustainment of high-quality jobs in Nepean and Ottawa.

In Ottawa, the federal government is the largest employer, and the City of Ottawa is the second largest. Then we have the technology sector, which has seen the booms and busts of the wireless and telecom segments. Our children are moving out of Ottawa in search of jobs. There is a need to promote the development of a stable technology sector.

I served on the board of Invest Ottawa, with Mayor Jim Watson as the co-chair, and other leading business and institutional leaders as fellow directors. Invest Ottawa is doing great work in making the city the best place for companies across Canada and around the world to come and set up shop. There are about 1,700 knowledge-based companies in the city, a vast majority of which are small entities. Invest Ottawa is also helping these companies grow.

One thing I realized during my stint there is that, for economic development to take place in the city of Ottawa, there is a need for all three levels of government, municipal, provincial, and federal, to work hand in hand.

The City of Ottawa and the provincial government have joined hands and have equally shared the costs of a $30 million innovation centre that is currently being built. Currently, there is zero contribution from the federal government for this much-required institution.

During the last 10 years, the interaction among all three levels of government for the economic development of Ottawa has been quite minimal. I pledge to work hard to rectify this deficit.

There are 12 million working Canadians who do not have a workplace pension plan. Only 35% of Ontario workers have a workplace pension plan. In the private sector, the percentage of workers with a workplace pension plan is just 28%. It is possible that many of them will retire directly into poverty, thus increasing social costs. There is already an increasing number of working families who depend on the local food banks. There is a need for an enhanced pension plan. Our government has pledged to work with the provinces and territories to achieve this goal.

To conclude, I want to bring my experience, dedication, and passion for my country to Parliament. I will work hard for the families in Nepean and work with others to make our country and community stronger. I want to showcase to our children and grandchildren that politics is about public service and about giving back to society.

Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member forEtobicoke Centre for his great work in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and for his dedication to these files along with many other members on our side, without whom bills like this, Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act and Bill S-7, the zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act, would simply not have seen the light of day.

Let us draw the contrast. Let us take the case of Shafias, multiple murders, tragic case from Kingston, Ontario. The member for Pierrefonds—Dollard asked what would have been the effect on them of this bill if it had been in place say under a Liberal government, say 10 years ago when we came into office. The amendment to IRPA would have deemed Mohammad Shafia and his wife inadmissible in the first place. They might not ever have gotten here. The amendment to the Criminal Code would not even have allowed the defence of provocation to be used at that time. The amendments to the Civil Marriage Act would have protected the children from early and forced marriage. As we recall, there were multiple cases in that tragic chapter.

Finally, the requirement for dissolution of previous marriage would have protected people like Rona Amir who were not protected when a second marriage took place and the previous one had not been annulled or dissolved.

These actions, which, if we had taken them earlier in Parliament, would have saved lives and would certainly have reduced the misery of women and girls. They are not the majority. They are not even a large share of those who come to our country as immigrants or who live in our country, but they are hundreds and indeed thousands who have suffered from these terrible practices that lead to lifetimes of violence.

The Liberal Party did nothing about it in its time in office. The NDP still opposes these measures today. It is very clear who in this Parliament is standing up for the protection of women and girls at home and in our immigration system.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I am going to have to contradict the figures on our website.

Those figures concern the most complex applications we have received in years, and they require additional documentation on residency. There were thousands of cases involving residency, and the possibility that people who claimed to have resided in Canada for three years had not really done so.

If we set aside these complex cases, we see that there has been considerable improvement in processing times for citizenship applications. More than a quarter million applications were processed last year. This year, the processing rate and the progress in this area is very rapid. A new citizenship application submitted this year—as of now, for instance—will be processed in a time period that goes far beyond our expectations and is closer to a one-year processing time.

When we went forward with Bill C-24, we promised that the processing time for new applications would be 12 months or less as of the beginning of 2016. We are already getting close to that objective.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to ask a brief question about the processing of citizenship files.

Earlier, you spoke about your Bill C-24, which concerns reforms to citizenship among other things. When you presented your citizenship reform measures, you said that this would lead to considerable reductions in the time needed to process files, and that was about a year ago. Now we are in mid-2015. Last year, the average processing time for routine files was 25 months and for non-routine files, that time was 35 months. This year the time frames are 23 and 36 months respectively.

Is this reduction of approximately two months in processing times the significant reduction you had promised us? May we expect more improvement in that regard? How do you explain that after one year, things are still stagnant in this area? Do you find it acceptable that it still takes two to three years to process these applications? Do you intend to reduce the wait times further? What more are you going to do to keep your promise?

Citizenship and Immigration

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present.

The first petition has been signed by many Canadians who are calling for citizenship legislation that is fair to everyone. This petition expresses people's concerns regarding Bill C-24.

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I assume that the House is continuing the discussion on this bill following question period. My remarks then will certainly be curtailed because for some reason the government has called a briefing on the new combating terrorism act, or whatever it may call it, at 11:30, which is halfway through question period, and that will go through to 12:30 p.m. Because of the actions of the government, I will not be able to conclude my speech. It is startling that the Conservatives would call a briefing during question period when members are supposed to be here.

Instead of taking time to duplicate the discussion, the member for Alfred-Pellan talked about what happened at committee. I agree with her comments. The ability of the committee to do its work was certainly curtailed. I think we had six witnesses, which is just not adequate to do the job, especially with all the pomp and ceremony by the government and its line that it is fighting terrorism and that the bill is so important. We will see what is in the new bill coming forward this afternoon.

This bill really does absolutely nothing to address the national security concerns that resulted from the recent events in Quebec and Ottawa. It simply amends legislation to meet current CSIS practices and expedites amendments to citizenship and immigration from Bill C-24. We raised with the minister in the House and at committee the point that the government must explain why it is not using existing legislation and the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code. Here I refer to preventive arrest and section 83 of the Criminal Code, whereunder someone, if they are planning, attempting to, or leaving the country to operate with a terrorist entity abroad, can face from 10 to 14 years in prison. We have never had an answer from the government why those sections of the law are not being utilized, specifically subsection 83.18(1). Peace bonds have only been used very rarely, but they are another way of taking people off the streets.

The bill contains provisions related to clarifying CSIS' ability to operate internationally, although according to the deputy commissioner of CSIS in testimony to the Senate national security committee, it will not alter its ability to operate internationally, which it has been doing historically. The bill as well does provide protections to sources abroad. These are similar to the protections provided to informants in domestic cases. We are supportive of that. We have to be supportive of those who work with CSIS in carrying out its duties.

I will close by saying that we will be supporting the bill. We have some concerns about the bill in that the Minister of Public Safety is not required to inform the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence on activities abroad. That is a concern we raised and we stand by it, but we will be supporting the bill.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon on a question of privilege related to written Question No. 393, which I submitted to the order paper on March 27, 2014; the government's response to the question on May 14, 2014; and a document containing correspondence among officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada on the preparation of the response to my question, a document that I obtained through the Access to Information Act.

I believe that the government's interference in the preparation of the answer to my written question has impeded me in the performance of my parliamentary functions and is, therefore, a breach of my parliamentary privilege.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to review three pieces of evidence as you consider my request: first, the question that I submitted to the government; second, the government's answer to my question; and third, the documents that I obtained through the Access to Information Act. These documents contain correspondence among officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada concerning my written Question No. 393.

I will not read my written question, but I will say that it was about average wait times and the budget and human resources that the department allocated from 2005 to 2014 to processing visa, immigration and private sponsorship of refugee applications. It was broken down into several sub-questions, as is typically the case with written questions.

In response to my sub-questions about average wait times for visa, immigration and private sponsorship of refugee applications, I received the following non-answer for all three:

Adequately responding to this question would require extensive, detailed research of CIC records, and this work is not feasible within the prescribed timeline. Although some of the above data are available, many other data points would take longer to extract because of the structure of the department's information systems. After the data extraction process, the report would then have to be reviewed in its entirety to ensure the quality of the data. Given that the question also deals with data covering a period of nine years, a complete and accurate response to this question is not feasible within the prescribed timeline for the reasons outlined above.

After submitting an access to information request, I learned that this was not the response that officials from the department planned to submit to my question. Indeed, the exchange of emails I obtained shows that departmental officials were working on answering my written question.

In an email dated May 1, 2014, an official from the department explained that, given the quantity of information requested, it would take about two weeks to prepare the response. She said that it would take a little longer, but it was entirely doable.

An email dated the next day, May 2, 2014, ordered the officials who were working on the question to stop their work because:

“[the office of the minister] has come back to advise the [office of the assistant deputy minister for operations] that we will use the same response we provided to Q-359.”

The government's response to Question No. 359 was a non-answer.

Questions of privilege concerning written questions have been raised repeatedly in the House. Every time, the Speaker has ruled that it is not the role of the Chair to determine whether the contents of documents tabled in the House are accurate.

I understand the principle. However, it is not the nature of the response here that is problematic, but rather the fact that the minister's office obstructed the work of officials in his own department. The minister's office interfered in the work of government officials in order to prevent them from producing a satisfactory response to my written question.

I believe that such an obstruction constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 517, the purpose of written questions as follows:

...written questions are placed after notice on the Order Paper with the intent of seeking from the Ministry detailed, lengthy or technical information relating to “public affairs”.

In chapter 7 of her November 2004 report, entitled “Process for Responding to Parliamentary Order Paper Questions”, the Auditor General wrote:

The right to seek information from the Ministry of the day and the right to hold that Ministry accountable are recognized as two of the fundamental principles of parliamentary government.

Written questions are one of the tools that elected representatives can use on behalf of Canadians to fulfill their fundamental duty of holding the government to account. The government cannot interfere in the preparation of the responses. It must allow its public officials to do their job.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, at page 109, states that:

In order to find a prima facie breach of privilege, the Speaker must be satisfied that there is evidence to support the Member's claim that he or she has been impeded in the performance of his or her parliamentary functions and that the matter is directly related to a proceeding in Parliament.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs also stated the following in its 2005 report:

The bar to establish a breach of privilege is necessarily a high one, and, in the case of an individual member, it must be closely related to his or her parliamentary activities.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would like to show how the minister's interference in the preparation of the answer to my written question impeded my ability to carry out my parliamentary duties.

Last February and May, the House studied Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, at second reading stage. In June, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, of which I am a member, also carried out a study of the same subject. We can see that there is a direct link between the minister's obstruction and parliamentary proceedings.

In fact, during the study of Bill C-24, the government said several times that it wanted to eliminate the backlog of applications and shorten processing times for immigration applications to less than one year by 2015-16. To that end, the government intended to eliminate certain intermediaries in the citizenship process.

Nevertheless, we know that backlogs of these types of applications have doubled in seven years, while processing times have doubled in four years, going from 15 months in 2009 to 31 months at the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year. It was very important for me, as a member of Parliament, to gain a better understanding of the delays these applicants are facing, and this includes getting a clear picture of the number of applications as well as the budget allocated to processing these applications, in order to thoroughly study Bill C-24 and to better understand it.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the processing delays impose financial and psychological burdens on the families that are waiting for an answer. Bill C-24 imposed additional waiting periods on thousands of permanent residents who wanted to join the Canadian family and who were preparing to submit their application. If I had gotten a proper response to my written question, I would have had a much more accurate picture of the scope of the problem, and I would have been in a better position to make alternative suggestions to cut processing delays and backlogs.

The 21st edition of Erskine May describes contempt as:

...any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.

In light of the points I just made, I think it is clear that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's obstruction in the preparation of the response to my written question, Question No. 393, constitutes contempt and a breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament, which impeded by ability to discharge my parliamentary duties.

To make it easier for you, Mr. Speaker, I am submitting copies of written Question No. 393, the government's response and the document I obtained through the Access to Information Act. Mr. Speaker, if you find that there was a prima facie breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament, I will be prepared to move an appropriate motion at that time.

[The Chair, NDP, Pierre-Luc Dusseault]

I see that the question has already been settled. If all of the points of order are on the same topic, we do not need to raise them.

Mr. Ravignat, the floor is yours to speak about bill C-21.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Very well, Mr. Chair. Let me come back to bill C-21.

[Nicole Girard]

Thank you, yes.

The provisions in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which enable revocation of citizenship from dual citizens who have done these actions against the national interest that I referred to, are broadly similar to provisions that exist in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, and other democratic European countries that we looked at including France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland. So that gives you a bit of a flavour.

[Nicole Girard]

There is not, as contemplated by Bill C-44 nor the changes under the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

[Nicole Girard]

Thank you very much for your question.

I would just note at the outset, as mentioned earlier, that the provisions in Bill C-44 are technical amendments that would not bring any changes to the provisions of the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which received royal assent in June earlier this year. They would enable the government to pursue an earlier implementation of the changes to the revocation provisions in the Citizenship Act.

Nevertheless, to come directly to your question, I think the first, most important point to make is that Canada is alone compared to like-minded countries and other democratic countries in not having this ability already to revoke citizenship for egregious actions that are done against the national interest, so the recent changes that Parliament made in June to expand the grounds for citizenship revocation limited to specific actions—namely convictions for high treason, treason, spying, terrorism, or being in the service of an organized armed group or armed force engaged in armed combat with Canada—is broadly in line with what like-minded countries already do.

I would also like to add that with regard to fairness there are many safeguards that are provided in the law and as a matter of procedure with regard to the revocation process itself. Those include: notice, the ability of the person concerned to know the grounds against them; to see the evidence; to have an opportunity to respond and make their submissions; to receive a decision in writing; to potentially have a hearing with the decision-maker; and of course, to seek judicial review if in the end that decision is against them and revoking their citizenship.

Thank you.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, through you to the witnesses, thank you for attending today.

Minister, I notice that this act has certain aspects of the recently passed Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. Do you believe it's reasonable to revoke the citizenship of convicted terrorists, or people who would do harm to Canada?

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the opportunity to share with members some of my personal thoughts and to express some thoughts and ideas from the Liberal Party.

It goes without saying that Canadians have a burning desire to see security measures in place that will allow them to feel safe in the communities in which they live, whether it is here in the parliamentary precinct or in communities throughout the country.

On that note, it would be a mistake not to pay tribute to all those individuals who put in the effort to make us safe. Whether it is the intelligence officers of CSIS, the RCMP, border patrols, or other policing agencies, there are so many individuals who play a proactive role in ensuring that we have a sense of security. I wanted to express my appreciation for that.

It is not easy to provide a 100% guarantee that Canada will never have to endure a terrorist attack. What we can do is work hard to prevent one, wherever possible, and adequately support the different agencies. In particular, today we are focusing on CSIS.

We can bring in new legislation, but at the end of the day, legislation is only one aspect. We have to challenge the government to ensure that it is putting in other types of resources to support the different agencies that are there to protect us. Whether the government is in fact doing enough can at times be called into question.

This is really the first opportunity I have had to comment on what we all experienced just a couple of weeks ago. In the days that followed, I happened to be on a flight to Ukraine. Whether it was at the airport in Frankfurt or in Ukraine itself, I saw our beautiful Parliament buildings on the news. What took place a couple of weeks ago made international news, as many people around the world were quite concerned about what was taking place in Canada. Constituents, family, and friends at the time also expressed a great deal of interest and concern and offered their prayers and best wishes.

As has been pointed out, from Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers all the way down, people did a phenomenal job, and they should all be applauded for their efforts in ensuring that there was minimal impact because of what took place.

We have heard some amazing speeches. There were political speeches from leaders and others who paid tribute to Corporal Cirillo, who ultimately made a sacrifice that has reached into the hearts and minds of all Canadians. I raise that because I want to put it in the context of Bill C-44.

The bill would do nothing to address the national security concerns related to the events in Quebec and Ottawa a couple of weeks ago. It would simply amend the present legislation to meet current CSIS practices and would expedite the CIC amendments in Bill C-24.

The government needs to explain why the provisions already in place in the Criminal Code have not been utilized in response to those individuals who represent a threat to this country.

The sections of the Criminal Code in question are section 83.181, relating to the laying of charges against an individual attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activities; section 83.3, which could be used to place recognizance with conditions on those suspected of terrorist activities; and section 810, relating to peace bonds and possible detention.

I was intrigued by some of the discussions. One of the most interesting statements I came across was from the Minister of Public Safety on October 8 at the public safety committee. This is in regard to the 80 individuals who returned to Canada after having travelled abroad to take part in terrorism-related activities. This is what the minister stated to parliamentarians and Canadians at committee:

Let me be clear that these individuals posing a threat to our security at home have violated Canadian law.... These dangerous individuals, some skilled and desiring to commit terrorist activity, pose a serious threat to law-abiding Canadians.

This begs a number of questions with respect to whether we are acting on the current legislation that has been passed.

What would Bill C-44 actually do? There are three things I can detect. First, there would be protection for informants. I can appreciate why that would be necessary. Second, it would provide more clarity on the need for warrants. CSIS needs to investigate, and this legislation would provide more clarity with respect to warrants from judges to complete those investigations. Third is the issue of dual citizens. The House voted on this not that long ago, and it is being expedited.

The government needs to be aware of what is missing, and that is oversight. Oversight was mentioned today in questions.

In an hour, we will be voting on Bill C-622, an important piece of legislation. Bill C-622 was introduced by my colleague from Vancouver Quadra. She has done a wonderful job in recognizing the importance of parliamentary oversight. The government has been negligent on this issue, and I do not say that lightly.

What the member from Vancouver Quadra is asking of the government is already being done and is in place for our Five Eyes partners. In Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom, it is already being done. They have recognized the value of having parliamentarians provide oversight.

I do not understand why the government is resisting that idea. This is not necessarily the first time, but it is definitely an opportune time for the government to recognize that the House of Commons and parliamentarians as a whole do have a role to play.

We hope that the Prime Minister will allow for an open vote on this issue. I would encourage the government to reflect, to seriously consider the benefits of accepting what the member for Vancouver Quadra, the Liberal Party defence critic, has put on the table for us today, and to vote for parliamentary oversight.

Oversight would go a long way in providing peace of mind, in many different ways. Oversight is a good way to ensure the protection of the rights of all Canadians. It is in our best interest, I would argue.

Parliamentary oversight is not just a Liberal Party proposal. As has been pointed out, our other partnering nations have already done this. Why would the government not respond in kind and recognize the value of oversight?

We in opposition recognize how important it is to provide protection for informants. It only stands to reason that there would be protection of informants, who provide critical, valuable information when a CSIS agent is doing an investigative report or conducting an investigation into the potential for some form of a terrorist act here in Canada or abroad. We have to depend on informants.

I have no sense of the actual number of informants out there, but I do understand and appreciate the need for us to protect them. In looking at this piece of legislation, we see that protection as a positive thing.

In terms of warrants and the need for warrants, again this concern does not come from any individual political party. Based on the discussions and comments I have heard here this afternoon and even previously, it seems there is virtual unanimity in recognizing how important it is that we provide additional clarity to CSIS as an organization and in terms of the role of warrants in ensuring that investigations are conducted in a proper fashion. There is an understanding that unusual circumstances come into play when terrorist activities and organizations are investigated.

As a whole, Canadians are very much aware of what terrorism is all about. We understand and appreciate that we are living in a very different world. Through the Internet and all forms of media outlets, we know there is a much higher sense of awareness. It is there and it is very real.

That, I believe, is one of the reasons that Canadians expect the Government of Canada to do what it can to ensure that they have a sense of security in the communities where they live, and I suggest many of my colleagues would concur. However, at the same time, there is an expectation that we will demonstrate leadership at the international level.

In bringing forward legislation such as we have before us today, it is very important that we consult with the different stakeholders and ensure that the legislation is, in many ways, a bit more inclusive in terms of having the right balance. I am not convinced that we have the right balance here. That is why, in my last 15 or 20 seconds, I would ask the government to recognize the importance that parliamentarians have when it comes to ensuring that Canadians feel much safer in their communities. Parliamentarians need to be, and should be, more engaged in the process. Whether it is oversight or whether it is parliamentary committees, we can make a difference.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-44, which was introduced by the Conservative government.

I would first like to say that I feel honoured to be able to participate in the Remembrance Day ceremonies to be held this weekend in Laval, which are being organized as part of a joint effort by the City of Laval and the Laval cadets and police force. It is extremely important for all parliamentarians to be present in their communities over the coming days for the Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Like every year, I will also be at Résidence Le Patrimoine on November 11 for a ceremony to honour our veterans, which is always very touching. We are lucky because a number of our World War II veterans live in that residence. Their presence makes the ceremony even more moving, and I am honoured to participate in it.

Last week, I participated in the ceremony held in Laval by the Correctional Service of Canada to pay tribute to correctional officers who died in the line of duty. This ceremony is always very emotional because the families are there and the correctional officers in attendance bring honour to the Correctional Service of Canada by extending their sympathy and showing their devotion to their deceased colleagues, whether they knew them or not.

I mentioned the Remembrance Day events because, as a result of the incidents that occurred on October 20 in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and on October 22 here in Parliament, which affected all of my colleagues from every party, we felt a certain sense of co-operation between the various parties.

In this spirit of co-operation, the official opposition decided to support Bill C-44 so that it can be examined more closely in committee. I will come back to the details of Bill C-44 and the reasons why we want to look at it in committee. It is important to hold a debate, not only here in the House, but also in committee to make sure that we come up with the best law possible. That is why it is important that the parties work together.

The events of October 20 and 22 deeply affected Canadians. We, as parliamentarians, witnessed them firsthand but we felt as though all Canadians were behind us. When the incident occurred in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on October 20, we also felt that all Canadians were behind our Canadian Armed Forces.

Words cannot express my appreciation for and my feelings about the incredible work that the constables and the RCMP did.

Top of mind are Kevin Vickers and his team of constables here at the House of Commons who take care of our safety every day.

I am also thinking of Constable Alain Gervais, who single-handedly blocked the NDP caucus room doors to protect us. It was an act of heroism, but he did it just because it is his job. We are lucky that nothing happened to him even though a bullet headed straight for him was blocked by the second door. We cannot thank Alain Gervais enough for leaping up to keep us safe.

My thoughts are also with Constable Son, who was at the front door of the Parliament building and gained precious seconds for his colleagues by grabbing the hunting weapon carried by the individual who entered Parliament. Unfortunately, he was shot in the foot, but he gave RCMP officers and Parliament Hill staff a chance to react, which they did in spades.

We are now studying Bill C-44 against that backdrop. However, it is important to point out that this bill is not a response to the events that took place two weeks ago, even though we cannot help but think about such events when studying this kind of bill. This bill is not a new law; it makes changes to existing laws.

Most of the subjects covered in Bill C-44 have to do with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We were supposed to debate this on October 22, so it had to be put off.

I would like to point out a few things about Bill C-44. Basically, it makes three important changes regarding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and it is important to point them out here. First of all, it clarifies CSIS's legal authority to conduct security intelligence operations outside our borders in order to address threats to Canadian security. Second, it confirms the jurisdiction of the Federal Court to issue warrants that have effect outside Canada. Third, it ensures greater protection during legal proceedings for human sources that provide information to CSIS.

I would like to mention from the outset that we did have a briefing on Bill C-44. I would like to thank the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the parliamentary secretary who attended that briefing. It was very informative, as it was extremely important for us to have more details on this bill. I hope this practice will continue in the future, because in order for us, parliamentarians, to be able to do our jobs, it is absolutely crucial that we have all pertinent information from our colleagues, regardless of party affiliation. We very much appreciated it.

At the briefing, when we talked about the clarification regarding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and its operations abroad, we were told that they would still be subject to current Canadian laws and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I thought it was important to emphasize this point.

I must say that I still have a lot of questions about CSIS and that is why I very much look forward to welcoming public safety experts at committee to discuss this case in particular. However, there are other so-called minor changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. Among other things, they would help protect the identity of CSIS employees who are likely to conduct secret activities in future. For example, there is mention of future undercover agents. Currently, only the identity of employees who are engaged or were engaged in covert activities is protected.

There is an example. There is mention of future undercover agents, but there is also specific mention of employees likely to conduct covert activities in future. I have a lot of questions about that point in particular because the definition is quite broad. What exactly is meant by this? Does this simply mean people who are training to become undercover agents? Are we talking about a person who, in a year or two, depending on senior CSIS officials, might be a candidate for becoming an undercover agent? Is that all that is included? Could this apply to anyone at CSIS? I look forward to getting more clarification on this because I believe this is a rather important point to which we are not paying enough attention.

Nonetheless, it is very important for the people who are engaged in undercover activities to be protected and I would like us to pay attention to that. I do not think that any party in this House is against that idea. It is important to say that.

There is another surprise in this bill. This may be a five- or six-page bill—I hope I have this right—but unfortunately it still is an omnibus bill. It is true that most of the things we are legislating in Bill C-44 have to do with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but there is a small item that amends the Citizenship Act to fast-track the revocation of Canadian citizenship in the case of dual citizens who are linked to terrorist activities and other serious offences, as provided for in Bill C-24, which received royal assent on June 19, 2014.

I really do not understand why that provision is in this bill. We tried to obtain more information at the briefing, but, unfortunately, we were unable to determine exactly what the link is between CSIS and Bill C-24, which was passed. I hope that the government will respond and explain why it wants to include that provision in Bill C-44. I would also like to see the bill go to committee and have experts tell us what the inclusion of this provision in Bill C-44 will bring to CSIS.

I listened to the speech by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. I agree with him on several points, but not on how we should do things. He spoke about radicalization in Canada, and that is a very important point. As parliamentarians, we must ensure not only that we have the appropriate tools in place, but also that we have the people required to counter radicalization in Canada. That is what we have been asking for on this side of the house for several months. Today, the government seems to be more open-minded about that. I am very pleased to hear it.

The minister talked about preventing threats and responding to them. Once again, this is consistent with efforts to combat radicalization within the country. I am eager to see what he will propose here, because he talked about other measures. What are these other measures? There are a lot of questions about this. We have heard a lot about tools to combat radicalization or to combat terrorism, but what exactly does that mean? Do the RCMP and CSIS, for example, or still the Canada Border Services Agency, need more tools and personnel?

This brings me to a topic that may be a sore spot for my colleagues. We do not seem to agree on some aspects of the budget, and I want to mention that in my speech. One aspect concerns the cuts being made to Public Safety Canada, which affect the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We are very worried about this because these cuts will affect many things, including the Correctional Service of Canada and the budgets of our police forces in Quebec, for example for the Eclipse squad, which works to combat street gangs. However, that is a whole other subject and I will focus on the cuts in the first three cases I mentioned.

Why is this important? Because those cuts had an impact on very real jobs. In 2012, the government announced $143 million in cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency alone. Unfortunately, when there are cutbacks of that magnitude, jobs have to be cut somewhere. Of course, personnel can be shuffled, but at some point there is no wiggle room left and something has to give.

Unfortunately, the Canada Border Services Agency had to eliminate about 100 positions. It should be noted that those 100 jobs were part of the agency's intelligence service. Those employees shared important information with our various international allies, and that included information about allegedly radicalized individuals who were travelling abroad. It is crucial work. There is talk of radicalization, and Conservative government ministers are talking about preventing people from fighting overseas and revoking passports. If there are no people to use those tools—as the individuals in those 100 abolished positions would have done—it is a very serious issue. We need to act on this. If there is talk of reinstating those positions, I will be more than happy to hear what the Conservative government has to say.

The RCMP's budget was cut by approximately $200 million, $195.2 million to be exact.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service lost about $25 million, and the inspector general's office, which was so important for overseeing what was going on, was also abolished. There is a lot of talk about security in relation to civil liberties, but they abolished this CSIS office. That is extremely sad.

Unfortunately, at the Border Services Agency, they eliminated 19 teams of detector dogs, sniffer dogs that find weapons and drugs at our borders, for example. Nineteen of those positions were eliminated. That is extremely important.

Canine units came to Parliament Hill during the events of October 22. They were among the first to arrive, right after the RCMP and the constables. The canine unit was mobilized. If the government cuts 19 canine unit positions from our Border Services Agency, that will surely have an impact on the services provided and our public safety and national security. That is an extremely important point.

One other thing really caught my attention, and I really want to talk about it in the House today. The Department of Public Safety released what is called a report on plans and priorities for 2013-14, which announced cuts, particularly in the area of public safety. I would like to read part of it, if I may.

The department itself stated as one of its risks:

That the Government Operations Centre (GOC) infrastructure may be unable to support a coordinated response to large-scale or multiple significant events affecting the national interest

That is extremely serious, and according to the report, it is directly related to the cuts to public safety and national security. I hope that the Conservative government will take the time to read that report. It is rather disturbing that it makes a direct correlation between the cuts to public safety and something that could endanger our national security and the fact that we would not likely be capable of responding to multiple attacks or a large-scale generalized attack on our country. I believe that we need to consider that.

I would also like to mention a few other little things. As I indicated at the beginning of my speech, we are starting from the premise that everyone wants to work together to ensure that we have the best laws possible. What is more, we want to ensure that the committee does the necessary work and does it properly. I understand that these laws need to be implemented and that we cannot wait forever. However, we need to get the advice of experts on this bill because it raises a lot of unanswered questions. Given that the bill amends a few laws, the people who will be using this legislation need to tell us what impact those changes will have on their work.

I also sincerely hope that the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security from different parties will be able to work together in a spirit of co-operation. When it comes to national security, as is the case here, there is no room for partisanship. It is extremely important that we work together and do our job as effectively as possible in committee.

I can assure the House that I will be happy to work with all of the parties represented on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to make the best laws possible. That has always been the case, but I will take that job even more seriously when it comes to Bill C-44.

In this spirit of co-operation, I sincerely hope that the Conservative government will not move any time allocation motions regarding this bill. I just wanted to mention that.

It is important to point out that we still have many unanswered questions. We want the parties to co-operate in order to make sure that we have the best laws possible. We support this bill at second reading but there are still a lot of grey areas.

In closing, I would like to mention that it is very important to strike a balance between public safety and civil liberties.

That being said, I still have a lot of things I would like to say about this.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to discuss this very important piece of legislation, legislation that is timely, that is consequential, that will help the House and this government uphold its principle duty to Canadians, which is to ensure their safety and to protect them from threats that we know to be all too real.

The protection of Canada from terrorists act gives our security agencies the vital tools they need to keep Canadians safe. So far in the debate, we are pleased to see the emerging recognition from parties opposite that these tools are needed, that they are part of our national response to the threat of terrorism and that it is time we took action to make sure that the agencies on which we rely to carry out that duty on behalf of government, on behalf of our democratic institutions, have these tools available to undertake the reasonable activity required to, once again, keep Canada and Canadians safe.

Before I begin my remarks on the substance of the legislation, let me remind us all once again why these measures, which were contemplated long before the attacks of last month, are doubly warranted and doubly relevant given the events that occurred at the National War Memorial and in our Hall of Honour just steps from where we are today.

Those events are a reminder that ISIL and other terrorist groups are a very real threat to Canadians. That is why we are taking part in air strikes against ISIL this week. That is why we are supporting the security forces of Iraq in their fight against the scourge of terrorism. All of these measures go together to ensure that Canada and Canadians are kept safe, that we work in concert with allies and partners in NATO and in the region to ensure that this threat that is principally victimizing the people of Iraq and Syria does not become an even greater threat to them or to our population further afield.

It is also the reason why we are working with great determination to strengthen the tools, to strengthen the effectiveness of the tools already available to police, to the intelligence community in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest. The legislation before us today is just the first step in our efforts to do that and as the Prime Minister has been clear, so are we all clear on this side of the House that we will not overreact to these events. We will not be intimidated by ISIL or any other group, but at the same time, Canadians want us to stop under-reacting to a threat that is indeed very real.

Section 83 of the Criminal Code of Canada defines terrorist activity as an act committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose with the intention of intimidating the public and that intentionally causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence or disrupts an essential service, facility or system.

Given that definition, I think we can all agree that last week in late October, Canada was a victim of terrorist attacks. This was the view confirmed in the immediate aftermath of those attacks by Bob Paulson, Commissioner of the RCMP. It was shared by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit shortly after the attacks. He said, “...anybody who walks up in a premeditated way with a loaded rifle and attacks someone in uniform then purposely goes to a parliament, is committing, by common sense standards, a terrorist act”.

Unfortunately, we still have the leader of the NDP on record disagreeing with this assessment, despite the fact that it was reinforced yesterday by another important visitor to Canada.

The President of the French Republic had no doubt about the nature of the terrorist attacks two weeks ago. We agree with him and are grateful for the show of solidarity from France, other European allies, the U.S., and dozens of other countries that recognize that the acts committed here in Ottawa two weeks ago were related to terrorism.

I would like to quote a recent Toronto Star editorial on the leader of the NDP's position. It states:

Most people grasp it instinctively—what occurred last week and the ongoing risks in our midst. That NDP Leader Tom Mulcair cannot admit this, even now, drawing an irrational, pedantic distinction between the deadly attack in Ottawa and a terrorist assault, reflects abysmally on his judgment and aspirations of political statesmanship.

That is a strong statement coming from a newspaper that I, for one, do not often quote in this place. I think it speaks for itself.

Ambiguities in the CSIS Act have been impeding the ability of our national security agencies to investigate threats to the security of Canada. The bill would address these problems by confirming that CSIS has the authority to conduct investigations outside of Canada, confirming that the Federal Court can issue warrants for CSIS to investigate targets outside of this country, giving the Federal Court the authority to consider only relevant Canadian laws when issuing warrants for CSIS, and creating automatic protections of the identities of CSIS employees who may engage in clandestine operations.

The bill would also make technical amendments that would allow our government to seek quicker implementation of the new citizenship revocation provisions under the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, the former Bill C-24, which received royal assent earlier this year on June 19. While it is important to ensure that citizenship revocation provisions come into force as soon as possible, the pith and substance, the main motive for the legislation, relates to our national security agencies.

Let me remind the House that there are three challenges being met. The first is to clarify that for greater certainty CSIS may perform its duties and functions within or outside of Canada. It has been doing this since its foundation, but as we all know, there has been an inability, particularly in recent months, for it to fully execute those functions outside of Canada to the degree required by its mandate to counter threats to Canada, above all, the threat of terrorism.

It would also clarify that the courts may issue warrants for certain investigative activities within or outside Canada and for that purpose, warrants may be issued without regard to the law of a foreign state. In other words, these warrants would be in full conformity to Canadian law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all aspects of our legal system, but not necessarily with regard to the law of a foreign state.

Second, the legislation would create a statutory prohibition on disclosure of identities or information from which identities could be inferred of individuals who provide CSIS with information in return for a promise of confidentiality. In other words, we need to ensure in this day and age that those in a position to provide the most sensitive information, the most time-sensitive information, information of the highest delicacy, can do so safely and have their identities protected under our legal system.

Third, the CSIS Act makes it an offence to disclose the identities of CSIS employees who are or were engaged in covert operational activities. The legislation would expand this protection to also cover CSIS employees who are likely to become engaged in such activities, making it possible for those recruited to do these jobs, being trained to do these jobs, being retasked to do these jobs, to have their identities protected as well.

All of these changes, as I think the House now understands, are vital to the protection of our national security. They would help stop individuals from travelling for terrorist purposes, especially given recent global events. Our government remains seized, like dozens of other governments around the world, with the issue of foreign fighters, individuals from Canada, from our European partners, from the United States, from the Middle East itself, travelling to places such as Iraq, Syria, Somalia or Pakistan, which is still well known, unfortunately, as a training ground for Sunni extremist terrorist groups, to engage in terrorist activities.

These individuals often pose a direct danger to the countries where they are operating. Any country that has experienced terrorist violence on a large scale, as is the case, obviously, for Iraq and Syria, but also for Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, many countries of the Maghreb and even sub-Saharan Africa, fall into this category. They, too, have the threat of terrorist training, recruiting, financing of terrorist activities in their territory and of foreign fighters flowing into their borders to join those training efforts and that fight.

This bill would update the CSIS Act to allow our intelligence community to operate and investigate threats to Canadian national security much better. It would clarify the investigative functions under sections 12 and 15 of the CSIS Act within or outside of Canada.

Keep in mind that section 12 already authorizes CSIS to investigate threats to Canada's security, and terrorism is very high if not continuously at the top of the list in terms of those threats.

Section 15 relates to the security assessments that CSIS performs for departments like mine to allow us to take responsible decisions about visa issuance and to prevent foreign fighters, terrorist kingpins, those who have been involved in terrorist violence or committed atrocities abroad from coming to Canada either as visitors or permanent residents.

The bill would also clarify that the courts may issue warrants for investigative activities, once again, within or outside Canada but without regard to the law of a foreign state.

Indeed, if there is one central advantage to this proposed legislation, strength in this legislation, it is that it will help our government meet its security priority of securing convictions for those who engage in terrorist activity. This is the solution to the global phenomenon of terrorism. These people and groups need to be fought, as we are fighting them in Iraq, but they also need to be brought to justice not only in Canada but in all the states where these crimes are committed.

As members know, in May 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of the security certificate process in a decision on the case of Mohamed Harkat. This helped to show that we could gather evidence in a way that would allow it to be used in court proceedings without compromising operations.

However, as part of this decision, the Supreme Court also found that, unlike police informers, the identity of CSIS sources were not automatically protected from disclosure. CSIS obviously relies heavily on such information from human sources. Without such assurances, human sources may simply stop co-operating with CSIS, stop-co-operating with Canada, and we would operate blind and open ourselves to threats that we would have a duty to combat.

To address this issue, the bill would create a statutory prohibition on disclosure of the identities or information from which the identities could be inferred of individuals who provided CSIS with information in return for a promise of confidentiality.

As with all of our legislation, this act would continue to respect the Canadian values of individual rights and the rule of law. All of the investigative activities of CSIS must take place in accordance with its mandated authorities under the CSIS Act, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ministerial direction and internal policy.

When threats demand more intrusive investigative measures, the service requires judicial authorization for each and every one of those activities. CSIS is also subject to a full review by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which has access to all information held by the service.

We have heard the Liberals and others call for more oversight or review by parliamentary committees. However, the issue at hand today is not whether CSIS is carrying out its mandate in accordance with the law. There is no evidence of CSIS not having done that. Our supervisory process is working well in our view and in the view of independent third parties that assess that performance. The issue is whether CSIS has the mandate, the authority under the law to perform its mandate, which is to keep us safe from threats to our national security, including terrorism.

The bill would also speed up the process of implementing legislation to revoke citizenship of dual nationals engaged in terrorist activities or who would engage in combat against the Canadian Armed Forces.

I am struck, as the Minister of Immigration, by the contrast between the approach of the opposition parties to this issue in April/May of this year, when we debated Bill C-24, and their approach today, which seems to be much more accommodating of the idea that Canadian citizenship be allegiance to our institutions, the willingness to uphold our laws and fulfill one's duties as a Canadian citizen. This is incompatible with taking violent action to murder people or commit bodily harm in the name of an ideology or political agenda that seeks to intimidate the whole population. That is why we brought forward these measures to revoke citizenship in cases of gross acts of disloyalty. We are pleased to see support for this idea growing on the opposition benches.

These proposed provisions will also provide the federal court with the authority to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens for membership in an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada. Today, that would include ISIS. It is both a terrorist group and an armed group engaged in conflict with our forces now in combat in Iraq.

These provisions would bring Canada in line with peer countries, such as Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and the vast majority or our allies in NATO and beyond, by providing that citizenship could be revoked under very strict conditions from dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason, spying offences or who take up arms against Canada.

This underscores our commitment to protecting the safety and security of Canadians, but also to promoting Canadian interests and values. They also reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship.

The amendments on the revocation of citizenship are merely technical. There is no cost to pursuing these amendments as a revocation decision-making model is more efficient and less costly to the government.

While we are adding grounds to revoke citizenship upon conviction of dual nations for terrorism, treason or espionage, we have long had the power, and the House has supported it, to prevent terrorists, criminals, those who would do harm to our country and those who embrace violent ideologies from becoming citizens. Indeed, if they acquire citizenship without disclosing a terrorist affiliation and that comes to light, we have had the power to revoke that citizenship on the basis of misrepresentation

Now we are simply adding a power to revoke on the basis of a terrorist conviction, a much more serious and much higher threshold of proof of terrorist activities, all of which hangs together very coherently. All of these provisions will work together to keep Canada safer.

Last, I would like to emphasis the oversight of our national security agencies. The security intelligence review committee provides a robust and comprehensive review of CSIS. The recent annual report shows, once again, the level of access it has to all aspects of CSIS operations. It plays a key role in ensuring our national security agencies are held fully and publicly to account. CSIS is reviewing the latest recommendations and will implement those that will keep Canada safe, while protecting the rights and privacy of Canadians.

I see my time is drawing close, and I would like to leave all members of the House with key points to consider before voting on this important legislation.

First, Canada is a beacon of freedom and opportunity in a turbulent and uncertain world, a world that in recent years has become more violent, especially in the Middle East and especially because of the escalating conflict in Iraq. For that very reason, those who despise freedom and democracy, those who reject modernity, who reject our way of life, who reject the very idea of the prosperity we have so painstakingly built in our country, want to cause harm and wreak havoc on Canada and Canadians.

I can say this first hand, as 40,000 of our fellow Canadians who served in Afghanistan can tell the House and all Canadians, that these threats are real. They were in control of Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban. They remain all too present and dangerous a reality in Iraq and Syria today.

The threat of domestic terrorism is heightened to a point that we have not seen in many years. The bullet holes in the Hall of Honour stand as a sober reminder of this threat. In light of this reality, it is important we take the steps provided for in this bill as quickly as possible.

Second, it is important to remember that in doing so we will respect the Canadian values of individual rights under the rule of law, while ending the practice of under-reacting to the terrorist threat.

Our freedom and our commitment to the rule of law are not an either or choice and are not choices that are mutually exclusive. We choose to be free as Canadians and to work for freedom in the world by having a standard of the rule of law in our country that is second to none. These measures will help to keep it that way.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, we were somewhat surprised and shocked to see this section. It is identical to the section in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act that was passed, Bill C-24, so we were surprised to see that in here.

We opposed that particular aspect earlier in Bill C-24. We are seeing it appended to this particular bill. The minister explained that it is in here to enact it earlier. I said to the minister, and I said it to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration as well, that we would like to see a legal opinion from the government that shows that this particular section would stand up to the charter, because we certainly do not believe that it will. We are asking for that.

I have no problem at all with the idea of the member splitting that out of the bill. It seems misplaced in a bill that is dealing with CSIS and the authority of CSIS, so we would certainly be open to that option.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Malpeque for his speech.

I unfortunately did not retain everything that he said. Nevertheless, I have a question about Bill C-44. It is a short bill, only five or six pages long. However, I am sad to say that it is an omnibus bill. While the majority of the bill focuses on CSIS reforms, that is not the only thing included in this bill. In fact, there is one part that has nothing to do with the rest of the bill. It proposes moving up the effective date for Bill C-24, which is about revoking dual citizenship.

I have already heard the hon. member talk about this, so I know he is somewhat upset by it. What would he think of splitting this bill in two or removing that part of the bill? In his opinion, what is the best way to deal with this part of the bill?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-44, an act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other acts. It is a bill the government really had to introduce following two adverse court rulings on the activities of CSIS.

In beginning, I want to just spin off a little of that last question and answer. I would speak directly to the minister. I would hope, in this instance, given the concern about the balance between national security and civil liberties, that the minister would push the committee to allow a full list of witnesses, not the kind of stacked list we get sometimes from the Conservatives, and a full hearing, an in-depth hearing, so the committee can do its proper job and come back with the best legislation possible. I support the point raised a moment ago by my colleagues.

There are some serious questions related to the provisions in Bill C-44 that need to be raised when the bill is before committee, and we intend to raise those questions and those concerns at that time.

The Liberal Party will be supporting this bill going to committee. However, I hope that the committee is really allowed to do its job and get in the proper expert witnesses and have the proper balance so that we can come back with the best legislation possible.

We have to look not just at this bill but at CSIS and its connections to the RCMP, CSEC, Canada Border Services Agency, and our allies we work with abroad.

There are three points I would like to raise specifically on this issue and this bill. One is tools. The minister is suggesting that this bill provides more tools, but there are really not many.

The second area is resources, the financial, human, and technological resources, for CSIS to do its job.

The third area is oversight and the need for proper oversight, and not of just CSIS. We have after-the-fact oversight, but there really needs to be parliamentary oversight of all our national security agencies. I will talk about that in a moment.

Before looking at the specific provisions in Bill C-44, it is necessary to place on the record our concern about the government's response to the terrorist threat to Canada and from within Canada. I would begin by asking the government a direct question. Why is it that the legislation currently in place, the provisions in the Criminal Code, some of which were put forward by the government in the Combating Terrorism Act, have not been utilized?

On October 27, in the House, the Minister of Public Safety admitted that the response of his office and his government to the threat represented by homegrown terrorists was not quite what it should be. According to the minister at that time, it is “time we stop under-reacting to the great threats against us.”

Yet the government still fails to act. I submit that it possesses the necessary tools to react. In fact, under section 83.181 of the Criminal Code, there is all kinds of authority for anyone who “leaves or attempts to leave Canada” for the purpose of participating in any activity of a terrorist group outside Canada.

There are four different sections there. The penalties are maximum terms in prison of 10 to 14 years, depending on the severity of the act.

The Minister of Justice stated publicly last week that the laws currently in place to combat a terrorist threat are “robust measures” that provide the police with the tools necessary to take action in response to a terrorist threat. The minister specifically referred to sections 83.3 and 810 of the Criminal Code, either of which would enable authorities to detain individuals under the provisions of a peace bond and could impose specific recognizance on individuals. In other words, action to limit certain individuals from taking action could be imposed. I ask the minister why those provisions have not been utilized.

The Minister of Public Safety has to this day failed to clarify a statement made before the public safety committee on October 8 with respect to the 80 individuals who returned to Canada after travelling abroad to take part in terrorist-related activities. He stated:

Let me be clear that these individuals posing a threat to our security at home have violated Canadian law....These dangerous individuals, some skilled and desiring to commit terrorist activity, pose a serious threat to law-abiding Canadians.

The minister also reconfirmed the following at committee:

...leaving or attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activities is now a criminal offence.

The minister is quite correct on those points. There is authority under the Criminal Code to act. I have to again ask the question: Why has the government not acted with those authorities that are already there? Those authorities would not be changed in this particular legislation, other than confirming in law what CSIS already does.

I ask why section 83.181, which states that “Everyone who leaves or attempts to leave Canada” for terrorist acts abroad, is not being applied. It certainly was not in the case of the individual involved in the murder of the Canadian Forces member in Quebec earlier this month. According to public information, that individual had his passport revoked on the grounds of attempting to travel to Syria or Iraq to join known listed terrorist entities.

According to testimony by the Commissioner of the RCMP to the Senate national security committee on October 27, this individual was known to authorities to have intended to use his passport to leave Canada for Syria or Iraq to participate in “jihad”, yet the commissioner confirmed that the evidence the authorities had of this intent, while enough to have his passport revoked, was not enough to lay a charge. I ask the minister, and maybe he can answer this at committee, whether this bill will correct that shortcoming. I personally do not see it in the legislation, but I would ask the minister and his staff to come prepared to answer that question. Would this legislation correct that shortcoming the RCMP Commissioner seems to have outlined? We really do not know as yet, because the minister has not been specific on that point.

A great deal has been said by members of the government with respect to the provisions of the Combating Terrorism Act, which came into force in 2013. According to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, one individual has been charged under the provisions of the Combating Terrorism Act. The minister confirmed, as well, when he testified before the public safety committee on October 8, that only a single individual has been charged under the Combating Terrorism Act.

However, what neither the minister nor the parliamentary secretary bothered to tell Canadians was that the single individual charged had left Canada six months prior to the charges being laid, and that individual's whereabouts are still unknown.

Could one of the reasons these provisions in the Criminal Code have not been acted upon be the limited resources available to our security and intelligence services? That was mentioned in a previous speech. What good are legal sanctions if our security agencies cannot utilize them? If the reason is that the current government has been starving those agencies' critical resources, who is responsible for the security failure?

I would submit that in many things that the current government has been doing in the last two years, it has been blindly focused. Good government requires it to provide services, security, and financial resources, and yes, it has to establish priorities. However, part of the problem with the current government is it is blindly focused on getting as huge a surplus as possible so it can throw out election goodies. Is part of the cost of doing that starving CSIS and the RCMP of the funds necessary to do their job? I really do not know, but it looks that way. Good government cannot be blindly focused just on achieving a surplus to provide goodies at the next election; it has to be focused on the needs and the services of Canadians. I see that as a problem.

There is another issue beyond this bill that the government must respond to, something that does not require legislation but requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness simply to do the job assigned to him. The most recent annual report of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, the only oversight body for CSIS, raised a number of troubling concerns. The Commissioner of the RCMP told the Senate national security committee on October 27 that there were now 93 individuals identified as high-risk travellers. The director of CSIS informed the public safety committee on October 8 that there were 80 individuals who have returned to Canada after having engaged in terrorist activities abroad, and CSIS knows where they are.

The problem there is that in terms of the RCMP doing its job, Commissioner Paulson said before a committee:

...we are reallocating the necessary funds and personnel from other priority areas to combat this threat. In recent months, and over the past week, over 300 additional resources were transferred in to enhance the capacity of INSET [Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams] from other federal policing priority areas such as organized crime and financial crime.

That tells me that the RCMP is indeed short of resources.

The deputy director of CSIS told the same committee on October 20:

...we work within the budget that is assigned to us. We do have to prioritize.

I would be foolhardy to say we have all the bases covered. We do what we can with the budget we have, sir.

There are clearly some concerns over financing.

There is another problem that the minister can deal with as well, and that is the operational mandate within CSIS. The most recent SIRC report, entitled “Lifting the Shroud of Secrecy: Thirty Years of Security Intelligence Accountability”, the annual report for 2013-14, said the following on page 16:

With surveillance teams spread across Canada all sharing identical job functions, SIRC expected to see solid communication among surveillance practitioners. Instead, SIRC found that, for the most part, regional surveillance teams operate in total isolation from one another and communicate only sporadically with their HQ counterparts.

That is worrisome, because if CSIS is not communicating properly within regions and between regions and headquarters, there is a serious problem. That is something that the minister can deal with.

The other point in the report that I just mentioned—and I am pretty sure that the minister knows this—is that at page 19, SIRC also found that with respect to the activities of CSIS:

...the Minister of Public Safety is not always systematically advised of such activities, nor is he informed of them in a consistent manner.

Those are two areas the minister can deal with without needing a bill. The minister just needs to ensure that the job is getting done within his own department.

The government has placed within Bill C-44 the enactment provisions of Bill C-24, which the minister talked about earlier. Bill C-24 would revoke the citizenship of dual nationals. We are concerned about that. The minister said in his remarks that it is included so as to enact that section faster. In an earlier question for the minister I said, and I will say again, that it is not enough to have something in legislation; it has to stand up to the courts. Some of us are concerned that this section just may not do that.

If the government, RCMP, CSIS, and other authorities are spending a lot of time on that particular area of taking away dual citizens' citizenship, it needs to be time well spent. I asked the minister to provide legal opinion to the committee to show that it is, in fact, charter-proof.

In an earlier question to the minister, I also raised the point that there is fairly strong wording in this particular bill. Subclause 8(2) reads:

Without regard to any other law, including that of any foreign state, a judge may, in a warrant...authorize activities outside Canada to enable the Service to investigate a threat to the security of Canada.

This would basically allow for a warrant to be issued to allow agents to break the law in a foreign country. We have checked the wording extensively, and similar wording is not found in the relevant legislation of our Five Eyes counterparts. I ask the minister why we need that specific wording when other countries do not, and I hope he could report the answer to committee,

An important part of the legislation deals with protecting our sources and informants abroad. At committee we would want to have more specific information on that aspect and know how it would be accomplished. I look forward to the government providing that information to the committee.

I will move on to the last point that I would like to make. I said first of all that I would deal with tools, resources, and oversight. One of the major shortcomings of this bill is the fact that the government did not bring accompanying legislation to provide proper parliamentary oversight to all of our national security agencies in Canada, as is done by all of our Five Eyes counterparts.

My colleague, the member for Vancouver Quadra, has a private member's bill, Bill C-622, as one option that the government could consider. I have a private member's bill, Bill C-551, which could be considered.

To find the balance between national security, civil liberties, and individual rights and freedoms in Canada, the government should be bringing in accompanying legislation that provides that parliamentary oversight. On the one hand, it would ensure that the agencies are doing their jobs, and on the other, it would ensure they are not going too far and violating the civil liberties of Canadians.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

moved that Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to begin debate at second reading on Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act. I hope that our government can count on the opposition parties' support to get this bill to committee.

I would like to start by thanking my colleagues from all parties who went to the National War Memorial this morning, especially my colleague here, the member for Vaughan and Minister of Veterans Affairs, to lay wreaths in tribute to the two soldiers who lost their lives in recent weeks.

All of my colleagues remember what happened. On October 22, we all witnessed events that shocked us in some way. I would like to join my voice to those of my colleagues from all parties who went to the National War Memorial this morning and extend our thoughts and our prayers to the families of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo.

On Saturday, I had the privilege of being in Longueuil to attend the funeral for Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. His twin sister gave us a message of hope and peace, but she also asked us to ensure that her brother's death would not be in vain. Today, as parliamentarians, we have the opportunity to begin a debate on a bill that will ensure better protection for our country.

Before I begin the substance of my discussion today on this important legislation, I would like to address the horrific terrorist attack that happened just steps from where we stand today and make sure that we are all starting from the same point when we talk about what happened. It is important that we agree, for the sake of clarity, on what took place recently. That is why I would like to refer members to the Criminal Code, which defines terrorism as a violent and intentional act that aims to intimidate the public for political or religious reasons.

The Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause with the intention of intimidating the public.

The two acts that were committed here—the attack on Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the attack on Corporal Nathan Cirillo—fit within the definition of terrorism.

That is why President François Hollande said yesterday that these acts were terrorist-inspired. That is why the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, said that when someone attacks an unarmed soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then storms Parliament with a loaded weapon, that is also an act of terrorism. That is also how it is defined in the Criminal Code.

I hope all parties will recognize that these acts were terrorist acts. We should call a spade a spade. Then we will be able to come up with solutions together to deal with the challenges we face.

Clearly, the terrorist acts committed here also have international repercussions. The Islamic State poses a threat not only to Canadians, but to populations in other countries that are being brutally suppressed and whose fundamental human rights are being violated.

That is why we are part of the coalition that is currently conducting air strikes against that terrorist group and why we are supporting the security forces in Iraq in their fight against this terrorist scourge.

However, we also need to take action within our borders, in Canada, to protect Canadians from anyone who might try to attack us, our values or innocent victims.

That is also why we are so determined to strengthen the tools available to police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service when it comes to surveillance, detention and arrest. Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act, which we are starting to debate today, is a first step in that direction.

We took action a long time ago. We are moving forward strongly, because we are facing a serious terrorist threat, one that we must address with strong measures.

As a government, we have already taken strong action to protect Canadians from the threat caused by terrorists.

Our government's response is based on Canada's counterterrorism strategy, which is a four-pillar approach. The first pillar, which is very important, is prevention. It is important that we promote and share our Canadian values with everyone, with every Canadian. That is why we are investing in numerous prevention measures involving police services, community groups and the government itself. My predecessors and I have engaged with ethnic and cultural communities, including at the cross-cultural roundtable. That is the first pillar. Then, we need to prevent, deny and detect individuals who may pose a threat, prevent them from taking action and, finally, respond to the threat if necessary.

Now we are dealing with another phenomenon: extremists who travel abroad and those who come back to Canada. That is a source of concern for us, which is why we intend to propose other measures in addition to the bill being introduced today.

Whether it is through legislation, policy, or investment, our government has taken strong action to give law enforcement and national security agencies the tools they need to keep us safe.

We have given law enforcement new tools by making it a crime to go overseas to engage in terrorist activities. We have given authorities tools to strip Canadian citizenship from those engaged in terrorist activities.

We have increased funding for our national security agencies, such as the RCMP and CSIS, each by a third.

We brought in the Combating Terrorism Act. We are prepared to revoke the citizenship of individuals who have dual citizenship and are convicted of acts of terrorism. We are also prepared to revoke the passports of individuals who want to incite violence outside our borders. Since 2006, we have increased the budgets of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by more than one-third.

In practical terms, that means an additional $191 million for CSIS over the level that existed under the previous Liberal government.

Canada's counterterrorism legislation has been tried, tested and embraced by the highest courts.

Not only is law enforcement responding to the law we have put in force but the tribunal is as well by giving harsh sentences to those who are convicted of terrorist activities.

For example, Canada successfully prosecuted terrorism-related offences in the cases of Mohammad Momin Khawaja, alias Namouh, and 11 members of the so-called Toronto 18.

In July, Mohamed Hersi became the first Canadian convicted of attempting to travel abroad to join a terrorist group.

We tabled and implemented the Combating Terrorism Act. This act brought in important new criminal offences, including making it illegal to leave or attempt to leave Canada in order to commit certain terrorism offences outside Canada. This past July, the RCMP laid its first charges under the new act against an individual for leaving Canada to take part in terrorist activities. The bill is working. We need to take action to keep Canadians safe from terrorists.

Shockingly and unfortunately, we did not get support from the official opposition at that time for that common sense legislation. Hopefully this time we can count on their support and we can move the bill forward.

The government's terrorist listing also plays a key role in combatting terrorist financing, and under the Criminal Code, being listed has serious consequences, allowing for the seizure, restraint or forfeiture of a listed entity's property.

Again yesterday, we saw that another group was declared a terrorist entity. In other words, it is absolutely illegal in Canada, under the Criminal Code, to support or want to finance or associate with this entity. All the activities of this entity are prohibited in our country.

In April, we added IRFAN-Canada to the list of terrorist entities. IRFAN-Canada is a not-for-profit organization that transferred roughly $14.6 million in resources to Hamas, a terrorist entity that is on the Canadian list.

These measures help interrupt the flow of resources such as funds, weapons and new recruits to these entities. We also employ various mechanisms in order to deprive terrorists of the means and opportunities to carry out their activities. These mechanisms include the High Risk Travel Case Management Group, led by the RCMP, which is especially busy these days, and the revocation and suspension of passports of travellers who want to engage in terrorist activities abroad.

The prevention of violent extremism is a key element of our approach. I would like to share with you the important work accomplished in that regard. Preventing violent extremism is a key component of our strategy. At this time, I would like to commend the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has identified radicalism and radicalization as an area of concern, and which plans to examine this issue at its upcoming meetings and next year.

Our approach, “Responding to Violent Extremism”, is outlined in a document entitled 2014 Public Report On The Terrorist Threat To Canada. It is based on three interrelated strategies: building community capacity, which equates to prevention; building law enforcement capacity, which this bill will do by clarifying the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; and developing programs to stop radicalization resulting in violence through proactive early intervention. We must remember that preventing terrorism is our national security priority.

The counter terrorism information officer initiative, which is an RCMP responsibility, provides frontline police officers and other first responders with essential terrorism awareness training. Therefore, there are already resources, budgets and measures in place to deal with this threat of terrorism, but we have to adapt to this evolving threat.

Here we come back to the legislation at hand. The protection of Canada from terrorists act contains distinct elements that work toward a common goal, which is to protect the safety and security of Canadians. The bill also has some provisions regarding the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which received royal assent in June.

There is really nothing new in this part, but let me just say the act made important changes at that time to the Citizenship Act, enabling the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who are convicted of terrorism, treason or spying offences. Such individuals would be permanently barred from acquiring citizenship again. While that act has already received royal assent, as members know, provisions in new legislation can come into force at different times.

Recent events around the world have brought to the forefront the need to address the threats of terrorism now. We are, therefore, proposing amendments to the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act that would allow provisions related to the revocation of Canadian citizenship to come into force earlier than anticipated. It is nothing new but it would ensure that those provisions could be used by law enforcement more rapidly.

The provisions that would come into force include new expanded grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship and the establishment of a streamlined decision-making process. We are clear that Canadian citizenship is sacred. Our Canadian passport, wherever we go around the world, is of high value. It has to mean something. We do not want to share our Canadian passport with anyone who wants to cut off our heads because we disagree.

The Canadian passport is respected around the world. As parliamentarians, we will not accept that individuals with criminal intentions use Canadian passports to commit acts of terrorism.

Let us now examine the main part of the bill, which will make the necessary amendments to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.

Ever since the CSIS Act was introduced more than 30 years ago, threats to Canada's security have become increasingly complex, as evidenced by the global nature of terrorism and the mobility of terrorist travellers.

We are aware of Canadians who have joined terrorist groups abroad. CSIS director Michel Coulombe has stated that more than 140 individuals with Canadian connections are suspected of engaging in terrorism-related activities abroad. It is more critical than ever that CSIS has the proper tools to investigate threats to the security of Canada and that its role and function is clear in terms of our Canadian laws. The bill before us proposes several targeted amendments to support CSIS in its mandate to investigate threats to the security of Canada.

First, the bill would confirm, clarify and strengthen the power of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to conduct investigations abroad, by confirming that CSIS has clear, legislated authority to conduct investigations abroad related to Canada's security and security assessments.

Second, the bill will give the Federal Court the power to consider only the relevant Canadian law when issuing a warrant to authorize CSIS to investigate threats to the security of Canada.

Essentially, this bill clarifies the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and protects witnesses, because information can only be exchanged if there is trust between the human source and the information service.

It is important to protect these sources and provide criteria for this legal protection, in order to make it possible to increase protection in certain situations.

I am pleased to introduce this important bill in Parliament. I look forward to following the debate, because this is an important and balanced bill.

I hope that we will be able to move forward and send this bill to committee, and that we develop a law that will protect Canadian citizens against the threat of terrorism. This threat is evolving and is unfortunately a reality.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you.

Canada faces serious and significant threats associated with violent extremism.

In recent months, the situation in Iraq has continued to deteriorate. The militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—which I will be referring to as the Islamic State this afternoon—have been carrying out acts of indescribable violence throughout the country.

The world is horrified by the brutality of this group of terrorists and its followers. Conflicts such as those raging in Syria and Iraq are extremely troubling, not just because of their violence, but also because of the instability they create in the region.

That is why we are taking action. Yesterday, on a confidence vote, our Parliament decided to approve humanitarian aid and a six-month combat mission, and to join 60 countries in the fight against terrorism.

We have spent a significant amount of time thinking about the barbaric atrocities committed by ISIL abroad. Today, I want and would like to focus on the threat they pose to Canadians in our streets and communities here in Canada.

Canada, like other countries, including some of our closest allies, has seen a small but notable number of its citizens travel abroad in order to take part in terrorist activities. The conflict in Syria in particular is attracting an increasing number of people. Some are joining terrorist groups, including the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, a group with ties to al Qaeda.

The Government of Canada is aware of at least 130 individuals with ties to Canada who are suspected of participating in terrorist activities such as training and fundraising for terrorist purposes, and also planning and carrying out terrorist operations.

Some have died. Some remain abroad. We know of about 80 who have returned to Canada.

Let me be clear that these individuals posing a threat to our security at home have violated Canadian law, as passed by this Parliament in the Combating Terrorism Act. These dangerous individuals, some skilled and desiring to commit terrorist activity, pose a serious threat to law-abiding Canadians. I can confirm for Canadians that, as we speak, the RCMP is investigating these individuals and will seek to put them behind bars where they belong.

We are taking concrete action to protect the safety and security of Canadians.

Canada's counterterrorism strategy continues to be the basis for a safer and more resilient Canada. The strategy has four key elements—prevent, detect, deny and respond—and guides our response to extremism.

Canadian security agencies are successful at uncovering and disrupting terrorist plots that would have had devastating consequences had they succeeded. Just last year, our national security agencies dealt with a plot to attack a passenger train en route from New York to Toronto and a plot to detonate a series of improvised explosive devices at the B.C. legislature during Canada Day celebrations.

I would like to state that, in this case, one of the suspects was studying engineering at Laval University, in Quebec City. He is now facing criminal charges.

The gravity of the loss of life that would have occurred had these hateful plans come to fruition should give us all pause as legislators and is a dire call for an appropriate response to the threat. That is why our government passed critical new tools for our security agencies to deal with those who hate our freedom and seek to cause us harm.

Under the Combating Terrorism Act, which went into effect in May 2013, leaving or attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activities is now a criminal offence.

It gives our national security agencies new powers to investigate and prosecute terrorist travel-planning and to stop potential extremist travellers before they leave the country. We passed the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act to ensure that those who take up arms against the Canadian Armed Forces or those who are convicted of engaging in terrorist activities can no longer remain Canadian citizens.

The RCMP is heading an extremist travellers tactical group, which includes a number of departments and key national security organizations. The group will examine cases of extremist travellers and intervene in the most serious and urgent cases.

I would like to congratulate the RCMP for having recently charged Hasibullah Yusufzai, a British Columbia resident, with joining a terrorist organization. That is the first time charges have been laid under the Combatting Terrorism Act. Those charges were laid in July of this year.

We recently have listed Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist entity, which means that it is a criminal offence to provide any sort of assistance or support to the group, either at home or abroad. Recently, our Conservative government announced the listing of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant—we call them the Islamic State—as a terrorist organization, in all its forms and identities, making it clear that joining or attempting to join this despicable group is a terrorist offence. Those who associate with this barbaric group should face the full extent of Canadian law.

As the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons this past Friday, in the coming weeks, we will bring forward additional measures to strengthen the ability of our security services, law enforcement, and national security organizations to monitor terrorists and those Canadians who have literally been brainwashed to take part in this evil cause.

Be assured, Mr. Chair, that they will face the full force of the law.

Of course, we continue to work with the United States and other countries in order to protect our border.

Some of the other methods we are using to counter terrorist threats include the Passenger Protect Program, which identifies individuals who may pose a threat to aviation security. Under the program, an individual may be prevented from boarding an aircraft. We can even revoke passports on national security grounds.

Mr. Chair, protecting Canadians from violent, barbaric terrorists who seek to harm us and our way of life is the first duty of any government. It is a responsibility that I know you take very seriously. It is a responsibility that I take very, very seriously.

We must take a strong stand, in no uncertain terms.

Barbarity is not a Canadian value and will never ever be one.

The Islamic State is a barbaric group of terrorists who despise us and our way of life. We will take any action necessary to keep Canadians safe from this evil entity.

That said, our action extends beyond enforcement. The first pillar of our counterterrorism strategy is prevention. Preventing violent extremism is an essential element of our response, and that is why some of the important work is being done in this regard as we speak. These events have helped us establish relationships and allow us to assure cultural communities that we are working with them to ensure that our youth do not become radicalized and that those seeking to radicalize them are stopped.

That's what the Kanishka project is all about. We are funding research that is studying the participation of western extremist travellers in the conflict in Syria: how they communicate and how they travel. This research will give us the building blocks that we can use to develop better strategies to stop radicalization before it ever manifests itself.

The most effective response to criminal activity of any kind, including violent extremism, is found in the partnerships that police officers build with the communities they serve.

These partnerships require police officers who are well informed, aware of the problems and who have a deep understanding of the dynamics on the ground, which allows them to recognize the warning signs and intervene before a crime takes place.

The RCMP counterterrorism information officer initiative provides front-line police officers and other first responders with essential terrorism awareness training. These counterterrorism officers are equipped both to inform and to educate others within their agencies so they can identify national security threats and violent extremist behaviour at the earliest possible stage.

More than 1,700 candidates have participated in the program since its establishment five years ago. In the last year alone, more than 325 people have been trained by the counterterrorism team.

How do we stop people who are radicalized but have not yet engaged in terrorist activity? Early intervention is key to a preventive approach to counter violent extremism. RCMP members are working with local agencies and community resources to develop intervention programming on violent extremists that is aimed primarily at young people at the periphery of violent extremist activity.

To conclude, Mr. Chair, I would like to reiterate how important it is that we continue to detect, prevent and thwart plots in our country as well as dissuade anyone who might be tempted to take such action or engage in terrorism or extremism.

Despite the successes, despite the unwavering vigilance of our intelligence and enforcement agencies, and despite the tremendous support that we receive from our communities, we remain acutely aware of this ongoing threat. We can never take the safety and security of our citizens for granted.

Addressing terrorism, addressing the related problems of radicalization to violence and extremist travel, requires the concerted effort of many partners. Together we must remain vigilant in this global fight and adapt to the changing nature of its threat. To this end, our government will not hesitate to continue to provide law enforcement with the tools they need to prevent further radicalization in this country and to arrest those who would seek to do us harm, as we already have.

As members of this very important committee, I count on your support to pass swiftly those important measures when tabled. I encourage members of all parties to put past stances behind them and to support our government's efforts to keep Canadians safe from barbaric organizations like the Islamic State and other terrorist entities here in Canada.

Thank you.

Time Allocation Motion

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on this question of privilege about closure.

I am rising at my first opportunity on this question of privilege, given that between the Speech from the Throne in October and when we adjourned June 20, there had been 21 occasions on which closure of debate occurred, and I maintain that the exercise of my rights and the rights of my colleagues in this place have been obstructed, undermined and impeded by the unprecedented use of time allocations in the second session of the 41st Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, in presenting this fairly legal argument to you, I propose to leave out page numbers and citations because I have prepared a written version of this for your office and I hope that will be acceptable to you, that I skip page numbers in this presentation. Hansard may not have the numbers of the debates, but I hope there is enough context so people can find them.

I belive this excessive use of what is often called “guillotine measures” is a violation of the rights of all members of Parliament, but I would like to stress that there is a disproportionate impact on members such as me who are within either smaller parties, that is less than 12 members, or who sit actually as independents, because in the roster of recognizing people in their speaker slot, quite often those of us in the smaller parties or independents simply never get to speak to the bills at all.

My question, Mr. Speaker, bears directly on what your predecessor said in this place on April 27, 2010. He said, “...the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and in fact an obligation”.

In the autumn of 2011, in a ruling concerning the member for Mount Royal, Mr. Speaker, you yourself said that to constitute a prima facie case in regard to matters of obstruction, interference, molestation or intimidation, you need to “...assess whether or not the member's ability to fulfill his parliamentary [activities] has been undermined”. At that moment in the same Debates, you had the occasion to reflect on “...the Chair's primordial concern for the preservation of the privileges of all members,...” and you added, “As your Speaker, one of my principal responsibilities is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded, and this is a responsibility I take very seriously”.

I now have occasion to turn to other words that will guide us in this matter. From the Supreme Court of Canada in the Vaid decision, in the words of Mr. Justice Binnie, speaking for the court, he outlined the scope of parliamentary responsibility and parliamentary privilege for the management of employees and said, “Parliamentary privilege is defined by the degree of autonomy necessary to perform Parliament’s constitutional function”. He went on to say at paragraph 41 of that Supreme Court of Canada judgment:

Similarly, Maingot defines privilege in part as “the necessary immunity that the law provides for Members of Parliament, and for Members of the legislatures of each of the ten provinces and two territories, in order for these legislators to do their legislative work”.

I would repeat and emphasize that, because although the Vaid decision was on a different fact set, Mr. Justice Binnie spoke to our core responsibility as parliamentarians when he said that we must be able, as legislators, to do our legislative work.

Mr. Justice Binnie continued in the Vaid decision to say:

To the question “necessary in relation to what?”, therefore, the answer is necessary to protect legislators in the discharge of their legislative and deliberative functions, and the legislative assembly’s work in holding the government to account for the conduct of the country’s business. To the same effect, see R. Marleau and C. Montpetit...where privilege is defined as “the rights and immunities that are deemed necessary for the House of Commons, as an institution, and its Members, as representatives of the electorate, to fulfill their functions”.

Mr. Justice Binnie went on to find further references in support of these principles from Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada.

These are fundamental points. The purpose of us being here as parliamentarians is to hold the government to account. It is obvious that no legislative assembly would be able to discharge its duties with efficiency or to assure its independence and dignity unless it had adequate powers to protect itself, its members, and its officials in the exercise of these functions.

Finally, Mr. Justice Binnie—again, for the court—said at paragraph 62, on the subject of parliamentary functions in ruling that some employees would be covered by privilege, that coverage existed only if a connection were established between the category of employees and the exercise by the House of its functions as a legislative and deliberative body, including its role in holding the government to account.

As I said earlier, this approach was supported by your immediate predecessor. In a December 10, 2009 ruling, the Speaker of the House, the Hon. Peter Milliken, said that one of his principle duties was to safeguard the rights and privileges of members, and of the House, including the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions, which is an indisputable privilege, and in fact an obligation.

It is therefore a fundamental principle of Westminster parliamentary democracy that the most important role of members of Parliament, and in fact a constitutional right and responsibility for us as members, is to hold the government to account.

The events in this House that we witnessed before we adjourned on June 20, 2014, clearly demonstrate that the House and its members have been deprived of fulfilling constitutional rights, our privilege, and our obligation to hold the government to account, because of the imposition of intemperate and unrestrained guillotine measures in reference to a number of bills. Over 21 times, closure has been used.

It is only in the interest of time that I am going to read out the numbers of the bills and not their full description. Bill C-2, Bill C-4, Bill C-6, Bill C-7, Bill C-13, Bill C-18, Bill C-20, Bill C-22, Bill C-23, Bill C-24, Bill C-25, Bill C-27, Bill C-31, Bill C-32, Bill C-33, and Bill C-36 were all instances where closure of debate was used.

In many of the instances I just read out, and in the written argument I have presented, closure of debate occurred at second reading, again at report stage, and again at third reading. The limitation of debate was extreme.

A close examination of the guillotine measures imposed by the government demonstrate that the citizens of Canada have been unable to have their elected representatives adequately debate the various and complex issues central to these bills in order to hold the government to account. Members of Parliament have been deprived and prevented from adequately debating these measures, through 21 separate motions for time allocation in this session alone. It undermines our ability to perform our parliamentary duties.

In particular, I want to again highlight the effect that the guillotine motions have on my ability as a representative of a smaller party, the Green Party. We do not have 12 seats in the House as yet, and as a result we are in the last roster to be recognized once all other parties have spoken numerous times. Quite often, there is not an opportunity for members in my position, nor for independent members of Parliament, to be able to properly represent our constituents.

Again, I should not have to repeat this. Certainly you, Mr. Speaker, are aware that in protecting our rights, as you must as Speaker, that in this place we are all equals, regardless of how large our parties are. As voters in Canada are all equal, so too do I, as a member of Parliament, have an equal right and responsibility to represent the concerns of my constituents in this place, which are equal to any other member in this place.

As speaking time that is allotted to members of small parties and independents is placed late in the debates, we quite often are not able to address these measures in the House. This would be fair if we always reached the point in the debate where independents were recognized, but that does not happen with closure of debates. My constituents are deprived of their right to have their concerns adequately voiced in the House.

Political parties are not even referenced in our constitution, and I regard the excessive power of political parties over processes in this place, in general, to deprive constituents of equal representation in the House of Commons. However, under the circumstances, the additional closure on debate particularly disadvantages those constituents whose members of Parliament are not with one of the larger parties.

Mr. Speaker, in the autumn of 2011, in your ruling considering the member for Mount Royal and his question of privilege, you said that one of your responsibilities that you take very seriously is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded. The principal right of the House and its members, and their privilege, is to hold the government to account. In fact, it is an obligation, according to your immediate predecessor.

In order to hold the government to account, we require the ability and the freedom to speak in the House without being trammelled and without measures that undermine the member's ability to fulfill his or her parliamentary function. As a British joint committee report pointed out, without this protection, members would be handicapped in performing their parliamentary duty, and the authority of Parliament itself in confronting the executive and as a forum for expressing the anxieties of citizens would be correspondingly diminished.

To hold the government to account is the raison d'être of Parliament. It is not only a right and privilege of members and of this House, but a duty of Parliament and its members to hold the government to account for the conduct of the nation's business. Holding the government to account is the essence of why we are here. It is a constitutional function. In the words of the marketers, it is “job one”.

Our constitutional duty requires us to exercise our right and privilege, to study legislation, and to hold the government to account by means of raising a question of privilege. This privilege has been denied to us because of the consistent and immoderate use of the guillotine in regard to 21 instances of time allocation, in this session alone.

This use of time allocation, as you know, Mr. Speaker, is unprecedented in the history of Canada, and infringes on your duty as Speaker to protect our rights and privileges as members. As you have said many times, that is your responsibility and you take it very seriously. However, these closure motions undermine your role and your duty to protect us. Therefore, it diminishes the role of Speaker, as honoured from time immemorial.

In fact, you expressed it, Mr. Speaker, in debates in the autumn of 2011, at page 4396, when you had occasion to reflect on “the Chair's primordial concern for the preservation of the privileges of all members..”, and when you added, “As your Speaker, one of my principal responsibilities is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded, and this is a responsibility I take very seriously”.

Denying the members' rights and privileges to hold the government to account is an unacceptable and unparliamentary diminishment of both the raison d'être of Parliament and of the Speaker's function and role in protecting the privileges of all members of this House.

In conclusion, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the intemperate and unrestrained use of time allocation by this government constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege of all members of this House, especially those who are independents or, such as myself, representatives of one of the parties with fewer than 12 members.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your consideration in this matter. I hope you will find in favour of this question of privilege, that this is a prima facie breach of the privileges and rights of all members.

Public Safety

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government is a proud partner in the global fight against terrorism. That is why we have given security agencies a number of tools to combat terrorism and continue to protect law-abiding Canadian families from those who would seek to do them harm.

I would like to also remind the House that it was this government, the Conservative government, that introduced the first counter-terrorism strategy, passed the Combating Terrorism Act, and most recently, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which actually revokes citizenship from those who commit terrorism in Canada against our allies. I would also like to remind the House that we were the only party who voted in favour of that legislation.

Combating Counterfeit Products Act

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that each time the Conservatives give more power to a minister, they should have to prove that the legal process, for example, is ineffective or inefficient.

Bill C-24, on immigration, is often cited as an example where a minister is being granted more power. The government has not proven that the courts were overrun with terrorism or high treason cases. With respect to Bill C-24, I did not hear that the courts were being flooded with high treason cases because Canadian officers were committing high treason and giving information to foreign powers every five minutes.

They did not prove that the legal system was overrun with cases and that the minister needed to be granted more powers. This is no different. They have not proven that the minister needs this additional power because the courts would be overwhelmed with cases that would not be heard in time.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we proceed with questions and comments, I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

The Secretary to the Governor General and Herald Chancellor

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

June 19, 2014

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 19th day of June, 2014, at 6:07 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Wallace

The schedule indicates the bill assented to on June 19, 2014, was Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, royal assent to the following bills:

C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

C-489, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (restrictions on offenders).

S-218, An Act respecting National Fiddling Day.

Message from the Senate

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that messages have been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bills: Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts; Bill C-489, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (restrictions on offenders).

I also have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-218, An Act respecting National Fiddling Day.

Respect for Communities Act

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and speak to Bill C-2. It is an example of a trend in the government. I will explain myself throughout my speech.

I am concerned about the way in which we go about making laws in this country. This legislation is an example of the Conservative government's leadership when it comes to drafting legislation and bringing it to the House. How the government acts in public really flies in the face of the Canada that I grew up in and the Canada I am proud to be a part of. Now when I stand in the House I feel very sad for our legislative process.

To begin, I want to talk a bit about what the bill is really about. It is not really about respecting communities, again a trend in some of the bills that we see, for example, safe communities and so on. This legislation is not at all about communities. It is about marginalizing those who are already marginalized. It is about putting further violence in the lives of those who already live with so much violence. It is about putting in danger those who are already in danger.

Essentially, this entire legislation is about InSite. For those who may not be familiar with InSite, it is a place in the Vancouver area where those who are addicted to drugs can go for safe injection. We all understand what addiction is, at least those of us on this side of the House, and that there are ways to make it safer for individuals to break a habit so they can escape the cycle of drug abuse. If they cannot break the cycle, and that can be the case for some, at least they would not be put in a more vulnerable position.

Following an increase in the number of overdose deaths in Vancouver between 1987 and 1993, Vancouver Coastal Health and community partners set up InSite. Since then there has been a huge decrease in diseases such as Hep A, B, C, and HIV/AIDS.

InSite was originally exempt under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. In 2008, the exemption under Section 56 in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act expired. That has caused us to be in the situation we are in now. The minister of health at that time denied its renewal and that resulted in subsequent court cases. It was brought up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the minister's decision to close InSite, to not renew the exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, was a violation of the charter rights of those who were part of the program. The minister's decision was “...arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which include public health and safety”.

That is an overview of why we are here. We are here now because the Conservatives are not in agreement ideologically with the Supreme Court's ruling. This legislation would impose extremely stringent conditions on places like InSite and would really dissuade any other communities that have the need for such programs from participating in them.

In a sense this legislation is only about InSite. In a sense the bill exemplifies a trend in the Conservative government.

The Conservatives have such profound disrespect for any Supreme Court ruling that comes forward and that goes against their ideology. They have a complete disrespect for the judicial branch in this country and the fact that when a decision is made by the Supreme Court, if they do not like it, then too bad. They are not the defenders of rights and freedoms in this country, the courts are. That is why we have a separate judicial process. Unfortunately, the Conservatives keep finding ways of going around any of those decisions that are made by bringing forward legislation that flies in the face of it, sort of goes around it so that it fits their ideology.

For instance, the court in this case based its decision on section 7 of the charter, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of a person and the right not be deprived thereof, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”.

This is extremely common. We are seeing the Conservatives disagree with fundamentally, ideologically, in Supreme Court rulings things that have to do with people's security, people's health, people's right to life. That is what is so scary about this trend. The Supreme Court did rule that InSite and other supervised injection sites must be granted a section 56 exemption when they decrease the risk of death and disease and there is little or no evidence that they have a negative impact on the community. InSite does not have a negative impact on the community, quite the opposite, it has a very positive impact on the community. The Conservatives now have to go through this bill to try to create stringent conditions for InSite.

This is blatant disrespect and disregard for the InSite ruling. it completely flies in the face of it. This is in the context of a government that has challenged the Supreme Court over and over again through these backward ways of bringing in legislation to the House that flies in the face of a ruling.

For instance, we are thinking of a very close case in my opinion, the same type of situation. Bill C-36 was recently put down. It really flies in the face of the Bedford decision, which was very clear that given the dangerous conditions of sex work, those who are engaged in it need to be able to take the steps to protect themselves. Now we have a bill that is so disempowering. It is not an exaggeration to say that lives would be put at risk due to this legislation.

We also have Bill C-24, which is the immigration bill that creates dual citizenship. Dual citizens are treated as second-class citizens who potentially would be deported and put in danger in countries they may never have even known.

This is also in the context of several crime bills that have been returned due to their unconstitutionality. We see over and over that the Conservatives are marginalizing at-risk Canadians and further marginalizing already marginalized groups.

The many justice bills of the Conservatives, as I mentioned, follow the same model. They ostracize, isolate, and divide people. Instead of trying to address the root issue, the Conservatives tackle symptoms without even looking for the source of the problem. They throw people in jail without helping them reintegrate into society, and that does not solve the problem.

Let us not forget the unelected and unaccountable Senate blocking my colleague's bill on gender identity, creating rights for trans Canadians who are so marginalized and are put in situations of violence. I do not think I have time to get into the difference between an unelected, unaccountable Senate going against the elected thoughts of the House, and the judicial process, which is to protect the rights of Canadians despite the democratic processes that happen in this House.

The Senate works against that process, but over and over, the government is choosing ideology over facts. In these cases, every time the government is going to outrageous lengths, really, to subvert the courts, and these bills. I am not exaggerating, I know am out of time but I really want to get this out. These bills are putting people in danger--

Calgary International Airport

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Calgary International Airport, located in my riding, is the third busiest airport in Canada, contributing $6 billion to the economy.

Last weekend, I joined 12,000 Calgarians to celebrate the opening of the longest commercial runway in Canada. This is the only runway in Canada that has a 100% eco-friendly LED lighting system. It will save 60,000 kilowatt hours per year, which is the equivalent to a saving of 41.3 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Calgary airport is an economic driver for western Canada, and I congratulate the Calgary Airport Authority on this historic milestone.

Before my time is up, I would like to thank all of my colleagues who supported the passage of Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, yesterday, especially our hard-working Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for including provisions from my private member's bill, Bill C-425.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-24.

The House resumed from June 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition from residents of Edmonton, who are concerned that Bill C-24 unfairly treats current Canadian permanent residents. I have met with a number of these signators, who are expressing concern with the longer wait times. They have diligently learned to speak English well, in some cases French, have even played hockey, and they think that this bill would treat them unfairly. They would like to have their time served as permanent residents and students put toward becoming citizens.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been listening to the honourable member for a few minutes, and his remarks are not relevant to bill C-24, which is about reforming the Citizenship Act. It has nothing to do with the subject of his speech, the asylum system.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are going to take advantage of this opportunity, because the holidays are coming.

I would like to begin by thanking my colleagues for their excellent speeches. The end of the session is fast approaching, and I would like to take a moment to recognize all of the work my colleagues have accomplished over the year.

I would also like to share my thoughts on the bill before us this evening, namely Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. When the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration introduced the bill last winter, he said he wanted to protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have citizenship and create a faster, more efficient process for those who are applying for it. I think that everyone here agrees with that basic principle. As legislators, we have a duty to protect the value of our citizenship, and we all recognize that there are measures that must be taken to make the citizenship process faster and more efficient.

While we agree with the objective, I must point out that we have different opinions as to how to reach that objective. I will begin by focusing on the aspects of the bill that must be implemented in order to strengthen the value of our citizenship, while also protecting Canadian citizens.

First, there must be stricter rules for fraudulent immigration consultants. Bill C-24 would give the government the authority to designate a regulatory body whose members would be authorized to act as consultants.

The bill also recognizes that people who sell immigration consultant services are capable of committing an offence. The goal here is to punish fraudsters, not law-abiding immigrants. That is why we are pushing the government to create strict laws to crack down on fraudulent immigration consultants. I also feel that access to citizenship could be expedited for those who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, since they make a commitment to represent our country and defend our values.

Another positive aspect of this bill relates to conferring citizenship on more lost Canadians. The NDP has taken an interest in this issue since at least 2007. In response to pressure from our party at the time, the government instituted measures in 2009 to confer citizenship on most lost Canadians. However, the changes did not apply to people born before 1947. Bill C-24 closes the loop.

I would also like to express my approval of the harsh penalty for fraud. Bill C-24 significantly increases the fines for fraud from $1,000 to $100,000, as well as the maximum prison terms, which will now be from 5 to 14 years depending on the circumstances. This measure will give those contemplating fraud reason to stop and think before committing a crime.

I also support the proposal to institute stricter residency requirements for those seeking citizenship. This measure specifies the number of days during which a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship. This clarifies the process and, as immigration lawyer Richard Kurland pointed out, it will simplify things for permanent residents trying to plan their lives. Some parts of this bill will fix problems with the system.

However, other parts of Bill C-24 should be changed. There are many reasons for this. First is the fact that the bill hands too much power over to the minister, including the power to grant citizenship to or revoke it from dual nationals. This measure raises major legal concerns and makes new immigrants vulnerable to arbitrary, politically motivated decisions.

I want to make it clear that Canadian law already includes mechanisms to punish people who commit crimes. It should not be up to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and his department to make these decisions.

Another issue with the power to revoke citizenship for dual nationals is that it will result in two-tiered citizenship. Some Canadians could have their citizenship revoked, while others found guilty of the same offence would be punished under the Criminal Code. I believe that aspect of the bill could face a legal challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically under section 15.

Treating dual citizens differently and exposing them to potential loss of citizenship creates a double standard, which raises some serious constitutional questions. However, section 15 of the charter could not be more clear:

15. (1) Every individual...has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Is the government hoping to once again be scolded by the Supreme Court? How can it consider giving a single person that kind of authority without putting in place a system of checks and balances to avoid abuses? Moreover, why refuse to release the names of the people whose citizenship the minister has revoked or to whom he has secretly granted citizenship?

Until now, such cases were generally referred to the courts and cabinet. It should stay that way. Otherwise, the minister would have the power to revoke citizenship based on suspicion alone, without an independent court ruling on whether or not the accusations are true. On that point, why not follow the lead of the United States, where the government may file a civil suit to revoke an individual's naturalization if it was obtained illegally or if the individual concealed or falsified relevant facts in the naturalization application process? In that situation, the individual in question has the legal right to take the case to court. Every ruling can be appealed, and the individual is guaranteed due process.

That is what should happen in a democratic and egalitarian country like Canada. What is more, the minister can revoke the citizenship of someone who was convicted under section 47 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to imprisonment for life for treason, high treason or espionage or convicted of a terrorism offence as defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code—or an offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute a terrorism offence as defined in that section—and sentenced to at least five years of imprisonment.

At first glance, this measure may seem fair, but what will happen when the person is sentenced in a country with a judicial system that is corrupt or beholden to political interests? For example, Canada cannot, on the one hand, denounce the elections of a country that it considers to have absolutely no democratic system, but, on the other hand, accept the foundations of its rule of law in order to justify revoking someone's citizenship.

The last point I find troubling is related to what I believe to be the most serious problem with our immigration system: the delays and wait times for processing files, which is completely ridiculous. Despite more than 25 major changes that were made to the methods, rules, laws and regulations concerning immigration since 2008, the Canadian immigration system is still no more efficient than it was and the wait times are getting longer.

Under Conservative rule, there has been a moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents, a decline in family reunifications, punishment of vulnerable refugees and an increase in the number of temporary foreign workers to meet the needs of big business. There are currently more than 320,000 people still waiting for their application to be processed, and the usual time it takes is approximately 31 months, compared to 15 months in 2009.

Bill C-24 does not present any real solution to reduce these ever-increasing delays. The bill simply proposes that the processing be simplified by eliminating some intermediaries in the steps towards acquiring citizenship. However, nothing proves that these administrative changes will be sufficient to significantly reduce the wait times.

In light of the concerns I just mentioned, I am opposed to Bill C-24 in its present form. I urge my colleagues to work together to give Canadians and future Canadians what they deserve: a system in which citizenship and immigration are more balanced.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-24. Before I go on, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

As we know, this bill was studied in committee. Unfortunately, even though we proposed good amendments to address the major problems in the bill, the government decided to reject those amendments.

We are concerned about the constitutionality of this bill, and that is a big deal. Immigration is a significant part of our government system, and when the government brings in a bill, the least it can do is ensure that it is constitutional and will not be struck down. Nonetheless, there are some good measures in this bill and we encourage those. Unfortunately, there are also some very worrisome measures as well.

First, during the speech by my colleague from Winnipeg North, I talked about the fact that part of Bill C-425, a private member's bill, was added to this bill. The part that was added has to do with shortening the time requirement for becoming a Canadian citizen for members of the armed forces who are permanent residents.

That is a good measure and we support it. When someone provides a service to society, like a member of the Canadian Armed Forces does, then we can only encourage that. Unfortunately, this good measure probably applies to fewer than three people a year. To become a member of the Canadian Armed Forces you have to be a Canadian citizen unless you have permission from the Chief of the Defence Staff. That only happens when there is truly a shortage in a trade and someone has a specific skill. Then that person can be recruited. It happens very rarely.

When I was preparing my private member's bill, I was told it would affect only 5% of all volunteer firefighters, that that was not enough and that it did not apply to enough people. In this case, the government is bringing in a legislative measure that will apply to three people. I am glad that the government is supporting the Canadian Armed Forces, but it is still troubling to see that the government is implementing good measures that will apply to almost no one.

Now that I have talked about a good measure that applies to few people, I would like to talk about other specific aspects of the bill. What worries me the most is the possibility that the minister can revoke a person's Canadian citizenship in a rather arbitrary manner. There is no court or process, and he decides whether to revoke someone's citizenship. It could be someone who has dual citizenship, because of family ties, for example, and who has actually never set foot in the country where they hold the second citizenship.

It seems to me that this makes no sense and also does not comply with practices. When some other countries apply a similar measure, it is done in accordance with a very comprehensive process. That looks much more like a process where there are detailed explanations of the reasons why it can be done.

There is another measure that I find particularly troubling and that is the fact that people will now have to declare their intent to reside in Canada. If they make this declaration, they will obtain their citizenship, but it could be revoked.

Citizenship could be revoked if the person does not comply with the requirement of remaining in Canada. However, there are special cases. I was thinking of students, for example. Take a young person who obtains his citizenship and who intends to remain in Canada. Then, by a stroke of luck, he is accepted at Harvard or Oxford, which are renowned universities.

It would be very tempting for someone who has an opportunity to go to one of these universities, especially if they were offered a scholarship. His intent to reside is still valid, but he has an opportunity. His intention is not to leave Canada permanently; he simply wants to take advantage of the opportunity he is being given at a certain point in his life. This could give rise to a real sense of insecurity that is truly untenable for people who would have to decide between an extraordinary opportunity and perhaps losing their citizenship.

There is also the example of professional athletes, people who are here in Canada and have dual citizenship. They may have obtained their citizenship when they were young and then become high-performance athletes. If they go abroad to train and are successful at their sport, they could ultimately lose their citizenship because they did not comply with the requirement to reside in Canada, even though they said that they wanted to. In that case, they might be presented with an opportunity that they might not be able to take.

I am also very concerned about another aspect of this bill and that is the fact that it prohibits people who are convicted abroad for crimes punishable in Canada from acquiring citizenship.

We understand that a person who is accused of homosexuality in a foreign country, for example, would not be affected because that is not a crime in Canada. However, many countries have fairly corrupt justice systems. The actual guilt of a person who was accused in a foreign country may be in question. We have to be careful.

This bill does not take into account the fact that the justice systems of many countries are often lacking. The system of evidence is lacking. We may therefore be dealing with people who have been falsely accused or who may have been persecuted at some point. That is likely why they chose to leave the country that this government would be trying to send them back to.

There are some very worrisome measures in this bill. The government is talking about changing the age for language testing. The fact that the Conservatives are increasing the upper age limit to 64 is fairly reasonable, but the fact that they are lowering the age for children and adolescents is particularly worrisome.

Our immigration system currently has an unbelievable backlog. Some people wait months or even years. They come to see me in a complete panic. They say that nothing is happening with their file. They are wondering what is going on and they ask me to call to find out.

It is completely ridiculous how many people are waiting for their immigration file to be processed. The government's priority should be dealing with these excessive wait times, which make the immigration process more complex. I have seen some unbelievable cases.

The immigration file of one of my constituents was frozen because he did not have a criminal background check for his two-month-old baby.

I believe that there is cause for concern when the immigration system requires paperwork that does not make sense. The government should address many of these problems, decrease wait times and try not to make an already flawed system even more problematic.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary has told us tonight that we can trust that Bill C-24 is compliant with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because it would not be before the House if it had not gone through justice department lawyers, and the fact that it is before us means it is charter compliant.

Could he explain how so many bills passed in the last little while have gone before the courts and been struck down? Is it only a recent practice that the Conservatives are letting justice department lawyers look at the legislation? Will the government please table before us any justice department opinion that is prepared to disagree with a large number of lawyers who have looked at this bill, me included, and looked at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and are finding the bill, on its face, non-compliant?

The fact that it is before us and the tautology that because it came through the Department of Justice it must be okay is absolutely proven false by the fact that so many bills are being struck down, bills that were passed in this place in a hurry, like Bill C-24.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Could the parliamentary secretary tell me if Bill C-24 puts the best interests of children first? Has he personally reviewed the following articles of the convention, and does the bill meet the rights of the convention? They are article 1, definition of the child; article 3, best interests of the child; article 5, family integrity; article 6, survival and development; article 7, birth and registration; article 8, family relations; article 9, protection from arbitrary separation from parents; and article 10, family reunification.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am both pleased and proud to rise in the House tonight to once again speak in support of Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act.

The Citizenship Act in its current form has not been updated or reviewed since 1977. It is now almost a generation later, and while changes have been made to many other pieces of legislation, the Citizenship Act has yet to be addressed. We must ensure that it is relevant and will meet the needs and challenges our citizens and prospective citizens in today's Canada have.

One of the current requirements that I am sure all of us can agree should be enforced is that citizenship should promote attachment to Canada and Canadian values. It should also promote and mandate a responsibility to participate in the life of our communities and our institutions. However, under the current and outdated act, lengthy processing times mean qualified applicants are waiting too long for their citizenship, and the citizenship fees associated do not reflect the full costs.

As I have been saying since this legislation was introduced earlier this year, the measures in the bill represent the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation. They would ensure that the process reflects the great importance Canadians place on their citizenship, improve the efficiency of the process by which newcomers become Canadian citizens, and deter citizens of convenience.

If implemented, these measures would fulfill a commitment made by our government in the most recent Speech from the Throne and would protect and strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship in four specific ways: by improving processing efficiency in the citizenship program, by reinforcing the value of Canadian citizenship, by strengthening integrity and combatting fraud, and by protecting and promoting Canada's interests and values.

I would like to go into some specifics in each of these areas. As I do so, I will address and try to bring clarity to a number of misconceptions about the bill that have arisen since it was introduced in February.

The measures in Bill C-24 would improve the efficiency of the citizenship program and are the foundation of the initiative we have called the blueprint for citizenship improvements.

Before I go on, I want to quote one of the many witnesses we heard at the citizenship and immigration committee, Ms. Salma Siddiqui, from the Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslims. This is what Ms. Siddiqui said:

I have heard concerns that Bill C-24 represents a knee-jerk reaction or that it serves a—quote—political process. I disagree. Bill C-24 represents an assertion of the pride we hold in our values of an open, liberal democracy, where our freedoms are applied to all. Ladies and gentlemen, we must be reasonable.

She said this at the meeting on May 14 of this year.

Since 2006, Canada has welcomed an average of more than 250,000 newcomers a year, the highest sustained level of immigration in our country's history. As a result, the demand for citizenship has increased by more than 30%.

The measures in the blueprint for citizenship improvements in Bill C-24 include a streamlined decision-making model, an improved ability to determine what constitutes a complete application, and a strengthened authority to abandon applications where applicants would not take the steps requested to provide information or appear for a hearing. These measures would improve the process, support ongoing efforts to speed up citizenship processing, and ensure that resources are focused on processing qualified applicants.

In addressing backlogs, there are two quotations I would like to bring to the House's attention. Mr. Warren Creates is an immigration lawyer, and this is what he said:

There'll be a one-step process. It's going to take a year. This is what people want. They want clarity. They want certainty and they want efficiency, and the Canadian taxpayer wants that too.

This was said on Ottawa Morning on CBC Radio One on February 10.

Richard Kurland, who is a renowned immigration lawyer in our country, said on Global TV's Global National, on February 6, 2014:

The guesswork is taken out of this new system and your processing time will be, relatively speaking, lightning fast.

I urge the members opposite to support the passage of the bill so that it receives royal assent this summer. The passage of the strengthening Canadian citizenship act would significantly reduce the backlog and average processing time for citizenship applications. This is something the opposition has supported in the past, and the responsible thing would be to support it now.

The blueprint for citizenship improvements mandates a new single-step decision-making model, thus improving processing timelines.

However, a misconception has arisen about this efficiency measure. There is a worry that we are moving away from independent decision-makers. I want to reassure my hon. colleagues in this House that this is not the case. In fact, citizenship officers are unfettered, highly qualified decision-makers who are delegated to review and make approximately 100,000 case decisions a year on citizenship matters. Their decision to grant or deny citizenship would continue to be based on the criteria in the law, supported by objective evidence.

The second set of reforms in the strengthening Canadian citizenship act would strengthen the rules around access to Canadian citizenship, ensuring that those rules reflect the true value of Canadian citizenship and that new citizens are better prepared for full participation in Canadian life.

If implemented, Bill C-24 would lengthen the residency requirement from three years to four years in Canada to four of the previous six years before a person could apply for citizenship. It would clarify that residence means physical presence in Canada, which I think is a reasonable expectation Canadians have. It would require adult citizenship applicants to file income tax returns for four years out of the previous six, if required to do so under the Income Tax Act, to be eligible for citizenship, and it would also to require them to make an upfront commitment that they intend to reside in Canada.

Several people have commented on just those provisions, and I would like to point out some of them.

Toronto Sun columnist Simon Kent said, on February 6 in Straight Talk, that he thought a lot of people would say that it is a reasonable expectation if one wants to live in Canada. If people want to enjoy living in a free and prosperous country like Canada, they should spend time here and live here and contribute to society. He said that he knows it sounds like something out of politics 101, but that people living here, enjoying the fruits of their labour, paying their taxes, showing that they are committed, and having an extended period of permanent residency from three to four years, and maybe even five, before taking up citizenship is a fair and reasonable proposition.

Gillian Smith, executive director and chief executive officer of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, said:

Our organization works extensively with Canada's newest citizens who tell us that measures taken to foster their attachment and connection to Canada have a positive effect on their successful integration. New citizens' sense of belonging comes in large measure from experiencing Canada first-hand: its people, nature, culture and heritage.

Bal Gupta, a widower, from the Air-India 182 Victims Families Association, endured a tragic experience in his life.

He said:

Well, it's not anything new. When I came to Canada in 1968, at that time the requirement was five years, except that there was a loophole for Commonwealth citizens. For them it was three years. So it is not anything unusual. Also, many countries around the world have a five-year residency requirement, so it is not unusual to have a requirement of four years. I don't think it is something that's unreasonable.

Reis Pagtakhan, an immigration lawyer, said:

First, I would like to support the proposal to change the residency requirement for citizenship from three out of four to four out of six years. I believe that the longer an individual lives, works, or studies in Canada, the greater connection that person will have to our country.

James Bissett appeared before our committee as an individual. Here is what Mr. Bissett had to say:

I'm also pleased to see that we've extended the wait time by at least one year. I argued in 1977 that we shouldn't have abandoned the five-year wait. I think three years has been too short a period for people to know enough about Canada and our cultural systems to apply for citizenship. I approve of that change, even though it doesn't go quite as far as I might have wanted.

Mr. Bissett was the deputy minister in 1977.

I would like to address the ill-informed argument against some of these measures, which states that the intention to reside provision contravenes mobility rights guaranteed under the charter. In fact, the provision simply signals that citizenship is for those who intend to make Canada their home. Citizenship applicants would be asked as part of the application process whether they intend to reside in Canada. I do not think we would find a Canadian in the country who would say that people can have citizenship even if they do not intend to reside here.

If applicants indicate that they do not intend to reside in this country, they would not be granted citizenship, as Canadian citizenship means contributing to Canadian life. These requirements are not onerous, and they are in line with those of key partner nations, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Nothing about this provision would limit the mobility rights of new citizens. They would be able to leave and return to Canada like any other citizen. In fact, as my hon. colleagues are aware, every government bill presented in the House of Commons is to be examined by the Minister of Justice to ascertain if it is consistent with the purposes or provisions of the charter. Bill C-24, as my hon. colleagues should know, is no exception, and it would not be before the House today in its current form if any such inconsistencies had been found.

The third set of measures in Bill C-24 would help counter citizenship fraud and combat abuse of the citizenship process. Among other reforms, these measures would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the authority to develop regulations to designate a regulatory body whose members would be authorized to act as consultants in citizenship matters. The measures would also substantially increase the penalty for committing citizenship fraud, which has not been increased since 1977; streamline the revocation process; and bar people whose citizenship was revoked before they obtained it fraudulently from reapplying for citizenship for 10 years.

Finally, it would provide the authority to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who are members of an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict against our country, Canada, and to deny citizenship to permanent residents involved in the same actions. Dual citizens and permanent residents convicted of terrorism, treason, high treason, or spying offences would be similarly affected, depending on the sentence received in the courts.

These last measures, although they would likely only apply to a small number of individuals, would deliver a very strong and clear message that those who betray our country or take up arms against our armed forces have, in essence, forfeited their right to Canadian citizenship. The opposition parties have criticized our government for this provision. On this side of the House, we are sending a clear message to those who commit serious crimes such as terrorism. Canada's doors are closed and will remain closed to criminals who are undeserving of the rich opportunities that exist with Canadian citizenship.

Any government's priority is the safety and security of its people. The people are who we serve.

We are proud to say these measures are fully in line with our efforts in this regard. This is what Canadians expect and this is what they deserve.

Here is what Shimon Fogel, from the Centre of Israel and Jewish Affairs, had to say about that very issue:

—one of the things that has been percolating is the notion of not just the rights we enjoy but the responsibilities that attach to being a Canadian.

I don't look at this so much as an issue of punishing people by revoking their citizenship as a result of particular undertakings or acts they've committed, but rather that they are so fundamentally at odds with core Canadian values that there's no rationale or way to reconcile Canadian citizenship with that kind of activity.

Sheryl Saperia, from the Foundation of Defense of Democracy, said:

Bill C-24 suggests that Canadian citizenship, whether bestowed by birthright or naturalization, is predicated on a most basic commitment to the state: that citizens abstain from committing those offences considered most contrary to the national security interests of Canada.

Maureen Basnicki, from the Canadian Coalition Against Terror, Alliance of Canadian Terror Victims Foundation, said:

—yes, terrorism is a global situation. Even though Canada has been fortunate in not having large numbers of Canadians who have been killed by terrorists, we do have them, by the way, from 9/11 and from Air India and many other acts of terror. So we can't disregard that. We do have Canadians who choose to engage in terrorist activities. So if this bill or any such legislation could help deter and help Canada with its statement of intolerance for the most heinous crimes—not to create a hierarchy but it targets innocent civilians—if this can help then I think it's a good thing.

While the package of reforms before us today has been well received by Canadians as reasonable, even overdue, changes to Canada's citizenship laws, the most vocal opponents have been telling.

We have heard the manufactured umbrage of activist immigration lawyers who never miss an opportunity to criticize our government's citizenship and immigration reforms. Their feigned outrage is generally born out of pure self-interest in our opinion and that is the case in this instance.

These activist lawyers, some of them opposition partisans, oppose this change because they are attempting to drum up business by promoting the interests of convicted terrorists and serious criminals over the safety and security of Canadians.

I see the opposition House leader smiling over there. That is a fact, Mr. Speaker. There is nothing to smile about. You should be ashamed to make those kinds of comments—

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate all my NDP colleagues who have spoken to this bill. We are proving that the NDP is reasonable and carefully studies all the issues put before us in order to find ways to improve these bills. Some make their way to committee where, again, our NDP team proposes good amendments. Essentially, these amendments are based on expert opinion and cases that we come across.

A number of my colleagues live in regions with a large population of newcomers or people who are applying to live in Canada and become permanent residents and eventually Canadian citizens.

The teams at their offices deal with a lot of immigration cases. I live in the riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, which is in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. It is in northeastern Quebec, two hours from Quebec City. This region is considered remote. However, even in my beautiful region we are very open to others. This did not happen overnight. It took years, even decades to achieve this open-mindedness and it took some special people in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean to make that happen. I am really proud of my region today. This month, the first African grocery store opened in Saguenay. I think that is great. It shows an openness to the world. More and more people are even coming to Saguenay to start their new life. My riding assistants and I see all the administrative and bureaucratic problems that newcomers to Canada have to deal with. It saddens me a bit.

Nonetheless, I am proud to be able to speak to Bill C-24 today and share my view on all this, even though the 10 minutes I have been given will not be enough to cover everything.

Fundamentally, everyone recognizes that Canadian citizenship is of considerable value, but we do not want a politicized approach to this issue. This is unfortunately what the Conservatives are trying to do right now. As I mentioned, we have seen this kind of situation all too often since the Conservative government came to power.

Other parts of the bill also raise concerns. I will try to cover as many of them as I can. For instance, revoking citizenship has given rise to significant legal concerns. We are still worried about the proposals designed to concentrate powers in the hands of the minister. I am disappointed in all the Conservative ministers when they use their power to undermine democracy and give preferential treatment to their own friends.

We would hope that the minister would commit to working in cooperation with us to make real improvements to our immigration legislation, but unfortunately the minister has chosen to put forward a bill that is probably unconstitutional, while the Conservatives on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration turned down all of the amendments put forward in committee. This is not reasonable. The Conservative government thinks that all its bills are perfect and that they cannot benefit from amendments coming from the opposition. Members of the opposition do, however, represent a very large percentage of Canadians, who voted for them, and they represent their respective parts of the country.

I expect the government to show some openness, but unfortunately we see its prejudice instead. This can also be seen in the way it looks at new immigrants and even refugees.

I have my own personal opinion about this. It may perhaps bother some people, but I find that the Conservative government uses new immigrants and cultural communities to broaden its electoral base by promising them heaven and earth. Unfortunately, the government drops them when they are no longer needed, when these voters are not in one of their demographic groups of voters or are not rich enough for them.

We have also seen this in terms of tighter immigration regulations. The new Canadian citizens must have a good chunk of change to be able to settle in Canada, or else they are not the kind of people that the Conservatives want to have in Canada.

I can say that the New Democratic Party supports families and this also includes family reunification. We understand that everywhere in Canada, everywhere in the provinces and even everywhere in the world, not all families are as privileged as the Conservatives opposite and their rich friends. The citizens at home may be sure that the members of the NDP will continue to be fair toward everyone and to show they sincerely care.

I will begin with the first measure that raises concerns. Bill C-24 concentrates new powers in the hands of the minister, including the power to grant or revoke the citizenship to those holding dual citizenship.

The government has a strong tendency to create laws that concentrate power in the hands of its ministers. The NDP condemns this practice. We cannot trust the Conservatives. By granting new powers to a minister, we are exposing ourselves to the real possibility that they will make arbitrary decisions based on political motives. The revocation of citizenship is problematic, since even the idea of giving the minister the power to revoke citizenship raises serious questions. Canadian law already comprises mechanisms to punish people who commit illegal acts. It should not be up to the minister of citizenship and immigration to make these decisions.

Another problem with revoking the citizenship of dual citizens has to do with creating a two-tier citizenship system in which some Canadians could have their citizenship revoked, while others who committed the same offence would be punished through the criminal justice system. The Conservative government is quite good at double standards, and I find that shameful.

Under the provisions of this bill, the minister can revoke citizenship based on certain criteria. The first criterion is whether the minister or an authorized employee is satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the person obtained citizenship by fraud. Up until now, these cases were generally referred to the courts and to cabinet. That will no longer be the case.

This poses some serious problems in that the minister would have the power to revoke an individual's citizenship on the basis of suspicions alone, and no independent tribunal would rule on whether the accusations were true. Unfortunately, some people seeking refugee status in Canada have experienced some degrading and downright shocking interrogations at the hands of officials or other people in positions of authority.

Some people say that if they were to return to their country, their life could be in danger, but the Conservative government and its henchmen insist that their home country is perfectly safe, even though the international media say that this is not the case. Sometimes we hear that the sexual orientation of refugees from extremely homophobic countries is questioned. I have heard some horror stories. I find it very worrisome that the minister could revoke citizenship on the basis of suspicions.

In the United States, for example, the government can file a lawsuit to revoke an individual's naturalization if it was obtained illegally and the individual concealed or falsified relevant facts in the naturalization application process. In such situations, the individual has the right to take the case to court, which I think is reasonable. Any decision can be appealed, and the individual is guaranteed due process.

The second criterion applies to a person convicted under section 47 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to imprisonment for life for treason, high treason or espionage, or a person who was convicted of a terrorism offence as defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code—or an offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute a terrorism offence as defined in that section—and sentenced to at least five years of imprisonment.

The problem is that this measure makes absolutely no distinction between a terrorism conviction handed down in a democratic country with a credible and reliable justice system and a conviction in an undemocratic regime where the justice system could very well be corrupt or beholden to political interests. This revocation process can be used without the Federal Court ever seeing the file. The measure is retroactive and very problematic.

The third criterion applies to an individual who served as a member of an armed force or an organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada. This revocation process has to go through the Federal Court, which must confirm that the person suspected of these actions really did serve in one of the organizations mentioned while a Canadian citizen. This measure is retroactive.

I would like to talk about the minister's power to grant citizenship, which is also problematic.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-24 proposes to amend the Citizenship Act by expanding the age requirements of applicants to 14 to 64 from 18 to 54 for knowledge and language requirements. This shift in age requirement will be problematic for immigrant and refugee children.

UNICEF has expressed concern in that testing could lead to challenges with reuniting children with their families and could therefore lead to the deprivation of the child's right to family reunification under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It also does not take into account the stress that testing may cause or a child's ability to perform successfully in a test environment. These children may also be dealing with a fear of authority or trauma from their home country.

What does my hon. colleague think about this?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the focus he has put on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, by being present this evening to speak to it and ask questions.

However, the member made reference to the fact that there was not much in the bill to deal with the backlogs. I am sure it was probably an oversight on his part.

I would like to focus his attention on a specific part of the bill that would change the decision-making process for granting citizenship from a three-step process to a one-step process. In effect, this would give officials in the citizenship and immigration stream, who are familiar with cases, the right to grant citizenship, rather than go through the three steps they go through now.

Experts in the field and officials from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration have done the analysis. We estimate that going from a three-step process to a one-step process will reduce the processing time from as high as 30 months to under a year.

Is the member familiar with that, and could he comment on the three-step to one-step process?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

I am very pleased with the tone of the debate this evening. I think that this is an important issue. Evidently, everyone here thinks so and sees the importance of our efforts as parliamentarians.

My colleague's question about an exceptional case was quite pertinent because, after all, the minister—we have to recognize this—is speaking with a great deal of experience, and will only point out the positive aspects of this bill, which is not his bill but that of his colleague. His reply to my colleague's question revealed precisely the element of discretion in a decision about a private case, and that is what bothers me the most about this bill.

I am not an immigration expert, but like all MPs, many cases are brought to my attention and my staff does a good job of handling them. I am the MP for the riding of Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher. Many people choose to settle in this riding when they come to Canada. On many occasions we have to deal with the problem of people who apply for citizenship and then are confronted with a very unwieldy system.

I find it reassuring that the government has decided to address the state of the immigration system and that it has chosen to move forward with legislative reforms because the immigration mechanism seems to be broken and unwieldy today.

In my riding of Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, I see some very serious problems, which have particularly serious consequences for the human beings who come to our offices because they are caught in a process that is literally frozen. These are individuals, families and people who have come from elsewhere to earn a living, to work on a project and quite often to contribute to their adoptive country.

The people who come here have not seen their families in sometimes two, three or four years. They hope that by filling out the right forms and being patient, they may perhaps bring their loved ones closer to them. However, the crisis in the system that handles immigration applications is more serious than ever.

Every day in Longueuil, I hear about men and women who have been waiting for months or years to see their spouses. This situation is the result of the decisions and the policies of our friends opposite, our Conservative friends. It is also the result of budgets that have been reduced while needs have grown. Those decisions have tremendous repercussions on people's lives.

Actually, the processing times beggar belief. In June 2014, to sponsor a spouse or a dependent child, the processing time was 23 months at the Canadian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. To sponsor a spouse living and waiting in Kenya or South Africa, the wait is 21 months. At our embassy in Senegal, you have to wait 25 months before getting a call back; in New York, it is more than 30 months. More than two years, that is ridiculous!

These are figures, but for the people on the waiting lists, they are not just figures. For the people that I met in Longueuil and those my team met in our offices, these are not just figures. These are real lives. They spend months and years of distress, helplessness, sleepless nights and loneliness worrying about their loved ones. It is their host country that is imposing this on them.

These are the consequences of poor decisions made in Ottawa relating to money invested far from where the needs are the greatest. That is the real problem. However, there is nothing tangible before us today that addresses this specific emergency.

We have seen demonstrations here on Parliament Hill. Take for example the 10,000 people who had filed their applications at the Citizenship and Immigration Canada office in Buffalo, in the US, shortly before the government closed that office. Every one of those applications were redirected, sent from one office to another and lost for more than a year, leaving the applicants worried and apprehensive.

The minister of immigration at the time reacted by calling this huge blunder an effectiveness measure for taxpayers. I kid you not. When a government proves itself unable to run a visa office, it is certainly not a measure of effectiveness for our international reputation.

We know that the challenges are enormous. However, we regret that the government has not been up to the challenges of the immigration file. The resulting chaos has reached proportions that are, frankly, embarrassing and unworthy of a G7 government and a country that would impose quality standards in the provision of services to citizens.

When the cries of those caught up in the mess were heard loudly enough to have a bearing on the Conservatives’ electoral prospects, then we finally saw money being thrown at the problem in the 2013 budget. We are talking about $44 million over two years. Since the money will not go any further, we are in the last year of that spur-of-the-moment cash grab.

In view of the crisis, the government resolved more than once to resolve the problem, but we saw that the situation got worse, not better. We see today that the processing times and the backlog of applications have doubled since the Conservatives came to power. That is really something!

Despite this disastrous situation that has particularly affected many residents of Longueuil, we see that Bill C-24 contains no effective solutions for reducing the bottlenecks in the immigration system, which really seems to have broken down completely.

I would like to focus on what is probably the most appalling and the most worrying aspect of Bill C-24, and that is the across-the-board attribution of powers to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This is a trend we have seen frequently and in many different forms. The Conservatives prefer to put powers in the hands of ministers and their staff, because it allows them to act without accountability and behind closed doors.

Bill C-24 proposes giving the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the power to revoke citizenship in certain specific cases. For example, a person who has been convicted on certain grounds, in Canada or abroad, may have his Canadian citizenship revoked, not in a fair and equitable trial in the courts, but by the minister's office. This means that the minister will be asked to make such decisions by himself.

This is also the case when the minister, or his staff, is convinced that a person obtained Canadian citizenship through fraud. While previously these issues were decided by cabinet or the courts, now it is the minister's office that will have the authority to revoke Canadian citizenship on the basis of suspicions. In other words, this is a power that will not be exercised in a fair environment.

We are being asked to trust the Conservatives. Really? We are being asked to close our eyes to the exercise of this discretionary power. I do not think so.

We are right to ask questions about this procedure. When someone commits a crime, there are consequences and penalties that are applicable to everyone, regardless of ethnic, national or social origin. This is how things happen in Canada, as they do in countries that respect fundamental rights. Our courts are the tools we use to judge illegal acts and impose punitive or dissuasive measures.

The powers that would be granted to the person holding the office of minister of citizenship and Immigration under Bill C-24 are also dangerous because they would allow the minister to base his decision to revoke citizenship on a judicial decision handed down in another country.

For example, let us look at the power of the minister to consider a conviction handed down in another country carrying a prison sentence of five years or more for an offence which, if it had been committed in Canada, would have been classified as a terrorist offence under the Criminal Code. This means that decisions made by Canada would be based on judicial rulings handed down even in a non-democratic country, or in autocratic or totalitarian regimes, or even in states where the justice system is corrupt.

What Bill C-24 proposes is that while most citizens would receive a criminal sentence, others could lose their Canadian citizenship. We are talking about a two-tier citizenship: some fully benefit from the rights associated with being a Canadian citizen, while others have conditional or temporary rights.

This very problematic way of doing things is also reflected in the government's proposal to now require that a citizenship applicant confirm his intention to reside in Canada. That is an unreasonably vague condition, and it puts a heavier burden on applicants. In other words, by obtaining his citizenship under this condition, a new Canadian may have doubts about rights that are usually taken for granted by other Canadians. He can legitimately wonder whether he has the right to travel over long periods of time and whether he can work abroad without getting his citizenship revoked by the government because he did not demonstrate an intent to reside in Canada.

Freedom of movement should be a prerogative of all Canadian citizens, not just those who were born here. The president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers talked about an “implicit threat” that will generate a sense of insecurity and worry among people, given that the government may decide to arbitrarily revoke their citizenship if they leave Canada too soon, or if they stay abroad too long.

Since I only have one minute left, I will now talk about our strong feeling that this bill gives too much power to the minister and his office.

We have reasons to find it sad to see a party that keeps boasting about its love for multiculturalism, and whose ministers tour immigrant communities during election campaigns, suddenly turn around and make family reunification harder and Canadian citizenship less accessible.

We, on this side, are convinced that a more humane approach to immigration is needed. We know that immigrants contribute tirelessly not only to our economy, but also to the common good. We know that when family members are allowed to live together, their lives and health are better, and we make sure they have an integration and support network to better connect with their host community in Canada.

I sincerely hope the Conservatives will take note of our concerns and will acknowledge them, not only in the context of this bill but also in their actions over the year and a half left to the 41st Parliament.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate on Bill C-24 and the major changes it makes to the Citizenship Act.

I am pleased to take part in the debate on this bill, which makes significant changes to our Citizenship Act. I am proud to be with the hon. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, who introduced this bill. As the former minister of citizenship and immigration, I worked hard with the public servants at Citizenship and Immigration Canada and with new Canadians to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship, which is one of the most important things we possess as parliamentarians and citizens. Citizenship unites us and defines us. It is the basis of our values and our shared identity as members of the Canadian family.

When I became the minister of citizenship and immigration in 2008, I quickly learned from new Canadians of all backgrounds because I listened to them. Those new Canadians, from more than 180 countries around the world, came to Canada to start a new life and become Canadians. They were chasing the Canadian dream, freedom and opportunity. As economic immigrants from the four corners of the world, they wanted to benefit from freedom and the rule of law, traditions enshrined in our constitutional and parliamentary system.

The vast majority of those new Canadians shared a sense of Canadian identity and a sense of duty towards this country. They wanted to strengthen that identity. They did not want to pursue diversity for the sake of diversity. They appreciated our country's diversity, yes, but they appreciated the unity of that diversity even more. That is what I learned and heard from new Canadians of all backgrounds.

I also learned that new Canadians are clearly the strongest defenders of the importance of the integrity and value of Canadian citizenship. New Canadians were the ones who brought to my attention some of the terrible situations and fraud networks that seek to abuse our immigration and citizenship system. New Canadians were the ones who informed me of unscrupulous consultants who manufactured evidence of residency in Canada for obtaining citizenship.

New Canadians were the ones who complained to me about new citizens who cannot speak one of our official languages and therefore cannot really be active members of our society. New Canadians were the ones who told me, with regard to our shared citizenship, that not enough value is placed on the knowledge of our country, its history, its identity and its values.

When I became Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in 2008, by listening with some humility, I hope, to new Canadians from all origins, I learned that their view was that successive Canadians governments had not invested enough importance in protecting the integrity of our shared citizenship.

I learned from these new Canadians about fraud networks organizing fake proof of residency to obtain citizenship and people becoming citizens who did not speak either of our common languages, even at a basic level. They also knew little or nothing about our country's identity, history, and values.

That is why, in 2009, we launched the citizenship action plan to re-establish the value of Canadian citizenship and restore integrity to the process of its acquisition. It was to say that Canada is an open and generous country, but that it will not tolerate those who seek to abuse its generosity. We went systematically through all of the different aspects of the program. We began with combatting citizenship fraud.

I insisted that our officials at CIC focus not just on the quantity of applications processed, but also take seriously the quality of those applications, meaning that they ensure that people actually meet the real legislative requirements contemplated by this Parliament in its adoption of the 1977 Citizenship Act. Specifically, applicants for citizenship first have to demonstrate that they are resident in Canada for at least three out of four years. Second, except for those with severe learning disabilities or those who are older or very young, they have to demonstrate that they can communicate in one of the two official languages. Third, applicants have to demonstrate a basic knowledge of Canada.

What did we find? First of all, in terms of residency, we found that there were consultants out there brazenly selling, as a service to foreign nationals, the fabrication of false evidence of their residency. If members do not believe me, they can go and google it and see online that there are consultants in certain parts of the world who brazenly advertise the value of Canadian citizenship.

To give one regional example, in the Gulf states, a foreign national from a developing country who gets a Canadian passport finds that their salary suddenly increases. There is a commercial value attached to the acquisition of a Canadian passport, but some people do not want to come here and actually live here in order to obtain it. They would rather stay in a tax haven, making a good living while a consultant fabricates fake receipts for rent, financial transactions, and the like. These consultants are handsomely paid.

I would like to thank and commend members of the Canadian Lebanese community for having brought this issue to my attention. When I learned about it, I insisted that our officials, the Border Services Agency, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigate these allegations of fraud, which they did. As a result, to date more than 10,000 cases have been identified of individuals either obtaining citizenship fraudulently or being in the process of doing so. We know that there are many thousands more.

To put this into perspective, it is a relatively small fraction of the overall number of people who obtain citizenship. However, to protect the value of the passport for bona fide citizens, we have to clearly demonstrate serious sanctions and rigour for mala fide applicants of citizenship. They would be the applicants who do not actually live here or who have no connection to Canada.

Similarly, I was disturbed in my early tenure at immigration to encounter a significant number of people who had obtained Canadian citizenship in their adult years, whether they were middle-aged or in young adulthood, but who could not communicate in either English or French. The notion that citizens should be able to speak one of our two languages is not an invention of the government. It is not unique to Canada. It has always been a feature of our citizenship law, ever since the first one was adopted in 1947 by the government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

Why? It is because citizenship represents full membership in our political community. It implies participation in our shared civic life. It grants the right of self-government through voting to select one's own government or, indeed, of participating in it by running for public office. One cannot do those things fully if one does not have the ability to communicate with one's fellow citizens.

This is not to denigrate or make a pejorative judgment about those among us in Canada who have limited or no English or French language proficiency, many of whom are wonderful, hard-working people and well intentioned. We honour them and we hope that they will become full members of our civic community. We invest hundreds of millions of dollars to this end. This government has tripled the public spending on settlement services, including free language classes to assist those people in becoming proficient.

By the way, the opposition members always say we should have evidence-based policy. I agree, and that is what this bill is based on. The evidence tells us that language proficiency in English or French is the single most important factor in the economic and social success of newcomers to Canada, bar none. That is not an opinion; that is the cumulative result of virtually every study done in this respect in Canada and around the world.

Language proficiency in English or French in this country is the key that unlocks opportunity. It is the bridge into our full participation in our political and civic community. We do no favours to tell new Canadians that we will ignore it if they do not have even basic competency in English or French. That is analogous to telling high school students that even though they do not pass the grades, even though they are not numerate or literate, we will give them social passes through to grade 12. We all know that does not do them any favour when they get out into the real world; similarly, it does not do newcomers any favour to tell them that they can become members of a community with which they cannot yet communicate.

It is no coincidence that these words come from the same root. Citizenship is entrance and participation, full membership, in a community, which is obviously implicitly predicated on the ability to communicate. That is why, as part of the citizenship action plan, we defined clear, objective benchmarks for proficiency in English or French for the first time and began testing people. In the past they just had to come in and do a two-minute interview with CIC officials. They would frequently be coached by their immigration consultants on the standard questions. That is how people with no language proficiency in English or French ended up fraudulently, I would say, obtaining our citizenship. It was wrong and it no longer happens.

Then we went about revising our program on knowledge of Canada. That is the third requirement. In the 1977 act and the 1947 act, it is required that people must have a basic knowledge of Canada's values, history, laws, and political system. It is what is called civic literacy.

Again, this is not a reflection of this government or of me alone, but of people across the political spectrum, including many social democrats, many small-l liberals, and many academics and intellectuals. They include people like Jack Granatstein, a prominent Liberal and Canadian historian; people like Andrew Cohen, a prominent small-l liberal professor at Carleton University and author of a book on this subject; people like Rudyard Griffiths, who wrote another book on Canadian identity. All of them, and others, have identified a real challenge in this country with respect to civic literacy, including understanding our political institutions and how they took shape and what our obligations are—not just what our rights are, but also what our responsibilities are as citizens. These things are essential, especially in a country of such diversity, especially in a country that is maintaining one of the highest levels of immigration in the developed world, especially in a country that welcomes a quarter of a million permanent residents every year.

We must be intentional about ensuring that those newcomers who become members of our community through the citizenship process know the country they are joining and understand its laws and its customs. This is why, for example, we were very blunt in the new citizenship guide, Discover Canada, which leads to the new and admittedly more rigorous test, in saying that Canada's tolerance and generosity do not extend to certain barbaric cultural practices, including so-called honour crimes, female genital mutilation, spousal violence, et cetera, and that such crimes are condemned and severely punished in Canada”.

In Canada, we are generous, we are pluralist, but we believe in certain objective values, such as the equality of men and women, values that are rooted in our history and our identity. That is why we brought in the new test and why we brought in the new study guide. In the old test, which was 20 multiple choice questions, one standard set of questions, unethical ghost immigration consultants got the answer key and actually sold it to applicants for citizenship. Consequently, 98% of those who wrote the citizenship knowledge test were passing, because they just memorized the answer key and because, frankly, the information was so insipid.

Under the citizenship guide called “A Look at Canada”, published by the previous government, there were nearly two pages of information on recycling, but there was not one sentence on Canadian military history. This building was reconstructed in the 1920s partly as a monument to our war dead from the Great War. The Peace Tower houses the names of over 114,000 Canadians who made the ultimate sacrifice for our democratic rights. Our citizenship is predicated on those rights, yet new citizens could write the test and become Canadians without ever having heard or read a word about our war dead, about the greatest Canadians.

This government took the position that it was more important for new Canadians to know the meaning of the red poppy than the blue box, more important to know about our military history than such prosaic mundane matters as recycling.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister once again for his speech. Unfortunately, the NDP will not be supporting this bill.

Some parts of the bill are sure to be challenged in court. Unfortunately, I expect that the Supreme Court will once again be called upon to strike down a bill that the Conservative government is forcing Canadians to accept. It is forcing Canadians to use up valuable resources to strike down bills that do not deserve the support of the House.

I just cannot understand why the government always expects the Supreme Court to fix its mistakes. The government is abusing the legal system, and I find it very discouraging that the minister has introduced a bill as badly written as Bill C-24.

There are some very good parts to this bill. For example, it finally addresses the problem of stateless Canadians, lost Canadians. Many of them are people who were involved in the Second World War. In 2007, the Conservatives came up with a bill to fix the problem, but they messed up again because they just do not take the time to draft their bills properly. They had to introduce this bill to fix the mistake they made in 2007.

Fortunately, it seems that the lost Canadians problem will finally be fixed. I should at least thank the minister for that, but the government should have taken its time in 2007 to fix the problem once and for all.

The Conservatives keep talking about how this is the first time in 25 years that there have been major changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Actually, the government has changed immigration laws and regulations several times, without ever solving the problems. What about the 320,000 people who are still waiting for their applications to be processed so they can become Canadian citizens? That is because of the Conservatives' cuts.

The Department of Citizenship and Immigration does not have sufficient resources to process the applications. The Conservatives are saying that they will speed up the process, but they are the ones who created major delays. It is simply their fault. I would like this government to start learning from its mistakes, to admit them and be accountable for them, instead of always saying that everything is better. We keep going backwards. Every time we take one step forward, we take 12 steps back. According to the Conservatives, we should be celebrating this step forward and hiding the 12 steps back.

The government should admit that it is unable to manage the immigration file. The temporary foreign workers file very clearly shows that the department is out of control, and the minister is responsible for that. He missed his chance to solve the problems. Instead, he is hiding behind blacklists. More and more people are waiting to be admitted to Canada, while the Conservatives keep trying to make us believe that they are solving the problem. Unfortunately, Bill C-24 is their only proposal.

Let us get into the details of Bill C-24. The Conservatives keep saying that they are going to take away the citizenship of individuals who commit immigration fraud, the idea being to deport them from Canada. Are there so many people in Canada who have defrauded the system that we do not have the tools to fix the situation? We already have the Criminal Code, regulations and police forces that are fully capable of going and finding people who defraud Canada's immigration system. With the tools we have, we can crack down on people who commit crimes in Canada, and we can decide whether to deport them from the country. That is already set out. We do not need this bill to solve the problem that the government keeps on raising.

One of the alarming aspects of this bill is the fact that it is a mirage. The Conservatives would have us believe that they are going to solve a problem, when the problem stems from their inability to manage the file. In order to try to solve the problem, the government decided to give the minister additional discretionary powers.

The minister can now decide, based on a balance of probabilities, to revoke the citizenship of a Canadian, without that person having the right to appeal, the right to natural justice or the right to present evidence to a judge. Only the minister, in his little office, with documents in front of him, on a mere balance of probabilities, can revoke an individual's citizenship. It is beyond comprehension why the minister would want such a responsibility, because in our legal system people have the right to be respected. In this case, there is a risk of abusing that right. Once again, why create a situation where rights can be abused?

This bill will probably be challenged in court because it threatens the fundamental right of citizenship. There is nothing more fundamental in a free and democratic society than citizenship. How can the minister sleep at night? Quite frankly, I do not know.

The bill creates new residency criteria. The residency requirement will increase from three to four years. The person must remain and intend to remain in Canada for this entire period.

I would like to point out that the intent to reside is a vague principle that is difficult to prove. I invite the minister to go and see the people at the Canada Revenue Agency and ask them how successful they have been with respect to proof of residency in Canada. It is a very difficult thing to prove.

Under the bill, an individual must show proof of residency for four years. The individual bears the burden of proof. It is up to the applicant to prove this. How do you prove intent to reside? If a person encounters a problem and must return to their country of birth because a family member is ill and needs their help, does he still intend to reside in Canada? How can he prove this intent when he is abroad?

I would not want to see such discretionary items on the minister's table so that he can make decisions based just on a preponderance. We are well aware that the preponderance is in the minister's head and nowhere else. It is up to him to determine whether there is sufficient preponderance of evidence to revoke an individual's citizenship. That is completely unacceptable.

In terms of the bill, frankly, it is high time the government fixed the problem of lost Canadians. I agree with that and I am very pleased that the minister will be able to fix the problem of lost Canadians.

However, as for the other citizens whose citizenship the minister plans to revoke, there may be individuals who have always lived in Canada, who are deported and who find themselves in a country that they are simply not familiar with. I do not think that is very charitable on our part, regardless of the reasons why the minister thinks the person should leave the country.

Once again, if the minister is convinced, on a simple preponderance of evidence, that the person committed fraud to enter Canada, it is not enough.

Since 2008, 25 changes have been made to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including a moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents, fewer family reunifications, punishments for vulnerable refugees and an increase in the number of temporary foreign workers. The Conservatives have made changes to the immigration system that fail to improve the efficiency and fairness of the system.

On the contrary, they created a system that is so rigid that penalties are being imposed that should not be.

Before the Conservatives, Canada was a country that was very welcoming to immigrants. Our country is basically built on immigration. My family is an immigrant family. My ancestors came from England and France. My great-grandparents, who came to Canada from France, would have come here today as refugees. They were Huguenots. That religion was frowned upon in France and they had to flee the country. They came to Canada, a safe haven.

Huguenots were considered terrorists in France at the time, and any who wanted to come to Canada would have been deported. They never would have been granted citizenship based on this government's way of thinking. At the time, we were a welcoming country. We would have let them come settle here. In fact, we did welcome them, and since then, they have built a good family life here in Canada. However, with the criteria set out in the bill before me, these people would never have been accepted. They would have been deported. That is not very welcoming.

The first time I realized that people living outside Canada do not have the same advantages as we do—advantages that we basically take for granted—was during the Prague Spring.

In 1967, Russia overthrew the government of the former Czechoslovakia by means of a military invasion. My family welcomed refugees from that country. Under the rules set out in this bill, those refugees would have been considered terrorists. They would have never been granted Canadian citizenship and they would have been deported.

We are supposed to be a welcoming country that abides by international law. Unfortunately, the bill before us transforms us into exactly the opposite.

The minister also stated, “In cases where citizenship was fraudulently obtained, it can already be revoked.”

Let us come back to the matter of people who would never have been found guilty elsewhere. Such individuals would not be considered terrorists in a country where there was a revolution, such as Czechoslovakia or France in the time of the Huguenots. These are simply people who came to Canada in good faith with good will, but who are found guilty because fraud occurred somewhere along the line. This fraud, which was perhaps unintentional, was committed in good faith or bad faith, but regardless, fraud occurred.

The minister himself said that we already have tools to deport people from Canada and strip them of their citizenship. If those tools already exist, I do not know why the government is forcing the House and Canadians to accept Bill C-24.

It would be nice if the government stopped wasting our time and resources, when we could simply be using the existing tools.

In my opinion, the Conservatives just like to play political games. They are not proposing these things because they think there is a need for them, but because they want to talk about their policies and ideology. It gives them the opportunity to be ideological and waste Parliament's and Canadians' resources for purely partisan reasons.

The Conservatives are trying to win more votes in certain ridings; that much is clear. They do not want to improve Canada's immigration system. If they wanted to improve it, 300,000 people would not be waiting for their citizenship applications to be processed. The Conservatives would have taken care of that. In addition, they would not have fired 28,000 federal public servants. Instead, they would have hired more people to process the applications.

The Conservative government keeps doing things backwards. It starts by creating problems and then it finds poorly designed solutions for the problems it created.

I am very discouraged by the fact that this bill was introduced in the House. It was discussed in committee. Some witnesses appeared before the committee. It is worth noting that the BC Civil Liberties Association sent a letter after it testified. On May 23, 2014, the association said the following:

In my view Bill C-24 will change a core principle of Canadian citizenship—that all Canadians have equal rights.

As was said during question period today, we are creating a two-tier citizenship system in Canada. This bill is creating another class of citizenship, and people could lose their Canadian citizenship, once again, on the mere preponderance of evidence and the minister's say-so. That is not enough, and it is not at all satisfactory that the minister should have such excessive power.

I want to go back to the intent to reside provision. I would like to talk about it again. In her testimony, the director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic stated that:

…not only is the new intent to reside provision unfair, as it only applies to people who are naturalized citizens, not people who are born in Canada, but it could lead to revocation of citizenship from Canadians who are deemed to have obtained their citizenship status by misrepresenting their intent to reside, even when they may have legitimate reasons to leave Canada, such as for employment reasons or family obligations. As well, this provision is potentially in breach of section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the mobility rights to all Canadian citizens, both native born and naturalized alike, as well as section 15 of the charter, the equality rights provision.

The file of someone who has to leave Canada unexpectedly could end up on the minister's desk with the apparently preponderant evidence that the person no longer has the intention to reside in Canada. Not only do we need to know whether or not this discretionary power should be given to the minister, we also need to know why we want to open the door to what would clearly be a legal challenge based on the charter.

There also used to be a fund so that people could make charter challenges, but the Conservatives cut off access to that program. Now there will be an additional difficulty: not only will people targeted by this legislation have to go to court to mount a charter challenge, but, if they are not well-off, they will not have enough money to hire a lawyer and make their case in court. Once again, we have two-tiered citizenship. There is one kind of citizenship for those who have money and another kind for those who do not. This is wholly unacceptable in a free and democratic society.

I would like to end by quoting Amnesty International on the subject of revoking citizenship:

...the Supreme Court of Canada said... “The social compact requires the citizen to obey the laws created by the democratic process. But it does not follow that failure to do so nullifies the citizen’s continued membership in the self-governing polity. Indeed, the remedy of imprisonment for a term rather than permanent exile implies our acceptance of continued membership in the social order.” In other words, the Supreme Court of Canada stated quite clearly that punishing somebody by depriving them of their constitutional rights, indeed, by denying them all constitutional rights and casting them out in the name of the social contract, is not constitutional.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

moved that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to open debate on third reading on what members across the room and Canadians across the country have concluded is a long overdue updating of a great Canadian institution: citizenship. It is a good bill with a huge number of positive provisions that are going to give better service to permanent residents on their way to citizenship, to citizens themselves, and literally lift up to an even higher level the sense of pride that we all take in our citizenship as Canadians.

I would like to begin by thanking many of my colleagues who have laboured long and hard on this bill. That work began long before I occupied this portfolio. I would like to salute my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Social Development, who really brought this bill, in most respects, to its current stage, along with the parliamentary secretary, who has done fantastic work in committee and in the House, as well as many members of Parliament. The member of Parliament for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country did very important work on the issue of lost Canadians and on citizenship generally. The member for Calgary Northeast tapped in to a particular facet of that pride that Canadians take in their citizenship in introducing measures in this bill that would make sure that gross crimes of disloyalty, when committed by dual nationals, result in the revocation of citizenship.

In the time available to me, I would like to cover four items. I would first like to respond to the critics, those who have misunderstood the bill or disagreed with the bill in one way or another. We are listening. Second, I would like to talk about where this bill takes our citizenship in the 21st century, about what is at the core of the value of Canadian citizenship that is reinforced by this act. Then I would like to remind the House of the main aspects of the bill before concluding with some forward-looking comments about the impact that this renewed pride in citizenship can have on all of us across the country, but above all on young Canadians.

First, I will discuss the questions that have arisen in the media, in the House, and elsewhere about the bill. There have been a few lawyers and a few voices in the House questioning the need to require those applying for citizenship to declare their intent to reside. Subparagraph 3(1)(c)(i) of the bill asks that the applicant be required to intend, if granted, to continue to reside in Canada. Some have misunderstood this provision to mean that anyone applying for citizenship or seeking to meet the requirements of citizenship, which would be four years of residency out of six, must declare an intention to reside in Canada for the rest of their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth and those who have perpetrated this misunderstanding have simply not read the further paragraph, which is (2)(1.1), on page 12 of the bill as I have it printed. It states:

For the purposes of paragraphs (1)(c.1) and 11(1)(d.1), the person’s intention must be continuous from the date of his or her application until they have taken the oath of citizenship.

The intention to reside that we are requiring, which we wish had been required in the flawed 1977 version of this bill, relates to the period of physical presence in Canada, residency in Canada, required to become a citizen. That has always been a requirement to become a citizen for 100 years. It was in June 1914 when a five-year residency requirement was formally put in place. That was watered down by the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau in 1977. We think it merits an increase to four out of six years, but with a declaration of intent to fulfill this requirement.

Why is it important that we secure that declaration of intent? It is because, not just in Canada but around the world, many consultants and lawyers have sought to misrepresent this requirement and to argue that residency in Canada did not require a physical presence here, did not require the intent to actually be here. Hence, we have this large backlog of abuse that the RCMP is investigating, which may lead to revocation of citizenship. We need to send a clear message.

Henceforth, with the passage of this bill, residency will mean a physical presence in this country for four years out of six. We will require applicants to declare it over the period from the submission of their application to the day when they take the oath of citizenship.

Let me remind this House, nothing in those provisions constrains the mobility rights of either a permanent resident or a citizen. Someone can have the intent to reside, but then their plans change and they move elsewhere, not fulfilling the residency requirements for citizenship. They do not become a citizen, perhaps until later in their life. After they obtain citizenship, of course Canadians are free to do whatever they want as citizens.

Second, on revocation, it is extraordinary to us on this side, and I think it is extraordinary to Canadians, that so many opposition members would have expended so much breath opposing the revocation of a citizen, only of dual nationals, for crimes like terrorism, treason, taking up arms against the Canadian Forces, or espionage when we already revoke citizenship for much lesser crimes, such as the crime of having concealed a criminal record or having obtained citizenship fraudulently.

We take our responsibilities with regard to revocation extremely seriously. Every one of these cases of revocation involves judicial oversight, recourse to a court. There is judicial review available explicitly in the bill to every aspect of this bill. If citizenship is to be revoked based on a conviction for terrorism, a file would be prepared for the minister. The minister would review it. The person would be given notice and invited to make written submissions. There is provision for a hearing.

This review does not begin until a court has convicted the person of this crime. I do not need to remind members in this place of how few convictions, fortunately, happily, there are in Canada or of Canadians for these very serious crimes. These additional revocation provisions in this act are well understood by Canadians and well accepted.

With regard to membership in an armed group fighting the Canadian Forces, the minister would not be able to take any action without going to the Federal Court at the very outset, bringing facts and evidence that the Canadian citizen in question had been engaged in armed conflict, and satisfying the court that that was the case. That is the only way to even start this process. If the rules of evidence, or the case, is not strong enough, then it will not make it through the Federal Court and revocation will not take place.

These measures are being undertaken within the framework of our very robust judicial institutions, the rule of law in this country. Everyone should celebrate the fact that they will constitute a very profound deterrent, not just to younger generations, but to all Canadians, and a reminder that allegiance and loyalty to this country require that these grave crimes be avoided at all costs. When they are committed, they will be punished.

These were the two grave weaknesses of the 1977 act: the failure to obtain a declaration of intent to reside from applicants, and the neglect of issues of loyalty and allegiance.

Liberals did not make this mistake in their 1947 Citizenship Act that actually provided for these measures. Conservatives did not make these mistakes in our 1914 Naturalization Act, 100 years ago, which set us on the course toward the strong citizenship we have today.

Certainly our NATO allies, our closest partners in war and peacetime, the other leading democracies of this planet, have not at any time made this mistake. I remind this House there is only one NATO country, according to our analysis, that does not have revocation provisions equal to or more severe than the ones we are proposing in this bill.

Second, where is citizenship today in Canada? What would this bill give us, what would it strengthen for us that perhaps was not there before?

Here the key provision relates to residency, relates to the attachment, the connection, the experience of Canada that we are promoting with this bill, which heretofore newcomers to Canada have actually told us in large numbers was not strong enough. The knowledge test and the language test are part of that, but there is no substitute. All of us have heard from immigrants, newcomers, those looking for jobs, and those who started careers here, and those looking back on what their forebears went through that there is no substitute for direct experience of this country and that four years is a legitimate minimum for what that experience should be.

What happens to permanent residents and future Canadian citizens over those four years? They discover this country. They discover 10 million square kilometres. They discover its diversity. They discover how the rule of law works here. They discover our institutions. They discover why our economy is prosperous, why our agricultural sector is the third-largest in the world and why we have manufacturing and technology burgeoning in all parts of this country. And they find their path into that workforce, which need not just involve natural resources, manufacturing, or agriculture; it could be cultural industries, one of our fastest-growing sectors in this country.

There are old adages about the Trudeau-era standards of citizenship, that citizenship was of convenience, as a former member of this House called it, and that Canada was just a hotel where people checked in and checked out, passport in hand. Richard Gwyn spoke about The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian. People could come and live here and benefit from citizenship, but they were not asked to do much more. We have been reminded at every stage of our eight years in government that new Canadians, new citizens, and new immigrants want more. They want to understand the history of this country. They want to understand where the success comes from. They want to belong in that deeper sense, and the value of Canadian citizenship as reinforced by this act would help them to do exactly that.

Third, what are the improvements that we would deliver in this bill?

The first is about service. Because of high immigration of almost 260,000 per year over our eight years in government, the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history, and because of our high rate of naturalization, because people who become immigrants want to become citizens and want to make the extra sacrifice of improving their language skills and mastering the “Discover Canada” guide and taking the test and literally discovering Canada by living here, we do have a backlog. The backlog is a bit larger because of the abuse and the residency fraud that took place that slowed down applications. We had to come to terms with which were legitimate applications and which unfortunately were not. With the measures in this bill and measures undertaken in previous budgets, we have the resources and we would have the decision-making framework to move through that backlog quickly, to take a processing time of two to three years for new applications today down to below two years in the course of next year, 2015, and to under one year by the beginning of 2016.

Second, we are reinforcing the value of citizenship, as I mentioned that the residency requirement would get longer.

Third, we are giving ourselves new tools to ensure that fraud is a thing of the past, if we can possibly make it that in our citizenship programs. We would be much less vulnerable to residency fraud. We would regulate citizenship consultants to ensure they could not lead applicants astray, as we have done with immigration consultants and increasingly with immigration lawyers. We would also raise the potential penalties from $1,000 to $100,000, and from one year to five years imprisonment, for the forms of fraud and misrepresentation that unfortunately have been all too common in our citizenship program.

Finally, we would deliver on our commitment across all of our programs to honour those who serve, who wear the uniform of the RCMP and military abroad, and those who work in embassies, as I had the privilege of doing. They would be able to pass on this citizenship beyond the first generation, even if their children were born outside of Canada. New Canadians, permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Forces, would have a slightly faster pathway to citizenship of three years instead of four.

What does our citizenship look like in the 21st century?

There would be less fraud. There would be more penalties. It would be a much more prized citizenship. Because of all these things, we would be properly able to say that Canadians were in a position to promote our citizenship and use it as never before. It would be something that those outside of Canada would seek to acquire with more determination than ever. It would be something that those of us in Canada who have it would seek to use as never before in the world, to do good in our country and in places not so fortunate.

It is our citizenship that lets us undertake the kinds of initiatives our Prime Minister has been undertaking for maternal, child, and newborn health. It is our citizenship that allows us to take action on child, early, and forced marriage. It is our citizenship that lets us be the second most prominent country in the world for refugee resettlement, accepting roughly one is ten refugees resettled every year in co-operation with UNHCR, including those now coming to us in ever greater numbers from Syria.

Our citizenship also lets us work toward building the economy of the 21st century. It was interesting that the OECD report released this week on Canada gave a prominent place to immigration reforms, to the naturalization rate in Canada and the citizenship program, which we consider part and parcel of our immigration programs. Without these kinds of programs, modernized to meet the needs of the 21st century, it would not be possible to match more specialized skills than ever to the needs of a changing economy. It is because of our prosperity that the Canadian economy is changing faster than almost any other.

It was interesting to read that the OECD saw immigration policy as an economic driver and spoke of Canada in relatively glowing terms because of the extent of our immigration reforms over the past year and as a pioneer and innovator in this field.

We have been citizens of our country from day one, from the day we arrived here, and from the day we met the requirements. It is vital for new generations of citizens to see this great institution of citizenship protected and to see where it comes from. It is important to understand what it was in the time of Nouvelle France, or at the time the War of 1812, or for those who stormed Juno Beach on D-Day, or what it was in 1914 on the eve of the Great War.

We will have many occasions to celebrate our citizenship in the next few years in the run up to the 150th anniversary of Confederation. I know all of us on our side look forward to celebrating with all Canadians.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have another opportunity to respond to the Thursday question from the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

I know how proud he claims to be about showing up to work. In fact, though, the New Democrats seem to have a spotty record on that. Last evening, that very member rose to speak to our government's bill to protect our communities and exploited persons—that is Bill C-36—and after one whole minute he moved to adjourn the House. He said we should all go home. Maybe that is the parliamentary equivalent of taking one's ball and wanting to go home when one is unhappy with how things are going in another meeting.

In any event, we did all dutifully troop into the House to vote on that at 6 p.m. However, what was very revealing was that only 61 of those 98 New Democrats stood in their places to vote. A few of them were missing their shifts, oddly. We did not find that on the Conservative side. In fact, we just had two votes in the House, and the number of New Democrats who were not standing in their places was very similar to that.

Therefore, when I ask myself who is not showing up for work, I can say it is not the Conservatives not showing up; it is, in fact, the New Democrats.

However, following the popular acclaim of last week's Thursday statement, I would like to recap what we have actually accomplished in the House since last week in terms of the legislative agenda.

Bill C-37, the riding name change act, 2014, which was compiled and assembled through the input of all parties, was introduced and adopted at all stages.

Bill C-31, the economic action plan, act no. 1, was adopted at both report stage and, just moments ago, at third reading.

Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, was concurred in at report stage.

Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, was passed at third reading. Of course, the NDP tried to slow down its passage, but Conservatives were able to get around those efforts, as I am sure the 50 New Democrats on vigil in the House last night fondly appreciate, and we were able to extend our hours because there were, again, not even 50 New Democrats here in the House to stand in their places to block that debate as they wanted to. So we did finish the Canada-Honduras bill that night, and were able to vote on it.

The government's spending proposals for the year were adopted by the House, and two bills to give these plans effect, Bill C-38 and BillC-39, were each passed at all stages.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, was reported back from committee, and several other reports from committees were also tabled. As I understand, we will see Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, reported back from the health committee in short order.

Finally, this morning we virtually unanimously passed a motion to reappoint Mary Dawson as our Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

Sadly, though, the New Democrats did not heed my call last week to let Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, pass at second reading. We were treated, sadly, to only more words and no deeds from the NDP.

Turning to the business ahead, I am currently anticipating the following debates. This afternoon and tonight, we will finish the debate on Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, at second reading. That will be followed by third reading of Bill C-24 and second reading of Bill C-35, Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law).

Tomorrow morning, we will debate Bill C-24, if necessary, and Bill C-18, Agricultural Growth Act, at second reading. After question period, we will get back to Bill C-32, and give the NDP one more chance to send the victims bill of rights to committee.

The highlight of Monday is going to be the report stage of Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act. Tuesday’s feature debate will be Bill C-2, the Respect for Communities Act, at second reading. Wednesday will see us finish third reading, I hope, of Bill C-6. During the additional time available those days—in addition to Thursday and Friday of next week—I will schedule any unfinished debates on Bill C-18, Bill C-32 and Bill C-35.

I will also try to schedule debates on Bill C-22 and Bill C-17, as well as other bills, such as Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act, at third reading; Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, at third reading; Bill C-12, the Drug-free Prisons Act, at second reading; Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act, at second reading; Bill C-26, Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, at second reading; Bill S-2, Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, at second reading; Bill S-3, the Port State Measures Agreement Implementation Act, at second reading; and Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act—which I understand we will receive shortly from the other place—at second reading.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister went on TV and claimed that Bill C-24 would respect Canada's charter because it is consistent with other NATO countries.

Can the minister please explain how NATO has anything to do with charter protections for Canadian citizens?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister really will say anything to evade taking responsibility for his failures. He goes out into the media daily, where he only succeeds in making himself look even worse. The minister even went on TV and claimed that Bill C-24 would respect Canada's charter because it is consistent with other NATO countries.

Can the minister explain—

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is with respect to Bill C-24, the amendment to the Citizenship Act. These petitioners are concerned that it treats Canadian permanent residents who came to Canada as temporary workers and international students who have spent a considerable amount of time here and wish to have that time counted toward their citizenship unfairly. They are of great economic benefit and the petitioners want the government to amend the Citizenship Act to recognize the contribution that these citizens make.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thanks for those questions.

On citizenship, wait times are not growing. They are, in our view, unacceptably high—two to three years—but they are starting to come down as we move through a much larger number of cases. Already this year we have gotten through 100,000 in the first five months, and with the measures in Bill C-24, we will get through them at a much faster rate in the second half of this year. This means that by early 2016, wait times for citizenship applications will be under one year once again.

For temporary resident visas, which we are issuing in record numbers around the world, in the first three months of this year, demand was up 30% in China, our biggest market, if you will. We issue well over a million every year.

We are put to the test to meet this demand, to stay within our 14-day service standard. I haven't checked the numbers this week, but as recently as early this month and late last month, we were within those service standards, and in many parts of the world, including China, we were well below them.

As you know, we announced CAN+, a service for Mexico and other countries whose visitor visas are processed in Mexico City by us. It will ensure that a large class of visitors from Mexico will have service in seven days or less.

We're also issuing, in some missions, a record number—as much as 90% or more—of multiple-entry visas, 10-year multiple-entry visas, which means that Chinese citizens, Indian citizens, and Mexican citizens, in unprecedented numbers, are coming and going as they see fit to visit family members or to do business. That's a very positive and popular measure, but we've really accelerated it in this past fiscal year, and we plan to continue to do so as our trade relations, economic relations, and tourism with all of these countries continue to grow.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Quickly, Minister, I want to thank you once again for having my portion of Bill C-425 adopted into Bill C-24.

There was a question today on why we did not introduce this kind of bill before, and I want to remind everyone that it was the opposition who stalled the portion of this bill that I introduced last year. It's the government or individual members who have been trying to fix the broken system.

Thank you, Minister.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you.

The U.K. and the United States have five-year requirements. Other countries in Europe have even longer requirements. Australia has a four-year requirement, which will be the same as ours if and when Bill C-24 becomes law. So we are absolutely in the right ballpark.

In my contact with Canadians, the strongest proponents of this four-year residency requirement are newcomers themselves. They see some of the abuse, and they saw it in recent decades. They want to have that sense of knowledge, that direct experience, and be well oriented in Canada as a society. That does take time. Four years is a reasonable amount of time. In fact 45% of those applying for citizenship already spent four years or more here before they applied.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

It was your colleagues in the House of Commons today who were making a distinction between naturalized and native-born Canadians with regard to one aspect of Bill C-24. We make no such distinction. We expect and celebrate the fact that Canadians, whatever their origin, love this country; participate fully in its civic, political, economic, cultural life; and are very strong and very numerous in supporting us in increasing the residency requirement by one year, because you cannot develop, if you haven't lived here before, that connection to Canada, that sense of belonging, that knowledge of Canada, experience of Canada, except by being physically present here.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Blanchette-Lamothe.

Mr. Minister, you mentioned in your opening remarks that the previous Liberal government had left a broken immigration system, with people waiting over eight years.

I agree with you that it was a broken immigration system that needed to be fixed, sure, so my question to you is pretty simple. You also talked about Bill C-24 and thanked the committee. With respect to Bill C-24 making it harder for people to get citizenship in Canada, and with the previous Liberal government's backlogs, delays, and whatever—the broken immigration system, as you mentioned—why has it taken your government so long to actually do anything about it? It's been over three years now that this Parliament has been in session. Why has it taken you so long to actually do something about it?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Leung, and thank you for your work on this committee, on its reports, and on Bill C-24.

The simple answer to your question is twofold. First, we are getting faster processing already, thanks to budgetary commitments and money in these estimates. We did have some years, last year and the previous years, when residency concerns were widespread, when residency questionnaires were distributed in relatively large numbers. That scrutiny was required, as you said, because there was abuse. But we've overcome many of those obstacles. We've put in place new resources to process more, and in the first five months of this year, over 100,000 permanent residents became citizens of Canada, which is a record number.

I hope that all members of this committee have had the opportunity to participate in a citizenship ceremony recently.

The bill will give us even more tools to press ahead with this faster processing. It simplifies the decision-making model and will allow us to use the resources you are voting on today in these main estimates, and which we are discussing today, to greater effect. It will literally help us make tens of thousands more permanent residents citizens this year than we would be able to do were the bill not passed, or passed much later.

In addition to faster processing, in addition to reinforcing the value of citizenship and lengthening the residency requirement slightly, we will have new tools to maintain program integrity and combat fraud, which should prevent us from having the kinds of doubts hanging over this program that we've had in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Leung, I know the minister may have opened the door when he started talking about Bill C-24, but we're here to talk about estimates as to expenditures, and Bill C-24 is not law, so unless you're using that as a preamble to something—

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, and staff for attending.

Immigration is probably one of the greatest hallmarks of Canada's history in our nation-building and how we've evolved and where we are today.

Minister, you spoke about Bill C-24, strengthening Canadian citizenship act. We know that the Liberals had 13 long comfortable years to reform the Citizenship Act, but they didn't do it. That's why our government set out to make the first comprehensive reform to the Citizenship Act in 35 years; that's since 1977.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Of course, Mr. Chair.

I apologize for having been late and for having made life difficult for the interpreters.

We have admitted as immigrants an average of more than a quarter of a million newcomers to Canada each year since 2006, as the committee well knows.

We're taking action to further strengthen the pride that Canadians take in citizenship, the value of citizenship in this country, with the first comprehensive reforms to the act since 1977. We do this, in contrast to the previous Liberal record, by cracking down on fraud, demanding and promoting greater attachment to Canada, and speeding up processing for eligible applicants.

This new funding will result in improved processing times and overall service. Combined with the efficiency measures proposed in the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, we will see processing times for citizenship applications come down to one year or less by the end of 2015-16.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank committee members for all their hard work on Bill C-24—the pre-study, the clause-by-clause, etc. As you all know, it passed second reading last week and report stage this week. We're very close, one step away, at least in House of Commons terms, from turning this bill into law.

Another $35.5 million in funding represents an increase to the grant for the Canada-Quebec Accord in 2014-15 and future years to meet our obligations under the accord.

As you know, the Canada-Quebec Accord gives the Government of Quebec exclusive responsibility for settlement and integration services in the province in return for financial compensation from the Government of Canada.

You may recall that the grant amount for 2013-2014 for Quebec for the settlement and integration of immigrants and refugees was $320 million. This includes the base amount of $284.5 million, plus an increase of $35.5 million based, in part, on the number of non-francophone immigrants settling in that province.

As a result, CIC's main estimates are now increasing by $35.5 million on an ongoing basis, starting this fiscal year, to reflect the updated grant of $320 million.

My department's main estimates for this year also include an increase of just over $13 million to develop and implement the electronic travel authorization, or eTA, under the Canada-U.S. perimeter security and economic competitiveness action plan. This is a low-cost, quick, and easy-to-use online application process that will allow us to screen visitors from all countries who do not require a visa to enter Canada and who travel by air, with the exception of citizens of the United States.

When the eTA is implemented, in 2015, we'll be able to screen most visitors before they board a plane to verify whether they pose a risk to Canada, or to the health, safety, and security of Canadians. Resolving issues prior to a traveller's arrival at a port of entry will enhance security, improve border efficiencies, reduce the need for removals and returns, and facilitate the movement of legitimate travellers. We are closely working with our partners at CBSA, and with the airline sector, to ensure the smooth rollout of this initiative in 2015-16.

For the first time in the main estimates, you will also see a line item for the passport program revolving fund, which was transferred last year from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, along with allocations for International Experience Canada, which was also transferred.

In addition to the items I have already mentioned, funding increases in CIC's main estimates also include $4.2 million to meet our commitments under the roadmap for Canada's official languages.

These include promotion and recruitment activities in Canada and abroad; language training and other settlement services for French-speaking newcomers; and immigration research and knowledge-sharing projects of interest to both francophone minority communities and English-speaking communities in Quebec.

Mr. Chair, these and other increases are offset by a number of funding decreases in the estimates. The previous Liberal government left an immigration system with serious shortcomings. That resulted in potential immigrants putting lives on hold, waiting for up to eight years for an answer. This is something our government didn't accept, and we are endeavouring to do better.

That is why—

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, the minister had to apologize to an immigration consultant whose name he unfairly dragged through the mud. The minister also attacked the Canadian Bar Association for its position on Bill C-24, and yesterday, he went after Toronto constitutional expert Rocco Galati, who was another victim of the minister's mood swings.

Why is the minister ignoring or attacking everyone who does not agree with him? Does he not realize that this attitude, which is typical of the Conservatives, is completely ridiculous and inappropriate?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister no longer knows what to say to salvage his credibility.

A number of experts, including the Canadian Bar Association, believe that the citizenship bill is unconstitutional. Yesterday, in a CBC interview, the minister dismissed the criticism, saying that Bill C-24 is similar to what is being done in other NATO countries, but what does NATO have to do with a debate on access to Canadian citizenship? It is completely ridiculous.

Will our fundamental rights in Canada now depend on the mood of our NATO allies?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took evasive action after being asked about the constitutionality of his immigration bill. He refused to answer the question, but he did manage to make an unrelated reference to the “disgraced ideological former lawyer of the Khadr family”.

Could the minister tell us how his latest smear job is even remotely relevant to the constitutionality of Bill C-24?

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

moved that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be concurred in at report stage.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made on Monday, June 9, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the motions at report stage of Bill C-24.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 13.

The House resumed from June 9 consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, that question speaks to the pitiful quality of opposition criticism and commentary throughout this debate on Bill C-24. We will stand behind a bill if the main opponent to it is the disgraced ideological former lawyer of the Khadr family.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Bar Association, UNICEF, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees and many other experts agree that Bill C-24 does not comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or international law.

They believe that some parts of the bill are unconstitutional. If the Conservatives really want to improve the Citizenship Act, why are they stubbornly ignoring these experts? Why not amend Bill C-24?

Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that question has many elements.

I would have liked my Conservative colleagues to ask me some questions. I would have been pleased to hear what they had to say about this. However, they wanted to continue the debate until the bill is disposed of. However long it takes, I will defend human rights around the world at any hour of the day on behalf of the people of Sherbrooke.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives are not showing up for work. We saw that this evening. Not one Conservative spoke to Bill C-24, which we debated a little earlier. As far as Bill C-20 is concerned, not one Conservative will defend their bill.

It is unfortunate, because I would have liked to have a debate of ideas on Bill C-20, but clearly, when the Conservatives adopted the motion to extend sitting hours until midnight, it was a licence for laziness. We see that today. The Conservatives are barely asking any questions, and they do not have the nerve to defend their bills. Then they will go back to their ridings, claiming that they worked late and hard and saying that they passed many bills. In fact, they did nothing. So far, they have missed almost 70 opportunities to speak and stand up for their constituents.

I would be disappointed if I lived in a Conservative riding and saw my MP unable to speak in the House and defend my interests. I would really be very disappointed for that and many other reasons.

Obviously, the Liberals, who are complacent about this bill—

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand up as the deputy critic for citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism on behalf of the official opposition to speak to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

I would like to start by making a few introductory comments and observations about citizenship.

There are a lot of things we debate in this House that we can have varied opinions on whether they are a matter of policy and philosophy, but there are certain issues that I think are foundational. They go to the very fabric of who we are as a country. Our democratic system and electoral system is one. We saw a vigorous debate over the Conservative government's attempt to change the rules about our democratic elections in this House, and how they were forced to back down when Canadians saw the Conservatives trying to use politics to bend the rules of the system to benefit themselves. I think we are seeing a bit of the same thing with citizenship.

Citizenship is something that invokes a feeling of pride in Canadians. There are a number of values that Canadians want to see surrounding the concept of citizenship. One of those concepts is equality. Fundamentally, I think Canadians believe in the equality of all Canadians. It is something that is a benefit of citizenship, and something that once one becomes a citizen, whether it is by being born here or naturalized here, a person aspires to and receives an equality that ought not be taken away from them.

People want to see integrity in our citizenship process. They want to see fairness. Canadians are known around the world, and in our self image, we quite rightfully like to think of ourselves as being a people who believe in the fundamental concepts of fairness and due process. It is something that attracts people to this country. When I think of why people immigrate to Canada, some of what they are attracted to are the concepts of democracy, equality, and fairness.

Canadians also want due process. Fundamentally, we believe in the rule of law. I hear the phrase “rule of law” tossed around and used in this place a lot. I am not sure that we have a lot of discussion about what that means. Rule of law means that decisions that affect people's rights are not taken precipitously or capriciously. Rather, they are done by independent people in accordance with rules that are independent, objective, and impartial. They do not want politics injected.

Another reason that a lot of people like to come to Canada is because a lot of states around the world are marked by corruption. If people want to get their utilities, water or lights, hooked up, they have to know someone or to pay money to a government official. That is the most egregious example of the mixing of politics with the rule of law. That leads to the separation of politics and the judicial/quasi-judicial process.

I have heard successive Conservative ministers of immigration rise in this House repeatedly and say that it is inappropriate for them to rule on or decide individual cases. They will not even talk about them in the House. They talk about having arm's-length, independent, professional civil servants make the rulings on individual cases that deal with immigration or citizenship. The reason I bring this up is because I think this bill contains some things that are worthy of support, but it offends a fair number of the concepts I have just raised.

About eight months ago, I had a conversation with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. He decried the use of what he called dog-whistle politics. Dog-whistle politics are where we raise a political issue to send a message to people that is not really what we are saying, but it is the message it conveys. I hope it is not the case, but I fear that this bill has underneath it some dog-whistle politics. Messages are being sent to the Canadian public that sow fear, division, and distrust.

When we start introducing concepts that introduce two-tier citizenship, and when we are being invited to judge who is a real citizen and who is not, who has bona fides and who does not, who can be a Canadian citizen forever and who can lose it, these are fundamental questions that involve the fabric of our country.

This bill does a lot of things, some of which I will speak positively about, and some that I think are problematic.

On February 6, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration tabled Bill C-24, which includes sweeping changes to Canada's citizenship laws. The minister stated that it represented the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act since 1977. He claimed that it “will protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it while creating a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it”.

First, it is news to me that we have not had valuation of Canadian citizenship. People in my riding of Vancouver Kingsway do now value Canadian citizenship and always have. This is a solution in search of a problem. I have never heard a Canadian in our country who has said that they do not value Canadian citizenship.

In terms of a faster and more efficient process for applying to get it, with respect, I see very little if anything in Bill C-24 that would speed up the process of citizenship, which, by the way, has been a problem under the current government and the previous Liberal government as well. Wait lists in our country across the board in the immigration system are unacceptably long, and they are getting longer.

Bill C-24 would do a number of things. It would put more power in the hands of the minister, including the authority to grant or revoke citizenship. It would provide no real solution to reduce the growing backlog and the citizenship application processing delays.

It would eliminate the use of time spent in Canada as a non-permanent resident to count toward the residency requirements before one could apply for citizenship. It includes an “intent to reside” in Canada provision whereby an official in government could make a determination of people's intentions to reside in Canada and strip them of their citizenship if they believed that the intent was not there.

It would prohibit the granting of citizenship to persons who had been charged outside of Canada with an offence that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence. In other words, we can strip Canadians of their citizenship if they commit an act abroad that is an indictable offence if they have dual citizenship.

It would increase residency requirements from three out of four years to four out of six years, and it would clarify the requirement of physical residence in Canada prior to citizenship.

It includes stiffer penalties for fraud.

It would extend citizenship to lost Canadians.

It would expedite citizenship for permanent residents serving in the Canadian Forces.

It would also implement stricter rules for fraudulent immigration consultants.

It would require applicants aged 14 to 64 years old—previously 18 to 54 years old—to pass a test demonstrating an adequate knowledge of French or English.

Although it is not in Bill C-24 but concomitant with the bill, the Conservative government has tripled the application fees for citizenship.

Everyone agrees that Canadian citizenship is something of enormous value. I do not think anyone wants to see an approach that plays politics with this issue. It is something that we have seen all too frequently from the Conservative government.

With respect to the bill, it is high time that the issue of lost Canadians is addressed. This has been a very unfair situation that has gone on for far too long, and I am pleased to see it addressed in the bill.

However, other parts of the bill are, of course, increasingly and very seriously concerning. For example, the question of revoking citizenship in various scenarios has raised significant legal concerns. We are always concerned about and opposed to the concentration of more power in the hands of a minister of the crown, inherently a political figure.

We were hoping that the minister would commit to working with us to bring real improvements to our citizenship laws, but again, the government has opted to go with a bill that is, in many people's view, likely unconstitutional. The amendments that the official opposition brought to committee were, again, par for the course for the Conservative government, as every one of them was rejected out of hand.

Since March 2008, more than 25 major changes have been made to immigration methods, rules, legislation, and regulations by the government. More and more changes have been made since the Conservatives formed a majority government. These have included a moratorium on parental and grandparental sponsorships, reducing family reunification, punishing vulnerable refugees and increasing the number of temporary foreign workers to meet the requirements of the business sector in our country. However, the extensive changes to the Canadian immigration system have not made the system more effective or fair.

As an MP with a riding that is fundamentally made up of new Canadians, I say we should be making citizenship more valuable. We should be making it more streamlined and faster for those honest, hard-working people who seek it. The bill before us has been rightly described as a bill that makes citizenship harder to get and easier to lose.

People come to our country so they can get a passport, vote, and to participate fully in a democratic society. However, the bill would not do that. When we give the minister power to make decisions on a balance of probabilities that someone has obtained citizenship in a way that the minister does not like and we do not have a court process to check it, that is worrisome. It has no place in a country with the rule of law.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-24. As the member for the beautiful city of Sherbrooke, it is truly an honour to speak to this bill. In fact, most of Sherbrooke's residents will be interested in this bill.

Sherbrooke is one of the most important immigration hubs in Quebec. Every year, we welcome hundreds of new immigrants. As an MP, I am proud to welcome them. They sometimes get a lot of help in my riding office, which is located at 100 rue Belvédère Sud in Sherbrooke.

I invite all Sherbrooke citizens, if they are interested or need help, to contact my office anytime during our office hours. One of the things we work on the most is helping new immigrants with the citizenship or permanent resident process.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Nancy and Martine, my two assistants who work hard on citizenship cases. They are often assisted by interns. Previously, we had Roxanne, Samuel, Christophe, Véronique and Joannie helping us out. At present, Aline is helping new immigrants with the citizenship process.

The reason I am thanking all these people is that citizenship issues are something my office deals with the most. One of the things I take the most pride in as the member for Sherbrooke is helping newcomers navigate a process that can be quite murky, very difficult, filled with roadblocks and quite time-consuming.

We all know processing times for citizenship applications have increased a great deal in the last few years. They have in fact more than doubled in the past decade and have now reached 31 months. Applications for permanent residence take even longer to process. This can be very stressful for newcomers. It can lead to very difficult situations, on a personal and professional level. Newcomers who have been waiting for months can start wondering if there is a problem with their file. They see no end in sight.

That is why I am delighted to speak to a bill that directly and fundamentally affects the citizenship process as a whole in Canada.

I would also like to acknowledge the work of the Service d'aide aux Néo-Canadiens, a well-known institution in Sherbrooke. It offers support to newcomers to the city. Mr. Marceau is the organization's president, and its director is Ms. Orellana, whom I know quite well. I would like to commend them on the help they give newcomers, who sometimes come here as refugees from countries fraught with economic and political difficulties. These people have a hard time learning the fundamentals that may seem obvious to long-standing Canadians. Africans sometimes arrive here in the middle of winter. Some of them have never known winter and are completely disoriented when they arrive in Sherbrooke. The Service d'aide aux Néo-Canadiens is a remarkable institution that helps newcomers every single day.

That brings me to the content of Bill C-24, which proposes substantial amendments to the Citizenship Act and others.

One of the things that stood out as I read the bill is the establishment of a two-tier citizenship system.

I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration smiles when I talk about a two-tier system. He does not seem to believe me.

I think this bill creates an imbalance when it comes to citizenship, whether a person is born in Canada or in another country, or whether his citizenship was obtained later on by taking an oath before a judge, swearing allegiance to Canada and Queen. There is now an imbalance. Beforehand, all Canadian citizens were on the same level, whether they had obtained their citizenship at birth in Canada, or later on under different circumstances.

This bill affects, among others, people with dual citizenship who have been convicted of heinous crimes. I am not saying these crimes are not horrific. They are, and the individuals must be punished to the full extent of the law.

However, as a Canadian citizen holding only one citizenship, I will first face justice, and a judge or a jury will find me guilty or not guilty, based on the evidence adduced. I will then have to serve my sentence and I may end up spending the rest of my life in jail. That is the likely scenario for a person born in Canada.

A Canadian who obtained his citizenship later on in life and who holds dual citizenship will go through the same process and may end up being convicted by a judge. However, his sentence will be harsher than mine, because he may be stripped of his citizenship. I cannot be stripped of mine because I only have one. Under international treaties, I cannot be made a stateless citizen.

I thought this Canadian and I were equal, but he could be stripped of his Canadian citizenship, in addition to having to serve his prison sentence. This is like a double sentence, simply because he is not an ordinary Canadian citizen with only one citizenship. I am sure the hon. member will ask me a question on this issue.

I think Bill C-24 creates an imbalance in the existing system, and that is only one of the problems. That is also the main concern raised by the majority of those who spoke on this legislation.

If the bill is passed, revoking citizenship will be done more secretly and more easily than before, because we are giving this power to the minister or his agent. While it is possible to appeal such decisions, this is a fundamental change in revoking citizenship, sometimes for nebulous reasons. There is also the provision on the intent to reside in Canada, which gives the minister or his agent more power to judge the case of a particular individual who could be stripped of his citizenship, or who could be denied Canadian citizenship.

A number of concerns have been raised. In my opinion, as in many experts' opinion, the bill may be challenged in court. For the umpteenth time, the government will see one of its legislative measures being challenged in court, which is becoming almost a tradition with Conservative bills. The Conservatives do not seem to follow the usual process of asking the Justice minister to ascertain whether a bill is constitutional.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought there was a law that said that the hon. member for Hamilton Centre always has to speak last. With all the energy he has, there is a different atmosphere in the House after he speaks. I would like to recognize the excellent work that he does and the excellent speech that he gave just before me.

Today, I am rising to speak to Bill C-24, which was introduced at first reading on February 6. According to the minister, this bill is very important, but it was all but forgotten after February 27. The media spoke about it a little bit, but it was not debated again until May 29. The government did not put this bill back on the House's agenda for many months.

It is also important to note that the committee began studying this bill before the end of second reading. This is a 50-page citizenship reform bill that has been needed for nearly 30 years. It was touted and heralded and did not even go through normal House procedures. We debated it for one hour and then it was shelved. Then, all of a sudden, we were forced to study it in committee before second reading had even finished.

This approach will have a negative impact on experts and people in general. It will prevent them from having an opportunity to study the bill, testify before the committee and contribute to the study of this bill. Many people have talked to me about this in my riding. They wanted to know how they could contribute to the study of Bill C-24 with their analysis and their expertise. Unfortunately, we have had to tell them that it is already too late. The usual procedures went out the window. Experts and individuals were not able to contribute because the government rushed the committee's work and because we were not allowed to have a normal debate in the House.

The NDP wanted to call more witnesses but our requests were denied. The NDP put forward a number of amendments in committee. The Conservative committee members rejected our amendments. Then debate resumed in the House. A week later, it was report stage. The Conservatives rushed the committee's clause-by-clause study. Because a reasonable study was not done, we have before us today a poorly written, botched bill.

The NDP wanted to remove several clauses or at least study them in depth. Many experts and individuals are concerned about these clauses. The government rejected all of the amendments proposed by the experts who appeared and by the opposition.

One of the problematic measures is that Bill C-24 places a lot of power in the minister's hands. This is an unfortunate trend we have seen across many different bills. One of these powers is the power to grant citizenship to dual nationals or revoke it from them.

The government has a marked tendency to create laws that concentrate power in ministers' hands, which is something the NDP does not support. We cannot and will not trust it, and by giving a minister new powers, we are exposing ourselves to the possibility that the minister could make arbitrary, politically motivated decisions. It will be sad if that is how things turn out. That is what is happening in other countries, and it is bad for democracy. I truly hope it will not come to that.

The very idea of giving the minister the power to revoke citizenship raises serious questions. Canadian law already includes mechanisms to punish people who commit illegal acts, so why would the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration need to make that type of decision? The minister could revoke citizenship when he, or one of his authorized employees “is satisfied on a balance of probabilities” that the person has fraudulently obtained citizenship.

Until now, these issues were generally sent before the courts and cabinet. This element poses serious problems in that the minister would have the power to revoke citizenship based on suspicion, without an independent court ruling on whether or not the accusations are true.

In the United States, the government may file a civil suit to revoke an individual's citizenship if it was obtained illegally, if the individual concealed information that was relevant to eligibility for citizenship or if the individual made false statements. In that situation, the individual in question has the legal right to refer the matter to the courts. Every ruling can be appealed, and the individual is guaranteed due process. However, here the government wants the minister to have the right to veto.

The minister could revoke the citizenship of someone who was convicted under section 47 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to imprisonment for life for treason, high treason or espionage; or someone who was convicted of a terrorism offence as defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code—or an offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute a terrorism offence as defined in that section—and sentenced to at least five years of imprisonment.

The problem is that this measure makes absolutely no distinction between a terrorism conviction handed down in a democratic country with a credible and reliable justice system and a conviction in an undemocratic regime where the justice system could very well be corrupt or beholden to political interests. This revocation process can be used without the Federal Court ever seeing the file. In addition, the measure is retroactive.

What is more, candidates between the ages of 14 and 64, instead of 18 and 54, will now have to pass the test that determines their knowledge of French or English. A 14-year-old child belongs with his parents. Denying him citizenship on the grounds that he still has not mastered either official language is questionable. In this case, family reunification is paramount and that child is young enough that he has enough time ahead of him to learn one language or even both. Again, a 14-year-old child belongs with his parents.

Last but not least, this bill could be subject to constitutional challenges. The use of revocation of citizenship as a legal consequence for dual citizens could, in some circumstances, be inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Revoking the citizenship of those found guilty of treason and terrorism by a Canadian or foreign court could be perceived as a punitive measure imposed in addition to other criminal sentences.

Among other problems, treating people with dual citizenship differently by exposing them to the possible loss of their citizenship creates a double standard and raises major constitutional questions, particularly under section 15 of the charter. This section states that everyone has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Section 11 of the charter could also be invoked in cases of revocation of citizenship, when the legislation is not about revocation for fraud, but rather imposes a punishment after the fact. If the revocation is perceived by the courts as an additional punishment for crimes, then it is even more likely that the accused will point to the key elements of section 11, including the presumption of innocence and the right to be heard by an independent and impartial tribunal, which are fundamental rights in our country.

Increasing the government's powers to revoke citizenship causes not only moral problems, but also constitutional problems, which might occur because of this bill.

The government is doing away with the process of passing a bill in the House at first reading, at second reading, in committee and at third reading.

Then it moves a time allocation motion to limit our debate in the House. That shows utter contempt for our parliamentary institutions. We have a duty to make excellent laws for our constituents, and I think this Conservative government should keep that in mind.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, not being transparent in the bill, as with just about every other bill the Conservative government puts forward, is a hallmark, a trademark, of the current government. Even in the situation where the minister grants automatic citizenship, he does not have to provide a list. He does not have to name who these people are. He does not have to provide that kind of information.

There were 29 individuals who spoke on Bill C-24 in committee, and the vast majority, to varying degrees, were opposed to the bill. It has all kinds of problems.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-24, particularly in light of the fact that later this week, on Friday, I will be at a citizenship ceremony in Thunder Bay. I try to get to as many as I can. I have not been to all of them, of course, but I will be there.

A citizenship ceremony is a wondrous thing. It is filled with people who have worked long and hard and who have spent a lot of time, and in many cases a lot of money, to get to where they are at that citizenship ceremony. One thing that really stands out above all at a citizenship ceremony, as I know my colleagues will agree, is that it is clear from looking at the faces of these new Canadians that Canadian citizenship is something of enormous value. For everyone who is becoming a new Canadian on Friday, with their families, friends, and relatives in attendance, Canadian citizenship is really something that is an apex for many people in their lives at this point.

Unfortunately, with Bill C-24 and with many other things the government does, we see an approach that plays politics with the issue. We have seen that a lot with the government. I would like to take my time today to speak about the good—because there is some good that I can certainly agree with—the bad, and in some cases, the ugly in the bill. I will try to use my time wisely.

First, as a little background, we were hoping that the minister would commit to working with the NDP to bring real improvements to our citizenship laws. Instead, he opted to go on with a bill that in many cases is likely to be unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the Conservatives on the committee rejected every one of our proposed amendments to the bill, amendments that perhaps could have made it good and good, instead of good and bad.

Canadians expect us to collaborate in this place and come up with absolutely the best bills possible for the benefit of all Canadians. However, since the 2011 election we have not seen that. We have not seen the collaboration that Canadians expect in this place.

Now, here is a bill that will likely be passed. It is a majority government. The Conservatives were not willing to listen to any amendments. On top of everything else, they do not care if it is challenged in the courts. They just want to go right ahead and do it and let someone else worry about it. That is not what Canadians expect us to do in this place.

Let me speak about some of the provisions that I just cannot agree with and some that I can. Let me start with the ones that I cannot.

Bill C-24 gives the minister many new powers, including the authority to grant or revoke citizenship of dual citizens. It should not be the job of the minister of citizenship and immigration to make these kinds of judgments. Before it was done by Governor in Council, by cabinet. It was done by a larger group of people. At one time, up until now, a judge would be involved. The judge would have to make some details known and make a determination of some kind. However, this government has a very strong tendency to develop legislation that concentrates more powers into the hands of ministers.

Needless to say, we condemn this practice. We do not trust the Conservatives, and by giving a minister new powers, we open the door to arbitrary and politically motivated decisions. The very idea of giving the minister, by himself, the power to revoke citizenship raises serious concerns, and it is on this principle that we can talk about this issue.

Another problem with revoking the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens is that it would create two-tier citizenship, where some Canadians could have their citizenship revoked while others would be punished by the criminal justice system for the same offence.

Let me talk about how the minister, under the provisions of the bill, could revoke citizenship. If he or any staffer he authorizes is satisfied, on a balance of probabilities, that a person has obtained citizenship by fraud, until now such cases have all typically gone through the courts and cabinet, but that will not be the case anymore.

A person could be convicted under section 47 of the Criminal Code, and these are serious offences, such as treason, high treason, or spying, or of an offence outside Canada that if committed in Canada would constitute a terrorism offence, for example, as defined in that section, or sentenced to five years imprisonment.

We cannot rely on justice systems outside of this country. We have a justice system in Canada that we believe is fair, honest, and decent, but frankly, some countries in the world do not have the same kind of justice system we have. To base the revocation of citizenship on something that may have happened in another country, and I will go into more detail about that later, does not make any sense at all.

The minister would have the authority under the bill to grant citizenship. At present, and I think I mentioned this before, it rests with the Governor in Council, which is the cabinet. Bill C-24 would transfer this power directly to the minister. This measure was introduced by the minister as a means of improving services for applicants by simplifying and speeding up the process. Specifically, the measure raises concerns, because the minister has indicated that the list of persons to whom he would grant citizenship would not be disclosed. Once again, we see the government's lack of transparency, and that should raise red flags. It certainly does with us, and it certainly does with the third party, and it should with all Canadians.

Bill C-24 provides no real solution to reducing the growing backlog and citizenship application processing delays. There has been some money allotted in the last two budgets to help speed up the process, but the fact remains that there are 320,000 applications still waiting to be dealt with.

Let me go back very quickly to Friday when I will be at the citizenship ceremony. The people who are becoming new Canadians this Friday in Thunder Bay are very fortunate and very, very lucky, because 320,000 people are still waiting to have their applications dealt with.

I do not want to belabour this point, because some other speakers have talked about it, but it is about the declaration of the intent to reside. The bill would introduce a requirement that if granted citizenship, a person would intend to continue to reside in Canada. I do not know what the government would do if a person became a Canadian citizen and then received a job overseas and was gone for two years working in another country and was not actually resident here in Canada. It is not addressed in the bill, and it is going to be a problem.

The bill would prohibit the granting of citizenship to persons who have been charged outside of Canada with an offence that if committed in Canada would constitute an indictable offence. Again, we would have the minister, who would be the sole arbiter now, if the bill were passed, of who could stay in Canada and who could not stay in Canada, which would depend partly on the justice systems of other countries. In other words, a person convicted of practising homosexuality in another country, and we know that there are many countries where this is illegal, would be prohibited from becoming a citizen of Canada. That just does not make any sense.

I see I have three minutes left, so I will try to be very quick here. There are some provisions we can support.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member opposite is simple. Bill C-24 would actually allow for a lot of flexibility for people to be able to move around if they need to leave the country. They would need to have been in Canada for four of the last six years, in accordance with provisions in the bill. That would allow for up to two years for someone to be flexible and move around.

It is not the government that wants the intent to reside to be a key element in the bill; it is Canadians who are telling us to put it in there. Canadians have worked all of their lives, as have those who are naturalized and work hard here in Canada to contribute to our nation. We think that it is only reasonable to expect people who want to have the benefits of Canadian citizenship to have the intention to reside in this country.

That is what citizenship is. It is someone who wants to live in the country and be a part of Canadian society. They have the intent to live here and actually be present in this country. I do not understand why the member feels it is asking a little bit too much of people who aspire to get Canadian citizenship to abide by what Canadians themselves are doing by being citizens.

The member is a Canadian. Does she not feel that it is important for those people who have the same benefits and rights that she has in this country to live in this country or intend to live in this country before they get the privilege, not the right, of Canadian citizenship?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech.

She mentioned a provision of Bill C-24 that concerns the declaration of intent to reside in Canada. It is quite obvious that this provision will be challenged in court. This was mentioned by one of the witnesses, who belongs to the Canadian Bar Association, because this provision is contrary to the free movement of people, which is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

What can our colleague tell us about potential court challenges?

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to speak to this bill, which proposes significant amendments to the Citizenship Act and, as a result, to the lives of our immigrants.

I am particularly interested in this issue because there are many immigrants in my riding. There are also a lot of refugees, who also struggle to get citizenship, and I see that this bill will not make their lives earlier, even though they in no way deserve to be treated like this.

To provide some background, on February 6, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration introduced Bill C-24, which significantly amends Canadian immigration legislation.

The minister said that Bill C-24 represented the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act since 1977.

He went on to say:

[The bill] will protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it while creating a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it.

I doubt it. I have had a chance to carefully study this bill and I do not see a single change that will make the process faster and more efficient. This remains to be seen, but there is nothing concrete there.

Since March 2008, about 25 major changes have been made to immigration procedures, rules, laws and regulations. More and more changes have been made since the Conservatives won a majority, including the moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents. There have also been fewer family reunifications, which is very problematic. There is no point in elaborating on this because the expression “family reunification” is self-explanatory. I believe that in life we need to be with our family.

There is also the punishment imposed on vulnerable refugees. Do these people really need to be punished for crimes they did not necessarily commit? I doubt it. Then, there was an increase in the number of temporary foreign workers to meet the needs of large businesses, at the expense of many Canadian workers.

The significant changes made by the Conservatives to the Canadian immigration system did not improve the system's efficiency or fairness. Absolutely not. Some changes to the Citizenship Act proposed in this bill are long overdue. They address some flaws in the existing system and they should be mentioned. When our opponents do good work, we recognize it. We are not stupid.

However, certain clauses are changing the rules. They are totally unacceptable and, in my opinion and in my colleagues' opinion, they must be condemned. Before explaining the provisions that we will support and those that we will not support, I want to describe the changes proposed in the bill.

The bill gives the minister some major new powers, including the power to grant or revoke citizenship. It does not provide any real solutions to reduce the ever-increasing number of delays and the citizenship application processing wait times. It eliminates the use of the length of stay in Canada during a non-permanent residency. It bars individuals who have been convicted of what would constitute an indictable offence in Canada from acquiring citizenship. It includes a clause on the intention to reside in Canada. It increases residency requirements from three years out of four to four years out of six, and it specifies the requirements on physical presence in Canada before obtaining citizenship. It includes tougher sentences for fraud. It extends the granting of citizenship to lost Canadians. It provides an accelerated process to citizenship for Canadian Armed Forces personnel. It applies stricter rules to fraudulent immigration consultants. Also, applicants aged 14 to 64—it used to be 18 to 54—will now have to pass a test assessing their knowledge of French or English.

As I said earlier, we nevertheless support some provisions of this legislation. Other aspects raise a lot of concerns and must be condemned, such as the fact that Bill C-24 concentrates many powers in the hands of the minister, including the power to grant or revoke citizenship in the case of persons with dual citizenship.

I have often told the House that I am always uncomfortable when we give discretionary powers to ministers, because they are human. We all agree that they are not gods. These are very serious issues that should be examined by a committee made up of several individuals. Such issues, including the fate of political refugees, should not be in the hands of a single individual. It is unacceptable. Under the bill, the minister or an authorized official can revoke the citizenship if he is persuaded, on the balance of probabilities, that the person obtained citizenship by fraud.

Until now, these cases were usually referred to the courts. That will no longer be the case. However, these situations lend themselves to interpretation. A person suspected of fraud still has the right to a fair trial, like everyone else. In Canada, we are still innocent until proven guilty. That principle also applies to these individuals.

The minister may also revoke the citizenship of a person convicted under section 47 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason, high treason or espionage; or the citizenship of a person sentenced to at least five years of imprisonment for a terrorism offence under section 2 of the Criminal Code, or an offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute a terrorism offence as defined in that section.

This provision does not in any way distinguish between convictions for terrorism in a democratic country such as Canada, with a credible and reliable justice system, and convictions in undemocratic regimes whose justice systems may be corrupted. We should look at this issue. I am going to give the minister the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he did not think about it, but I doubt it. Still, it would be pertinent to review these issues.

Bill C-24 also does not provide any real solutions to reduce the ever-increasing number of delays and the citizenship application processing wait times. I have said it many times, but it is important. Except for eliminating go-betweens and granting the minister a discretionary power, nothing is done to reduce processing times.

In other words, the quality of the processing is reduced. An application can be botched or it can be properly dealt with. A person could end up not being granted citizenship because the minister is not in a good mood. That is a little far-fetched. As I said earlier, I always feel uncomfortable when discretionary powers are given to ministers.

The declaration of intent to reside in the country also poses a slight problem. The bill introduces a requirement whereby a person to whom the minister grants citizenship must intend to reside in Canada after obtaining citizenship. The government maintains that this requirement is designed to send the message that citizenship is reserved for people who want to live in Canada. The law that is currently in effect does not include a provision on the intent to reside in the country.

The president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Lorne Waldman, said that this amendment gives public servants the power to speculate on a citizenship applicant's intentions and then refuse them citizenship based on that speculation.

I would like to briefly quote what he had to say. I find it very interesting. He said:

The provision also holds out the implicit threat that if a naturalized Canadian citizen takes up a job somewhere else (as many Canadians do), or leaves Canada to study abroad (as many Canadians do), the government may move to strip the person of citizenship because they misrepresented their intention to reside in Canada when they were granted citizenship.

That is rather problematic. In the end, people are basically trapped in the country. That is not really fair. People should be given the freedom to choose where they want to live. If they are not happy in Canada but they want to keep their citizenship, they should be able to study or work abroad and have that experience. I do not see what the problem is with that, and I do not understand why the government would prevent people from having that sort of experience.

In closing, I will quote section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Every individual...has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand in this place to debate legislation, whether members on the other side have a contradictory view or not. That is a decision that those members will make, of course. They decided to have us stay here later because they wanted to debate legislation. However, I am more than happy to fill up the time.

Let me start by offering a few words of encouragement to my friends on the other side because there are a few decent things in Bill C-24.

Heaven knows, we have been asking the Conservatives, for years, to crack down on consultants who victimize residents living in our constituencies. Our constituents come to us, faced with the same dilemma they faced at the beginning of the process when they went to a consultant. Consultants charge individuals thousands of dollars to perhaps fill out a form, but they do not give them any decent advice. In some cases, the consultants steer them in the wrong direction after extracting a great deal of money from them. These people are quite frantic because they are trying to either reunify their family or they are trying to bring loved ones over here. Some of them are trying to expedite their own situation with respect to citizenship. They end up being faced with someone who literally takes the money from their bank accounts.

The government has probably done a decent thing here. We should crack down on illegal consultants because it is time that they be stopped. In my previous life, before I came to the House, I heard about basically the same thing happening with respect to Ontario's compensation system. Consultants would get folks, usually widows in a lot of cases, to sign over a form, giving them 15% to 20% of anything they wanted. They knew full well that the only thing they had to do was to have the individual sign the bottom of the form and send it off because a loved one had died of an occupational disease and they were entitled to some money. The consultants would take a big percentage from what the people received in compensation. Kudos to the government. Conservatives do not hear that from us too often, but I do think they would be doing a decent thing by cracking down on consultants.

My good friend Olivia Chow was a great advocate of cracking down on crooked consultants, who literally bleed immigrants of their financial resources, the limited financial resources that many of them have, in the hope that their family will arrive quickly.

This brings me to the question of why we do not bring their families over here sooner. I had the pleasure of being born somewhere else, but I also have the great pleasure of being a Canadian citizen. I am a dual citizen. People born here are Canadians by birth. Some Canadians, because one of their parents was born in another country, may have dual citizenship of which they are unaware. In some cases, this may work for them. For example, they can go back to where their parents came from and use that citizenship if they so choose. However, some individuals with dual citizenship do not do that. Some believe they are just Canadians.

If this legislation were to pass, citizens with dual citizenship could find themselves in a precarious situation, albeit the crime that is purported to be adjudicated in the bill is a heinous one, I agree. Many of my colleagues in the House are also like me. They were born elsewhere and became Canadian citizens, obviously, because one must be a Canadian citizen to be in this place. That is a requirement of the Parliament of Canada Act. We would not find too many more passionate Canadians than those of us who have acquired our citizenship after coming here from somewhere else.

Many constituents in my area are Slovak, Hungarian, and Italian. They are passionate Canadians. These individuals would be the first to condemn anyone who would dare to slight the Canadian flag or our armed forces or talk negatively about Canada. They are the first ones to defend Canada, long before natural born Canadians. Why is that? It is because they see the seriousness in it. They understand what it means to acquire Canadian citizenship, to work for it. They get that.

They also have a sense of fairness. They believe that one should be adjudicated fairly because many of them came from places where they were not.

The great disparity in my riding is that I am probably one of the few Scots who actually resides in that riding. When we have heritage week and I ask where the person is who will wear a kilt for the Scottish heritage, the executive director tells me that unless I put one on, there will not be one.

However, there will be Ukrainians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, and Italians, and many of them came at a time when they were oppressed. They are now older, of course. Their kids were born and raised here. In fact, their grandkids are being raised here now.

They are passionate Canadians. They understand when things are taken out of a stream that looks like it is not fair and put in a place where it is not fair, even if that place is going to be fair. “I will judge it fairly”, says the government. If my constituents who came from the other side of the wall at that time were asked, they would say “Oh, not so fast. That is what they used to say too”.

Now, I am not suggesting that the government is anything like the other side of the wall. That would be reprehensible. It would not true either.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question that we can indeed debate. I am quite pleased, as the objective is to have another vision.

The question raised by my colleague from Saint-Lambert is very important. The bill creates two categories: citizens and citizens with dual citizenship. Citizenship can be removed and revoked for one category, but not for the other. Furthermore, this can undermine the significance of or the confidence that we might have in the system.

At present, we have a system in place that can arrive at solutions or penalties, when necessary, for people who contravene the rules and the law. With the current version of Bill C-24, the government wants to give the minister the power to actually grant or revoke citizenship in an almost haphazard way. That is very problematic. That is why lawyers have objected.

That is deplorable because the minister has simply dismissed the objections. This happens regularly with the Conservatives: they could not care less about the law or about anything coming from the Supreme Court. Then, we will have to deal with it. Who will end up paying? Taxpayers, and that is deplorable.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He reiterated, as other NDP speakers have, that we want a fair, efficient, transparent and accountable immigration system. Obviously, we completely reject the measures in Bill C-24, which will result in a restrictive immigration system based on arbitrary decisions made in secret.

Could my colleague comment on a quote from the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Lorne Waldman? He said:

The US Supreme Court got it right over 50 years ago when it said that citizenship is not a licence that the government can revoke for misbehaviour. As Canadians, we make our citizenship feeble and fragile if we let government Ministers seize the power to extinguish it.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-24 on citizenship and immigration.

It is no secret that I was born here to parents of Vietnamese origin. Immigration issues hit close to home and are often close to my heart.

This is not the first time that I have been disappointed in the government's actions, but I am particularly disappointed here. The government is not fixing the existing problem. There is a problem with wait times, and that is obvious. Since I was elected, one of the biggest files my constituency office has dealt with is immigration, whether we are talking about visas or citizenship applications.

I represent a very multicultural riding that works very well. My riding includes the city of Brossard, which is incredibly multicultural. On the weekend I watched a high school graduation ceremony. There were people from all over. It is extraordinary to see.

I would like to come back to the bill we are debating today, and I am going to start by talking about an aspect of the bill that is a bit more technical. My colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who spoke before me, mentioned it. In our opinion, it is a very good example of how this government operates.

First of all, the government comes up with a bill that is unconstitutional and goes against the charter. That is not surprising coming from this government. I am talking more specifically about the fact that the government wants to be able to revoke citizenship in certain cases.

The government is giving the minister the power to revoke citizenship. Of course, we are talking about cases where the person in question has dual citizenship. The minister can revoke that individual's citizenship by saying that the person committed fraud or wrongdoing or that other situations warrant it.

The question is not whether the government can revoke citizenship or not, but the reasons for which it can do so. To be more specific, we are wondering how the government came up with the idea of revoking people's citizenship.

The fundamental problem is that the government is creating two classes of citizens: those who have dual citizenship and those who have only Canadian citizenship. For example, the government will not be able to revoke the citizenship of a person who does not have dual citizenship, but will be able to revoke the citizenship of someone who does.

In this case, what is worse is that the minister could say, based on a preponderance of evidence, that he is of the opinion that a person's citizenship should be revoked for such and such a reason. The problem is that there is no appeal process. There is no process whereby the courts can verify that decision at the federal level. The government is putting that power into the hands of the minister. This could lead to an excessive abuse of power. In fact, experts, lawyers and the Canadian Bar Association are opposed to this bill.

Earlier in the debate, the minister said that some people were opposed to this measure but that it was only a small group of lawyers. The minister dismissed the Canadian Bar Association out of hand. This clearly shows that the Conservatives believe that everyone who opposes their opinions is useless. The way the government treats the Supreme Court, among others, has become truly disgraceful.

I am going to come back to how this government operates, instead of solving a problem. There is the problem of the ever-growing wait times and the fact that the government decided to make cuts to immigration. Clearly, immigration is not a priority for this government.

I would like to remind all of my colleagues opposite, none of whom are likely to be listening, that Canada was created by immigration.

This is a personal issue for me because I am from an immigrant family. Thanks to family reunification, my family and I integrated well and now I am an MP. Family reunification is therefore very important to us. However, I heard comments from people on the other side of the House about how grandparents were a burden on society. There is a disconnect over there. They are losing sight of the human side of things. That scares me because this majority government does whatever it wants.

Even though we made recommendations and proposed amendments in committee, we do agree with some aspects of the bill. For example, we agree that some people, such as middlemen, are abusing the system and should be punished. However, in general, the Conservative government does not really want immigrants to feel welcome in Canada. It has made all kinds of promises about improving the system, but the truth is that it is bringing in temporary foreign workers. That is exactly why its management of this file has been criticized.

My family, my NDP colleagues and I all understand the importance of Canadian citizenship, and it is something that is quite obvious when we attend citizenship ceremonies. Having attended many of them, I know that the new citizens in my riding are very proud. However, the Conservatives prefer to give priority to temporary foreign workers, to the detriment of immigration and families who want to settle here and become part of society.

I would like to sincerely thank the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, our critic, and the hon. member for Saint-Lambert for their hard work on this. It shows how important we feel the human element is. The NDP is making this much effort perhaps because our caucus is made up of many nationalities and cultures, so we are very open-minded.

I know that some of my Conservative and Liberal colleagues understand because they also come from immigrant families. This is an important debate, yet those members are allowing the government to take this sort of action and push family reunification aside.

Processing times have nearly doubled. That is incredible. People are not advancing through the system. I have seen processing times increase with my own eyes since I was elected, and that was only three years ago. When we want to serve our constituents, we are sometimes faced with a system that is overloaded. The government is choosing not to find solutions or invest to integrate immigrants better and work with them better so that they settle here with their family and participate in Canada's economy as well.

When my parents came here, it really helped to have their family here, their brothers and sisters, who took care of us. It helped my parents find a job, get settled and move forward. I am disappointed that my Conservative colleagues are not on the right track.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite appears to oppose stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists. We are talking about terrorists.

I believe that the member is not aware of Bill C-24's revocation process. It would start only after a terrorist had been convicted. Once a terrorist was found guilty of terrorism, that person would have the right to appeal up to the Supreme Court of Canada about the conviction, if that person believed it was a false conviction.

I would like the member opposite to tell Canadians whether he believes that under any circumstances a convicted terrorist should have his or her citizenship revoked.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to participate in this broad discussion on Bill C-24, introduced by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I want to commend my colleague, the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard and the official opposition's critic on this file, for her excellent work.

Unfortunately, once again, the Conservatives have failed to follow the rules and do the right thing, as serious parliamentarians should do. There was no real study of this bill in committee, even though this bill could have some potentially serious consequences. I will talk about those later on.

I do not understand why the government did not take the time to listen to the experts in committee. My guess is that it was because the Conservatives knew that the expects would probably disagree with them. That is the impression we got from the testimony during the pre-study and afterwards. People are very worried about this bill, which affects something very basic—citizenship and the minister's power to grant or revoke citizenship.

I think it is rather absurd and even shameful that the Conservatives decided to extend our evening debates in the House of Commons—which is something I am very comfortable with; I am pleased to be here tonight—but they do not show up, do not do their job and do not speak to their own bills. Since the Conservatives decided to extend our evening debates, they have missed 67 shifts. They have turned down 67 opportunities to speak, often on their own bills. That is an insult to people's intelligence. The Conservatives are flouting the rules of Parliament.

This bill is extremely serious because previously, a person's citizenship could be revoked only in cases where it could be demonstrated that fraud had occurred and the person had become a citizen through fraudulent means. Even though that was the only case where a person's citizenship could be revoked, the person could still appeal to the Federal Court so that his or her case could be heard properly. Today, that is no longer true. The government is lengthening the list of reasons why a person's citizenship can be revoked and, at the same time, concentrating a huge amount of arbitrary, discretionary power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration alone. That is very risky and hangs a sword of Damocles over the heads of millions of individuals in our country.

I want to begin this speech by quoting some people who are somehow involved in the conversation about this bill and the type of status the government wants to give Canadian citizens.

A French writer, Amin Maalouf, had this to say, not about the bill specifically, but in general:

It is first up to your country to keep a certain number of commitments to you: that you be considered a full-fledged citizen and that you suffer no oppression, discrimination or undue hardship. Your country and its leaders have the obligation to make sure that is the case. If not, you own them nothing.

Here is another quote about the bill from Thomas Walkom, a columnist for the Toronto Star. He said:

The federal government’s new citizenship bill is a Trojan horse. It is presented as an attempt to reduce fraud and rationalize the process of becoming a Canadian citizen, both of which are sensible aims.

But it would also give [the] Prime Minister['s] Conservative government unprecedented authority to strip Canadians—including thousands born in this country—of their citizenship.

The more we read about the bill that is before us this evening, the more reasons we have to be concerned. It seems we are at a point where citizenship is like the prize in a box of Cracker Jack. Citizenship can be given or taken away on a whim or based on the minister's goodwill.

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend my first official citizenship ceremony in my riding, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I must say that the people who were there were deeply moved and very pleased to officially become citizens. I cannot imagine having to explain to them that now a minister can choose to take that citizenship away from them, and this is actually part of the legislation, if they have dual citizenship, meaning that they are citizens of another country as well.

The minister is giving himself the power to take away their Canadian citizenship in a number of situations, simply because they already have another nationality or another official citizenship. We already heard the former immigration minister say that it was too bad that Canada has to fulfill its obligations under international treaties because the government cannot create statelessness. I get the feeling that if the Conservatives had the opportunity to do so and if it did not contravene the treaties that Canada has already signed, they would not hesitate.

Barbara Jackman of the Canadian Bar Association said this in April:

Taking away citizenship from someone born in Canada because they may have dual citizenship and have committed an offence proscribed by the act is new. That's a fundamental change. For people who are born here and who have grown up here, it can result in banishment or exile. It's a step backwards, a huge step backwards—and it's a huge step being taken without any real national debate or discussion about whether Canadians want their citizenship amended in that way...

That's a fundamentally different concept of citizenship that needs to be addressed. It needs to be discussed and debated. We think that it could raise serious human rights concerns. It does raise serious human rights concerns. It may well contravene the Charter. The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled in the past that we can't exile Canadians. By redefining who a Canadian is, you achieve exile. That's not right. It's against the Charter.

We have good reason to be very worried about this government's apparent desire to resurrect a situation that, for all practical purposes, has not been seen since the Middle Ages: forcing one of its citizens into exile, kicking a citizen out of the country. If a person has another nationality—be it French, Algerian or Burmese—and if that is enough to strip him of Canadian citizenship, that is very serious because that means condemning him to exile and forcing him to leave the country, banishing him. I do not think that is what Canadians and Quebeckers want or are prepared to accept, particularly not in the overall scheme of this bill, which, as we will see, gives tremendous powers to the minister.

In May of this year, Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and an expert on the subject of ministerial discretionary power, which she was concerned about, had this to say:

Finally, the bill grants the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the discretion to revoke citizenship in too many cases. Currently, as written, the bill would give the minister discretion to revoke citizenship in cases of fraud, but there is no requirement—as there was in the previous bill, or as currently enacted now—for a court to evaluate if fraud in fact did occur. If the revocation provisions are kept, every such decision must be considered by, or appealable to, a court, even in cases where citizenship is revoked under suspicion of fraudulent applications. This is for at least two reasons. First, some forms of apparent misrepresentation are made for legitimate reasons—that is, to escape genuine and real harm. Second, judicial proceedings provide the only mechanism to protect against the otherwise inevitable suspicion that the minister is using fraud as a reason to revoke citizenship of people who are suspected of aiming to harm Canada where the proof doesn't exist.

Like many people, I am very concerned about the fact that we will kick people out and force them into exile. We will revoke the citizenship of those who should keep it. If someone commits a crime, there is a penal system for that. We must use that system to ensure that people pay for their crimes. There is nothing wrong with that.

I do not see why we have to do something as radical as revoke someone's citizenship, especially when these convictions could be handed down in foreign countries, including those for terrorism, which could give rise to concerns about the legitimacy of certain convictions. Just look at Burma, North Korea or Syria. I do not think we should rely on the justice systems of those countries to decide whether or not someone should keep their Canadian citizenship.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech on Bill C-24. He mentioned some of our concerns about this bill.

I would like to hear him talk more about the constitutional aspect of this bill, given that the government has been told three or four times to change course, if I may use that expression, or go back to the drawing board. A number of bills have already been rejected in part by the Supreme Court.

Does he think that the same thing could happen to this bill? That is obviously a hypothetical question. A number of experts have already commented on this. Does my colleague have the same concerns as the experts who appeared before the committee and said that they were concerned that the Conservative government is again passing a bill that will very likely be challenged, with good reason, before the different courts?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to have a few minutes to speak to Bill C-24. As an interesting coincidence, I was recently reading the latest issue of Novyi Shliakh, or the New Pathway, a Ukrainian newspaper published here in Canada. On page 6 of the May 15 edition, there was an article by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and the very fact that this article appeared in the New Pathway to me is a clear indication that there is a concern about Bill C-24 in the Ukrainian Canadian community and, I would venture to say, in many immigrant communities. Readers of the article who had concerns were asked to contact their local member of Parliament.

This article states:

This new law changes core aspects of Canadian citizenship as we know it.

If passed, Bill C-24 will make it more difficult for new immigrants to get Canadian citizenship and easier for many Canadians to lose it, especially if they have dual citizenship. Most Canadians do not understand the ways in which Bill C-24 will undermine their fundamental right to be a citizen of Canada. The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers has provided a summary of the most important changes to the Citizenship Act.

It goes on later in the same article to say:

In Canada, citizenship has always been secure. Whether native-born or immigrant, once you are granted Canadian citizenship, you are secure. Under the current system, you cannot lose your citizenship unless you obtained it by fraud, and even then, a Federal Court judge must make that decision after a full court hearing. Under the current system, if you do not agree with the judge, you have a right of appeal. Under the new law, there will be several ways to lose your citizenship. As well, the decision as to whether you lose your citizenship will be made by a government bureaucrat who will inform you in writing with no opportunity for a live hearing to defend yourself.

Why will citizenship be harder to get?

New immigrants will have to wait longer before they can apply for citizenship. Older and younger people will now have to pass language and knowledge tests to qualify for citizenship. The citizenship application fees have been tripled. There will be no right of appeal for those who are refused.

Everyone recognizes the considerable value of Canadian citizenship, but we do not want to politicize this issue. We have seen that approach far too often since the current government came to power.

As far as the bill is concerned, it is high time that we resolve the issue of lost Canadians. This is an unfair situation that has been going on for far too long.

Other parts of the bill raise concerns. For example, the revocation of citizenship gives cause for major legal concerns. We are always worried about proposals to concentrate power in the hands of the minister.

Since March 2008, more than 25 major changes have been made to the methods, rules, laws and regulations related to immigration. More and more changes have been made since the Conservatives formed a majority government, changes such as a moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents, fewer family reunifications, punishing vulnerable refugees and increasing the number of temporary foreign workers in order to meet the needs of corporations.

The considerable changes the Conservatives have made to Canada's immigration system have not helped improve the efficiency or fairness of the system.

That is what is troubling. All these proposed changes are not necessarily going to make the system more efficient. In a sense, we can understand why the system cannot be more efficient. If we cut people who are working, the numbers of public servants, increase their hours, and make it more difficult for them, obviously the system will not get more efficient.

I would like to argue as an aside that maybe a good way to improve our immigration system is to make it more efficient by hiring more people so we can get the job done and process all the immigrants that we have today.

However, I will return to my speaking notes. Bill C-24, as I said earlier on, gives the minister many new powers including the authority to grant or revoke the citizenship of dual citizens.

As we know, the government has a pretty strong tendency to develop legislation that concentrates more power in the hands of ministers. Obviously if we have ministers who understand the situation and I would hope they do, things could work okay, but there are people who do not. We on this side condemn this practice. We cannot trust the Conservatives or any government by giving a minister new powers because we open the door to arbitrary politically motivated decisions.

I guess we all should know that there are politically motivated decisions in any government. What we as parliamentarians have to do is to ensure that we take those politically motivated decisions away from people making decisions.

Let us look at revocation of citizenship. The very idea of giving the minister the power to revoke citizenship raises serious questions and it is on this principle that we should be looking at the bill. Canadian law already has established mechanisms by which we can punish individuals who commit unlawful acts. It should not be the job of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to make these judgments.

Another problem with revoking the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens is that it creates a two-tier citizenship where some Canadians could have their citizenship revoked, while others would be punished by the criminal system for the same offence.

As an aside, let me say a few words about dual citizens. We have already seen discrimination by the government against Canadians who are subject to U.S. tax laws. My colleague, the MP for Victoria, has raised the issue of FACTA and the problems it poses for U.S. dual citizens and family members of dual citizens. I would say that once a person is a Canadian citizen, he or she should have the full protection of our government. It does not matter if one is born here or somewhere else, once one is a Canadian citizen, we should all be on the same level playing field.

There should be no question, for example, of the U.S. government obtaining banking information or for a Canadian citizen to file unnecessary U.S. tax forms when a person already pays taxes here in Canada and fills out the forms. We have had that debate earlier on in this session.

Coming back to this bill, under the provisions of the bill the minister may revoke citizenship if he or she, or any staffer he or she authorized, is satisfied in the balance of probabilities that a person has obtained citizenship by fraud. Until now, such cases have all typically gone through the courts and cabinet, which makes sense. It will not be the case anymore. This aspect poses serious issues to the extent that the minister would have the power to revoke a person's citizenship solely on the basis of suspicion without an independent tribunal to rule on the veracity of the allegations. This is not the case in the United States where that person has the legal right to have the issue resolved in a court of law.

In closing, the bill, although it has some good provisions in it, is another slow erosion of our rights as democratic citizens and for this reason we should oppose the bill in its current form.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

I should mention that the Conservatives limited time for debate on this bill. This is really problematic and it infringes on our right to express ourselves on bills that will affect the lives of Canadians and immigrants.

It is more or less an omnibus bill. In fact, it is the first major reform of the Citizenship Act since 1977. We really ought to do our homework to come up with the best legislation possible.

I oppose this bill and I will take my ten minutes to explain why.

I would like to begin by recognizing the work done by groups in my riding that welcome immigrants, such as ABL Immigration, which works in the Lower Laurentians to help immigrants better integrate into our society and country and have access to services that can help them.

My fellow Canadians are ready to welcome newcomers, to have new people come to live here, but this bill goes against Canadian values.

I would like to mention that I was a panellist at a meeting in Montreal on Bill C-24. Julius Grey, a very well-known lawyer in Montreal whose name is probably familiar to all members, and the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes, which is active in Montreal, also participated in this event.

With the people who took part in the discussion, I was able to see that this bill raises a number of concerns about the Conservative government's approach. There were also concerns about the negative impact of that rather complex legislation, which includes many measures.

Since March 2008, or since the Conservatives took office, over 25 major changes have been made to immigration practices, rules, laws and regulations. We found that not all of these changes have been positive, including the moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents.

In my riding I met people affected by this measure. In fact, I meet people from across Canada who are affected by the fact that they cannot bring their parents and their grandparents here. In recent years, fewer family reunifications have taken place. This threatens the well-being of Canadians.

We saw that the government also chose to punish vulnerable refugees. On this issue, I want to note that Bill C-31 imposes a number of measures that experts deem dangerous for refugees. These provisions give the minister the power to hand-pick which countries are deemed safe, without consulting independent experts. They also give the minister the power to detain asylum seekers for one year, without reviewing that decision.

This bill also contains provisions to deny certain refugees access to the refugee appeal division. Bill C-31 also imposes a mandatory waiting period of five years before legitimate refugees can become permanent residents and be reunited with their families.

As we can see, these are very tough measures that adversely affect the safety of refugees who come to Canada after fleeing unstable situations in their country of origin.

We have also seen that under the Conservative government there has been an increase in the number of temporary foreign workers to the detriment of Canadian workers. Furthermore, and I am sure that I am not the only member to have noticed this, our riding offices are reporting that processing times, which are currently 31 months, are harming our constituents who come to our offices looking for help. Unfortunately, too many of these people want to know the status of their file. The only thing we can tell them is that they have to wait, even though the processing times are unreasonable. Instead of attacking refugees and preventing families from being reunited, this government should instead be tackling processing times. That should be the priority.

I will now focus on the measures in the bill that the NDP members are concerned about. First, we have seen that Bill C-24 concentrates many new powers in the hands of the minister, including the power to grant citizenship and to revoke it from dual citizens. This creates two tiers of citizenship and penalizes people with dual citizenship. It allows a minister to revoke the citizenship of a person who has dual citizenship and commits illegal acts, whereas someone without Canadian citizenship will be punished in the criminal justice system instead.

We believe that this is rather arbitrary. We should not have two tiers of citizenship. I am very proud of my Canadian citizenship and I know that my parents, who immigrated from China, were as well. A Canadian is a Canadian, period. We should not have two types of citizens, those who have dual citizenship and those who have single citizenship.

Under the provisions of the bill, the minister may revoke citizenship if he, or any staffer he authorizes, is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that a person has obtained citizenship by fraud. That poses significant problems because this clause is based on the balance of probabilities. If the minister has reason to believe that the person has obtained citizenship fraudulently, he has the right to unilaterally revoke that citizenship. Clearly, that prevents the individual from appealing to the courts and it places more arbitrary powers in the minister's hands.

This bill is problematic for another reason, namely the provisions related to the declaration of intent to reside in Canada. The minister can arbitrarily choose to strip someone of citizenship if he believes that the individual does not intend to reside in Canada. That penalizes those who obtain citizenship and then perhaps get a job offer elsewhere but still plan on returning to Canada. It penalizes people who find themselves in rather unique situations.

The final measure in this bill that I would like to raise is the fact that the length of time someone spends in Canada as a permanent resident will no longer be taken into consideration for the granting of citizenship.

Clearly, the NDP feels it must oppose many of the measures. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill as well, for the reasons I have just presented.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. As some witnesses pointed out in committee, there will certainly be some constitutional challenges, and I think this will likely go to court.

We are all familiar with the universal principle that all human beings are born free and equal. Our country has the Charter to protect all citizens, and the provisions in Bill C-24 clearly interfere with those protections. There will obviously be challenges.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her great speech on Bill C-24. She certainly has expertise on the subject of citizenship and immigration.

Like me and a number of experts who have looked at the bill, does she have any concerns about the constitutionality of the bill, especially with regard to revoking citizenship?

Does she think that this bill might be challenged if it is passed in its current form?

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this evening I rise to participate in the debate on a very important subject: Bill C-24.

Seventy-five months have passed since March 2008. During those 75 months, the current Conservative government has changed the citizenship processes, rules and regulations about once every three months on average.

Of course things change. Of course a government can recognize that it made a mistake. Of course the government can change its policy. However, when a government changes its mind every three months about an issue as serious as immigration, of course we are going to wonder whether it knows what it is doing.

This government is so incapable of understanding the implications of a situation, so incapable of understanding its options and looking for a lasting solution that will benefit Canadians that it frantically starts over every three months.

This government spends its time bashing the public service. That is its stock in trade. It keeps dumping on public servants' supposed inefficiency and making wholesale cuts to every budget in sight.

In his March report, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, whom the Conservatives continue to ignore because they cannot handle the truth, revealed that only two-fifths of the public service's goals were achieved in 2013.

How can we expect the right hand to know what the left hand is doing when the brain is AWOL? Either this government does not realize how absurd it is to change the rules every three months yet expect them to be useful, or it realizes exactly how absurd that is and is manipulating immigration rules purely to get votes.

Plainly put, the government's immigration policy is ineffective. Once the had their majority, the Conservatives imposed a moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents, they made family reunification harder, and they started punishing refugees. Then they gave us their masterpiece: they opened the floodgates to temporary foreign workers.

The result of this absurd and unjust policy was not long in coming. The Conservatives became mired in a historic scandal involving abuses of the temporary foreign worker program. Now they are fighting tooth and nail to get out of it, but they cannot find a way to solve the problem. This government could not care less about reality. It would rather make all of the issues political and attack the credibility of anyone who dares to contradict it.

How can we give such an irresponsible government the right to decide who should get citizenship and who should have it revoked at the minister's discretion? This is a clear case of feudal arbitrariness.

This bill raises some serious legal concerns. According to the bill's provisions, the minister could revoke the citizenship of someone who has supposedly committed fraud. The individual's citizenship could be revoked based on something the minister or one of his employees believes. It would be based on a balance of probabilities that the individual obtained his or her citizenship fraudulently. Simply put, it means that the minister will now have the power to strip someone of their citizenship based on a mere suspicion.

Even in a country with strict immigration laws such as the United States, any individual who is prosecuted for illegally obtaining citizenship has the right to plead his case in court. Every ruling can be appealed, and the individual is guaranteed due process.

From now on, under Bill C-24, none of that will exist in Canada. One word from the minister and someone can lose their citizenship. The decision cannot be appealed.

The icing on the cake is that the minister announced that he would not disclose the list of people to whom he will be so kind as to grant Canadian citizenship.

I want to remind the government, which cares so little about civil liberties, that in the legal system we inherited from Great Britain, such a process is labelled as being arbitrary.

I would also like to remind the government, which does not care, that prohibiting arbitrary government decisions is a fundamental principle set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It comes to us from British law, which in 1215, with the Magna Carta, and in 1679, with the principle of habeas corpus, made it clear that arbitrariness was a principle to fight against.

I want to warn the government about what it is doing. In addition to being completely immoral, the possibility that the minister can revoke or grant citizenship at his discretion goes against the underlying principles of our legal system.

Once again, the government should expect a long, bitter battle with the Supreme Court concerning one of its many unilateral decisions.

Everyone in the country recognizes the value of Canadian citizenship. There is no need to start such a battle on this subject. That is why we were hoping that this government would change its ways a little and consult the opposition in order to come to an agreement.

However, those hopes were in vain: the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration once again showed just how stubborn this government is by rejecting all of the amendments proposed in committee. We continued to hope in responsible people who believe that the government can and must change people's lives.

That is why we in the NDP strive to find a constructive solution to all of the problems confronting us, regardless of the circumstances. When it comes to immigration, this government's inadequacy has led to unacceptable delays in the processing of applications. We understand that these delays make applicants frustrated and bitter.

However, this wasted time also translates into economic losses. Economic immigrants who knock on our door to come work in Canada may very well turn to other host countries because of the long wait times for their application to be processed. They will then be helping to build economies other than ours.

When the government announced its intention to reduce backlogs, we applauded this commendable intention. However, we reminded the Conservatives that they themselves had created the conditions leading to these delays by making systematic budget cuts throughout the public service. Since 2009, the average time to process an application has more than doubled, going from 15 to 31 months. Since the NDP will have to fix the Conservatives' many mistakes when it forms the next government, we might as well start now.

In order to make processing times reasonable, this government is proposing to merely simplify the process for handling applications by getting rid of the middle man. This is another example of the Conservatives' wishful thinking and simplistic announcements. They were unable to deal with the backlog by putting $44 million on the table as part of the economic action plan, and now they think they will be able to do so by introducing administrative mini-measures. Given these circumstances, why is the government once again making amendments to Canada's immigration system?

In truth, there is only one explanation for the government turning a blind eye to the negative consequences of this legislation: it does not care about the consequences. This government is only interested in how to make itself look good. That is the foundation of its policy. This government does not care about the best interests of Canadians. It is pandering to its voter base. This government is not showing its determination. It is showing its stubbornness. This government does not take action. It acts out.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague, the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, who did incredible work on this file. She made sure that we on this side of the House understood just what a tangle we were getting into with this change to the Citizenship Act, and provided the background so we knew, absolutely, what we had to push back against, which is a bill that would not serve the people of Canada.

I would also like to thank my colleagues from Halifax and from Newton—North Delta for their arguments and for their very clear understanding of what this bill means.

I have some real concerns as does the entire NDP caucus. These concerns stem from the fact that all of the Conservative legislation we have seen, which purport to make positive change, actually do precisely the opposite.

This bill purports to improve the situation for those seeking help by becoming part of our Canadian community. It seems to me that it would actually, in many ways, hurt the very people and communities that governments are supposed to support. Governments that take their job seriously are supposed to protect them.

I will give a rundown of the process of the bill. As members know, in February of this year, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration tabled Bill C-24. The purpose, apparently, was to introduce sweeping changes to Canada's citizenship laws. At that time, the minister stated that the bill represented the first comprehensive reforms of the Citizenship Act since 1977. He said that it would protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it, while creating a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it.

That sounds absolutely wonderful, and we agree that Canadian citizenship has enormous value. The world recognizes the citizenship of Canada. I am sure that you go to citizenship court on a regular basis. Mr. Speaker. I certainly do. The pride, the joy and the incredible sense of happiness that we see among those new citizens tells everyone in that court just how important Canadian citizenship is. It has enormous value. This is why it is very troubling that the government would play politics with such an important issue.

Some of the changes to the Citizenship Act are quite good and they are long overdue. They address the deficiencies in the current system, and we need to applaud that. It is important to say that, because we are not just naysayers. We are very diligent, and we recognize and are willing to say that some changes are good.

For example, the implementation of stricter rules for fraudulent immigration consultants is good. There is a provision that would authorize the government to designate, by regulation, a regulatory body whose members would be authorized to act as consultants and make it an offence for any person who had not been duly recognized by the regulatory body to offer immigration consultant services for a fee.

I have seen in my riding of London—Fanshawe the terrible harm that these fraudsters can cause. It is very expensive. I have had people come into my office who have said that they have been waiting two or three years and have given this person all the money they have, which might be tens of thousands of dollars. When they go to find out where they are in the process, they find out nothing has been done.

This kind of fraudulent behaviour leaves people desperate. They are people who came with great hopes and aspirations, who are left without any hope and very often without recourse. They feel very vulnerable. They are not Canadians in a country where maybe they will not believed. Maybe they will not be able to speak out against this fraudster.

I am glad that immigration fraud will no longer be condoned. We actually pushed the government to crack down on these crooked immigration consultants, so we are very supportive of the anti-fraud measures.

The provisions of expediting citizenship for permanent residents serving in the Canadian Forces is, again, very good. Bill C-24 would shorten the residency requirement from four years to three for permanent residents serving in the Canadian Forces during this period. That is a very important change to the Immigration Act. We need to understand that it applies to only a very few people.

However, it is important to show gratitude. I just wish that same level of gratitude also applied to our veterans, the veterans who gave their service and their absolute dedication to our country. They seem to have been forgotten by the government.

The provision for extending citizenship to lost Canadians is also good. The NDP was involved in this issue as far back as 2007. Therefore, in response to NDP pressure, the government introduced measures in 2009 to extend citizenship to most of these lost Canadians. Unfortunately, in the first go-around, the amendments did not apply to people born before 1947. Bill C-24 would close that loop. Unfortunately, it has taken five years. The government dragged its feet. However, at this point in time, I would say better late than never.

Bill C-24 would also significantly increase fines for fraud from the current level of $1,000 to a maximum of $100,000. Under the bill, a maximum prison sentence would also be extended from 5 years to 14 years, depending on circumstances.

As I said, I have had many people come to my office who have lost all that they had. Again, if the government is to address this kind of fraud, because it is extremely lucrative, to make it onerous on those who would commit fraud, that is very good.

It would also increase the requirement from three out of four years, to four of six, and would clarify the requirement of physical residence in Canada prior to citizenship. One of the benefits of the bill is that it specifies how long individuals must physically be present in Canada before applying for citizenship.

While I have outlined some of the things we think are very good and very positive, there is the other side. I mentioned that at the beginning of my remarks.

Bill C-24 would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration many new powers, including the authority to grant or revoke citizenship of dual citizens. Unfortunately, the government has a strong tendency to develop legislation that concentrates power in the hands of ministers.

As I said the last time I spoke to this bill, governments come and governments go, and there has to be a respect for the fact that no one individual will be in a position of power forever. To grant that individual this kind of power, even for a short period of time, frightens me.

This is a very punitive government, as members will know. It lashes out against those who criticize it. We saw that at the beginning of its mandate. Women lost equality rights because the Status of Women department lost funding. First nations and first nations women have not been given the kind of supports they deserve. We have seen the deaths of far too many first nations women being swept away and not considered.

KAIROS was an organization that criticized the government for its failure in terms of the environment and housing. Well, KAIROS was punished and was told that the funding it was expecting would not be forthcoming.

The National Association of Women and the Law is an organization that reports on women's equality to the UN and on Canada's progress. When it reported that there had not been any progress for the last 30 years, NAWL had to be disposed of.

I hope members would agree that the very idea of giving the minister the power to revoke or to allow citizenship is putting too much power in the hands of one person. We have courts of law. It is very important that we in this House and those in the government respect the authority of the courts and leave that determination to them.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at legislation in the House and talk about the thoughts or ideas we have about it, there is no better way to look at legislation than through the lens of our work as members of Parliament. We have a lot of opportunities as MPs to talk to people, to hear different things, to meet with experts, people who have studied different issues and done academic work on things. We also talk to front-line workers, the people who experience the front lines of issues and have good feedback about potential impacts of legislation.

We also have the experience of talking to people in community, who will feel the impacts of potential legislation and have to live with the impacts of our legislative decisions. That is some of the work that we do as MPs that gives us a unique perspective.

As MPs, a lot of us also have caseworkers in our offices. The caseworkers help people to navigate through the federal government, get people information about files, or where someone's file is at on a particular issue. MPs having caseworkers has been long standing. Our caseworkers are doing more and more casework since the Conservatives have started whittling away at the basic services that people need to understand the federal government, whether it is applying for employment insurance, a veteran applying for services, someone asking for information about permanent residency, or even student loans. They are confronted with 1-800 numbers, voice mail, or waiting on hold forever. It is hard for them to talk to real people.

Many of us have caseworkers in our offices to help folks navigate these systems. Over the last six years, my office in Halifax has seen a growing wait list for citizenship. Phyllis Larsen does casework in my office, and she is fantastic at it. I have had a lot of assumptions made about the kind of casework that she must do. People think that because it is the east coast, there must be a lot of EI applications or working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Actually, the number one issue in my office is immigration.

Every day that Phyllis works in my community office on Gottingen Street, she sees new residents in Halifax who want to become Canadian citizens. These are people from all walks of life. There are university professors, truck drivers, families working to get the rest of their family to Canada, so family reunification, and there are families looking to adopt children from other countries. It is a whole range of different situations, and it takes a lot of courage, a lot of bravery, and sometimes even desperation to come here. However, lately it takes more skill, more tenacity, and more patience to become a citizen of this country.

Phyllis used to work for my predecessor Alexa McDonough, so she has been doing this kind of work for a long time. It was not that long ago that Phyllis saw routine citizenship applications moving through the system in about a year. Today, thanks to the government, the average processing time on a routine application is about 23 months. That is a routine application. That is not all of the strange things that can happen, like someone coming from Ethiopia whose birth certificate is in the Ethiopian calendar, and the age does not match up. We have seen all kinds of non-routine applications, I can certainly say that. Keep in mind that the option to apply only comes after three years of permanent residency.

Even worse is somebody who is give a residency questionnaire, an RQ. This is a questionnaire that will automatically increase the processing time from 23 months to 37 months. The frequency with which residency questionnaires are being given out is alarming. People who sometimes cannot afford bus fare are now being asked to supply everything, from pay stubs to tax returns to airline tickets, to prove that they meet the residency requirements. It does not make sense to do this. However, the government is continuing to add this extra layer of bureaucracy to an already lengthy process, a process that is fearful for a lot of people and uncertain for everyone.

It is no surprise that these constituents, these individuals and families, are angry, frustrated, and sometimes they feel like giving up hope. They pay their taxes, study, and work. They do all of the things that Canadian citizens are expected to do, yet they are not offered the full rights and benefits of Canadian citizenship.

New Canadians build strong communities and healthier families, and this is key to creating a strong and proud Canada. However, it is becoming harder and harder to do so. We are seeing wait times that are so long that medical and fingerprint tests are expiring. This forces people to resubmit their application, which means increased costs for them. Often it means long perilous journeys to obtain these documents.

This is not an issue addressed by the bill, but we have had reports in my riding, especially from the universities, that there is a systematic denial of visas for international students who come from eastern and southern parts of Africa. There is no accountability when it comes to those missions abroad in how they process and deny visas. Oftentimes we are hearing reports that applicants are refused before their applications are even viewed. Therefore, it is broader than the citizenship piece. It goes to a lot of different things that the immigration office is dealing with. We get these kinds of stories from our constituents.

I want to share a story from a recent case that we are working on. Unfortunately, it is a case that is not unique. It is a case where a family has gone missing.

A mother in Canada is trying to bring her children here under the one-year window program. In December 2013, she travelled to her home country, in Africa, to see her children at the address where she knew they were being cared for by friends. Upon her arrival, she discovered that the children had been taken to an orphanage in the capital city. She went to that orphanage, but she could not find her children.

CIC wait lists are so long that while this woman waited for her children's file to be processed, they went missing and she cannot find her family. Can members imagine what it would be like if their children went missing while they were waiting for paperwork to be processed?

This woman is trying to be reunited with her family, but it is our system that has resulted in her not knowing whether she is ever going to see her kids again. During her time there, someone went through her personal belongings, and the only things that were taken were pictures of her children.

I was hoping that the minister would commit to working with us to bring real improvements to citizenship laws, especially when it comes to this backlog.

I have concentrated on some issues that have not been fixed in the bill, and I do not have a lot of time left. However, I want to talk about a problem that I have with in the bill, and that is the ability to revoke citizenship. I believe that the bill would create two tiers of citizens in this country, and it is reprehensible that a government would do that.

I had hoped to read from a brief by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, or CARL. As members have heard from some of my colleagues, Bill C-24 has not been studied in committee. There was a motion tabled by the Conservatives to study the purpose of the bill, but the bill itself has not been studied. No report on the subject matter of the bill has been tabled.

I have in my hands a copy of a brief that CARL put together. These folks are the experts, and not just legal experts. They are working on the front lines and know what this immigration process is like. They have done a fantastic job of pointing out some of the key problems, especially around the ability to revoke citizenship and the fear that it creates. With the time that I have left, there is one line that I will read. CARL calls it “a way to foster a citizenship of fear”.

I highly recommend the brief to anybody who is interested in this issue. They should read the brief by CARL. The Canadian Bar Association and the BC Civil Liberties Association have done excellent work on this as well. They are giving us advice. They are telling us that the bill is not constitutional. They are telling us it is creating a citizenship of fear. They are saying that this is not the way forward when it comes to reforming our immigration law.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising in opposition to the piece of legislation that is here before us today, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Just as other pieces of legislation are seen in the House, the Conservative government has a knack for taking a few things that we can really support and, instead of moving them ahead and getting consensus on them, throwing them in with aspects that we absolutely cannot support. That what is we have in the citizenship bill.

There are bits in here that I have really been pressing on the ministers and the government to change. One of the bits that I really want to acknowledge is that, at long last, the “lost Canadians” issue has been addressed. This issue was addressed previously because the NDP pushed so hard to get it addressed, but it left out those who were born before 1947, people who served on behalf of Canada in wars but were not given citizenship. That right has been addressed. I would like to acknowledge the work done by Don Chapman and others, who carried on and put in an incredible amount of hours to see this injustice righted. I am glad to see that.

I am also glad to see in this bill that tougher measures would be taken against fraudulent immigration consultants. They absolutely should be, and I am really pleased to see this. I am so proud of an ex-colleague of mine, the former member of Parliament for Trinity—Spadina, who put in a lot of work on this file and really pushed to get something done about the fraudulent consultants. Let me tell members that not all immigration consultants are fraudulent, but where we are hearing of abuse, it is quite grotesque.

There are other little bits in here about fines for fraud from the current fine of $1,000 to $100,000. We are fine with that. However, there are bits in this bill that I absolutely cannot support. One of those is the process by which this piece of legislation has landed in the House.

I know that members are going to be shocked at this. Did they know that this piece of legislation, after it came through second reading and was sent to the committee stage, never heard any witnesses? The committee never heard any expert testimony. Instead, the Conservatives used their majority at committee to move straight into clause-by-clause.

This, once again, goes to a trend that I have seen in the House. There is an allergy to data, an allergy to science, and an allergy to expert opinion. The Conservatives had already made up their mind. They did not need to be informed by experts of the dangers of some aspects of the bill, and maybe even be enlightened and accept some of the amendments that the opposition put forward. Why would they do that? Despite this, I have heard the minister stand in the House and say that they heard lots of testimony. They did a study in general, without having the legislation in front of them. No report of that study has been tabled in the House on this legislation, which has seven key components, and where we heard no expert witnesses. There are probably more components, but I have identified seven.

This is a bill that should cause every Canadian living in this country or overseas to be worried, because what we have in this bill, for the first time since Canadian citizenship was established, is a two-tiered citizenship for some. By the way, when people talk to me, they say “oh yes, it must only be two-tiered for people who were born in other countries”. Oh no, this bill would actually create two-tiered citizenship for those who were born in this country and those who became citizens through naturalization.

One of the things that has been truly amazing about Canadians and Canada's history is that we accepted a long time ago that a citizen is a citizen. If a citizen does something wrong, we have a penal system and there are consequences that the citizen has to bear.

Under this legislation, some people will be more citizen than others. I am talking about those who end up with dual citizenship.

By the way, I was shocked after I became an MP, when there was that income tax fiasco for many of my Canadian constituents who then found out that they were still American. They had thought they had let that go a long time ago, but apparently it is very difficult to let go of American citizenship. They found they had dual citizenship. I would say that there will be all kinds of people who do not even know they have dual citizenship, and yet they do through birth, through their parents. For example, my children have the right to dual citizenship from England. There are people who come from different countries. Historically, when we have accepted them into this country, we have said, “Yes, we accept dual citizenship”. Then, when they have their children, their children have that right to that dual citizenship.

We are not really debating dual citizenship or the pros and cons of that. What we are really looking at is what it means to have Canadian citizenship. What we are saying, as I said previously, for the first time in our history is that some citizens will have different rights than others.

I am not a lawyer and have never tried to pretend I am, but I could see that there could be some legitimate legal constitutional challenges with this. How could two Canadians who were born here or two Canadians who came here to this country be treated differently, just because one happens to have a dual nationality?

This bill takes components of the bill that the government tried to rush through this House under the guise of a private member's bill. When it did not get that, it brought it back here and threw in quite a few other components. It should really concern us.

As I said, I am still shaking my head that, here we are, a country that has been a country built through immigration, and the only people who can really say they were here long before the rest of us, first, second, third, fourth, fifth generation, are the aboriginal communities.

What we are seeing once again from the government that likes to spend a lot of money and resources wooing the immigrant community is it is sending a very different message through the legislation. It can be an attack on family reunification. We have a government that is always talking about the importance of family. At the same time, we say we want the young and the brightest from other countries. Of course we do.

However, the young and the brightest do not fall out of the sky. In many cases, they are coming from families where they may be the only child. Then we are saying to them that family reunification, the chance of their families ever coming to join them, has now been turned into a lottery system, and they just have to keep trying.

I do not think that is the way to build a country. I do not think that is the way we want to build our communities.

We also tried to address the long wait lists. We shredded applications for people who waited legitimately. We have shut the door on immigration in so many ways, and yet under the government, the floodgates have been opened for the temporary foreign worker program that has kept wages down at entry-level jobs and in the low-skilled sector. I would say there are abuses throughout that program that we are hearing about over and over again.

The government says it is going to address the lengthy wait lists for citizenship. I could more than pack this chamber with people who have been waiting and waiting. After they have qualified for citizenship, they could wait another 32 to 36 months to get their actual citizenship papers.

There is a little throw-in here for men and women who served in the armed forces. They are going to get to apply for their citizenship one year early. That sounds good on paper, and we support it. On the other hand, when a citizenship system is so backed up and people are waiting for years and years, it seems like a gift that is not really a gift, or a reward that is not really a reward.

As I was saying, once again, the government has tried to pull a sleight of hand by throwing in a few good things in this bill, and quite a bit that is not acceptable to the opposition.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill and to announce that the Liberals will be voting against it.

We do not like this bill at all, except for the part that deals with lost Canadians. We think that all of the other aspects of this bill are bad for Canada, so we will be voting against it.

There are two main aspects that we do not like at all. First, the Conservatives believe that the more difficult it is to get Canadian citizenship, the more valuable it is to be a Canadian. We do not think that makes sense. On the contrary, if we make it difficult for people to become citizens, they will go elsewhere, such as to Australia, the United Kingdom or the United States.

Otherwise, we in Canada are competing for people around the world with countries like Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. When the Conservatives erect barrier after barrier to make it harder for people to become citizens of this country, as they do in this bill, in no way does that increase the value of citizenship. Rather, what it does is turn people off of becoming citizens of Canada and induce them to become citizens elsewhere. Indeed, I would say this bill devalues Canadian citizenship, because while it makes it harder for newcomers to become citizens, it makes it easier for the minister to arbitrarily remove someone's Canadian citizenship. In that sense, it devalues our citizenship and makes it less durable against attack from a minister of the crown. The individual Canadian would have limited right to appeal to the courts.

We in the Liberal Party believe that we should reduce the barriers to citizenship and welcome people to this country, whereas the Conservatives would erect more barriers. Instead of welcoming newcomers with a smile, they welcome newcomers with a scowl and force them to climb all of these hurdles to achieve citizenship.

If we look at the hurdles, we see that most of them make very little sense. I would like to name a few.

First of all, until now international students have been able to claim 50% of their time as students as credit toward becoming citizens. Under this bill, the Conservatives would make that amount zero. This is foolish in the extreme. We are encouraging international students to go elsewhere. Who are better candidates to be citizens of Canada than students, who by definition are educated, have experience in this country, and presumably speak English or French? They are giving students a kick in the pants when instead we should be welcoming them to our country.

Second, they impose language tests on older newcomers. Up until now, beyond age 54, one did not have to pass a difficult language test. Now one does if one is between the ages of 54 and 65. We believe this is unnecessary. We believe many loyal Canadians who have come here and become citizens speak less than perfect English as older citizens, but I have no doubt their children and grandchildren will speak perfect English or French. We do not think that the imperfect French of the older generation has been any impediment to becoming good citizens and contributors to this country.

The third barrier, also inappropriate, is that the Conservatives have increased the length of time that people have to be residents. They have tightened the definition of “resident” so as not to allow any more time spent abroad if, for example, the person is working for a Canadian company.

In all these ways, the government has increased the barriers or the difficulties in becoming a citizen. We believe this is bad for this country, particularly in the world of 2014, when we have an aging population and are competing with many different countries around the world for new citizens.

Finally, as if that were not enough, they have increased the wait time for becoming a citizen from 16 months to 31 months, which is double, and for many people it is even longer than that.

None of these aspects of the bill are positive for this country.

For that reason, we in the Liberal Party are very pleased to vote against this bill.

The second component of our objection is, in one sense, even more serious. What I have just said is serious enough: we compete for immigrants, we need immigrants, we want to welcome immigrants. However, the second part has to do with infringing upon the Constitution by passing laws that many lawyers agree would be unconstitutional and would not be able to stand a test in the Supreme Court.

I have a letter here. I might not have too much time, but I will read a bit of it:

...removal may occur despite the fact that they have not, do not, nor wish to apply for dual nationality. A Canadian-born citizen may be removed and wake up to landing in a country which may not recognize the dual nationality and thus become stateless.

The letter, from lawyers Messrs. Galati, Slansky, and Azevedo, representing the Constitutional Rights Centre, goes on to say:

...the Federal Parliament has absolutely no constitutional authority over the citizenship of persons born in Canada, but only over “Aliens and Naturalization”.

It adds:

This aspect of C-24, in its seismic shift from the historical and constitutional understanding of the citizenship of those born in Canada, should be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada...and not simply passed through Parliament....

It concludes that:

The Constitutional Rights Centre Inc. intends to take every judicial proceeding possible against Bill C-24.

In the good old days, governments assured themselves that a bill was constitutional before passing it through Parliament. Under the current government, bill after bill seems to go through Parliament with no assurance that it is constitutional, and indeed with assurances from well-reputed lawyers that it is not.

We object in principle to the arbitrary removal of citizenship from individuals for reasons that are highly questionable and to the very limited opportunity for the individual to appeal to the courts against that removal of citizenship. We object to the onus of proof regarding dual citizenship being placed not upon the government to prove that the person is a dual citizen but upon the individual to prove that he or she is not. That also is wrong.

For all of these reasons, we and many legions of lawyers across this country are convinced that the bill would fail the test of the Constitution, and well should it fail that test, because it would do things that are inconsistent with not only the Constitution of Canada but also with the spirit of this country as developed over many decades of our history.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee; and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Report Stage

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place on behalf of the good people of Davenport in the great city of Toronto to speak to Bill C-24. It is of vital interest to the people in my community of Davenport, in fact to people right across the greater Toronto area, because over half the people in the GTA were born outside of Canada, so any changes to our citizenship and immigration rules, laws, or structures are of vital interest to the people I represent.

What we have here is a gross failure on the part of the government to address the fundamental issue facing so many of our immigrant families in Canada, and that is the failure of the government, in this legislation and in other pieces of legislation it has brought forward, to deal with the growing wait times, not just for citizenship but for family reunification. The bill does not address those issues. In fact, it makes those issues worse.

Right now we have about 360,000 people waiting for their citizenship applications to be processed. What we would have liked to have seen is the government expedite this, bring this issue forward, in a way that would actually get some resolution for so many families who are in sort of suspended animation. They are doing the work. In every other way they are Canadian citizens, except that they have not had their applications processed. They are waiting and waiting.

The bill also underlines a strategy the government employs time and time again, and that is to pick the outlier problem and use it as the justification for massive changes that would maybe appease some of its base but that would not address the fundamental issues immigrants in Canada face today.

I would like to bring the attention of the House to the issue of fraud in the system. We have over 300,000 applicants for citizenship right now. The other day the minister admitted that only 3,000 of those over 300,000 are being investigated by the RCMP for potential fraud. Fewer than 1% are being investigated, and we do not know what those investigations will glean. Of that fewer than 1%, they may find some fraud. I am not saying that there is not some, but the government and the minister are using this fraction of abuse in the system as a rationale for sweeping changes, changes that would, as they do so often on the government side, amass more power in the hands of the minister, power that would allow the minister to retroactively change someone's citizenship status.

If the Conservatives had listened to stakeholder groups, they would have heard quite resoundingly the deep concern of Canadians, immigrants, and the organizations that support and advocate on behalf of both refugees and newcomers to Canada.

I would like to also underline the fact that the government has changed the language test requirements. It has made it now the rule that anyone between the ages of 14 and 64 needs to undergo a rigorous language test. The minister has never once revealed any data that would back up any reasons for the changes he has made. He says that young people would score great on this test, and it would be great. We know that.

However, he has never brought forward any study that shows that this is indeed the case. The minister has never answered the question regarding what would happen if the child does not pass the language test, but the adult does. What happens then? I believe that one of the reasons that the government moved time allocation on the debate is because it does not want to answer the tough questions that are being raised on this bill. The questions just keep coming.

Today, there are families in my riding who have been waiting eight to nine years for grandparents and parents to come to Canada, and for the government to fulfill the promises that it made to newcomers when they first came that they could bring their parents or grandparents with them. What we have now is a government that says it going to fix the wait times for citizenship by making it much harder. In other words, the government would make the process and the system longer.

Some of it seems to make absolutely no sense. It the government wanted to ensure that those who were seeking Canadian citizenship would forge a real attachment to Canada, why on Earth would it then disqualify all of the time that a person has spent here as a non-permanent resident from their application?

That makes no sense. It sends a huge message to people. It tells them not to attach to us because we are not going to attach to them right now. That is fundamentally the wrong way to go, and it was not the case here in Canada until now, when the government politicized this debate.

The extended times required to stay in Canada are also an issue for many immigrants. In case the government has not realized, Canadians travel abroad for work all the time. We are in a globalized economy. We have Canadians working in the United States and we have Canadians working all across Europe and Asia, looking for opportunities. When they arise, Canadian citizens can take those opportunities, but the changes that are in this bill would make it more difficult for permanent residents who are waiting for citizenship. Indeed, after they are granted citizenship, it would make it harder for them to take the opportunities that are there in the global economy.

This seems incredibly unfair, and it brings up the point that my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River made earlier about the creation of two-tiered citizenship. Making it more difficult for new citizens to take those opportunities elsewhere in the economy is also a way of creating a two-tiered system of citizenship in this country.

People should not be surprised that this is the direction that the government has gone in. After all, when we are giving a message to immigrant families that their grandparents and parents are not as important to Canadians as Canadian-born grandparents and parents, of course, we have a two-tiered system.

We have always had families at the basis of our immigration system. The government, through its policies, whether on refugees or immigration, has moved Canada away from family values. It has seen families being torn apart. Quite frankly, we have to build an immigration that has, at its core and as its central function, the goal of keeping families together and a part of the Canadian community. The New Democrats on this side are committed to that.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it funny that the member does not realize that there are many countries in the world where one cannot deny one's citizenship. For example, Canadians who may have been born in Canada or are naturalized Canadians and are of the Jewish faith have the right to return to Israel and claim their Israeli citizenship.

Bill C-24 says that for those who are dual nationals, or if the minister has reason to believe that they have a claim to another nationality, hence the example of a Jewish Canadian who potentially could have a claim to another nationality, the minister could, on his own volition, choose to revoke their citizenship. That is creating two tiers citizenship.

Those who do not have that option could not have their citizenship revoked because it would create a situation of statelessness. However, those who could be dual nationals or potentially have a claim to another citizenship could have their citizenship revoked. That would mean that there would be those who are full citizens and those who are kind of citizens. That is two tiers of citizenship.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I again speak to this bill as a member of the citizenship and immigration committee who sat there every day for at least six hours a week during the pre-study of the content and subject matter of the bill. Witness after witness, including expert testimony, said time and again that the clauses in the bill were either in contravention of the charter, un-Canadian, in contravention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, treated different types of Canadians unfairly, such as naturalized Canadians verses born-in-Canada Canadians, and did not value their pre-PR time spent in our country. During our committee study, I polled every witness with whom I had a chance to speak. Every one of them said that the clauses about not valuing the pre-PR time people had spent in Canada should be removed and amended.

In the minister's answer to my previous question with respect to his speech, he made it clear that he did not value what any of the opposition members had to say or any of the amendments that the opposition had put forward. He also did not value the people who were putting time into our country and spending time learning what it was to be a Canadian and living the life of a Canadian.

For example, international students who live in Canada for four years, who go to school with our children, who become their best friends, who party with them, who build strong relationships with our Canadian students and who volunteer in our communities learn what life is like as a Canadian.

However, Bill C-24 states that those people and the time they have spent in our country have no value, that they are not learning what it is to be Canadian. It is easier for those who come to our country as landed immigrants and get their PR the day they arrive than it is for international students who spend four years learning what it is to be a Canadian and living like a Canadian. According to the bill, the time those students have spent in our country has absolutely zero value toward being a Canadian.

I want to talk about some of the amendments the NDP put forward, which the minister said made no sense and were of no value. I forgot the exact adjective he used, but he basically said that they had no value to add. I will not talk about all of the amendments. I want to go through some of the ones we put forward at the committee stage and we were unable to speak to any witnesses.

First was with respect to counting the value of PRs working abroad toward their citizenship application. That was with respect to permanent residents who were temporarily outside of the country for professional reasons. It could be somebody working on a United Nations project in any country around the world. We know that local businesses have operations outside of the country and their employees may have to travel for work. The government has said that even though those people might be living, working and paying taxes in our country, those days they spend working outside of Canada and bringing economic value and thrust to our country has no value. That is what the government said when it refused to accept one of the NDP's amendments.

Another amendment we put forward was to reverse the age changes the government made for language and knowledge requirements. Currently, the law states that 18 to 54 year olds need to pass the language and knowledge requirement tests. What the government members put forward was to increase the maximum age to 65 and lower the minimum age to 14. That means that children who are 14 to 18 are now being treated the same as the adults. I spoke earlier about UNICEF Canada submitting a brief to the committee. It spoke to how that was in contravention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I will read a small portion from the actual brief UNICEF Canada sent to committee. It states:

In relation to the acquisition of citizenship, a number of Convention articles are engaged, including: definition of the child (including age) (article 1); equality and non-discrimination (article 2); the best interests of the child (article 3); family integrity (article 5); survival and development (article 6); birth registration, nationality and protection from statelessness (article 7); family relations (article 8); protection from arbitrary separation from parents (article 9); and, family reunification (article 10).

For those members in the Conservative Party who do not understand what I am saying, I have just finished saying that I am reading, from the brief from UNICEF Canada, which articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child would be breached by the bill.

UNICEF Canada made it very clear that a child-rights-based approach to citizenship requires that we continue ensuring that we are not in contravention of the rights of the child.The language and knowledge requirements testing would be, actually. To quote UNICEF again:

Bill C-24 proposes to amend subsection 5(2) of the Citizenship Act to expand the age requirements of applicants to 14 to 64 (currently 18 to 54) to successfully complete both the language and knowledge requirements. The proposed amendments would effectively put the onus on children aged 14 to 18 to successfully pass both language and knowledge requirements, without additional supports, in order to become a Canadian citizen.

That is telling us that the current government wants to treat children as it does adults, as equivalent to adults.

The NDP proposed two amendments to ensure that these children would not be treated as adults. Another amendment we put forward was to not increase the age from 55 to 65 at the top end of the bracket, because we know that many studies have shown that for older people in the community, it is actually harder to acquire a new language and to pass these knowledge tests in this new language they may be acquiring.

The government members opposed both of those amendments and did not pass them.

Another amendment the NDP put forward would have allowed an opportunity for the applicant to make a submission before a citizenship judge. This is about the minister increasing discretion for himself or herself and future ministers. There would be increased discretion for a minister, yet the applicant would not even have an opportunity to make a submission before a citizenship judge. The NDP put forward an amendment to try to make it more of a fair process so that applicants would actually have an opportunity to appear before a citizenship judge and make a submission themselves.

Another amendment was actually recommended by the Canadian Bar Association. We know how the minister feels about that association and its validity, but I value what the Canadian Bar Association had to say. It specified that this amendment would specify that law students must be articling and offering advice while actually supervised by a member of the law society. The current law does not actually require that. We tried to make it so that law students who were helping out would actually be supervised by a member of the law society. This is another thing that apparently the government members do not seem to value.

One last piece is about the revocation of citizenship, which the current minister likes, and how it would create two tiers of Canadian citizenship for those born here and those naturalized here. This is basically saying that the government, or the minister, would have the opportunity to deport people and strip them of their Canadian citizenship just because they are dual nationals. This would also mean that Canadian-born citizens who have Chinese, U.S., British, or Italian parents, for example, would have their citizenship revoked--

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the chance to speak one final time on Bill C-24, a bill respecting the strengthening of Canadian citizenship. This is a challenge that has been before the House in one way or another for well over a century, since Confederation, as we have sought to understand and reinforce the value of the rights and privileges as well as the responsibilities and duties that we have as Canadian citizens.

It is important to realize that the bill has received wide-ranging debate, both in the House and across Canada, in committee and in this Chamber. We disagree perhaps with New Democrats on the nature of that debate. They have forgotten about the pre-study of the bill in committee; we have not. Earlier today in debate they declined to acknowledge that 25 very solid witnesses appeared before committee on the bill. We listened to their testimony with attention and found it extremely valuable.

There is a more fundamental issue, and this debate has revealed the fundamental difference of opinion between the NDP and ourselves on the bill. It revolves around the issue of revocation.

The NDP is silent on the issue of revocation of citizenship when it is fraudulently obtained. That is a power that we as a government already have under the current act. It is a long-standing power that has existed in one form or another through generations in the various versions of legislation governing Canadian citizenship. It is required, because as we in the House and all Canadians know, there was a phenomenon of abuse, particularly after 1977 with the Trudeau reforms to citizenship, of this highly prized program. People received the status of permanent residency but then actually failed to be physically present in our country. Instead, they paid lawyers and consultants to pretend they were here.

We have made great strides in understanding this issue. In collaboration with the RCMP, thousands of cases are being investigated, and they have led to dozens of revocations, as is proper in the minds of Canadians, who, as we all know, rightly have a low tolerance for abuse, for short-circuiting the system, and for rule-breaking of this kind, particularly when it relates to an issue as serious as citizenship.

Then there is the issue of revocation for gross acts of disloyalty to Canada. We on this side think that dual nationals who commit an act of treason or espionage or who are members of a terrorist group serving inside or outside our country have morally forfeited the right to be Canadian citizens. We think that moral forfeiture to the right to Canadian citizenship should be reflected in legislation. We should have the power, as a government and as a country, to revoke the citizenship of those who have taken up arms against the Canadian Forces or sold state secrets.

These are not widespread phenomena in Canada, fortunately. The loyalty of the overwhelming majority of Canadians is not in question. However, that same overwhelming majority understands that citizenship brings with it the concept of allegiance to a crown, to laws, to a political system, a democracy that has rules. When someone literally sells state secrets to a foreign power, betrays our country in fundamental ways, or takes up arms in a terrorist organization or in some other organized force against Canada and against international order, in the case of terrorism there should be a power to revoke citizenship when we are not making citizens stateless. That is a responsibility we take extremely seriously.

The bill would not create new classes, in isolated cases or larger numbers, of stateless persons, but it would give us a right that every other NATO ally, with the exception of Portugal, already has, which is to revoke citizenship for gross acts of disloyalty. This is a fundamental difference we have with the NDP and the Liberals, who do not seem to acknowledge that this power is relevant and that it should be reflected in the modernization of our Citizenship Act, which Bill C-24 would bring.

Second, we have a difference of opinion with a couple of stakeholders, notably, a few in the Canadian Bar Association, who have declared the bill unconstitutional. They do not listen to lawyers from the Department of Justice. They do not listen to lawyers across the country who are specialists in citizenship and immigration and see this bill as valuable, legitimate and entirely constitutional. They think that by asking permanent residents if they have the intent to reside in Canada as they begin the process of accumulating their residence in Canada to qualify for citizenship, is an unconstitutional request. We beg to differ.

If people are resident in Canada for three out of four years under the current law and four out of six years under the new law, they clearly have had the intent to reside in Canada. People do not take up residence in a country by accident, and it is entirely legitimate not only to ensure that there is physical presence for the requisite number of years but that people who are aspiring to attain citizenship have the intent to reside. If their intentions change, so be it. They may qualify for citizenship over a longer period, or their plans may change and they may go to live in another country, take up a job opportunity or follow family circumstances to another part of the world. They will not meet the residency requirements and they will not become eligible for Canadian citizenship. However, we are going to ask, and it is absolutely reasonable to ask, those heading toward the prized goal of Canadian citizenship if they intend to reside here.

Apart from those two criticisms, we have not heard much. There are isolated pockets of opposition to the bill, many of them badly informed, unfortunately, I think often by members opposite who have mischaracterized some of its provisions. There was an online poll, as I was saying in an earlier debate. Some of those who unwittingly signed were under a complete misapprehension of what the bill actually contained. If we on this side of the House had the opportunity to meet with these people, communicate with them directly, as we do in correspondence and emails every day, those misunderstandings would not have gone as far as they did.

The bulk of the reaction we have had from across the country, from the north and south, from the east and west, and everywhere in between goes along the following lines. I will quote Nick Noorani, managing partner of Prepare for Canada, who stated:

I congratulate the government on its changes [to the] Citizenship Act that combat residency fraud and ensure new Canadians have a stronger connection to Canada. With the changes announced today, processing times will be improved and new Canadians will be ready to fully participate in Canadian life.

Martin Collacott of the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, a former Canadian ambassador, stated:

The government's new citizenship legislation addresses a host of long overdue issues relating to the acquisition of citizenship. Its provisions, such as strengthening residency requirements for applicants, will increase the value and meaning of Canadian citizenship...

Gillian Smith, executive director and CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, stated:

Our organization works extensively with Canada’s newest citizens who tell us that measures taken to foster their attachment and connection to Canada have a positive effect on their successful integration. New citizens' sense of belonging comes in large measure from experiencing Canada first-hand-its people, nature, culture and heritage.

There are others, such as Sheryl Saperia on the need to send that clear message of deterrence to those who might contemplate terrorist acts and Bill Janzen, a consultant in the Central Mennonite Committee, who applauded us for the work to address the long overdue issue of lost Canadians.

There is a lot here. There is real value in this bill, such as faster processing, increased value for Canadian citizenship, honouring those serve and deterring disloyalty.

One hundred years ago, debate concluded in the House on the Naturalization Act, which is one of the forebears of this bill. Mr. Diefenbaker said the following on the last day of that debate, which took only one month:

If ever there was a time when we should assert and practise what our citizenship means, it is now....It is our duty and responsibility as Canadian citizens to maintain those principles and traditions which mean so much to us and to guard against infringement of the great principles of freedom; for...the hallmarks of liberty can be erased as a result of the acts of a zealous person who is misdirected, no less than by one who destroys those principles with evil intent. We will give a great citizenship to Canadians hereafter.

The House resumed from June 6 consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Bill C-24—Time Allocation Motion

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a fact, and maybe the minister can stand up and apologize for misleading Canadians.

I have been on several committees since I have been here. When a committee is studying a project or a bill, we bring in witnesses. The Conservatives will bring in witnesses who are tilted to their way of thinking. However, they could not bring in any to discuss Bill C-24 because they could not find any Conservative witnesses who shared their way of thinking.

Will the minister now stand up and apologize to Canadians for misleading them and trying to make them believe that there were witnesses at committee when there were not?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, why did the NDP, on February 27, in the person of my colleague, the immigration critic for the NDP, move to end debate on Bill C-24, to discontinue debate at that early stage? Was that a positive co-operative expression of faith in the democratic process? We do not think so, nor did we think so in the three days of debate allocated to second reading. We heard the same speech time and time again from the NDP, citing the same inaccurate information, often from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association or a small section of the Canadian Bar Association. They do not speak for Canadians across the board. They do not even speak for lawyers across the board. That is what we have heard from the much broader feedback that we have had, from a much broader group of people.

I spoke to people last week who signed the petition, which contains thousands of names, as many online petitions do. After a five-minute discussion, they said they would be taking their names off the petition. They had not understood what they were actually expressing their opposition to. They had not understood the benefits of the bill. They had not understood how processing would become faster. They had not understood how the value of Canadian citizenship would be strengthened by a four-year residency requirement. It would ensure that we are not moving in the direction, as Richard Gwyn regretted some years ago, of turning Canadian citizenship into “the unbearable lightness of being Canadian”.

We want people to have a substantial understanding of this country, its laws, its traditions, its system of government. That is what the “Discover Canada” guide does; that is what our reforms today have done; that is what the bill will do, and that is why it is popular with Canadians.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is another sad day in the history of our Parliament. Unfortunately, this is the 71st time the government has used time allocation to shut down debate on an issue.

A few weeks ago, the Conservatives broke the corrupt Liberals' sorry record for the number of time allocations during a single Parliament, a record that the Conservatives always used to condemn. They always used to say that this was no place for time allocation motions. Now, with their 71st, they have left the Liberals' record far behind. The Conservatives are worse than the Liberals, and that is not very impressive.

The headline this weekend in the Vancouver Sun was, “[Prime Minister's] Abuse of Power Comes Daily”. It talked about the culture of secrecy, partisanship, and contempt for due process that runs rampant in the current government. This is particularly the case with Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 is controversial. It has had opposition from across this country. The Conservatives used closure to try to ram it through, but they said in committee that they would actually consider amendments. However, the bill comes back from committee, not only without being amended, but even more appalling, this Conservative majority did not allow any witnesses to consider the bill. That is the real reason they are using closure.

It is an embarrassing bill, one that is not going to stand up in court, and it is igniting a lot of opposition across the country. Instead of having a proper parliamentary debate, instead of allowing witnesses to speak on the bill and have Canadian groups in who are actually concerned about the bill, the Conservatives have shut that process down: no amendments and not a single witness. Is that not the real reason the Conservatives are bringing in closure? Is it because they know that witnesses speaking to the bill will criticize it?

Of course, if there are amendments that could be brought in, all they could do is improve upon a bill that has a bad principle and a bad direction. However, is that not the real reason the Conservatives are bringing in closure today? They want to shut down debate before the public becomes aware of what they have done with the bill.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the bill and five hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

that, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration at report stage and the five hours provided for the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stages of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Bill C-24—Notice of Time Allocation

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise not in relation to questions and comments but rather to provide the following notice to the House.

I must advise that an agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2) concerning the proceedings at report stage and third reading of Bill C-24, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting of the House a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages.

Motions in Amendment

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

I would first like to speak about LaSalle—Émard, the riding that I have the privilege and honour of representing. My riding is located in the southwest region of the Island of Montreal and it is quite diverse. Each year it becomes home to approximately 1,000 new citizens. Once a year for the past three years, I have organized an evening event to welcome new citizens. The event this year was held on May 22, and slightly more than 350 people attended. They attended along with their friends and family and they happily thanked me for welcoming them to Canada. They told me they chose to come to Canada because it was a democratic country with a good standard of living where people can freely express their views and work. These were the sentiments conveyed to me by these new citizens on this occasion held in their honour.

I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart for helping me to appreciate once again how fortunate and privileged we are to live in Canada, a country that throughout its history has welcomed newcomers with open arms.

In 2017 we will be marking 150 years of Confederation. But well before then, Canada welcomed French explorers and Anglo-Saxon settlers to its shores. Later on, Ukrainians settled in Saskatchewan. I had an opportunity to visit the Ukrainian Museum of Canada during a stop in Saskatoon.

Year after year, my riding welcomes newcomers and refugees who come to Canada because of its highly democratic values and its tradition of welcoming people from every country in the world.

However, the bill now before us would slam the door in their faces. Since the Conservatives came to power, it has become increasingly difficult for people to come to this country. While I did welcome some new citizens to my riding, I have to mention the over 350 cases of people who sought the assistance of my riding office. These people are upset with the lengthy delays they have encountered. They are waiting to be reunited with their spouses and families. There is good reason to be seriously concerned about this state of affairs.

Since March 2008, over 25 major changes have been made to immigration practices, rules, laws and regulations, adding even more confusion to the situation and making things even more difficult for refugees and applicants. The government wants to make waiting times even longer.

Since the Conservatives have had a majority government, there has been a moratorium on sponsorship of parents and grandparents. The number of family reunifications has declined. Vulnerable refugees are being penalized, while the number of temporary foreign workers, who have no rights and no chance of settling permanently in Canada, has increased. They are brought here to work and then sent home.

One would have thought that a bill to amend the Citizenship Act and make consequential amendments to other acts might have addressed all of these issues and all of the system’s inherent problems. Alas, the bill is silent on this score.

As my colleague, the official opposition critic for immigration and citizenship, so aptly said, some provisions of the bill do address important issues and will bring about certain improvements.

On the one hand, some effort has been made to resolve long-standing problems. However, as has been noted in the speeches made in this House, some of the bill’s provisions do raise extremely important questions and very legitimate concerns. Specifically, there is the fact that Bill C-24 gives the minister many new powers, including the power to grant or revoke citizenship in the case of persons with dual citizenship. Some witnesses said that they are very concerned about this new provision because people will not have access to the proper recourse. This provision is indeed cause for some concern.

Furthermore, as I said, the bill offers no real solution when it comes to reducing wait times, which continue to grow, and citizenship application processing times.

Another provision mentioned earlier is the requirement to state one’s intention of residing in the country. Under Bill C-24, a person who is granted citizenship by the minister must intend to reside in Canada after being granted citizenship. This begs the question as to whether—

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague for a wonderful few minutes of explanation about the bill so that all Canadians can get a better understanding of just how these kinds of changes in bill C-24 would impact future Canadians.

I would like to hear more from my colleague. Every new Canadian I speak to is very anxious to get citizenship. Would Bill C-24 make that more difficult for newcomers to Canada?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act. While I support the objective of clarifying the test for residency and also the approach with regard to the retroactive restoration of citizenship for additional lost Canadians, I have serious concerns with respect to the bill's principles and policies as a whole. I submit it will not strengthen, but in fact prejudice, Canadian citizenship, and in particular undermine the fundamental principles of Canadian law and policy that have long underpinned our citizenship regime.

There are too many problematic and constitutionally suspect aspects of this bill to address all of them in my allotted time. Accordingly, I would invite members who are considering voting in support of this legislation to consult, among other resources, the comprehensive and persuasive briefs of the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, submissions of constitutional experts, and others, who have identified the serious flaws in this bill while making the case for its rejection.

I will focus primarily on those proposed yet seriously problematic reforms to the Citizenship Act that would fundamentally alter the concept of Canadian citizenship, ultimately resulting in the creation of two unequal classes of Canadians. Indeed, Bill C-24 marks the unprecedented introduction of citizenship tiers for the first time in Canadian history. Not only would this bill make it more difficult to obtain citizenship, it would make it easier for the government to revoke it.

Specifically, Bill C-24 provides that an applicant seeking citizenship must intend to reside in Canada upon obtaining citizenship. This provision would ultimately empower the minister to revoke citizenship from naturalized Canadians based on a finding that they initially misrepresented their intent to reside in Canada. As a result, naturalized Canadians who, for example, engage in extensive international travel for legitimate reasons, such as to visit family or engage in work abroad, would be left in a state of standing uncertainty as to whether their international travel would provide the government with the basis for citizenship revocation on the grounds that they misrepresented their intent when making their initial citizenship applications.

Simply put, it is both wrong and unconstitutional to place this heightened and unequal burden on naturalized Canadians. Indeed, whether this threat is acted upon, the result would be a chilling effect on the mobility rights of naturalized Canadians, thereby creating two unequal classes of citizens under the law: naturalized Canadians for whom international travel may provide a basis for citizenship revocation, and Canadian-born citizens who may travel freely.

New immigrants to Canada are active members of our society. They pay taxes and contribute positively to our nation's economy. Indeed, I am extremely proud to be able to represent one of the most ethnically diverse ridings in the country, the rainbow riding, or comté arc-en-ciel de Mont-Royal. I myself have been witness to how a reasonable and respectful immigration system treats new Canadians as full and equal Canadians, and contributes positively to the community and the perception of Canadian society as constituting a multicultural mosaic. Indeed, section 27 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to multiculturalism as a constitutional norm.

Simply put, there is no societal or governmental interest achieved in creating an arbitrary distinction and disparate impact and burden on mobility rights between birthright Canadians and new immigrants who have come here lawfully to better their own lives, and who in turn strengthen the fabric of our nation. Indeed, approaching immigration and integration in such a derisive and discriminatory matter is at odds with Canada's long history of being a welcoming and inclusive nation.

Critics such as the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers have argued that the “intent to reside” requirement will provide “broad discretion to a citizenship officer to speculate on the future intentions of a citizenship applicant and deny citizenship based on an alleged lack” of future intent to reside. While the government certainly has the right to restrict immigration, it should do so directly and with clear and express justification, and not based on fear, stigma, speculation, or prejudice.

Apart from the discriminatory effect of this bill that I have described, the legislation is also objectionable on the grounds that it would make Canadian citizenship impractical, if not entirely inaccessible, for many who would otherwise contribute positively to our country, and in particular to our economy.

Moreover, not only would this bill negatively impact permanent residents and naturalized Canadians, it would also establish new grounds for revoking citizenship for all Canadians, including those born here, subject only to a vaguely worded requirement that revocation not conflict “with any international human rights instrument regarding statelessness to which Canada is signatory”.

As the Canadian Bar Association explains:

Citizens who may be subject to citizenship revocation include those born in Canada who are presumed to be able to claim citizenship in another state through one of their parents....

Not only would this approach raise a whole set of interpretative challenges for the courts, it would enable the government to change the substance of this restriction by unilaterally withdrawing from a treaty without consulting Parliament. All of this, of course, ignores the glaring constitutional questions posed by this bill in general, and this specific flawed provision in particular.

I will remind the House of the wording of one of the foundational sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 6(1). It says:

Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.

There is no exception in the charter. Section 6(1) does not distinguish between naturalized, dual, or Canadian-born citizens, as would Bill C-24.

While I regret the seeming presumptiveness of reading from the charter to hon. members in this place when we all have obligation to uphold, protect, and defend it, given the bill we are debating and the interventions in debate thus far, it does seem possible that some members in this place may not be as familiar as they should be with this and other charter provisions.

Indeed, one must wonder how it is possible that this bill is before us at all with no report of its charter non-compliance, given the requirements of section 4(1) of the Department of Justice Act that the minister review government bills for consistency with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and table a report of inconsistency, if such is found. Entrenched charter rights, in particular mobility rights under section 6, due process rights under section 7, and equality rights under section 15, are engaged by this bill and would likely be infringed.

Similarly, cases could be made that provisions of Bill C-24 would also infringe on sections 11 and 12 charter rights as well, let alone section 27, to which I have otherwise referred.

This is but a brief snapshot of why these charter rights are engaged and infringed. Whereas principles of fundamental justice include the basic entitlement to procedural fairness, the punishment of exile as it would be applied to Canadian citizens in this legislation could also infringe section 7 of the charter.

In another example, the new grounds for revocation, which would apply only to a class of Canadians deemed to be dual citizens under this bill, would violate the principle of equal citizenship and draw an impermissible distinction based on the enumerated ground of national origin, under section 15 of the charter. Time will prohibit me from elaborating further in this regard.

It is clear that this legislation should have been rejected, even by the government's own alleged standards of review as set forth in its court documents to the effect that the government considers a bill as being charter compliant unless its likelihood of withstanding a charter-based challenge is only 5% or less.

It does not take a constitutional expert to see that this bill is seriously constitutionally suspect, even allowing for the government's particularly low threshold. Therefore, I must take this opportunity to ask why, in light of the government's recent legislative record of constitutionally suspect provisions, it would today seek to pass yet another bill that would trigger expensive, time-consuming, and foreseeable litigation, which would ultimately be struck down in part, if not full. Even more troubling perhaps, it would put the Canadian citizenship regime in a state of flux and uncertainty.

I have only touched on the particulars of this fundamentally flawed and constitutionally suspect legislation.

I wish to emphasize that tiered citizenship as contemplated by this bill is both unethical and unconstitutional. I see no reason why the government should be seeking to restrict immigration to Canada. I would therefore put the question directly to the members to this place. Is there any reason, let alone a compelling one, to make it more difficult for law-abiding applicants to achieve citizenship? Is it the case that we have decided that diversity no longer represents a societal virtue and Canadian value? Is it the case that multiculturalism is no longer a constitutional norm?

The government has yet to justify the primary legislative changes accomplished through the bill in any compelling, let alone constitutional, manner, and its advancement will only continue to create stigma and prejudicial fallout for new immigrants.

For these reasons, I would urge all members to join me in affirming respect for Canadians, respect for the charter, respect for the foundational principle of equality, and respect for multiculturalism and to therefore oppose Bill C-24 and uphold the rule of law.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Liberals had 13 long and comfortable years to reform the Citizenship Act, but it did not.

That is why our government has set out to make the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in 35 years. In economic action plan 2013, investments were made to reduce processing times.

Could my hon. colleague tell this House how Bill C-24 will complement the investments that the government has already made to strengthening citizenship, so that those who deserve it get it fast, and those who lie and hide their heinous crimes do not?

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have this opportunity to highlight our government's commitments to protecting the integrity of Canada's citizenship system and add my voice in support of Bill C-24. This important piece of legislation would deliver on our Conservative government's promise in the recent Speech from the Throne to strengthen and protect the value of Canadian citizenship.

On this side of the House we recognize the important role immigration has played in building our country. Since 2006, our Conservative government has welcomed the highest sustained level of immigration in Canada's history. Each year we have welcomed an average of almost 260,000 newcomers who contribute to the economic, political, and social fabric of our country as permanent residents. Moreover, Canada remains a world leader in naturalization, with more than 85% of eligible permanent residents going on to become Canadian citizens.

We are proud of this enviable high rate of uptake in citizenship. Our important bill, the strengthening the Canadian Citizenship Act, would not only reduce citizenship backlogs and improve processing times for applicants, but it would strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship.

Canadians have no tolerance for the cheats and fraudsters who do not play by the rules and who de-value the integrity of Canadian citizenship. Most of us have heard anecdotal stories or read newspaper reports about police investigations into individuals who lie to become citizens of our great country. They concoct schemes to make it appear as if they are living in Canada when in fact they are not and nor do they have any intentions of planting roots here. Rather, they consider Canadian citizenship as nothing more than a passport of convenience, a revolving door or gateway to generous taxpayer-funded economic and social benefits available at their disposal as needed.

Canadians rightfully expect our Conservative government to put a stop to this selfish niche to protect Canadian citizenship, which truly is a privilege. It is shameful that the opposition does not understand why it is so important to protect the value of Canadian citizenship and why it should support this important legislation. Our Conservative government has listened to Canadians across the country and has committed to put an end to this abuse most recently in our last throne speech. Our government not only listened but acted to deliver on this key promise by introducing Bill C-24. We are committed to protecting the value of our citizenship and taking action against those who seek to cheapen it.

Our proposed reforms would strengthen the value of citizenship by helping to prevent citizenship fraud and by increasing the penalties for those who gain citizenship fraudulently. First, our reforms would bring the penalty of committing citizenship fraud in line with that of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by increasing the penalty to a maximum fine of $100,000 or up to five years in prison, or both. The proposed legislation would also add a provision to refuse an applicant of material facts and bar applicants who misrepresent such facts from reapplying for citizenship for five years. That is a serious way to deter citizenship fraud.

In contrast, existing penalties in the Citizenship Act have not increased since 1977 and are ineffective in deterring fraudsters. Our proposed increase in fines and significant jail terms would deter both applicants and crooked citizenship consultants from trying to undermine Canadian citizenship.

With respect to crooked consultants, our government successfully passed the Cracking Down on Crooked Consultants Act in an effort to protect those in need of assistance from an immigration representative. That bill created a regulatory body to oversee immigration consultants and ensure compliance with the law. Bill C-24 would give the government similar legal authority to designate a body to regulate citizenship consultants. Proposed amendments would increase penalties for citizenship fraud to a maximum fine of $100,000 or up to two years in prison, or both.

I am proud to stand before the House today to address these important reforms that our government has introduced as a means to crack down on fraud and to preserve the integrity of Canadian citizenship and citizenship programs.

This leads to my last point, which focuses on our government's promised amendment to streamline the process to revoke citizenship from those who have lied or cheated on their citizenship application. As members are likely aware, our Conservative government has taken action to revoke citizenship from those who obtained it through fraudulent means. More than 11,000 cases of fraud have been discovered and we are investigating each and every one. However, the current revocation process is extremely lengthy and cumbersome. Shamefully, it has taken Canada years, often decades, to revoke the citizenship of fraudsters, including despicable war criminals who never should have obtained it in the first place.

One this side of the House, we are serious about cracking down on those who undermine the value of our citizenship. It is important, to achieve such an important objective, that we put our government in a position to be able to revoke the citizenship in a timely manner.

Under proposed changes to the new revocation process, it should facilitate the government's ability to revoke citizenships in a timely manner for those convicted of residency fraud. In these cases, the minister of citizenship and immigration, or his or her delegate, would oversee the revocation, but the decision would still be subject to review by court, as is the case for all immigration decisions. This streamlined revocation process would result in faster decision-making and faster removal, while still ensuring fairness.

Individuals who have had their citizenship revoked would also be barred from reapplying for 10 years, up from the current bar of 5 years. Our government believes that this is entirely reasonable.

Canadian citizenship is a unique privilege and is highly coveted around the globe. However, citizenship is a privilege that comes with responsibilities. It means that we share the commitment to uphold our common values that our brave men and women in uniform have fought to preserve and champion. These are values that include freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have Canadian citizenship share in all of the great advantages it confers. However, it is important to remember that citizenship is far more than just the right to carry a passport or to vote. It defines us as a people. As such, it is essential that we work to maintain the value of Canadian citizenship.

I have heard from many of my constituents on this issue. All of them agree that we must crack down on criminals and fraudsters who cheapen the value of one of our most precious commodities. It is shameful, however, that opposition members do not listen to Canadians and do not support this important bill.

Indeed, the measures in Bill C-24 represent the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation. They are necessary to strengthen the value and protect the integrity of Canadian citizenship for today and for the future. With this bill, our Conservative government is sending a crystal clear message: we will not turn a blind eye from those who commit fraud or help others to obtain Canadian citizenship by fraud.

If opposition members prefer to continue with their shameful tactics to oppose and delay passage of the bill, they will have to answer to the Canadian public, a public who is, thankfully, recognizing the necessary and common sense changes we are making.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with some of what my colleague just said. The Conservatives have allowed citizenship application processing times to increase substantially. Processing times have more than doubled in the past few years. If the Conservatives truly wanted to resolve this problem, they would have put measures in place much sooner instead of giving us Bill C-24, which will supposedly resolve the problems with the application processing times, and with a time allocation motion to boot.

This is one of the major problems with our citizenship system right now, and Bill C-24 contains no solutions. The Conservatives would have us believe that this bill will address the problem with the times. In fact, they are actually preventing many people who were prepared to apply for citizenship from doing so. The Conservatives are asking them to apply in a year or two because the rules have just changed.

The only thing that will do is temporarily reduce citizenship applications for a year. This will help the Conservatives get good statistics in time for the election, but there is nothing in Bill C-24 that will truly fix the problem in the long term. This shows a complete lack of respect for people who would have and should have the right to citizenship.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 7.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 8.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 9.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 11.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 12.

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 14.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 15.

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 16.

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 19.

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 20.

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 38.

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-24 at report stage. This bill was introduced at first reading on February 6 and was debated for the first hour on February 27.

According to the minister, the bill is very important, but it sort of got forgotten after February 27. We read about it in newspapers, but it was not debated again until May 29. The government did not put Bill C-24 back on the House's agenda for many months, and we have no idea why.

Another irregularity is the fact that the committee began studying the bill before the end of second reading. This is a citizenship reform bill that has been needed for nearly 30 years. This 50-page bill, which was touted and heralded, did not even go through normal House procedures. We debated it for one hour, then it was shelved and then, all of a sudden, we were forced to study it at committee before second reading had even finished.

For those who are not familiar with parliamentary process, this means that experts and civil society are unable to react to or contribute to the bill by appearing before committee. Many people have asked me what is happening with Bill C-24 and how they can contribute by sharing their expertise in committee. I had to tell them that it was too late because the usual procedures were not followed. Experts and civil society did not hear much about the bill because committee rushed to study it and because it was not debated in the House as it should have been. Moreover, the committee stage was too short. The NDP asked to hear from more witnesses, but that idea was rejected.

After all that, it came back to the House for debate, and here we are less than a week later at report stage. The committee rushed its clause by clause study of Bill C-24. It did not do a thorough study following the usual procedures, and as a result, we have before us a bill that was not amended at all by the committee.

The NDP wants several clauses removed from the bill because both experts and lay people have raised a number of concerns and because the government rejected all of the amendments proposed not only by the experts who appeared before the committee, but also by the opposition.

Bill C-24 was much anticipated, and the NDP supports many aspects of it. We are not against the bill overall. Many parts of it are good and are actually things the NDP has been urging the government to do for a long time. One of these is addressing the issue of the lost Canadians, Canadians who lost their citizenship. Many people are affected by a range of unjust situations related to that issue. This bill does not solve all of those problems, but it is a step in the right direction.

In addition, the NDP is happy to support a number of measures, including harsher penalties in cases of citizenship fraud, clarification of the rules governing the number of days needed to get citizenship and acceleration of the citizenship process for permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Forces.

Unfortunately this 50-page bill with 46 clauses has not been amended in any way despite the fact that experts unanimously agreed that it needed major changes. Therefore, the NDP has no choice but to ask that certain clauses be removed from this bill. For example, clause 3 of Bill C-24 deals with a large number of things. The NDP agrees with many of them, but we still must ask that this clause be removed because it contains some basic elements that are very worrisome.

For example, the declaration of intent to reside in Canada is a problem that I will talk about briefly.

A large number of experts are concerned about this declaration of intent to reside in Canada, which consists of asking people to declare that they intend to live here after obtaining their citizenship. They have to make this declaration as part of the citizenship process.

We know that someone who is convicted of making false declarations or committing fraud to obtain citizenship can have that citizenship revoked in the future. That worries the experts who are saying that this is a dangerous door that is being opened.

A person might have to leave Canada after obtaining their citizenship because they cannot find a job here, for example. They may have to accept a job abroad or a job that will require them to live outside Canada for a year or two. They may also have to leave the country to take care of a sick parent. They could not foresee these circumstances when they made the declaration of intent to reside in Canada. In short, that creates a lot of concerns for new citizens.

Could the government take away the citizenship of people who leave the country after they have declared their intent to reside here? Legal experts say that it can, but the minister is saying that, no, he does not intend to do that and that he does not want to use the intent to reside to take away people's right to citizenship. Good for him. The minister has good intentions. However, we cannot rely solely on his intentions. We also have to rely on the wording of the bill. Legal experts are saying that the way the bill is worded poses a risk for new Canadians who want to temporarily leave the country as a result of unforeseen circumstances.

Speaking of experts, I would like to list a few who believe that this aspect of the bill, as it now stands, is extremely problematic. The Canadian Council for Refugees submitted a written brief to the committee. There is also the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; Ms. Macklin from the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers; the Inter Clinic Immigration Working Group; and Parkdale Community Legal Services. I could go on for quite a while; I have a whole page full of names. It seems experts have a lot to say on this topic.

Another aspect of clause 3 that is really problematic is the time of residence. There has been a lot of backlash from foreign students over the fact that their time of residence in Canada will, unfortunately, no longer count toward their application for citizenship and permanent residence.

When they arrived, they were told that they would contribute to society as students, workers and taxpayers and that the time they spent in the country as foreign students could count toward their application for citizenship.

Today, this bill changes the rules right under their noses and throws a wrench into their life plans in a number of ways. They will have to wait one or two more years before they can apply for citizenship. That is not fair, and I want to point out the work of this group in particular, whose time in the country before they become permanent residents counts. They are smart, engaged, involved and well aware of the value of Canadian citizenship. This provision of the bill is basically a slap in the face to foreign students.

We also want to remove clause 8 of the bill on the revocation of citizenship, which did not exist before. Bill C-24 gives the minister the discretionary power to revoke people's citizenship without giving them the right to appeal. That is extremely worrisome.

Again, experts are unanimous on this. There are major problems with this aspect of the bill. Ms. Macklin, the representative of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and a professor at the University of Toronto, had this to say:

I would remove citizenship revocation. It's unconstitutional.

I think our criminal justice system is perfectly adequate to handle crimes, criminal offences, and it does so just fine.

I will close by saying that when the minister says that the Canadian Bar Association should be ashamed of itself for opposing Bill C-24, he is showing his true partisan colours and illustrating how completely out of touch he is. A great many people are concerned. This cannot go on.

Speaker’s Ruling

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

There are 13 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-24. Motions Nos. 1 to 13 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 13 to the House.

The House resumed from June 4 consideration of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported without amendment from the committee.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today on Bill C-31. Let me make it very clear right from the beginning that I will be speaking in opposition to this bill for a number of reasons.

One of the most critical reasons is that once again the government is choosing to shut down debate and has moved time allocation on a really critical bill. We have a bill of 350 pages. It addresses over 500 clauses and impacts 60 acts, yet debate is being limited.

It is an example of how budgets have been passed ever since I have been in Parliament. The government introduces a budget bill the size of a phone book in the majority of our municipalities and then wants us to vote on it holus-bolus. It throws in some tempting stuff, but there is also a lot of negative stuff that will force us to vote against it.

I have noticed one key thing that would really impact my community. The groups of people and businesses that grow jobs are the small and medium-sized enterprises across the country. They are the engines of our economy, but in this bill there is no small business job creation tax credit.

It is not there, even though it is a proven way to grow jobs in this country. They grow jobs in our communities. Money is spent in our communities, and we collect taxes that help to feed our health care and education systems and so on.

I also do not see anything significant in this budget that would address the critical area of the huge transaction fees that small businesses are burdened with over and over again, once again eating into their profit margins and their ability to survive, and let us not forget the high cost of interest rates on many credit cards.

We are also talking about a period in our history right now when we actually have more unemployed Canadians. Despite all of the rhetoric from my colleagues across the way, and they can say it as much as they like, it will not change reality. The reality is that we have 300,000 more Canadians unemployed today than we had before the depression. That is just not acceptable.

Today I heard a minister saying that we are doing better than other places in youth unemployment. We are not. We have youth unemployment in the double digits. In B.C., there are areas where the youth unemployment rate is at 15%.

By the way, let me make it clear that we have 300,000 more unemployed people today than in the past. A huge number of people in Canada are underemployed or working two or three jobs at minimum wage in order to make ends meet.

All of this is with a budget that would do nothing to address the huge deficit in manufacturing jobs. I do not see any major stimulus or investment in that area to get that sector moving and get our economy back on the road.

I also heard a minister saying earlier that we are managing to get through a lot of legislation. We have to be careful about how quickly we rush through legislation. I am reminded of Bill C-24. Only one component was the citizenship revocation component. Here is a bill that would fundamentally change what citizenship is, yet when it went to committee stage, not one witness or expert was heard from. We went directly from a very preliminary and time-allocated debate of six and a half hours in the House to then having no witnesses or expert testimony and going straight into clause by clause. That seems to be turning into a bit of a pattern with the Conservative government.

We also have the government rushing to sign agreements. For example, it seems to have lost the concern it had around privacy issues when it was in opposition. Canadians care very deeply about the privacy issue, but once again we are giving away valuable information through the IRS and FATCA. The justification is that because the government may suspect someone could be doing something, it has a right to surveillance without any kind of legal right to do so. The attitude is, “We are the government, and we now have that right”.

We have seen the attacks on the veterans. We have seen the attacks on small and medium-sized businesses. We have seen the attack on the privacy of Canadians. However, we have seen no real measures that would invest in a major way to get the economy going when it comes to manufacturing or addressing high youth unemployment.

Let me get to another disturbing aspect of the bill, the component dealing with the temporary foreign worker program.

Of course we are delighted to hear that the minister will be making some changes. This is the same minister who has been making changes for the last little while. Those changes have not stopped abuse by some employers, nor has it stopped the flood of temporary foreign workers. When we have a high number of temporary foreign workers at the same time that we have high youth unemployment and high labour availability, it really is disturbing.

I had the privilege of listening to the Parliamentary Budget Officer this morning. He said that although there is no overall skills shortage in this country, we do not even have the data. I have known that for a while. What is disturbing is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said on record that we do not have the data to help us make informed decisions, whether it comes to immigration or granting LMOs, which are labour mobility orders. We do not have the data we need to plan for the future when it comes to skills investment and apprenticeships and growing the skill sets that we need. We do not have the data to guide our young generation on where they should be investing their energy as they look to the future.

Let us take a look at the temporary foreign worker program, which has absolutely ballooned. Now we are to believe a minister that the government will increase penalties for the employer. It is in the bill, but that is cold comfort for the two waitresses in Saskatchewan who were laid off from their jobs while temporary foreign workers were brought in. It is little comfort to the young people in Victoria who had their hours reduced, were not hired, or were let go because temporary foreign workers were brought in.

We are also worried about the vulnerability of temporary foreign workers. Our country has a proud history of having immigration policies that build our nation, but in this bill we have veered away from that. These are not my words. A temporary foreign worker, a young man who was here from Belize, said that it was beginning to feel like slavery.

We have heard of all these horrendous abuses. I have talked to many employers and others who have said that they have reported abuse to the CBSA and to CIC, but the only time four names appeared on a list was when CBC broke a story. It made national news, and on a Sunday afternoon, lo and behold, there were four names, but none of the others. There is absolute evidence that there are other people who have reported abuse, but their names were not there.

Clearly, then, there are many things that need to be addressed.

I will finish by saying that this budget fails to invest in growing jobs for the future, fails our youth, and fails working people, because it does not have anything major within it for them.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will start with the concept of the very strange proposition put forward by my friend. He uses this concept of shifts and believes there is some perverse obligation on the part of the government that, if the opposition wishes to filibuster the production of new laws and delay their production, we somehow have an obligation to match them step for step in extending that process. His comparison is with ordinary Canadians. He said that ordinary Canadians should not produce a product at the end of the day at work; they should take two, three, or four days to get the same thing made. That is his idea of getting things done. That is his idea of how ordinary Canadians can work. I think that says something about the culture of the NDP and the hon. member. I will let members guess what culture that is. It is a culture that does say we should take two or three times longer to get something done or to get to our destination than we possibly can.

We on this side are happy to make decisions to get things done for Canadians. In fact, that is exactly what we have been doing. Since I last rose in response to a Thursday question, the House has accomplished a lot, thanks to our government's plan to work a little overtime this spring.

I know the House leader of the official opposition boasts that the New Democrats are happy to work hard, but let us take a look at what his party's deputy leader had to say on CTV last night. The hon. member for Halifax was asked why the NDP agreed to work until midnight. She confessed, “We didn't agree to do it.” She then lamented, “We are going from topic to topic. We are doing votes. We are at committees. They are really intense days. We're sitting until midnight.”

On that part, I could not agree more with the deputy leader of the NDP, believe it or not, but with much more cheer in my voice when I say those words, because we think it is a good thing. These are intense days. We are actually getting things done. We are actually voting on things. We are actually getting things through committee. For once, we are going from topic to topic in the run of the day.

Let me review for the House just how many topics, votes, and committee accomplishments we have addressed since the government asked the House to roll up its sleeves.

Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, was passed at second reading and has even been reported back from the citizenship committee.

Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, was concurred in at report stage and later passed at third reading.

Bill C-31, the economic action plan 2014 act, no. 1, was reported back from the finance committee.

Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, was passed at second reading.

Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, was concurred in at report stage.

On the private members' business front we saw:

Bill C-555, from the hon. members for West Nova in support of the seal hunt, was passed at second reading.

Bill C-483, from my hon. colleague, the member for Oxford, cracking down on prisoners' escorted temporary absences was passed at third reading.

Bill C-479, from the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, on improving the place of victims in our justice system was passed at third reading last night.

Progress is not limited to Conservative initiatives. The Green Party leader's Bill C-442, respecting a Lyme disease strategy, was reported back from committee yesterday.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay saw a motion on palliative care pass.

We have also seen countless reports from committees reviewing the government's spending plans, as well as topics of importance to those committees.

This morning we even ratified the appointment of an officer of Parliament.

Finally, I do want to reflect on the accomplishment of Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act (Vanessa's law), which members may recall me discussing in last week's Thursday statement. It finally passed at second reading. However, this did not happen until the NDP relented and changed its tune to allow the bill to go to committee. It was the first time ever that we had an expression from the New Democrats when we gave notice of intention to allocate time in which they said, “We don't need that time; we're actually prepared to allow a bill to advance to the next stage”. I think, by reflecting on the fact that those dozens of other times the NDP did not take that step, we could understand that they did not want to see a bill advance; they did not want to see progress made. That lets Canadians understand quite clearly why it is we need to use scheduling and time allocation as a device to get things done in the face of a group that thinks the objective is to fill up all possible time available with words rather than actual votes and getting things done.

It is clear that our approach is working. We are getting things done in the House of Commons and delivering results for Canadians.

Perhaps I might be overly inspired by the example of Vanessa’s Law, but I do want to draw the attention of the House to Bill C-32, the Victims Bill of Rights Act.

So far, we have seen three days of debate on second reading of the bill, but “debate” is actually not accurate. What we have witnessed is speech, after speech, after speech—most of them from New Democrats—offering platitudes of support for the idea of getting that bill to a committee where it could be studied. What I want to know is, why will they not just let it happen? Victims of crime want to see meaningful action, not just kind words.

Suffice it to say that I will need to schedule additional time for discussion of this bill. Perhaps the NDP will let it pass after a fourth day of talk.

This afternoon, we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-31, our budget implementation bill. When that concludes, we will turn to Bill C-20, to implement our free trade agreement with Honduras, at third reading. If time permits, we will continue the third reading debate on Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act.

Tomorrow morning, we will start the report stage debate on Bill C-24, which makes the first modernization of the Citizenship Act in 35 years. After question period, I will call Bill C-32, the Victims Bill of Rights Act, to see if the NDP is ready to deliver results, not talk.

Monday morning, we will continue the third reading debate on Bill C-20, if more time is needed, and then resume the second reading debate on Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act. After question period, we will get back to the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

Tuesday shall be the eighth allotted day when the NDP will have a chance to talk, and talk, about a topic of their own choosing. At the end of the night, we will have a number of important votes on approving the funds required for government programs and services and pass two bills to that end.

On Wednesday, we will debate our budget bill at third reading, and then we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which my seatmate, the Minister of Justice, tabled yesterday.

We will continue the debates on Bill C-36 and Bill C-24, if extra time is needed, on Thursday. After those have finished, and on Friday, we will resume the uncompleted debates on Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, at third reading; Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, at report stage; Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, at third reading; Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act, at second reading; Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, at second reading; Bill C-32, the Victims Bill of Rights Act, at second reading; and Bill C-35, the Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law), at second reading.

To make a long story short, we have accomplished much in the House over the last week, but we still have much left to do, which inspires me to note that in the week ahead I have to take my automobile in for maintenance. At that time, when I take it to the dealership, I hope one person will work on it for an hour, get the job done, and then return it to me at a reasonable cost. I do hope I am not told, “There are still many more employees who have not had a chance to have a shift working on your car as well, so we are going to keep it here another three days and give everybody a turn to work on your car.” I hope the dealership will do as Conservatives do: get the job done and then deliver me the product.

Citizenship and Immigration

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendments.

While I am on my feet, I move:

That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.

Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on Bill C-20, the free trade agreement with Honduras.

Despite what members of the government, and perhaps members of their partners, the Liberals, have suggested, we are not opposed to trade. On this side of the House, we are very much in favour of trade, and very much in favour of fairer trade, and where that is possible, then free trade as it goes with fairer trade. However, this is certainly not an agreement we can support, mostly because the partner on the other side of this agreement is not one we should be giving any credence to whatsoever.

The government in Honduras is oppressive, and it was originally formed through a military coup. It is a government that has institutions that are not working. It is the murder capital of Central America, perhaps of the world, and most murders are not investigated even by the police, yet the Conservative government has decided that it is a model deal for us to sign. I just cannot stomach how low we have sunk in search of free trade deals.

We know there is a trade deal coming with Europe, but for some reason it is very badly stalled. It was announced in the throne speech of 2011 along with a trade deal with India, but we have not seen either of them yet. We have seen an apparent signing of an agreement in principle, but we do not even know what those principles are because there have been no details.

Here we are debating, as we did with Panama, a deal with a very poor nation that has a terrible governmental and human rights record, and we are debating it under time allocation, of all things. This is now the most important thing on the Conservative government's agenda, and it has to be done now. However, the agreement in principle was reached in August 2011, which is almost three years ago. The actual deal was signed in November 2013, more than six months ago, but now we have five hours to debate it. That is ridiculous, and 68 time allocation motions are not some kind of scheduling convenience, as the Conservatives would have us believe. They are running roughshod over democracy, and we should not be proud of that record.

Both the Conservatives and Liberals are suggesting that the NDP is opposed to trade, which could not be further from the truth. In fact, we relish the thought that we are going to be able to get at more trade with more partners in this world. However, we need to do it in a way that improves the status of those other countries, and not as a reward for countries that have terrible records and terrible governments, which is in fact what is happening here.

We ask questions when it comes to a trade deal.

Is the proposed partner one that respects democracy, human rights, the environment, labour standards, and Canadian values? If some of those things are not all the way to what a Canadian standard would be, are they working to fix it? If the answer to that question is yes, then that is a partner we can see doing business with on the basis of a free trade agreement.

Is the proposed partner's economy of significant or strategic value to Canada? Apparently it may be of strategic value to some mining industries, but it is a very small player in terms of Canada's overall trade, and we do in fact have a trade deficit with this country.

Are the terms satisfactory? Well, the proposed free trade agreement with Honduras fails this test.

Honduras is a country with undemocratic practices, a corrupt government, weak institutions, low standards, insignificant strategic value, and a record of human rights abuses. When I look at the list of what Honduras is, I cannot help but think that some elements of the Conservative government are heading in those directions.

The fact is that we have had 68 time allocation motions to end debate, which are called “guillotine” motions in other countries because that is what they do. They guillotine debate and democracy. It is an indication that the Conservative government has slipped, we believe, in terms of its democratic practices, like Honduras.

The bill the Conservatives brought forward to change the electoral act disenfranchised some Canadians. That is moving backwards as far as democracy is concerned. The allegations of voter suppression are another example of undemocratic practices.

Regarding corruption in government, we have senators being given money by the Prime Minister's chief of staff in order to keep them quiet, or billing practices whereby senators bill the public for travel when it is a partisan event they are going to or bill for homes they are not living in.

All of these things are corrupt practices of a government. Maybe the Conservatives think they want to be like Honduras, and that is why they want to sign an agreement with it.

We have a Prime Minister who surrounds himself with characters who are of questionable repute. We have a government that is giving more and more power to single individuals within that government, taking that power away from institutions or Parliament and putting it in the hands of a minister. For example, there is Bill C-24, which would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the power to individually strip a person born in Canada of his or her Canadian citizenship. We do not normally find that concentration of power except in governments that are not democratic, and that is part of what we are seeing here.

We have weakened institutions in Canada. The Chief Electoral Officer had his powers reduced in the recent bill on electoral reform. We have a fight with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. We did not have the government kicking four people off the Supreme Court, but there was a pretty public spat with the Supreme Court that had a chilling effect between the government and the Supreme Court.

We have lower standards in Honduras, lower standards in Canada, but what has the government's record been over the past few years? We have lowered our environmental standards. We have weakened our labour laws. We have taken ourselves in the opposite direction of improving environment and labour laws. We have stripped environmental protection from hundreds of thousands of rivers and lakes in this country. This is moving in the direction of a less environmentally conscious state, and perhaps Conservatives are looking at Honduras and seeing themselves in the mirror.

Other speakers have talked at length about the human rights abuses that have been legion in Honduras. Some of the human rights abuses have been perpetrated by the government and some perpetrated by others, but none of those human rights abuses have met with any kind of punishment, because impunity is the rule in Honduras. People can get away with anything because there are weak police forces and so little in the way of judicial oversight that very little is done.

What do we have here in Canada in terms of human rights abuses? It is a pretty good country, except we have a thousand or more murdered or missing aboriginal women and we have a government that is refusing over and over again to actually conduct even an investigation into those murdered and missing aboriginal women. In any other country, that would be seen as a human rights abuse. We have appalling living conditions and appalling educational conditions for indigenous people in this country. That in itself is a human rights abuse, and the government appears to want to do nothing to improve the situation. We have refugees who come to this country expecting to be treated with dignity and respect, and in some cases they are denied some or all of their medical care. They are expected to report back to their home country even if their home country is an unsafe place for them.

This is the direction this country has moved under the Conservative government, and it is looking strangely as though maybe Honduras is a comfortable partner for the government. I hope not.

In Honduras we also have the spectre of the killing of journalists. Now, I will not accuse the Canadian government of killing any journalists; that has not happened, but the government has attacked the CBC and it has attacked the CBC's journalists in the sense that it has now imposed itself in the collective bargaining arrangements with those journalists. The journalists are now having to deal directly with the government.

We on this side of the House support fairer trade. We support trade with equals in terms of environmental law, in terms of labour law, in terms of how people are treated in those countries. We support trade when standards in that other country will be raised and when we can see that happening. We do not support the free trade agreement the government has negotiated with Honduras for the reasons I have cited, and we will be opposing this deal.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I reread that, and you're absolutely right. The bill was not amended. Thank you for that.

We don't even need to have this, because you're absolutely right. This concludes the chapter on Bill C-24 except when we return to the House with this committee.

In spite of a few moments, it's been a very civil presentation dealing with difficult issues between the opposition and the government, and I want to congratulate the opposition and government members for being so civil to each other, objecting at times but being civil.

I want to thank the staff for coming out and advising us from time to time, the translators, and of course, the clerks and the analysts, who prepared us for our time when witnesses came. I thank you as well, on behalf of the committee.

As there is no further business, the meeting is adjourned.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm corrected by my colleague here; there are 40 different languages spoken.

We know how welcoming the country is. We expect, as Canadians, that those who seek to have Canadian citizenship and the rights and privileges that we all have do have the intent to reside in this country. It's very basic. It's a very basic principle. We can go back and forth and argue this forever to make our points. The fact of the matter is that Canadians expect people who seek citizenship and get citizenship to have the same obligations that they have to obtain that citizenship by being contributing Canadians in this country.

We want to crack down on citizenship fraud. This is a key component of this piece of legislation, but for some reason the member opposite questions the title of “strengthening Canadian citizenship”.

The legislation includes very strong penalties for fraud and misrepresentation, a maximum fine of $100,000 and up to five years in prison, and expands the grounds to bar an application for citizenship to include foreign criminality, which will help improve program integrity. I don't think it's asking too much for Canadians to expect of their government that criminals are not granted Canadian citizenship, and that if they're found to have been granted it fraudulently, it should be removed from them.

The legislation protects and promotes Canada's interests and values.

Finally, the legislation brings Canada in line with most of our peer countries—something, of course, that during the debate of this clause-by-clause was not mentioned once by members of the opposition—by providing that citizenship can be revoked from dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism. I know that this part they did discuss, but we're talking about peer countries, and peer countries provide for citizenship to be revoked from dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism, high treason, and spying offences, depending on the sentence received, or who would take up arms against that country.

Permanent residents who commit these acts will be barred from applying for citizenship. It's very simple. If you commit an act of terrorism or treason and you're a permanent resident, too bad. You can't become a Canadian citizen. Does that sound harsh? Canadians don't think so.

Opposition is not for the sake of opposition. It should be constructive, and it should be in line with what we hear from Canadians when we leave this hallowed place that we have the privilege to serve in, representing our constituents. I am convinced that in their hearts of hearts all members of Parliament feel the same way about that, irrespective of the partisan political comments that we hear, not occasionally but daily, from members of the opposition.

The legislation also recognizes the important contributions of those who have served Canada in uniform. They serve Canada in uniform either in the country or outside of the country. Those permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces will have quicker access to Canadian citizenship. The act also stipulates that children born to Canadian parents serving abroad as servants of the crown are able to pass on Canadian citizenship to their children, to children they have or adopt outside of Canada. Now, this is a very personal issue for me, and I'm so delighted to see that it's part of this bill.

The quick facts of it are these, Mr. Chair. Canada is successful in turning immigrants into citizens. More than 85% of eligible permanent residents in Canada go on to become citizens.

As a result of these amendments in Bill C-24, applicants will need to be physically present in Canada for a total of four of the last six years. In addition, they would need to be physically present in Canada for 183 days per year for at least four of those six years. It's not that you come here, make the application, disappear, and come back four years later, saying that you made the application four years ago. You actually have to be physically present here. That's an expectation that I think Canadians have and that I think we're obliged to fulfill to ensure it happens.

The current citizenship fee, as I've said, does not reflect the actual processing cost, so changes will ensure that applicants are responsible for most of the actual processing cost. I heard a Liberal member in the House get up and say that's a grab. It's not a grab when you apply for something. There are applications done every single day by Canadians. For a litany of things in Canada, millions of different things. You apply for a membership and you pay for it. To pay for your Canadian citizenship application is a tax grab somehow...? Somehow Canadians are expected to pay for you to become a Canadian citizen...? Give us a break on that one.

There are many quotes from different people who have spoken to us and have appeared before us, but in closing, Mr. Chair, I will say this. This is a major and very significant step forward for Canada. We were elected with a strong mandate to ensure that we bring forth legislation that strengthens our country.

As a member of the Conservative Party, the governing party, I'm proud to support this legislation. I could not think of a better short title than “strengthening Canadian citizenship”.

Thank you.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chair, after that rant from the member opposite, I don't know where to begin, but I will. I will start, perhaps, with some of the reasons or many of the reasons why we are supporting the short title of this bill, “strengthening Canadian citizenship”.

Irrespective of the comment that the member opposite made, that Conservatives perhaps need a lesson on constitutionality.... I could of course rebut that comment with a number of lessons that I believe members of the NDP need. But in the interest of not going back and forth with this name-calling, I will take the high road and avoid discussing issues that are current and very much in current affairs, with respect to how NDP members and their leader behave, Mr. Chair.

I will focus my attention only on the “strengthening Canadian citizenship” act title. Before I do that, I think it's important to note that we know we are in a parliamentary democratic system. Canadians did give us a mandate to govern; this is a majority government. I think we have demonstrated on repeated occasions our willingness to listen to some constructive critique, but as I said earlier, the credibility of some of that critique was somewhat weakened, Mr. Chair, when the opposition critic stood up in the House on February 27, before hearing any of these witnesses that she eloquently presents in her argument about the short title of the bill, before it was considered and debated on by so many witnesses and certainly through the clause-by-clause process, before even having had the opportunity to listen to any of that, and said, “We're opposing this bill”.

The opposition in a democratic system holds the government to account. That's the opposition's job. We understand that. We know it's the opposition's job to stand up and hold the government to account. But we would hope that would be done in a manner that respects the parliamentary process, after debate has been heard, and with the benefit of having heard contributions and input from all members across all party lines. That's particularly the case when it comes to committee, because in committee, we all have a partisan relationship, but I would hope we could put that on the side and debate issues for the sake of issues. Certainly deciding to oppose a bill before you even hear a single witness does not lend any credibility to the argument we heard from Madame Lamothe.

However, that being said, why do we like the title “strengthening Canadian citizenship” act? When the minister introduced the bill, he was very clear that this act, strengthening Canadian citizenship, Bill C-24, would protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it, while creating a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it.

These are the first comprehensive changes to the Citizenship Act since 1977. That was 37 years ago. The country has changed. We believe so many components of this bill are very pertinent to Canada today, and they are what Canadians want, that it is important to see swift passage of this bill through the House and royal assent through the Senate.

There is some blueprint for citizenship improvements in this bill. This important legislation streamlines Canada's citizenship program by reducing the decision-making process. That certainly strengthens Canadian citizenship. When you can reduce it from three steps to one, and when you give senior officials who have the experience and the knowledge to deal with and make a decision on a citizenship file more quickly than it would be done if it had to go through a three-step process, then we expect that by 2015-16 this change will bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under a year.

Every single member in this House—I don't care what party they're from—has heard complaints from people who are waiting for a long time to get their citizenship. Every single person has heard them. Nobody can stand up and refute the fact that they have seen a constituent who has said, “How come I don't have my citizenship yet? I've been waiting for two or two and half years”.

Well, here is legislation before us that fixes that problem, that gets us to under a year. Those who have those qualifications will have the opportunity to become Canadian citizens and enjoy, in a much faster and more expeditious manner, the same rights and privileges that all of us have.

It is also projected that by 2015-16 the current backlog will be reduced by more than 80%: that's 80% of the people who are waiting for their Canadian citizenship. It will be reduced by 2015-16, and we're in 2014 now.

Citizenship application fees will also be better aligned with the actual cost of processing. I said it before, and the members opposite may have taken note, that it costs us about $550 to process an application. We have a marginal increase—it's going up to $300—that brings it closer to what the actual cost of an application is. I think it's fair to Canadian taxpayers, who are currently bearing the majority of the cost for citizenship applications.

These are people who are already in Canada for a number of years, working, filing taxes. They pay for all kinds of other things; they can pay for their Canadian citizenship application.

The legislation reinforces the value of Canadian citizenship. The government will also ensure that citizenship applicants maintain strong ties to Canada. This act will provide a clear indication that the residence period to qualify for citizenship in fact requires a physical presence in Canada. More applicants will now be required to meet the language requirements and pass a knowledge test to ensure that new citizens are better prepared to fully participate in Canadian society. New provisions will also help individuals with strong ties to Canada by automatically extending citizenship to additional lost Canadians who were born before 1947, as well as to their children born in the first generation outside Canada.

This is something that the opposition members have made a lot of hay about, this intent to reside—i.e., why should they have to have a certain proficiency to speak in one of the two official languages? If a 16- or 17-year-old who has been in the country for four years can't converse in one of the two official languages, it's okay; give them a break, they're children. But that makes absolutely no sense to Canadians.

Here's the thing that may come as a bit of a revelation to members of the opposition. They're not the only ones who talk to Canadians. We speak to Canadians on a daily basis as well. We are members of Parliament and we speak to them. We know very well that the 14-, 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds who are in the Canadian school system can converse much better than at the elementary level, which is the requirement here for citizenship, in either one of the two official languages.

So to oppose for the sake of opposing makes absolutely no sense. They can be as eloquent as they want, and present the case as if this is doomsday, but the fact of the matter is that the requirement to reside in Canada is something that Canadians expect. People who are born here, who are Canadian citizens by birth, who live their lives here, who are welcoming of people coming from all over the world...like my parents came here and like a lot of the other families of people, of members of Parliament sitting around this table and in the chamber, came here. In the Conservative caucus alone there are 28 different languages spoken.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to speak to clause 1, which concerns the short title of the bill.

Rather than simply state that it is an act to amend the Citizenship Act and other acts, the proposed title of Bill C-24 is the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

I believe we have discussed this at length. The problem word in this title is "strengthening". We think it is a bit ridiculous to claim that Bill C-24 strengthens citizenship or the Citizenship Act. We have shown on several occasions in this committee that, on the contrary, Bill C-24 will set disturbing and probably unconstitutional precedents and will penalize several classes of permanent residents and citizens.

First, however, allow me to say that several aspects of this bill are a step in the right direction. The NDP said a little earlier that extending citizenship to lost Canadians is a good thing, although this aspect is not complete. Some experts who were unable to testify before this committee said we were not restoring citizenship to all lost Canadians. An effort is nevertheless being made to do so. The NDP supports that step in the right direction.

The NDP also supports harsher penalties for fraud, as in the case of immigration consultants. As you will have noticed, the NDP voted for several clauses of this bill, including those concerning the harsher penalty for fraud.

The NDP also supported a very interesting clarification, the stronger residence requirement; that is to say the clarification of the rules concerning the days that must be counted for a person to be eligible. In short, I have just cited three elements, but the NDP supports several other aspects of this bill.

In addition, this bill is approximately 50 pages long. We have voted on nearly 46 clauses. Several aspects of the bill are extremely problematic. I want to summarize a few aspects that we feel do not strengthen citizenship. On the contrary, they throw a wrench into the works for many people and may even be unconstitutional.

First is the declaration of intent to reside. Before obtaining citizenship, people will have to declare that they intend to reside in Canada. As we know, citizenship may be withdrawn from someone who has obtained it by making false statements or by fraud. The NDP is not opposed to the principle of revoking the citizenship of someone who has made false statements or committed fraud in order to obtain citizenship. However, here we are imposing a declaration of intent to reside. This is a declaration that people must make in order to obtain citizenship. Consequently, there is a danger here that citizenship may be withdrawn from someone on the pretext that he or she has made a false statement in order to obtain citizenship. The NDP is not alone in saying this. That is the opinion of virtually all the experts who testified here in committee. Those experts are much more knowledgeable in this matter than I or my Conservative Party colleagues.

The witnesses opposed to this declaration of intent to reside include the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Bar Association and others.

I have mentioned experts who are knowledgeable in the law. So when they say this may be an unconstitutional aspect, we should at least consider the opinions they have expressed. When they say this will open the door to a dangerous shift in the landscape, that should be considered as well. Unfortunately, the government has rejected all proposed amendments to the bill on this point.

Another important factor is length of residence, which is counted so that people can be eligible to obtain citizenship.

I would like to talk about a group, Pre-PR Time Counts, two representatives of which appeared before us. No one around the table had anything critical to say about their testimony. They told us that the time students and temporary foreign workers spent living in Canada was worth something, even if they had not yet obtained permanent residence. These people establish ties with the country and become familiar with Canadian values. They pay taxes, work and study.

Suddenly the right to calculate the time they have lived in Canada as foreign students or temporary foreign workers is being taken away from them for no valid reason. Neither the minister nor anyone else could give us an explanation on that point. No one can give us an answer, but students and temporary foreign workers are being slapped and betrayed because they were initially told that time spent in Canada would count. Now we are changing the rules without explaining anything to them or giving them a valid reason. This is appalling.

I do not recall hearing a single witness tell us this was a good change to the act. Neither the minister or any witness could tell us it was a good idea to stop counting the time foreign students and temporary foreign workers spend in Canada. No one understands why and no one supports it, but the government persists in its ideological drive to pass this change as is without us being able to understand the reason for it.

This frankly makes us wonder why we bother inviting witnesses to appear before the committee. If no witness was able to support this change, that just shows to what extent we are capable of inviting witnesses without listening to them. This is extremely problematic and very unfortunate. What message are we sending to these foreign students and temporary foreign workers?

The third element I would like to discuss is obviously the revocation of citizenship for an indictable offence committed in or outside Canada. This is a discretionary power of the minister, and those threatened with revocation of their citizenship have no right of appeal.

My Conservative colleague said a little earlier that the government's experts claimed that the bill complied with the Constitution and presented no problems. I think the Conservatives should learn a little lesson about the constitutionality of their bills. This is not the first time this has happened. It is not the first time they have said that something complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution and that the Supreme Court will have nothing to say about their bill since their experts claim it complies with everything.

As we have seen on several occasions, they have had to reverse their decisions. Here we have a good example of that. The only lawyer who appeared before this committee who did not question the bill's constitutionality was the departmental counsel. All other lawyers and groups of lawyers questioned the bill's constitutionality for one reason or another, or in the case of one clause or another. And yet that did not even set off warning bells for the Conservatives. It does not even raise questions in their minds.

They introduced no amendments to their own bill and accepted none in return. That is tantamount to laughing in the faces of the people who submitted briefs or appeared before this committee and told them to be careful because the bill entailed serious risks. Some said there were risks, while others said they were certain the bill was unconstitutional. However, questions arise in both cases. The government cannot claim it is right and everyone else is wrong. Something in that reasoning seems utterly false and artificial. We see very clearly that it moves forward with bills such as this, without amending them, for ideological reasons.

My colleague also said a little earlier that NDP members did not care about expert testimony since they opposed the bill at second reading. This may surprise my colleague, but I speak to people outside this committee. A lot of people came to see me at my office before the vote on second reading. They were people whom we had invited to appear in committee so that they could share their opinions with us. However, the most surprising thing was to see that even the witnesses invited by the Conservatives suggested improvements to this bill. In some instances, they even questioned the bill's constitutionality.

Allow me to cite one example.

The minister recently said—and this appeared in a newspaper article—that the Canadian Bar Association should be ashamed of opposing Bill C-24. My colleague even said that the NDP did not want to punish criminals, that it wanted to keep terrorists safe, or something like that. It is typical reasoning on the Conservatives' part to think that we cannot disagree with them without being completely off base and that we should be ashamed not to think as they do on all matters.

The government says that the bill enjoys broad public support, but I would be curious to see its polls and figures. I have before me a petition that was submitted by one group and signed by more than 26,000 people opposed to Bill C-24. I do not know what kind of consultation the Conservatives conducted. And I am not telling you that those 26,000 signatures are necessarily valid or that the petition itself should be taken at face value. However, it is unusual to be able to gather so many thousands of signatures in order to oppose a bill. It nevertheless has some value when weighed in the balance.

What kind of consultation did the minister conduct so that he could say that Canadians support his bill? This is another argument that we often hear and that I think is of little value.

Is this an act that would strengthen citizenship? That is frankly ridiculous. After all we have heard in this committee, we cannot say that this bill is perfect. We can understand the concern, not only of the opposition, but also that of the community at large and of many experts who appeared before us. It should be taken seriously.

Lastly, this bill concerns fundamental rights. It would have the effect of changing the way in which people are able to access our justice system. It would also change the lives of several thousands of people who had intended to file citizenship applications over the next few months. Even though the minister himself said that the bill constitutes a reform that has been awaited for 30 years and that it is extremely important, the normal procedures have been circumvented and no proper study has been conducted in this committee. In addition, debate on this bill was limited by a time allocation motion. A time allocation motion was introduced at second reading, and I would not be surprised if there was another one at third reading.

If the Conservatives feel that citizenship is so important, but that this bill does not even merit proper debate in accordance with the normal procedures of the House of Commons and Parliament, then frankly they should be ashamed.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, as you will understand, I will be opposing the title of this bill because it includes the words "strengthening Canadian citizenship", and I will also be opposing the bill itself.

I hope that Canadians will remember this for a long time. There has been an extensive mobilization effort on the part of citizens and experts, and it is not over yet.

Thank you.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

This section is on transitional provisions for existing applications.

I just wanted to share a story of two constituents I spoke with on Friday and yesterday. They pleaded with me. They said, “Please, please fight against Bill C-24. I have just finished qualifying and I'm going to be applying”. One person said they were going to be applying for their citizenship because they qualified with their PR time, and the other person said that based on the current laws, they would qualify and could apply in September, but if Bill C-24 came into effect, they wouldn't qualify anymore.

This person really wants to become a Canadian citizen. His family is from Egypt, but because of the civil war situation there, the tumultuous situation there, he's actually lost some of his family members there. He's just scared that he's going to become stateless, because he can't renew his Egyptian passport, and he has spent the last six or eight years in Canada building up his portfolio and his resumé so that he could become a Canadian citizen. If this bill passes as is, he's essentially going to become stateless, and he won't actually get to put in his application, because he won't be able to get an Egyptian passport and he won't be able to get a Canadian passport. He won't be a Canadian citizen, and Egypt has already refused to renew his passport for him.

So, this young man, who has done everything he needs to do to become a Canadian, and who wants to become a Canadian, is now going to be told, well, sorry, you're going to have to wait another x amount of time. The amendment we are proposing actually helps people like him, who have qualified based on the current laws that exist and who, depending on how the transition period goes, may not qualify anymore. All we're trying to do is to make this a fair, smoother transitional period, so that people who have already started the work, or who are already in the works, actually get a chance, based on the existing law.

That's all I'll add. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The NDP is presenting an amendment to this clause, which concerns the transition time for the coming into force of this act.

The purpose of the amendment we are proposing is to exclude people who have previously obtained permanent residence from the measures of Bill C-24.

We are introducing this amendment because many people, as individuals or as representatives of groups, have come to meet with me personally or have testified before the committee to oppose the extension of time required to submit a citizenship application and the fact that the length of residence in Canada before citizenship was granted would no longer count.

Under the present act, foreign students and temporary foreign workers may count the time during which they reside in Canada before obtaining permanent residence since they live and study or work here. Under Bill C-24, however, that time would no longer be counted. As a result, the bill will affect all those who have not yet filed a citizenship application.

This will change the life plans of many permanent residents who had intended to file their applications this summer or fall since many of them very meticulously count their days. In so doing, they want to ensure that, when they file their applications, they will in fact be eligible to do so. This is a clear illustration of the beauty and value of Canadian citizenship.

In a way, a bill such as this alters the contract that we had with these people. We told them that they could come to Canada and that they would be able to file citizenship applications after a number of years. Now that they are here, have complied with their part of the contract and have carefully counted their days to ensure they file their applications when entitled to do so, this bill will change the rules of the contract and alter their short- and medium-term life plans.

Under the amendment we propose, these people would be able to continue their lives as planned in accordance with the current act and would be able to file their citizenship applications after the time periods we initially set for them. Ultimately, this bill would affect people who would be granted permanent residence in future but not those who currently have permanent resident status, that is to say those who obtained it because they were foreign students or temporary foreign workers or simply because we told them when they arrived that they could acquire citizenship after a number of years.

We want to ensure that we are respectful of those people, even though we oppose Bill C-24. If this bill is passed, we believe it should not penalize people who are about to file their citizenship applications.

Thank you.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Liberals will be opposing this clause, as withholding citizenship from someone who is charged with an offence abroad raises the same concerns as the revocation procedures. Bill C-24 does not require the government to take into account the nature of a foreign judicial system. Foreign countries could issue charges in order to prevent someone from receiving Canadian citizenship. Currently the Citizenship Act prevents the granting of citizenship or the administration of the oath of citizenship to any person who is subject to a Canadian criminal proceeding.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This amendment would delete the “intent to reside” provision related to the resumption of citizenship. Again, the Liberals are opposed to the intent to reside provisions of this bill, and this amendment would delete them from the resumption of citizenship provisions of Bill C-24.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was reading a quotation when I was interrupted. I was wondering whether I could read that quotation. It was by Ms. Sheryl Saperia from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Here is the quote again:

I understand from last week’s hearing that Minister Alexander envisions a two-step process in his ministerial discretion. The first step would be to examine the substance of the foreign offence and whether it is equivalent to a Canadian Criminal Code terrorist act. This is set out in the legislation. But the second step of the review, which was described as an examination of the fairness of the process by which the conviction was achieved, is not mentioned anywhere in the bill. I would recommend an amendment in this regard.

That's the same point I was making earlier. That second piece, whereby the examination of whether a person had a fair trial before the conviction that they may have reached in another jurisdiction in another country, is not clearly articulated in this bill, and there has been no change made to that effect. That is another reason I cannot support clause 8.

Time after time, the Canadian Bar Association, CARL or the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, CASID, the local Toronto legal clinic.... There are many other organizations that presented as witnesses or that just sent in a written submission to our committee speaking to the unconstitutionality of this clause in Bill C-24. Considering that it has not been amended at all....

I can go on for many more hours, but I choose not to, Mr. Chair. All these reasons and more are reasons that I cannot support clause 8.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Okay, we're going to resume. We are debating clause 8 of Bill C-24.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan, you have the floor.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think it is pretty clear that I will not be supporting clause 8 as well, as per what my colleague mentioned.

It's quite unfortunate that members of the government on the committee are not willing to actually listen to any of the recommendations we heard in the pre-study we did of this bill. We heard.... I'm not going to give you an exhaustive list of the witnesses and what they said, but I do want to talk about some of the issues that were outlined by some of our witnesses and about why I can't support clause 8 of the bill.

For example, you have heard me speak at length about UNICEF, because I think the best interests of the child are important. In the written submission they sent to us, UNICEF mentioned that the “best interest” determination process should be applied in cases in which there is the potential for families to be separated following the revocation of citizenship of a parent, when there are children involved.

If a parent is going to lose his citizenship, what is going to happen to the child? It's not clear now, if the parent is going to be deported because they lose their Canadian citizenship, what will happen to the child. If the family is being separated and a child is left to fend for themselves, is that acting in the best interest of the child? We are a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and we are not acting in the best interests of the child.

I won't belabour that point any further; however, with respect to the new section 10 of the Citizenship Act that would be created through clause 8 of Bill C-24, we heard from the Canadian Council for Refugees, who suggested deletion of the new proposed powers to strip citizenship as a whole and amendment of the bill to include a provision explicitly stating that citizenship cannot be removed.

Citizenship shouldn't be treated like a driver's licence; it's not a privilege. I feel that it's a huge privilege to be a Canadian citizen, yes, but it's not something that can be taken away for punitive reasons. If you are a citizen, then you are a citizen—period, end of sentence. It's not something that a partisan minister should have the ability to take away from you for whatever reason.

What we've seen as a pattern in the bills that have affected this citizenship and immigration committee, whereby the minister has more and more discretionary powers to do x, y, or z—and this time it's about the revocation of citizenship—is that every bill that has come before this committee has seen an increase in discretionary powers for the minister, and that just isn't right.

We even had the minister appear before the committee and say many things about the clause 8 revocation section when crimes committed in another jurisdiction are involved. He said that's not really what they were trying to do, and that he's a nice guy, so he wouldn't revoke somebody's citizenship for something that wouldn't be treated as an equivalent crime here in this country. That's great that he's a nice guy and won't do that.

But that's not what the law says; that is not what is written down. What happens if tomorrow he's not the minister and somebody who is not a nice guy becomes minister? Does that mean that this new person will revoke someone's citizenship, and is that the plan?

I don't know. I can only go by what is in ink. The ink on the paper and the experts who have come before this committee have told us that it's very much not clear. Who was it, was it the Canadian Bar Association...? I remember Professor Macklin, who was representing the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

I'm going to quote very briefly from her. She said: “I would remove citizenship revocation. It's unconstitutional.” She then said, “I think our criminal justice system is perfectly adequate to handle crimes, criminal offences, and it does so just fine.”

She's right. If we're dealing with the criminal justice system, when a crime is committed in our jurisdiction or in another jurisdiction outside of this country, it shouldn't be the Minister of Immigration who acts as judge and jury. It really should be a judge—or maybe a jury—and not the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who has the powers to just take away somebody's Canadian citizenship.

We heard from the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, OCASI, and also the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, who both said that all of the new grounds for revocation of citizenship for dual citizens should be removed, because clause 8 in this bill is actually discriminatory.

The Conservatives on this committees are happy to write a law that is discriminatory towards people who have dual citizenship just because, through their birthright or because they were born in another country or because they choose to keep citizenship in another country.... They are going to be treated as another class of Canadian citizen. That's just not fair. It is discriminatory practice, a prejudiced practice. As lawmakers, we can't condone that type of behaviour.

That is another reason I will not be supporting and just can't support clause 8.

Once again, OCASI and the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic—I wish they had come up with a brilliant little name like OCASI for them as well—said to remove all of the new discretionary powers that are given to the minister. I agree with them. These are two groups that are representing a large number of people who live in the greater Toronto area. I, representing that community, agree with these organizations, who are speaking on behalf of so many of our constituents in the GTA.

We also know—I think it was from the lawyer Robin Seligman, when she appeared before the committee.... She is the one who mentioned that people who have a parking ticket have more rights than people who are having their citizenship revoked.

I'm pretty sure it was her who also outlined to us the way in which Canada can revoke the citizenship of people who may have a second citizenship—for example, Jewish Canadians who have a right to citizenship to Israel, who have never been there before, but just because they are practising, they have that right to that citizenship—for a crime that may have happened.

That is “may have happened”. It's not something we have clear, distinctive proof for, because we can't necessarily trust the judicial system in another country. Do we know that it's of the same quality or calibre as the Canadian judicial system? We don't. In many of these countries in which there are civil wars happening, do I necessarily trust the independence of the judiciary? No. I come from Sri Lanka, and many of the members of the committee have heard me speak about that country and the crimes that take place in that country. Do I trust the judiciary in that country? No. I know that the judiciary is not independent in that country, because the chief justice was impeached by the government because she issued a decision that wasn't supportive of the government.

So I know that in the case of that one country, for example, I can speak with confidence. We can't trust what comes out of the judiciary in that country, because they might say that somebody was convicted of a crime and had a fair trial, but does that mean we're now going to accept it?

It's not clear in the law. That's why I'm belabouring this point; it's not clear. I want to look at witness testimony from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It was by Ms. Saperia. She said:

I understand from last week’s hearing that Minister Alexander envisions a two-step process in his ministerial discretion. The first step would be to examine the substance of the foreign offence and whether it is equivalent to a Canadian Criminal Code terrorist act. This is set out in the legislation

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are at clause 8 of Bill C-24. No amendment could be made to this clause. I think it is important to discuss it.

As I said earlier, clause 8 concerns the revocation of citizenship under the minister's discretionary power. This is one of the main points that has been debated in Canadian civil society and among the experts who appeared before this committee. I will mention only some of the witnesses who opposed this provision of Bill C-24, including the Canadian Council for Refugees and, of course, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. The Canadian Arab Institute stated in a brief that it had sent to the committee that it was opposed to the possible revocation of citizenship.

Several experts appeared before the committee. Some expressed their disagreement with the revocation of citizenship, and others pointed out that the act of stripping a Canadian citizen of citizenship and not allowing that person to appeal the decision was probably unconstitutional.

Now I am going to recall the remarks made by Ms. Macklin, who is an executive member, professor and chair in human rights law on the faculty of law at the University of Toronto and a member of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. When she appeared before the committee, she told us these citizenship revocation provisions were probably unconstitutional. She said the following on that subject:

Can you revoke somebody's citizenship in order to punish them for what we'll call crimes against citizenship?... Here's what the Supreme Court of Canada said about that kind of approach:

Then she cited the Supreme Court, which had rendered a judgment on the subject, and she made the following comments on its decision:

In other words, the Supreme Court of Canada stated quite clearly that punishing somebody by depriving them of their constitutional rights, indeed, by denying them all constitutional rights and casting them out in the name of the social contract, is not constitutional.

This lawyer, who is a member of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, raised some major concerns about the constitutionality of this clause. And she was not the only one who did so. The Canadian Bar Association, which also appeared before the committee, has published its opinion several times in newspapers, in briefs and on the Internet.

Here is an excerpt from what the association says about the revocation of citizenship:

Taking away citizenship from someone born in Canada because they may have dual citizenship and have committed an offence proscribed by the act is new. That's a fundamental change. For people who are born here and who have grown up here, it can result in banishment or exile. It's a step backwards, a huge step backwards—and it's a huge step being taken without any real national debate or discussion about whether Canadians want their citizenship amended in that way.

Once again, a group of legal experts raised major concerns about the constitutionality of this aspect. I think we have to take this seriously. We have often seen the Conservative Party make decisions that were subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court. I think there is probably a lesson to be learned from that. Bill C-24, which preceded the one we are studying today, also encountered quite serious problems regarding its admissibility.

There is the constitutionality aspect, of course, but there are also all the issues surrounding the debate on justice and the creation of two classes of citizens. That is also a major and fundamental element. I am taking the time to discuss them because we are voting on a clause that has raised enormous concerns among the civil population and the experts in this country and that will make a fundamental change to Canadian citizenship.

We must ask ourselves the following question: why two classes of citizens?

For a single offence, if a person had or might have a second citizenship, he or she would not be entitled to the same judicial process as another person who had only one citizenship. I am not saying here that the sentence might be minor or undeserved, on the contrary. The experts agree that our judicial system provides for harsh penalties for crimes such as high treason and terrorism.

However, consider someone who was born in Canada of Canadian parents, who knows only one country—Canada—and perhaps only one language and who has no attachment to another country. Why should he be denied the same judicial treatment as a person who was born in Canada, and has only Canadian citizenship, simply because a parent has given him or her citizenship in another country? That is the problem. The question here is not whether committing terrorist acts is a serious matter. I believe everyone agrees on that. The NDP agrees that terrorism is an act that merits penalties consistent with the seriousness of the crime.

The bill goes a little too far because it could have the effect of revoking the citizenship of Canadians who were born in Canada to Canadian parents. I am not the only person who has said this. I am echoing the public and the experts who appeared before our committee. This is what disturbs me, just as it disturbs the official opposition and a lot of other people. I am startled to see that the government has accepted no amendments to clause 8 and that we are preparing to vote on a measure with such serious consequences.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Okay.

Liberal amendment 7 would reverse the onus in Bill C-24 so that the minister would have to prove that the affected Canadian has a second citizenship. In our view, reverse onuses are rarely used in Canadian law. When they are, it's only in the most extreme of circumstances. If the minister has gone through all the work to prove that a Canadian should have their citizenship revoked, then they should also be able to prove that their target also has a second citizenship. It shouldn't fall on the shoulders of the Canadian to prove a negative.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is a major problem that witnesses pointed out during the study of Bill C-24. One witness even said that a person whose citizenship might be revoked had fewer legal rights than another who had received a parking ticket. I think that shows how ridiculous this provision of Bill C-24 is. For that reason, the NDP will support the proposed amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 31. We are studying, clause by clause, Bill C-24, which is amending the Citizenship Act and other acts.

We have the same officials before us that we had yesterday from the department, in case members have technical questions.

(On clause 8)

I think we finished Green-4, which failed, and we now have Green-5.

Ms. May, I assume the legislative clerk has spoken to you and he has pointed out to you that he's recommending to me that the amendment proposed by you is inadmissible. I concur with him. Do you wish me to go further?

Basically the amendment intends to delete the entire clause. When you do that it's out of order because simply voting against the adoption of the clause would have the same effect, and that comes from O'Brien and Bosc at page 768. So the ruling essentially is that parliamentary practice does not permit a member to do something indirectly what cannot be directly. Therefore, Ms. May, I declare that the amendment is inadmissible.

So, we now proceed to....

Well, there doesn't seem to be anyone to move, so we will proceed with Liberal amendment 7. I don't see anyone making the amendment for that either.

You know, I'd like to be reasonable here.

I'm going to suspend for a minute.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have finished the consideration of the amendments to clause 3. However, clause 3 is huge and contains a number of changes, as you have seen. A variety of amendments have been proposed to clause 3.

I want to begin by saying that the NDP supports several elements of clause 3. For instance, we agree that access to citizenship should be facilitated for permanent residents who have served in the Canadian Armed Forces. We have agreed with that aspect since the bill was introduced, at first reading, and we still agree with it.

We also support the fact that the bill makes certain clarifications regarding the length of residence. Indicating the number of days helps people who apply for citizenship be aware of the eligibility criteria in terms of residence. The NDP also agrees with that.

Those are just two examples. Clause 3 is broad. I just wanted to point out that the NDP supports several aspects of that provision.

Unfortunately, as we debated earlier when the amendments were put forward, clause 3 has many shortcomings. Consequently, the NDP cannot vote in favour of that provision, despite some of its worthy elements.

One of the most significant shortcomings or aberrations, if I may say so, is the declaration of intent to reside in Canada. I would like to mention a few groups that expressed their disagreement with that aspect of Bill C-24.

Representatives of the Canadian Council for Refugees appeared before us and presented their brief. They said they were against the declaration of intent to reside. OCACI, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers also said they were against that requirement, as did the Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group and Parkdale Community Legal Services. The Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic and the Canadian Bar Association were of the same opinion.

I will not list all of them. However, you will understand that the vast majority of the witnesses who have appeared to speak to Bill C-24 expressed explicit disagreement with this element regarding the declaration of intent to reside.

Moreover, lawyer groups, such as the Canadian Bar Association, questioned the constitutionality of this aspect of the bill's clause 3.

When the minister appeared before us to discuss this bill, he answered some questions specifically about this element. He said it was not his intention to use the declaration of intent to reside to revoke the citizenship of someone who would no longer reside in Canada after becoming a citizen. So it is not the minister's intention to use this element in such a way. However, can we rely solely on a minister's intention and good faith to gauge the worthiness of a bill's provision? The answer is clearly no.

If that is the minister's intention, we have to make sure that the bill's wording reflects it appropriately. The current wording makes it seem like, if someone must declare their intent to reside in Canada, they could have their citizenship revoked under the pretext of having obtained it by making a false statement. This is not only the opinion of the NDP, but also of a number of experts I mentioned earlier.

A door is being left partially open, and that is very dangerous. This requirement could be unconstitutional.

Let's consider the following case. Members of a family have obtained their citizenship. Before becoming citizens, they had to declare their intent to reside in Canada. However, a few months after they obtained their citizenship, a relative living abroad became very ill. Some family members had to go to the other country to take care of the sick relative, as we know perfectly well Canada is unlikely to allow an ill relative to come live here. So those individuals, who may have made the declaration in good faith, could be forced to leave the country. In addition, owing to the bill's wording, those individuals could have their citizenship revoked.

This raises many concerns, in addition to creating instability in the plans of individuals who become Canadian citizens. That's a huge problem.

We cannot allow Bill C-24 to be passed as it is currently worded without ensuring that the minister's supposed intention is expressed properly. Legal experts who have testified before this committee are almost unanimous in saying that this is not the case.

For that reason, we will clearly not be able to support clause 3 of Bill C-24. There is reason for concern because, if the Conservatives support the bill as it is worded, precedent could be created. That would allow the minister to revoke the citizenship of an individual who, after obtaining their citizenship, may leave the country for potentially legitimate reasons.

That's only one example. I could go on about this for a long time. However, I have summarized the main reasons for the NDP's strong opposition to clause 3.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Chair, I spoke of the UNICEF brief earlier. There are recommendations that are clearly outlined by UNICEF in their brief, and I'm going to read recommendation number three for the committee so that everybody is aware of it. The recommendation is as follows:

That the proposed amendments requiring children aged 14 to 18 to successfully complete both language and knowledge testing be removed altogether or, at a minimum, that testing be adjusted in a manner appropriate to such children’s age and/or experience.

That's very clear. That is what UNICEF is recommending, and we're not doing that in Bill C-24. This amendment proposed by the NDP, amendment B as we're calling it, actually does that. We're listening to what the witnesses have had to say.

I know that Madam Blanchette-Lamothe went over the other agencies who suggested the same thing, such as the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, and OCASI. I think the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers might have also. I don't remember off the top of my head; there are a lot of briefs that have come to this committee.

We're also not taking into account the migratory paths that these children may have taken before they came to Canada. If you were a child of war, or of many precarious situations that these children may have come through, they may take more than the four years that a child who hasn't had a more precarious, or more of a—I don't want to say that one situation is better or worse than the other. We have to be looking at the fact that these are children, and these children's minds and lives are impacted in different ways than those of adults.

It seems the government is going to oppose NDP amendment B, which would protect these children. It just doesn't make sense. We're saying that it doesn't matter how this young child's mind is impacted by their migratory path; we're saying that it's the same requirements for them as for all adults who come into this country. We're trying to get them citizenship, and it's just not fair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to add to what my colleague has mentioned. She outlined how many of the witnesses spoke to how this is unfair. I want go through a bit of what UNICEF mentioned, because we are signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and by creating this situation through Bill C-24, we are creating a situation whereby children may be separated from their parents.

If parents here in Canada don't pass the test and are not able to be become citizens, but the child passes it, or vice versa, then we are effectively separating a child from its parents. According to all definitions that I am aware of, “under 18” is the definition of a child, and in this bill, this government is effectively trying to say that children 14 and above are actually not being considered as children and not being treated as children and given that special treatment.

We need to make sure that we have a child rights-based approach to the legislation that we are putting forth and the changes we are making, because we are a state party to the convention. UNICEF clearly outlined that in their presentation and in their brief they sent to us. The changes being proposed here are actually in contravention of quite a number of the articles of the convention that we are engaged in.

In UNICEF's brief, they talk about article 1, which talks about the definition of the child, and that's the age piece we're in breach of with this bill. Article 2 is on equality and non-discrimination for children, which we're in breach of. Article 3 is on the best interests of the child, which we're not looking out for. Article 5 is on the integrity of the family, which we are in breach of. Article 6 is on the survival and development of the child, which we are in breach of. Article 7 addresses birth registration, nationality, and protection from statelessness, and we are creating a situation whereby these children might become stateless. Article 8 relates to family relations. Article 9 is the protection from arbitrary separation from their parents, which we would be in breach of. Finally, there is article 10, which is family reunification.

I'm of the understanding that because we are a party to the convention these are all issues that are important, and they are really fundamental to who we are as Canadians, which is that we look out for the protection of our children. There are far too many articles of the convention that we are in contravention of with the changes that Bill C-24 creates. That's why I will be supporting the NDP amendment, which protects the rights of the child through citizenship. We're trying to ensure that there's a child rights-based approach to Canadian citizenship.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

Along the same lines as the previous one, this amendment deals with the knowledge and language testing that Bill C-24 would impose on youth between 14 and 18 years of age.

The committee heard from a number of experts who voiced their concerns and opposition to this part of the clause, for very obvious reasons. Even department officials weren't able to tell us what would happen to children who failed the test, but whose parents had passed it. The only answer we were given was that it would be a rare occurrence.

It may be a rare occurrence, but it could happen. And the committee did not receive a satisfactory answer regarding what would happen to these children in this case. If a child in a family doesn't receive citizenship but their siblings and parents do, will the family have more trouble at the border when leaving Canada for a trip?

UNICEF representatives were among witnesses who voiced those types of concerns to the committee. They objected to imposing language testing on 14 to 18 year olds. A number of other groups and organizations were also opposed to the measure, including the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, the Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Canada, the Canadian Council for Refugees and OCASI. All of these witnesses appearing before the committee denounced the measure in Bill C-24 targeting 14 to 18 year olds.

There is a long list of people who object to the provision. And that is why the NDP wants to propose an amendment to prevent children in that age range from being subjected to the testing; if they do not pass, they will be denied citizenship, while their siblings and parents could receive it.

That is my amendment.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'll keep it brief for this amendment since I talked a bit about it earlier.

The amendment would delete lines 23 to 26 on page 11, which pertain to the age limit under which people are subjected to the language and knowledge tests.

As I said earlier, Bill C-24 seeks to raise the age limit for the testing requirement to 65. For the reasons I mentioned earlier, my amendment seeks to keep the age limit where it currently stands, at 55.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Green Party it is.

We're talking about Green Party amendments PV-2 and PV-3. I've looked at them and I'm going to rule them inadmissible. I believe, Mr. Méla, the legislative clerk, has spoken to you.

For the record, I happen to agree with the legislative clerk. One of the goals of clause 3 of Bill C-24 is to provide faster access to Canadian citizenship for permanent residents who are enrolled in or attached to or seconded by the Canadian Armed Forces. The amendment speaks about permanent residents who are not part of the Canadian Armed Forces, and therefore it goes beyond the scope of the bill. In that case, we refer to the procedure book of O'Brien and Bosc, page 766, which says:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

I make the same ruling for Green Party amendment PV-3, and therefore I declare that the Green Party amendments PV-2 and PV-3 are inadmissible.

We now move to Liberal amendment LIB-5.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

As my colleague mentioned, I was talking about the wrong amendment. There are so many I got confused. My apologies.

The amendment currently before the committee would amend how the amount of time spent in Canada is calculated for individuals who travel outside the country for professional reasons. That would include airplane pilots or salespeople who travel abroad for work.

Many permanent residents have to travel for work, and it is extremely beneficial to Canadians for them to do so, especially in the case of airplane pilots. But, in its current form, Bill C-24 would penalize these individuals for time spent outside Canada, even for professional reasons. The NDP finds that unacceptable and believes the situation has to be rectified. These are working individuals who are doing what is expected of them as future citizens, and they shouldn't be penalized for that.

Thank you for giving me a chance to correct myself.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Chair, we're talking about amendment NDP-2. I will be supporting the NDP amendment, because we've had witness after witness after witness.... I think this is the one where I was doing a poll of many of our witnesses who came before this committee. This is about the value of permanent residents in this country and the value of the time of people in their pre-PR time in this country.

We've had many people testify that international students, for example, who come in through the Canada experience class program of immigration, spend at least four years here as international students doing their undergraduate degree, let's say, and usually they are working here and paying taxes. They're integrating and learning life as Canadians in our universities or in our colleges. Bill C-24 is saying that those people don't have any value and that their time spent here in Canada doesn't have any value.

This amendment actually makes it so that their time during their pre-PR time is valued. We need to make sure of that for people who are coming in through the experience class, such as the international students, or even the live-in caregivers, who, depending on their arrangement with their employer and their work permit, are spending years here raising our children in this country. Yet we're telling them that their time here in Canada—the taxes they pay to this country, their integration with our society, whether they're volunteering in our communities, our hospitals, or our nursing homes, whatever it might be—has no value. That's not right. That's why I will be supporting amendment NDP-2, which says that all of these people do have value and that their time spent in Canada does have value in their pre-PR time.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I mentioned earlier, according to all the input we heard from experts and those on the ground working with citizenship applicants and newcomers, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the age for the testing requirement is entirely arbitrary.

My colleague just said we need to make sure that immigrants are able to integrate into Canadian society. If that is indeed the goal of this provision, it has been completely lost. This has nothing to do with immigrants, but people who have been living in Canada for a number of years and are seeking Canadian citizenship. So this isn't directly tied to integration.

My amendment proposes that the age limit for the language requirement remain at 55, instead of being raised to 65, as the Conservatives are proposing in Bill C-24.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

—and I'm not going to read our Standing Order 12, except the last paragraph. You are allowed to make the amendment; in fact, it's deemed to have been made. This is for other members:

(c) during the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.

That's always an interesting question, what brief means. This whole process of clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-24 is time-allocated. That's essentially what the motion that was passed said. So I'm going to allow for an amendment.

You're allowed a minute to make representations to the committee, Madam.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

On the subject of the declaration of intent to reside in the country, I agree that Bill C-24 contains a flaw. A tremendous number of witnesses said they were against the declaration of intent to reside.

If the committee is serious about the study that was done and the expert testimony heard, it cannot turn a blind eye to the major flaws tied to the declaration of intent to reside. One concern the experts raised was that citizenship could be revoked if someone declared their intent to reside and then, owing to an unforeseen circumstance in the future, had to leave the country after obtaining their citizenship.

The minister said that the current wording of the bill wasn't intended for that purpose and that he didn't view the declaration of intent to reside in that way. According to experts, however, including Canadian Bar Association representatives, regardless of what the minister intended, the bill in its current form could result in someone's citizenship being revoked, precisely because of the declaration of intent to reside.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

No problem.

The amendment reads as follows:

That Bill C-24, in Clause 2, be amended (a) by adding after line 13 on page 1 the following: “(1.1) Subparagraph 3(1)(f)(iii) of the Act is repealed. (1.2) The portion of paragraph 3(1)(i) of the Act before subparagraph (i) is replaced by the following: (i) the person had been a citizen other than by way of grant, ceased to be a citizen for a reason other than the reasons referred to in subparagraphs (f)(i) and (ii), was subsequently granted citizenship before the coming into force of this paragraph under any of the following provisions and, if it was required, he or she took the oath of citizenship:” (b) by deleting line 36 on page 5 to line 25 on page 8. (c) by adding after line 16 on page 9 the following: “(15.1) The portion of paragraph 3(7)(a) of the Act before subparagraph (i) is replaced by the following: (a) a person referred to in paragraph (1)(c) who was, before the coming into force of this subsection, granted citizenship under any of the following provisions after ceasing to be a citizen by way of grant for any reason other than the reasons referred to in subparagraphs (1)(f)(i) and (ii) is deemed to be a citizen under paragraph 1(c) from the time that he or she ceased to be a citizen:”

Now I will explain the rationale behind my proposed amendment.

Although it may sound a bit dry, the amendment, in a nutshell, is intended to give Canadian citizenship to second-generation children, a right they lost when the 2009 legislation came into force.

Since then, the NDP has viewed the measure as an injustice and believes that Bill C-24 can rectify the situation. So we are proposing an amendment to right the wrong done in 2009, whereby second-generation children lost the right to have Canadian citizenship passed down from their parents.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have indeed proposed an amendment to clause 2 of the bill. It deals with the citizenship of second-generation individuals. The legislation passed in 2009 eliminated these people's ability to access Canadian citizenship. And the NDP has been opposed to the measure ever since.

Bill C-24 on citizenship—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon.

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 30. Today's meeting is televised.

We are in clause-by-clause discussion of Bill C-24, which is an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

Before we start the process, we have four individuals before us.

We have Nicole Girard, director general of the citizenship and multiculturalism branch. Good afternoon to you.

Next is Alexandra Hiles. Is that correct?

Energy Safety and Security Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill, which ironically is titled the energy safety and security act. I say ironically because nothing in the bill actually talks about energy security, which is something that residents in my riding and across Canada have been asking the government to protect for many years. Energy security means actually providing that we have a reliable and secure source of energy in our homes, in our businesses, and in our workplaces.

The bill is weaving its way through and has taken forever. There are portions of the bill that are to ratify international obligations. It was introduced by the government on several previous occasions, and each time the government was the cause of the bill actually not proceeding. First, it was the quick call of an election in 2008 before the four years was up, then a prorogation actually eliminated the ability for that bill to go forward, and finally, an election was called before the bill finished wending its way, so it has been on the books for several years.

There is some importance to the speed with which the bill goes through, but obviously the government wants to take its time and discuss it over a long period of time. However, another bill, Bill C-24, was voted on in an absolutely tearing hurry just this afternoon, and yet I was not able to speak on it.

I have had meetings with constituents who have expressed serious concerns and serious reservations about the core of a bill that would give the minister the ability to take away the citizenship of persons born in Canada, which is an unprecedented thing in Canada and should have had a considerable amount of opportunity for members to discuss. Yet the government moved time allocation with only about five hours of debate on this subject. It boggles the mind why that is so much more necessary to be hurried along than this bill, on which the government has taken years and years.

I will focus mostly on the nuclear side of this, because I have some personal concerns about the nuclear side of it. There have been a number of serious events on this planet involving nuclear power generation. Those events involving nuclear power generation have brought, I think, into crystal clear relief the fact that we have completely underestimated the costs of an actual disaster in these things. We are treating these nuclear power plants as just a piece of the landscape, but when in fact they go wrong, the cost is absolutely enormous.

Three Mile Island was a relatively small disaster. It was the first of the biggies, but it was a small disaster in terms of what actually happened. Nobody was killed and there were no bodily injuries, but the cleanup took 14 years and $1 billion, starting in 1979. A billion dollars was what was needed in 1979 for a small problem. Now we are in 2014, 35 years further along, and $1 billion is all that the nuclear industry has to put up if there is a liability involving a nuclear problem at a nuclear plant.

Let us fast-forward just seven years to Chernobyl. Chernobyl had $15 billion in direct losses. That is the plant itself, direct losses at the time on the site, a number of deaths, a whole lot of injuries; and over the next 30 years, it is estimated that because of the thousands upon thousands of residents of Ukraine and Belarus who will develop cancer, those costs could be over $500 billion.

We are not suggesting that the nuclear industry in Canada is capable of covering a cost of $500 billion, but to suggest $1 billion is all that is necessary is laughable, particularly when this industry is now quite robust and has been around a long time in relative terms.

The government is suggesting only $1 billion. That is actually a subsidy to this industry. We do not need to be subsidizing the nuclear power industry in this country, particularly when just two years ago the government gave away the CANDU licence to SNC-Lavalin. Now, a private corporation is actually in control of the development of our nuclear reactor system. It is not a corporation that is getting a whole lot of good reviews lately.

Then we come to 2011 and Fukushima. This is by far the worst of the nuclear disasters. It really brings home just how bad things can get when things go wrong in ways that are not expected. That is the essence of what nuclear designers are trying to do: figure out what we can do to protect against the unexpected.

Fukushima will probably cost between $250 billion and $500 billion when it is done. Nobody is absolutely certain. There is an untold human cost of Fukushima. They have had to evacuate and evict 159,000 people from the area around Fukushima. Though those people have not been told this, they can probably never go back to their homes.

Caesium-137, radioactive caesium, has a 30-year half-life. That radioactive material is now all over the ground, in the water, and in the air, in the area around that reactor. Because of a 30-year half-life, that means it will be centuries before those places are safe to inhabit again. Those people are still paying mortgages on their homes, but it will be centuries before they can go back to them.

That is the magnitude of what a nuclear disaster is really all about. I am afraid the government really does not understand just what it is dealing with in terms of tossing out the number $1 billion as if it is somehow an appropriate number to suggest the nuclear industry would have to come up with.

I am of two minds on the whole notion of nuclear energy as being a good thing for Canada. My father-in-law came back from World War II. He was a pilot in the RAF. He went to Chalk River and helped build those first few reactors at Chalk River. He was part of the design team that designed the CANDU system. His name was Roy Tilbe. He has passed on now, but he had a fierce loyalty to the nuclear industry generally and a fierce dedication to trying to make it a safe industry.

He would be appalled to think that the taxpayers have to pick up the ball if the industry is not safe enough. That is essentially what the government is suggesting to the industry, after six or seven years of dithering on what to do, by offering a paltry $1 billion as all that is required. The costs are of such magnitude that $1 billion is dwarfed by what those costs really are in the sense of a nuclear accident.

Let me talk about another cost that nobody here has talked about. Nuclear reactors in Canada and elsewhere have effluent, an output, waste. Nuclear waste is very toxic. It is something that people should not go near.

I was up on a little tour of Chalk River, where they showed us their nuclear waste management site. They did not call it a disposal site, but a management site. We went on a little bus. There was a bunch of Japanese and German tourists on the bus with us. We went around to the management site, and we were told that inside the steel cylinders encased in concrete was the waste. We know that the steel lasts about 150 years, and the concrete lasts about 75 years. So every 75 years, the concrete has to be replaced, and every 150 years the steel has to be replaced.

I asked the guide how long that would have to be done. I was told 75 years for the concrete and 150 for the steel. No, I said; I asked how long we had to manage the waste. I was told 500,000 years.

Has anybody really recognized what that means? What will $1 billion be worth in 500,000 years? Who will be around? Will SNC-Lavalin still be around? Will I still be around? The safety of Canadians should be paramount, and the industry should be held accountable.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first let me start by acknowledging the support shown on Tuesday night for our motion to have the House work hard for all Canadians to ensure that we have a productive, hard-working, and orderly House of Commons. It was not just this side of the House that voted for this ambitious plan to let MPs reach decisions on many important issues, and I want to thank the Liberal Party for agreeing to join Conservatives in rolling up their sleeves this spring.

I know my hon. friend has a different definition of what our work is here in the House of Commons. He believes that our work here is to filibuster and fill every moment possible with as many speeches as possible to avoid decisions being made. I have encountered one or two Canadians who think the problem with politicians is too much talk and not enough action. Now we know where they get that impression.

On this side of the House, we are committed to action, we are committed to delivering results, and we are committed to decisions being made and to people participating in votes and making decisions on behalf of their constituents at home. That is why we need debates to also come to a conclusion so we can make those decisions and so we can have those votes.

Last night, for example, we had a great debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act. That is our government taking steps to modernize the Citizenship Act for the first time in some 35 years. What is even better, we just had a vote and a decision. Every single member, not just a dozen or so who might have spoken for a few hours but every single member of this House, got to have a say on behalf of his or her constituents and got to make a decision and advance a bill through the legislation process. That is what it is really all about.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday morning—before we adopted the government's ambitious work plan—a number of New Democrats expressed their support for Bill C-17, Vanessa's law. However, they did not walk that talk.

The honourable member for Chambly—Borduas said, “we do recognize the urgency [of this matter]”. Nevertheless, seven other New Democrats then got up after him to block this bill from going to committee. Among them was their deputy leader who said, “I also hope that the bill will go to committee quickly...”.

I wish that the New Democrats listened to their deputy leader. It would be disappointing to think that the NDP might be using Vanessa's law as a political hostage by filibustering it as a means to avoid debating other bills.

I would not want to ascribe such cynical motives to the House Leader of the Official Opposition, and I trust this is not a preview of how he wishes to approach the business of the House for the forthcoming three weeks, when Canadians actually expect us to accomplish things for them.

Looking forward to these three weeks to come, I am pleased to review the business the government will call in the coming days.

This afternoon, we will carry on with the second reading debate on Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act. Once that has concluded, we will take up Bill C-6, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, at report stage. If time permits, we will get back to third reading and passage of Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, will be considered tomorrow at report stage and hopefully at third reading as well.

After the weekend, we will consider Bill C-20, which would implement our free trade agreement with the Republic of Honduras, at report stage.

Following Monday's question period, we will consider Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, at second reading. That will be followed by second reading of Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act.

On Tuesday morning, we will start second reading debate on Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act. The hon. member for Richmond Hill spoke a couple of nights ago about this wonderful bill, Quanto's law, which will have a chance to be considered, thanks to having additional debate time in the House. Since I cannot imagine New Democrats opposing this bill, the only question is how many speeches will they give supporting it, and of course, how will giving more speeches make this bill become law sooner.

Following question period, we will resume debate on Bill C-20, on Canada-Honduras free trade, as well as Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, which I discussed earlier, Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, and Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act.

On Wednesday, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act. After private members' hour, we will begin report stage of Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which underwent clause-by-clause study at the Standing Committee on Finance this week.

A week from today, on Thursday next, we will continue debating our budget implementation bill. Ideally, I would also like to see us finish third reading of the bill on the free trade agreement between Canada and the Republic of the Honduras that day.

Finally, any remaining time available to us that evening will be spent on the bills on which the NDP will be able to offer more, remarkably similar speeches confirming, time after time, their support. Although I appreciate their supportive attitude towards many parts of our government's legislative agenda, it would be great if they would let all members of Parliament have their say, in an ultimate expression of democracy and to help us move from mere words to actual deeds, so that all of us can tell our constituents that we have actually accomplished something on their behalf.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made Tuesday, May 27, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment to the motion at second reading of Bill C-24.

The House resumed from May 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have the opportunity to add my voice to support Bill C-24, which would help prevent fraud and protect the citizenship program from abuse. Our Conservative government will not turn a blind eye to citizenship fraud and those who cheapen the value of Canadian citizenship.

Because Canadian citizenship is so valuable, many people are prepared to misrepresent facts to make it appear that they qualify. For example, they may pretend to live in Canada when they are really living abroad, often with the help of crooked citizenship consultants, those who would take money to help permanent residents circumvent the law and gain citizenship by fraudulent means.

As of October 2013, the RCMP had conducted investigations involving more than 3,000 citizens and more than 5,000 permanent residents. The majority of the investigations were related to residence. There are also reports that nearly 2,000 people linked to these investigations have withdrawn their citizenship applications.

Even the small number of crooked consultants who facilitate this type of fraud represents a substantial problem, as this undermines the program's integrity and the value of our citizenship. That is why this legislation would help combat fraud and protect the citizenship program from further abuse.

These measures include permitting only authorized representatives to represent individuals in citizenship matters, increasing penalties for fraud, refusing applicants because of misrepresentation at any point in the citizenship process, and barring them from reapplying for five years. This bill proposes to do this through several amendments to the Citizenship Act.

The current Citizenship Act does not include any means to regulate citizenship consultants. New provisions under Bill C-24 would allow the minister to designate a professional body authorized to represent individuals in citizenship matters. This means that the government could monitor and collect information concerning citizenship consultants, require applicants to declare the use of a consultant, and return applications from people using consultants who are not registered.

These changes would be in line with amendments introduced in 2010 to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or the IRPA, to crack down on crooked immigration consultants.

I see that my time is wrapping up. I would just like mention one last item, if I might.

The current penalty for citizenship fraud is a mere $1,000 maximum fine or a one-year prison term; it would move to $100,000 or five years in prison. This is extremely appropriate in this matter.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off with a quote from Macbeth:

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
While night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Thou marvell'st at my words: but hold thee still;
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

I would like to contend that the bill presented before us is a bill bad begun. It has grown from a rotten seed that was planted as the genesis of partisan ill will to drive a wedge between Canadians by a school alumnus of the minister from UTS, Mr. Garth Turner, who coined the term “Canadians of convenience” during the Lebanon crisis.

Although it might be a popularly held belief among many Canadians that some Canadians abuse their citizenship by leaving Canada, I would contend that this is not the case and that we have to defend the rights of every Canadian citizen. No matter where their origin, no matter their choice to leave, we have to, because it is in the law of this land.

There are perils in the tyranny of the majority.

Thoreau said:

...the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice...

I believe that is the case with this bill. I believe that it is a sign of political cowardice by the leadership on the other side of this House, and I would wish that one person would stand, as another minister did, and ask pertinent questions of their own government about why it is being politically cowardly about this issue.

I would like to clarify some facts made during the debate, particularly by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. He was clearly wrong when he heckled out during one of the debates that we were arguing that they are creating a law above the law in trying to defend on this side the Constitution of this country. The minister stated that the Constitution is not a law.

The definition of a constitution, according to Merriam-Webster, is:

The basic principles and laws of a nation...that determine the powers and duties of the government and guarantee certain rights to the people in it.

Now, the minister should know from his father, Bruce Alexander, who served under Bill Davis, the Ontario premier who was responsible for the patriation of the 1982 Constitution, that the Constitution is in fact the highest law of the land and that it frames our whole nation and the way that the government should act. It frames limits for the government so that it does not abuse its majority.

Everyone knows that the current government has problems with aspects of the Constitution, particularly the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Now, there are two charter rights that go against this whole popular notion of Canadians of convenience. One of them is section 6, which states:

Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.

I would contend that the genesis of the bill is this whole popular idea of Canadians of convenience. There are no Canadians of convenience. If someone who is a Canadian citizen decides to leave, that is their fundamental right in this country.

The other one would be section 15, which outlines the principle of equality before the law, regardless of national origin. It does not matter if people are from China, France, the U.K., Turkey, or Lebanon. It does not matter where they have come from in the world; once they come here to Canada and become Canadian citizens, they are Canadian citizens, no matter what.

It is disappointing that this railing against the Constitution or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms comes from a man who has enjoyed a privileged life, a man whose father was a prominent lawyer who worked under someone who was arguably one of the greatest premiers in Canada, although I might disagree with that. He served under Bill Davis, who was responsible for the patriation of the 1982 Constitution with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which we know this side does not always agree with.

It is disappointing that the member cannot defend the highest law of the land, our Constitution. When one rails against the Constitution, there is a term for this. When one tries to subvert a constitution, there is a term for this and it is called sedition. It is seditious to try to subvert a country's constitution and to incite people to rebel against the highest law of the land. To sow divisions between Canadians is seditious behaviour.

I would argue that through presenting this particular law, Bill C-24, in the House it is sowing divisions among Canadians. It is attempting to subvert the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and it will end up having constitutional challenges that will entail costs for Canadian taxpayers. Every time there is a challenge to the Constitution, lawyers are hired. There are lots of costs involved and the government, which so much likes to defend the taxpayer, would in fact be footing the bill through the Canadian taxpayer in fighting all these cases that will arise out of this badly thought-out bill.

I would like to conclude by saying that I have a personal interest in this debate. I am the father of a dual citizen and I have been through this system. I have seen how it tears families apart and keeps families apart. I could not see my daughter for at least 12 to 13 months after she was born simply because of the immigration process and the length of time that it took to reunite families. I can tell everyone that this causes stress for families. It personally bothers me that my daughter who is a dual national would not have the same rights as I would.

Some future administration might decide that she is treasonous for whatever reason, because the concept of treason is there in history, say in the case of Brown v. Virginia, where a person wanted to abolish slavery. At the time if the majority does not agree with this person, the person is judged to be treasonous and hanged. Let us consider what we are doing here because sometimes the majority and the popular sentiment of a country is not always the right thing. It is not always the right thing that is being done. We have to look at this and consider it.

I would seriously ask the government to retract the bill. There are so many elements in it that are problematic. It is shooting off in all different directions. I think it has been badly thought out. It is a poorly thought-out bill that has its genesis in ill will of popular sentiment. I would ask the minister and the ministry to reconsider the bill because it will have serious effects on numerous Canadians.

There are good aspects in the bill. The part that is trying to rectify the problems with lost Canadians is one of the better aspects of the bill, but there are troubling aspects when we explore the concept of revoking citizenship, and not citizenship of someone born here, but citizenship of someone who has dual nationality.

That is a problem. When I look at my daughter, she is as Canadian as everyone in this room. She may not have been born on Canadian soil, but when she sings O Canada, when I see the pride she has in her country, I believe that she is 100% Canadian. If she left this country and spent 27 years such as the minister did outside of this country, whether it was serving Canada or serving another purpose, I believe that in her heart she would be Canadian. We should never remove citizenship from a Canadian citizen, no matter what.

We have recourse to justice for people who have committed crimes. I think it is an easy solution in the minds of the government to take away someone's citizenship. There are already judicial rules in place that make sure that if people have committed a crime, they are punished. We have a justice system that is robust and can deal with this.

It is disappointing that the government is using legislation to divide Canadians. I would contend that the bill would be seditious, because it would subvert the Constitution.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)]

Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed the debate this evening. It is quite robust.

Bill C-24 speaks to eliminating fraud within the system.

I am proud to say that my riding of Cambridge-North Dumfries has the largest Portuguese community in all of Canada. When I speak to these folks in the Portuguese community, they tell me they are very proud to be Canadians and they are proud of the ethical process that they went through to become hard-working citizens. My first job was on an asphalt crew with a bunch of Portuguese men who were a great influence in my life.

My feeling on the bill is that it works toward preventing fraud in the system, which these hard-working new Canadians want to see happen.

My question for the member is this. Should we not improve this system to enforce and improve the integrity of the system to deal with those who are committing fraud within the system?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great honour to be here this evening. We stand in a historic place and we look forward to a historic anniversary. Our 150th celebration as a nation is coming. If we look back 100 years from today, Prime Minister Borden was bringing in the Naturalization Act that precipitated the Citizenship Act of 1947, and here we are today, generations later, finally updating our Citizenship Act.

We stand in the name of great people. I am honoured to represent people from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, people who really care about their citizenship, a varied population of different ethnic backgrounds and first nation backgrounds. They are people who cherish their citizenship.

I stand in the name of my father and my uncle. My late father was a prisoner of war in World War II. My late uncle, Smoky Smith, was the last surviving Victoria Cross holder. I am very proud this day, and I know that they would be very proud, considering what we are doing to protect the rights of Canadian citizens and ensuring the rights of a group that I am about to speak about, the lost Canadians.

I am proud to speak on behalf of my predecessor, the former member of Parliament for this riding, John Reynolds, who was an ardent advocate for the lost Canadians, for the people whose rights will be restored in Bill C-24. I am proud to speak on behalf of constituents who have worked for this day, including people like Don Chapman, who helped John Reynolds on his way to advocate for lost Canadians.

Given these personal connections, I am also very glad to speak on behalf of all Canadians who have been watching the evolution of this bill from coast to coast and who have waited with anticipation for us to do something truly historic.

The measures in Bill C-24 represent the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation, and they deserve the support of every member in this House. Canadian citizenship is central to our identity, values, and traditions and is a tremendous source of pride for all of us who are fortunate enough to have it.

Generations of Canadians have made great sacrifices to defend our way of life, to ensure that our country remains strong and free, and to guarantee the rights and responsibilities that come with citizenship. Among those Canadians are the people I have mentioned, and there are others, such as the people who have returned from Afghanistan so recently and those at that poignant ceremony that we celebrated, the Day of Honour. Those are the people who are watching this evening.

In short, Canadian citizenship is precious, and it should never be taken for granted. Its value must always be preserved and strengthened whenever possible. That is why Bill C-24 is such an important piece of legislation.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I would like to focus on one particular measure in this bill: the restoration of citizenship to those who are known as the lost Canadians.

Under the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, there were groups of people who were either not eligible for citizenship or who lost their citizenship for various reasons. They included people born outside Canada to a Canadian parent and people born in Canada who naturalized in another country. They were people who might have justifiably but erroneously thought they were Canadians. They were excluded because of outdated and inconsistent provisions in previous citizenship legislation. Those affected by these provisions became popularly known as “lost Canadians”.

Some lost Canadians spent many years of their lives believing in their hearts that they were Canadian citizens and publicly identified themselves as such. They did not realize that they did not actually have Canadian citizenship. In some cases, the bad news of their actual status came as a nasty surprise when, for example, they applied for a Canadian passport for the first time. Other lost Canadians spent many years yearning for the citizenship they felt would rightfully be theirs if not for outdated legal provisions.

This was a unique and unfortunate situation. I am sure all of us in this House can sympathize with the plight of these unlucky individuals.

Over time, many lost Canadians asked the Government of Canada to give them citizenship. Four and a half years ago, building on the advocacy of my predecessor John Reynolds and others, the government did just that. In 2009, significant changes to Canada's citizenship legislation were implemented. The changes restored citizenship or granted it for the first time to the vast majority of lost Canadians. The amendments reflected the seriousness with which our government takes the issue of people's citizenship.

On the day that law came into effect, most lost Canadians automatically obtained their citizenship retroactively, as of the date they lost their citizenship if they were former citizens, or as of the date of their birth.

Many of my hon. colleagues may remember the day in April 2009 when this law came into effect. There was a lot of media coverage of what was naturally a very happy story of these lost Canadians, so-called, returning home. In fact, a number of former lost Canadians showed up here on Parliament Hill that day, determined to celebrate the restoration of their citizenship and to apply for a Canadian passport at their earliest opportunity.

Our government resolved the vast majority of lost Canadian cases in 2009, and we are committed now to fix the remaining ones. The Liberals could have done this, but they failed to do so.

Although the 2009 legislation did cover the overwhelming majority of lost Canadians, there still remained a small number of people who did not benefit from those changes. The lost Canadians who would gain citizenship under the provisions of Bill C-24, the bill we see before us this evening, fall into three categories: people born or naturalized in Canada before 1947 who subsequently lost their British subject status and did not become Canadian citizens on January 1, 1947; second, British subjects ordinarily resident in Canada prior to 1947 who did not become citizens on January 1, 1947; and third, children born abroad in the first generation to any parent who was born, naturalized, or was a British subject ordinarily resident in Canada prior to 1947.

Here is what Bill Janzen, consultant for the Central Mennonite Committee said about Bill C-24:

I welcome the government's decision to include “Lost Canadians” in their changes to the Citizenship Act. The decision will improve the situation of people born outside of Canada who until now were deemed ineligible for Canadians citizenship....

For instance, someone who was born out of wedlock before 1947 to a Canadian father and a non-Canadian mother did not automatically gain Canadian citizenship when the 1947 law came into force. Neither did someone born in wedlock to a Canadian mother and a non-Canadian father.

It goes without saying that these, seen from our perspective today, are archaic provisions. There is why the measures in Bill C-24 pertaining to remaining lost Canadians are so timely and necessary.

In summary, these measures, measures that I have advocated for since becoming an MP, much of which time I was on the citizenship and immigration committee, would extend citizenship to more lost Canadians born before 1947 and their children born in the first generation outside Canada who did not benefit from the 2009 changes.

It is proposed to extend citizenship to these individuals retroactively to January 1, 1947, or to their date of birth if they were born after this date.

I urge all hon. members of this House to join me in supporting the passage of this bill in order to ensure that Canadian citizenship remains strong and that we can ensure these lost Canadians are welcome and remain a part of the Canadian family.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has identified a real problem in the bill, in that the bill would create two tiers of citizenship. That is unheard of in Canada. I do not know what kind of debate there has been out there in the community. I do not know if people are even aware that this is what the consequence of the bill would be.

We have yet to see whether it will contravene international conventions. As we see with so much of the legislation passed by the government, there are all kinds of legal challenges that have to take place because legislation is brought forward in such a narrow partisan way.

I feel that the whole notion of sound public policy is being eroded by the Conservative government. Bill C-24 is a very good example of that.

I thank the member because her comments are very relevant.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say at this late hour, that was a very fine example of Conservative self-glorification at its best. I would like to thank both the minister and the hon. member for the wonderful job they did of patting each other on the back regarding the most dreadful bill that we have had before this House.

Believe it or not, I can remember a day when the current government was in opposition. Those members would have been outraged that a bill, which was so important, had two hours of debate back in February and then today, for the 65th time, was put under a censure order so that we will just have debate tonight and then it moves on. This has become such a familiar pattern, but it really is very disturbing. I remember when Conservative members would have stood up in this House decrying the fact that the government of the day was doing this. Yet, here they are, worse than anybody has ever been.

I feel honoured to represent Vancouver East, a riding where immigration and new citizenship are very honoured. It is something that has built our communities, whether the Chinese Canadian, Japanese Canadian, or the Filipino Canadian community. There are people from all over the world. It is a working-class, hard-working riding. People have come from all over and built businesses. They have contributed to community services and have gone to school here.

I feel very proud to be part of a community that is very much built on immigration. It is a place where people feel very proud about being a Canadian citizen. Therefore, this issue of citizenship and what it means is an important subject in Canada. We are basically a country of new Canadians. Other than first nations, we are all newcomers. Some of us have been here for generations and some folks are here for the very first time. I myself come from a first-generation immigrant family and so I very much value the notion of what it means to be a Canadian citizen, which is all the more reason to look at Bill C-24 and go through it.

My colleagues here tonight and I are very concerned about the bill. Listening to the debate from the Conservative members, I feel as if we are in different worlds. Maybe we identify some of the same problems, but from two different worlds.

In the Conservative world, everything is good or evil. If anyone dares to speak about the rule of law or due process, somehow means that one is in favour of terrorists or criminal behaviour. I mean, it is so juvenile it is sort of pathetic. One would want to see the level of debate in this House be a little more thoughtful, but that is what it has come down to.

Of course, in the NDP, like anybody else, we are very concerned about terrorists and criminal acts, but the question that we are looking at tonight with Bill C-24 when we identify these problems is: how do we respond to them? How do we deal with them?

When we look at the bill, the conclusion that I come to is that basically Conservatives hold themselves above the law. Bill C-24 lays out a process whereby there are extraordinary powers conferred upon a minister to revoke citizenship in certain instances based on suspicion, without any regard to due process, without any regard to independent tribunals or court process. The government really does see itself as the final arbiter.

We believe that is fundamentally wrong, which is why we feel so concerned about the bill. Not only is it being rushed through, but this premise in the bill of affixing problems that have been identified is so suspicious in the power that it confers on an individual. Again, it is a familiar pattern that we have seen on numerous occasions with different legislation.

In the NDP, we do believe in the rule of law. We do believe in the legitimate role of Parliament to debate, to investigate, and to improve legislation. That is what we are here to do.

That is what we are here to do. That is what we are elected to do by our constituents. However, we see more and more legislation rushed through Parliament and rushed through committee, sometimes at all stages, through closure, censure, and time allocation. As I said earlier, we have seen it tonight for the 65th time, and it really does make a mockery of what debate and investigation of legislation should be in the House of Commons.

I feel a sense of dismay tonight, even at this late hour. I am sure we are all tired because we have had a long, busy day, but there is a compelling argument that makes us want to take this on again and again and respond to the absolutely irrational arguments being put forward on the government side.

I heard the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration say earlier in the debate that NDP was fearmongering, yet when we look at the bill and the powers that the minister would have, there is a sense of fear over what the consequences of this bill would be. When we look at the expert organizations in this field and the concerns they have expressed—and I certainly hope they will be heard in committee—surely we see that there has to be a rational debate about whether this bill tips the balance and goes to an extreme in conferring on the minister such extraordinary powers to revoke citizenship.

I do not want two-tiered citizenship in this country. There are other countries that have that kind of regime. That is something that Canada should stay away from. A Canadian citizen is a Canadian citizen. If a person has gone through the process of becoming a citizen, that is good, and then citizenship becomes a right.

There are also responsibilities, and if there is wrongdoing, then we have provisions in this country—I think it is called the Criminal Code—that allow for a process to be enacted, for due process to happen, and for people to be prosecuted and jailed if necessary. We have that system in place, but in reading this bill, one would think that none of it existed.

I find it really quite extraordinary that we are dealing with a bill that would in effect allow the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to act as prosecutor, judge, and enforcer. To me, that is simply wrong. We have a separation of powers in this country for a very good reason. We have a balance of powers in terms of a legislature with regard to the execution and enforcement of the law. There is a reason we have those checks and balances, so the legislation before us is very disturbing.

There is no question that there are issues in the bill that need to be dealt with, such as the issue of the lost Canadians. That is a long-standing issue that has needed to be addressed. I am glad that it is being addressed, but it is being smothered in this bill by other provisions, particularly the revocation of citizenship, which I think is very offensive.

There is also the question of why some of the real concerns we have about our immigration system are not being addressed. Many members tonight spoke about the issue of the backlog, the fact that there are over 300,000 people still waiting and that it takes an extraordinarily long time for applications to be processed. The Conservatives have promised and failed on many occasions to rectify that problem. We have not seen it happen, and it is not rectified in this bill.

If we look at an issue like family reunification, which is very important in terms of citizenship and immigration, we see that it is not dealt with at all; in fact, to the contrary, all of the measures we have seen from the government have actually narrowed family reunification and made it a lot more difficult.

At the end of the day, Bill C-24 is a bad bill. There might be some good provisions in it, but overall, the powers that it would confer upon the minister are unnecessary. They are not needed. They are powers that would cause problems in the long term.

I am very proud that New Democrats have been standing tonight to debate this bill and expose how fundamentally flawed it is. It will go to committee, and we will do our utmost to ensure that there are witnesses and that there are amendments. We can only hope that members of the House will be willing to consider amendments to make sure this bill is improved.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I want to thank the finest Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that Canada has ever had. He deserves all kinds of credit for the hard work that he has done, putting his heart and soul into Bill C-24 to make Canada a better country. We should all be proud of our Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Just let me say quickly—

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am really honoured to have this opportunity to speak in support of Bill C-24, which would help prevent fraud in the citizenship program. It would protect it from abuse and preserve its integrity.

Poll after poll suggests that people from around the world would choose Canada as the country they would most want to live in. Why not? We have the best quality of life. As former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker said:

I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.

Canada stands as a model of how people of different cultures, ethnicities, religions, and beliefs can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect. That is what it means to be Canadian.

Because Canadian citizenship is so valuable, many people are prepared to misrepresent facts to make it appear that they qualify for citizenship. For example, they may pretend to live in Canada, when in fact they are living abroad. Ongoing large-scale fraud investigations have identified more than 3,000 citizens and 5,000 permanent residents linked to major investigations, a majority of them related to residence. In addition, nearly 2,000 individuals linked to the citizenship fraud investigations have withdrawn their applications.

More than 85% of citizenship fraud involves falsifying residence. In typical cases, permanent residents have used the services of crooked consultants to circumvent the law to fraudulently establish evidence of residence in Canada while living abroad most, if not all, of the time.

Media reports in recent years have highlighted some of the actions taken to simulate residence in Canada. Some of the most common examples are creating home addresses by using the address of a friend or relative in Canada; paying a building owner to rent an address, usually by a consultant, or using a postal service outlet; purchasing telephones and having someone in Canada use them to create a record of incoming or outgoing calls; opening a bank account, maintaining a healthy balance, and giving the ATM access card to someone in Canada to perform regular in-Canada transactions on the account.

Canadians know that citizenship sits at the heart of our democratic institutions. The Canadian people expect their government to protect the integrity of the citizenship process. Even a small number of crooked consultants who facilitate this type of fraud represent a substantial problem, as this undermines the program and the integrity and value of Canadian citizenship. That is why Bill C-24 proposes measures to help combat fraud and to protect the citizenship program from further abuse.

In short, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act would give the government the legal authority to designate a regulatory body whose members would be authorized to act as consultants in citizenship matters. This would ensure that citizenship consultants were held to the same professional and ethical standards as immigration consultants and would help prevent fraud in the citizenship program.

Another serious issue is that the penalties for fraud in the current citizenship act have not increased since 1977 and are ineffective in deterring individuals from committing citizenship related offences, such as misrepresentation. The current penalty for citizenship fraud is a mere $1,000, the maximum fine, which is $4,000 in 2014 dollars, or one year in prison, or both.

We need to prevent fraudsters from becoming citizens, and the introduction of stiffer penalties would help deter people from committing citizenship fraud.

The proposed new penalty for fraud is a fine to a maximum of $100,000 or five years in prison,or both, which would modernize the penalty for fraud in the Citizenship Act. It would also be the same as the penalty for the equivalent offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or IRPA, thereby bringing the citizenship program in line with the immigration program.

The proposed legislation would also add a provision to refuse an application for misrepresentation of material facts and to bar applicants who misrepresent such facts from reapplying for five years. This would help deter fraud and would also bring the Citizenship Act in line with the IRPA.

Revocation is an important tool to safeguard the value of Canadian citizenship and to protect the integrity of our citizenship program. Bill C-24 would streamline the process for the government to revoke citizenship from those who are discovered to have lied or cheated on their citizenship applications. This is important, because the current revocation process can be complex and cumbersome. It can also take an inordinate amount of time to take citizenship away from someone who should not have obtained Canadian citizenship in the first place. If we want to get serious about cracking down on those who seek to undermine the value of our citizenship, it is imperative that we be in a position to revoke their citizenship in a timely manner, as proposed under Bill C-24. Individuals who have had their citizenship revoked for fraud would also be barred from reapplying for 10 years following the revocation order, up from the current bar of five years.

Our government is concerned about the recent discovery of a dual national committing a terrorist act abroad. In cases where dual nationals commit gross acts of disloyalty, such as treason or terrorism or taking up arms against our Canadian Forces, they too will lose the privilege of Canadian citizenship. We all have an interest in sending a message to such misguided individuals. They are committing serious crimes, and their actions have consequences.

Let us not forget that it was our government that introduced the Combating Terrorism Act, which will make it a criminal offence to leave Canada to commit terrorist acts. Let me remind all Canadians watching at home right now and those here in the House that it was the NDP that voted against this important, overdue protective measure.

Our government also introduced the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act to make it easier to remove dangerous foreign criminals and to make it harder for those who pose a risk to Canadians to come to the country. However, both the Liberals and the New Democrats opposed this bill, and they have said repeatedly that they believe terrorists should be able to stay in Canada under humanitarian and compassionate grounds. The NDP member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park said her discussions in Lebanon a while back led her to believe:

....that it is just not helpful to label them [referring to Hezbollah] as a terrorist organization. If the political parties in Lebanon who may disagree with Hezbollah...can figure out a way to work with Hezbollah and try to get along internally, then perhaps we should take a cue from that.

The opposition members have the opportunity right now to correct their mistakes and support our government's proposals to protect Canadians from ruthless terrorists. If they do not support this bill, the New Democrats reaffirm that they are soft on terrorists and organizations like Hezbollah.

We already know the Liberal leader's admiration for dictatorships, making light of Russia's annexation of Crimea. Worst of all, he said, on the Iranian embassy closure here in Canada, “It's important to talk to each other and it's especially important to talk to regimes that you disagree with and that disagree with you to make sure that there is means of communication”.

This is the same Iranian regime that seeks nuclear weapons, that seeks the destruction of Israel, and that funds terrorist organizations around the world. It is the same regime that murdered Canadians such as Zahra Kazemi. This is the regime the Liberal Party wants to reward with diplomatic status and engage in communication with.

I just want to conclude by saying that it is imperative that the opposition parties rally themselves, rise above their own partisan interests, and do what is right for Canada and support Bill C-24.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that concerns me in Bill C-24 is proposed section 10, which says that the act will make it so that the immigration minister can strip any Canadian of citizenship if the person is convicted of a terrorism offence, even if it happens to occur outside of Canada.

Right now Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian journalist with Al Jazeera, has been detained in Cairo and has been charged with terrorism. It seems to me that this journalist could easily be caught up in this particular law.

This has been brought forward by the Canadian Bar Association, but earlier this evening the minister indicated he believed that the Canadian Bar Association was misguided.

Does the member think, given the situation regarding Mohamed Fahmy, that perhaps the minister may be wrong?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Pontiac for his question.

In many areas, including this one, what works in theory does not work in practice. What the Conservatives are putting in place with their bills, which eventually become law, is not in synch with what MPs have to deal with in their constituency offices.

To date, I do not see anything in Bill C-24, other than the fine principles, to reassure me. It does not contain any measures that I can use as examples to tell my constituents that the Conservatives did their homework and that this bill should be passed quickly because it will finally provide a mechanism to quickly meet their demands. I do not see anything of the sort. My three years in Parliament tell me that I should not expect that it is going to happen.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your announcing the bad news with a smile.

Since I will not have nearly enough time to get through all of the points I wanted to make to the House, I will take a few minutes to comment on this paradox: I consider myself lucky to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-24. It should not be luck, though, it should be a right in the House of Commons. All MPs who want to talk about a bill should have the chance to do so, thereby reflecting the diversity of the citizens they represent. Unfortunately, we are bound by the 65th time allocation, which means that many members who wish to speak will not be able to. That is why I consider myself lucky in spite of it all. I will probably buy a lottery ticket when the House adjourns around midnight.

Let us get back to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. Canada is a land of immigrants. The founding peoples built a welcoming country where everyone can feel free to settle and contribute to the nation's prosperity while living our shared values. We are all, to varying degrees, immigrants. Some of our families go back generations, while others are relative newcomers. Canadian immigration laws are therefore an important part of our identity and even of our uniqueness as a country.

In 1947, the Canadian Citizenship Act created a distinction between “Canadian citizen” and “British subject”. It also specified that both Canadian citizens by birth and naturalized citizens were entitled to the same privileges and were subject to the same responsibilities and obligations. The laws were amended in 1977. On February 6, 2014, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration introduced Bill C-24, which would bring about a major overhaul of Canadian immigration laws.

Has the time come to change them? Is our immigration system still dysfunctional? Sometimes, yes. Some of the bill's proposed changes to the Citizenship Act have been a long time coming. They fix problems with the existing system and are very welcome. For example, one provision sets out stricter regulations for immigration consultants who sell fraudulent services at high prices, taking advantage of vulnerable refugees and people who want to immigrate.

I want to be very clear about this: we are urging the government to create strict laws to crack down on dishonest immigration consultants. We support measures that tackle fraud, such as giving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency more resources to detect fraudsters.

However, some clauses really change the rules of the game and have to be denounced. Before getting into the details of some of the provisions of the bill, I would like to caution my colleagues on the government side. Citizenship and immigration policy must not be left in the hands of just anyone. This is an issue that directly affects the collective identity of Canadians and the fragile balance in our multicultural society. Please, let us not play petty politics with such a sensitive issue.

Given the recent election results in the European Union, for example, it would be presumptuous to believe that Canada will never have to deal with feelings of exclusion or xenophobia within its population. Let us not think we are any smarter than the other states that wanted to score political points with immigration issues.

On that point, I unfortunately find it hard to trust the current Conservative government for the following reasons. Citizenship is a matter of law and must be kept out of the hands of politicians as much as possible. The bill in fact proposes allowing politicians, more specifically the minister, to interfere in granting and revoking citizenship. We are seeing a leitmotif, a repeated approach in a number of Conservative bills, which seek to give the ministers more and more powers.

Bill C-24 seeks to give the minister many new powers, including the power to grant or revoke the citizenship of dual citizens.

The government has a strong tendency to create laws that concentrate power in the hands of ministers. This way of doing things is not good for democracy. There is no other way to say it.

The NDP does not want people to be exposed to the possibility that the minister will make arbitrary decisions about their case based on political motivations or suspicions rather than on evidence that could be put before a court.

If this bill is passed, I wonder whether the minister will have the courage to disclose the list of people to whom he is going to unilaterally grant citizenship and his reasons for doing so, of course. Unless he does, there will be reason for suspicion. We must have both transparency and the appearance of transparency.

The minister is no substitute for justice. Take for example, cases where people are granted citizenship as a result of fraud. Usually, it would be up to the courts to enforce the law. With this bill, the minister can act unilaterally. This is a serious abuse of political power and proof of the Conservatives' contempt for Canada's judiciary. Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened.

Why are we concerned about the recent amendments? The NDP is not systematically opposed to all the amendments and improvements proposed in this bill. However, unfortunately, we know what the Conservatives are up to.

Since March 2008, more than 25 major changes have been made to immigration-related procedures, rules, laws and regulations. More and more changes have been made since the Conservatives won a majority. Coincidence or ideology? I will let people decide for themselves.

Here are a few examples: the moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents, the approval of fewer family reunification applications, and the punishment of vulnerable refugees. The sweeping changes that the Conservatives have made to the Canadian immigration system have not made the system fairer or more effective.

As proof, I have many immigration files that I have worked on in my own riding of Trois-Rivières, a city with a population of 134,000. Before I was elected, I mistakenly believed that Trois-Rivières was rather homogenous. However, just a few weeks after I was elected, I discovered just how multicultural this riding really is, and since then, I have been constantly dealing with immigration files, even the simplest of which take a considerable amount of time to resolve.

Many organizations have raised concerns about several provisions of the bill. These are not political organizations, and the vast majority of them practise immigration and citizenship law and are very familiar with this legislation. Why then do these organizations seem so opposed to this new bill? They likely oppose it because it does not address the real problem.

The real problem with citizenship and immigration, the problem criticized by all the groups, is the inefficiency, or rather the slowness, of the system and the decision-making process. We have been debating this bill for a few hours in the House, and I have heard little to assure me that the measures proposed in this bill will effectively enable people waiting for responses to get them more quickly.

Unfortunately, this bill does not provide any real solutions that would reduce the ever-increasing number of delays and the citizenship application processing wait times.

There are currently 320,000 people—yes, 320,000—waiting for their applications to be processed. Right now, the processing wait time is approximately 31 months. In 2009 the wait time was 15 months. The government would have us believe that the minister can wave his magic wand and this wait time will drop to 12 months, but no one knows the details. There is a lot of uncertainty here.

The Conservatives have never managed to solve this problem. The backlog of applications and the processing times have doubled under their watch. Furthermore, cuts to the public service will most definitely not help resolve this problem. That is the most significant problem with our current immigration system. The Conservatives only seem to be taking this problem seriously in their rhetoric. In practice, we hear very little about concrete actions.

Let us now move on to the issue of integration. Arriving in our country and becoming established in our community are very important steps in the life of immigrants. This also represents an individual or family challenge that the government can facilitate. That way, we can make it easier for newcomers to integrate into our country and for all of us to live together.

However, one of the bill's provisions weakens the progressive integration and welcoming of families that arrive in Canada. If this bill is passed without amendment, citizenship applicants between the ages of 14 and 64 will henceforth have to pass a test assessing their knowledge of French or English. Previously, this applied to people between 18 and 54 years of age.

Let us be clear: this is not about questioning the importance of having immigrants speak either of the official languages or even both official languages. I am just wondering why the age at which candidates will have to take the test is changing from 18 to 14. I will go back to my teaching experience, which was not that long ago. When a student failed an exam, the first thing the teacher wanted to know was what he or she could have done to ensure the student's success.

The bill is not very clear about what will happen if the candidate fails the language test, which will be administered to children as young as 14 and to older adults, for whom learning a second or third language is much more difficult. What is more, the bill is mum on any assistance that might be provided to these people to ensure that they pass the language test.

The NDP contends that the backlogs are the biggest challenge when it comes to immigration. I talked about that earlier. The minister acknowledges that the wait times are increasing, but he is not proposing any real solutions to resolve the problem.

We are against this government adopting increasingly restrictive immigration measures, based on secret and arbitrary decisions made by the minister in cabinet.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue and for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on debate this evening on Bill C-24. I have been listening to the debate. It has been a fairly animated and lively debate. This is second reading of the legislation and it is on fast-track and citizenship by descent. I rise today to speak in support of the proposed changes to the Canadian Citizenship Act that would strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship.

Since 2006, Canada has enjoyed the highest sustained levels of immigration in Canadian history, an average of 257,000 newcomers each year, and accordingly, the demand for citizenship has increased by 30%. Furthermore, Canada has the highest rate of naturalization in the world; 85% of eligible permanent residents become citizens.

Last year, Citizenship and Immigration Canada received more than 330,000 citizenship applications, the highest volume ever. Canadian citizenship is highly valued around the world and with the balanced set of reforms in Bill C-24, the government is taking steps to ensure that it stays that way.

Lengthier residency requirements and requiring more applicants to meet language and knowledge criteria would ensure new citizens will be active and contributing members of our communities and our economy. Since the first Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947, it has always been a requirement that new citizens have an adequate knowledge of Canada and of one of our official languages. The language level required is not changing and it is a basic level of English or French, sufficient for everyday communication.

Overall, these changes would mean that new citizens have a strong connection to Canada and are better prepared to assume the responsibilities of citizenship and become active members of Canadian society.

Canadians take great pride in our citizenship. We are taking action to further strengthen that pride and the value of Canadian citizenship with the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act since 1977. The strengthening Canadian citizenship act would deliver on our government's commitment to reduce backlogs and improve processing times while strengthening the integrity of Canadian citizenship.

Our Conservative government has welcomed over 1.4 million new citizens. That is a record to be commended. These new citizens come from all over the globe. Some of them come here for economic improvement and some of them are refugees who faced difficult times in their home country and have been forced to leave. Canada is a haven for these people and we are accepting more immigrants and more refugees than any other government in Canada ever has. Therefore, we need these changes to the Citizenship Act to modernize it, to allow that backlog to become smaller, and to streamline the process. That is what we are talking about here.

I have heard a lot of questions, and I am sure I will get some after I finish my own speech, saying something is wrong here, in section a, line 3, paragraph 7. We have been told that we have to make that change or the bill is no good, throw the whole thing out. This is the proverbial baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

At the end of the day, these changes are going to be brought in. We are going to streamline the system. We are going to make it faster and more efficient. All of us on both sides of the House have immigration files involving people who want to come to Canada, who want to contribute to our society. We are going to be able to move them through faster. However, we will see who votes in support of this legislation and who does not.

We want newcomers to be welcomed as full members of the Canadian family of citizens, fully contributing to our economy and our communities from coast to coast to coast. With Bill C-24 we propose to strengthen the rules around access to citizenship to ensure that they reflect its true value and that new citizens are better prepared for full participation in Canadian life.

More specifically, Bill C-24 will resolve the vast majority of the lost Canadian cases once and for all.

The Liberals claim to care about the lost Canadians, yet they did nothing to fix the problem of any cases of lost Canadians over 13 long years in their government. Our Conservative government will right a historical wrong by granting citizenship to children born abroad to Crown servants and will honour the service of permanent residents who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces by granting them quicker access to Canadian citizenship. In addition, members of the Canadian Armed Forces would have a fast-track access to citizenship through a reduced qualifying period as a way of recognizing their important contribution to Canada. The bill would ensure that children born outside Canada to, or adopted outside Canada by, a Canadian parent who was serving abroad as a Crown servant are able to pass on citizenship to children they may have or adopt outside Canada.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces put their lives on the line in order to honour the interests and security of our country and protect the safety of our citizens. This legislation would accelerate citizenship for permanent residents serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. It would also provide for a grant of citizenship for individuals on exchange with the Canadian Armed Forces. Under the proposed changes to the Citizenship Act, those who have served for one year less than the residence requirement would be eligible to apply for a grant of citizenship. Once the new legislation comes into force, the residence requirement would be four years out of six, that is representing three years of service for the fast-track provision.Those who served in the qualifying period and have been released honourably would also be eligible for the fast-track to citizenship.

Generally speaking, Canadian citizenship is a requirement for enrolment in the Canadian Armed Forces, but permanent residence may also be employed in exceptional circumstances. The problem is that one's lack of citizenship gives rise to challenges related to security clearances and passport arrangements and can therefore make it difficult to deploy him or her for service abroad. The United States and Australia already have a similar fast-track mechanism for members of the military as a way of honouring their service and addressing deployment challenges.

Introducing a fast-track citizenship for permanent residents serving in and for individuals on exchange with the Canadian Armed Forces as proposed in Bill C-24 would honour their service to Canada and make their deployment abroad much easier.

Another advantage is that it could provide an incentive for newcomers to Canada to enlist in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Citizenship legislation is extremely complicated. Many of the amendments that came into force in 2009 were retroactive, adding another layer of complexity. Amendments are desirable under Bill C-24 to ensure that the law supports consistent implementation of the first generation limit to citizenship by descent and it does not bar access to eligible applicants.

Currently, the Citizenship Act contains an exception to the first generation limit for children born to or adopted by a parent who is a Crown servant. The exception means that children born outside of Canada to serving Crown servants, including military personnel, would always be Canadian at birth, irrespective of what generation they were born outside of Canada. However, these children are not able to pass on citizenship to any children they have or adopt outside Canada as a direct result of their parents' service to Canada. This includes children born prior to April 17, 2009, such as the nearly 4,000 children born between 1983 and 1994 at the Canadian Forces base in Lahr, Germany. Under the current law, these children are not able to pass on citizenship to the children born or adopted abroad.

The first generation limit creates distinctions between family members of Crown servants depending on where the parents were serving when the child was born. It also acts as a disincentive to serving outside Canada for persons of childbearing age and creates a disadvantage when compared to public servants serving in Canada.

For all these reasons, we propose to amend the Citizenship Act to ensure that children born or adopted outside Canada to serving crown servants, including military personnel, are able to pass on citizenship to any children they have or adopt outside Canada. It is that simple. It truly is.

We have this huge gap out there, from 1983 to 1994. Children born to Canadian parents serving in Lahr, Germany, were not Canadian citizens, even though they were born on a Canadian Forces base to Canadian parents. That is the lost generation. Somehow we have to correct that. The bill would do that.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time this evening with the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's, and I will be directing my comments to the residency requirements portion in Bill C-24.

I am grateful to have this opportunity to add my voice in support of Bill C-24. It is a long-overdue piece of legislation that would restore value to our Canadian citizenship after decades of neglect and abuse. The Liberals had 13 years to fix the Citizenship Act and did not do anything to crack down on citizens of convenience. This important piece of legislation would also deliver on the government's promise in the most recent Speech from the Throne to strengthen and protect the value of Canadian citizenship.

Canadians recognize the important role immigration has played in building our country throughout its history. Canadians welcome newcomers who wish to become citizens and contribute to the political, social, and economic life of this country. However, Canadians have little patience or tolerance for people who do not play by the rules.

We have all heard the stories about individuals who lie or cheat to become citizens of this great country. These people concoct schemes and pretend to be living in Canada but have no real intention of ever moving and planting roots here. Instead, they only wish to abuse the privileges of our citizenship, using their Canadian passports or citizenship whenever it is most convenient for them. This is something that must end. We must protect the value of our citizenship and take action against those who seek to cheapen it, to protect the system for those who use it properly and who play by the rules.

That is why we have introduced Bill C-24: legislative changes to the Citizenship Act that would strengthen the program and the value of citizenship by helping to ensure citizens have a real connection and commitment to Canada.

One big problem is the residence requirement for Canadian citizenship. Currently, adult applicants must reside in Canada for three out of the previous four years. However, residence is not defined in the act. As a result, it is possible under the current act for someone who has spent little time in Canada to become a citizen. Under proposed changes, the rules around citizenship residence requirements would be strengthened so that adults applying for citizenship would have to be physically present in Canada for a longer period: four years in the six years prior to applying for citizenship. In addition, applicants would also be required to be physically present in Canada for at least 183 days for four out of those six years. Not only is this common sense, but it also is important because physical presence in Canada assists with newcomer integration.

Let me read what Canadians have been saying about strengthening the residency requirement.

Immigration lawyer Raj Sharma said we do know that citizenship fraud has been rampant, especially out of certain places in Canada such as Montreal. He thinks that unilateral revocation for the purpose where there is fraud or identity fraud or other fraud is not necessarily a bad thing. We need to recognize that Canadian citizenship is a sought-after benefit or a commodity and certain unscrupulous individuals will lie or deceive to exaggerate their time in Canada.

Then there is also Simon Kent, a Toronto Sun columnist. He said he thinks a lot of people would say it is a reasonable expectation if they want to live in Canada. If they want to enjoy living in a free and prosperous country like Canada, they should spend time there and they should live and contribute according to civil society. While that sounds like something out of politics 101, basically saying living here, enjoying the fruits of one's labour, paying taxes, showing that one is committed, and extending the period of permanent residency here from three to four years or maybe even five years before one can take up citizenship is a very fair and reasonable proposition.

Nick Noorani, the managing partner of Prepare for Canada, said:

I congratulate the government on its changes Citizenship Act that combat residency fraud and ensure new Canadians have a stronger connection to Canada. With the changes announced today, processing times will be improved and new Canadians will be ready to fully participate in Canadian life.

Martin Collacott, with the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform and a former Canadian ambassador in Asia and the Middle East, comments:

The government's new citizenship legislation addresses a host of long overdue issues relating to the acquisition of citizenship. Its provisions, such as strengthening residency requirements for applicants, will increase the value and meaning of Canadian citizenship and will be warmly welcomed by both Canadians and newcomers serious about becoming full members of the Canadian family.

Then there is Gillian Smith, executive director and chief executive officer of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, who said:

Our organization works extensively with Canada's newest citizens who tell us that measures taken to foster their attachment and connection to Canada have a positive effect on their successful integration. New citizens' sense of belonging comes in large measure from experiencing Canada first-hand¾its people, nature, culture and heritage.

Shimon Fogel, from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, commented:

We also support the introduction of measures to ensure that those who apply for Canadian citizenship actually intend to maintain a meaningful connection to Canada after taking the oath. The “intent to reside” provisions are an important element in this regard and could have a significant impact on reducing the problem of citizens of convenience.

Paul Attia, of Immigrants for Canada, says the following:

I am in favour, and the organization is in favour, of the longer requirement. You want to be able to have the person experience life in Canada and establish life here before he commits to citizenship. Citizenship is meant to say that you are a Canadian now.

It is clear that a longer residence period may allow newcomers to develop a stronger connection to Canada, while at the same time helping to deter citizens of convenience.

It would also ensure that the residence requirement is applied consistently. Creating a clear physical presence requirement would strengthen the legislative tools to deal with residence fraud.

Meanwhile, a six-year window to accumulate physical presence would provide more flexibility to accommodate applicants whose work or personal circumstances require regular travel outside Canada.

Crown servants who are permanent residents, as well as their spouses and children outside Canada, would be permitted to use time spent abroad in service to Canada for the purposes of meeting the residence requirement.

That said, under the proposed new requirements, all applicants would be able to accumulate absences of two years within the qualifying period. This should accommodate newcomers who have to travel outside of Canada for their work.

Another residence change concerns time applicants spend in Canada before becoming a permanent resident. Currently, a day that citizenship applicants spent in Canada before becoming permanent residents counts as a half-day of residence toward their citizenship application, up to a maximum of two years in Canada as non-permanent residents. Under the proposed changes, to further strengthen the residence requirement and create a level playing field for all citizenship applicants, applicants would no longer be able to use time spent in Canada as non-permanent residents to meet the citizenship residence requirement.

While it may take people who came to Canada as temporary foreign workers or foreign students a little longer to meet the residence requirement under the new rules, this change is designed to deepen their attachment to Canada.

In addition, to be eligible for a citizenship grant, an adult applicant would have to file a Canadian income tax return for four years out of the six years before they apply, if required to do so under the Income Tax Act.

Canadians are pleased with this requirement. Hard-working, tax-paying Canadians expect this from all permanent residents and Canadians. The message is clear: if they have a serious connection and attachment to Canada, they should show it. It is not hard to provide proof that they have filed their taxes. We all do it at least once a year.

Immigration lawyers like Richard Kurland have praised this new requirement, saying that until today many people have been able to get away with being resident for immigration citizenship purposes but not for tax purposes. That meant that they had the benefit of Canadian citizenship without the burden of filing Canadian income tax returns like everyone else.

Salma Siddiqui from the Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslim Organizations has also applauded our government and said:

The requirement for citizenship applicants to file Canadian income tax is a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough. I believe that even after the grant of citizenship, Canadians living abroad should be asked to demonstrate that they have contributed taxes to avail themselves of public services subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer.

Payment of taxes is an important obligation of permanent residents and citizens. This new citizenship requirement would help to further strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I appreciate your intervention, Mr. Speaker. The point is that the government is constant in spreading misinformation. It created the problem within the temporary foreign worker program. That is why the Conservatives have had to make the changes today. They created the problems with the backlog in immigration. That is why they have to do things such as hit the delete button on the skilled worker program, which wiped out the applications of 300,000 skilled workers. The former minister of immigration created half of those in three months when he issued his ministerial instructions on the skilled worker program.

It is the government that has created the problems within immigration and there is no difference in this legislation. Why do I say this? Because I believe there are important issues that need to be dealt with in regard to immigration and the government has been unable to address many of those issues.

Let me give a good example of one that comes up every week at my constituency office. It is the issue of visiting visas. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of visiting visas that I believe ultimately should have, and could have, been approved if the government had done its work and improved the system.

I have a very difficult time when, for example, people are in a hospital on their deathbeds and they cannot get a sibling into Canada to visit them. These types of cases happen far too often. It is about priorities and the government has not been doing a job in addressing these priorities.

When I look at Bill C-24, it deals with the issue of citizenship, but it also deals with other issues that will have a fairly profound impact. We are establishing a two-tier citizenship. If the government were to take that aspect of the legislation out of Bill C-24 and have a free vote on the issue, I would suggest that it would not pass. I know there are a number of Conservative members of Parliament who are uncomfortable with the bill. We saw a sampling of that when a minister stood in his place and challenged the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in regard to that very issue.

There are issues within citizenship such as the cash grab. When the government introduced the fact that it would bring in this legislation, it dropped the legislation and dropped the increase at the same time to the public. The Conservatives are going to increase the application fees. When we say 300,000 a year and get an extra $200-plus from each individual, we are talking about a significant cash grab.

When we say we have to get English language testing done, or IELS tests, who pays for that? What was the problem? Was there a huge outcry saying that we had to force people to get the IELS exams done? There will be a substantial cost for that.

The Conservatives are making it more difficult for individuals to acquire their citizenship. I do not understand it, and I have not heard the argument for that from the them. They seem to stand in their place and say that this bill is all about patriotism, about Canada and how wonderful it is to be a Canadian, and how proud we should be. That is their only justification for all of their increases and changes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, some 25 years ago I led the working team that developed the language training program for across Canada. Level 5 at that time was developed but it was never implemented consistently across Canada. I am so pleased to see in Bill C-24 that it will be implemented consistently because newcomers need this level of language for emergency purposes and for life skills. We are not asking for university-level English whatsoever. We are asking for basic life skills.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague the hon. member from Vancouver South for really hitting on the key points in Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act.

I was touched when she related some of her personal stories about her family coming here. She has worked tirelessly not only as a member of Parliament since her election to this place but before with many newcomers coming to Canada.

Does my colleague think that strengthening Canadian citizenship by asking newcomers to be better integrated into Canada by learning better one of the official two languages of the country, and spending an extra year here, four out of the last six years, would assist them in moving forward with their lives in this new country of theirs? Would that give them a better opportunity for more progressive outcomes in their lives moving forward?

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate on Bill C-24. I am pleased to know that implementing the measures in this bill would protect and strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship at home and abroad.

I have been fortunate to have travelled to many countries around the world, both as a private citizen prior to becoming elected and also as an MP for my great riding of Vancouver South. In each of the countries that I have had the opportunity to visit throughout the world, I am proud to say that as a Canadian citizen, I have been warmly welcomed, treated with respect and often with envy. This is because, as I am sure all of my hon. colleagues in this place would agree, we are extraordinarily fortunate to be Canadian citizens.

In fact, these people-to-people and real experiences show us time and again that when we share our citizenship with others, and as public opinion research confirms, there are millions of people across the globe, even in highly developed countries, who dream of becoming Canadian citizens. My own life experience and that of my family closely mirrors this fact. Both of my grandfathers came to Canada in the early 1900s, fulfilling their dreams of coming to Gam Saan, which translates from Cantonese to mean “Gold Mountain”. Even then, Canada was seen as a land of opportunity, freedom, and new life.

For over 140 years, Chinese immigrants have come to Canada, building communities, building the railroad, and contributing toward building Canada. These values of seizing opportunity, hard work, diligence, dignity, and respect are values that infuse Canada and embody the Canadian values that we all hold dear. I am proud to say that two generations later, I too was able to emigrate to Canada, learn English, and become a citizen at age 13.

Due to my life experiences as an immigrant, as a Canadian, and now as a legislator, I believe that it is our duty to continue to protect and strengthen the value and privileges of our citizenship and to ensure that its acquisition ensures knowledge of our country and the duty of necessary citizenship responsibilities that Canadian citizenship should confer. If we do not value and hold our citizenship dear to us, how then can we maintain our value to others around the world? After all, Canada has always stood for freedom, equality, and respect for the rule of law built around a model of compassion, care, and the great strength of our diversity.

We must, therefore, periodically update and set standards that are necessary to make our citizenship relevant, current, and reflective of the global world in which we live, thus enabling us to maintain its high value and respect wherever our citizens may go. Bill C-24 is such a bill. It takes an old, worn bill of 36 years and implements new standards that are required for a modern, first-class country that is Canada.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration had the opportunity to listen to key testimony on this bill. Salma Siddiqui of the Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslim Organizations had this to say:

I have heard concerns that Bill C-24 represents a knee-jerk reaction or that it serves a...political process. I disagree. Bill C-24 represents an assertion of the pride we hold in our values of an open, liberal democracy, where our freedoms are applied to all.

I could not agree more. We should all be grateful for our rights and freedoms in Canada, but we must also recognize that citizenship is about more than a legal status or just a title. It is also about the responsibilities that we all have in our country and to our communities.

In recent years, our government has taken a number of steps to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. Unlike the opposition, we will not a turn a blind eye to citizenship fraud and those who cheapen the value of Canadian citizenship. One important responsibility for anyone who wishes to acquire Canadian citizenship is to understand who Canadians are as a people, where we come from, and what values define us.

To help ensure that new citizens share a common understanding of Canada's history, traditions, and institutions, the government introduced a new citizenship study guide in 2009 called, “Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship”.

Citizenship applicants study this guide to learn about Canada and what Canadian citizenship means, and to prepare for their citizenship test. This was the first substantial update of Canada's citizenship guide in almost 15 years.

We are proud that “Discover Canada” contains meaningful information about Canadian history, important symbols, shared values, balanced rights and responsibilities, and critical institutions. It also imparts a better understanding of and appreciation for our country, and shares information about how Canada was founded in diversity.

The contents of this guide now form the basis of the new citizenship test, which asks applicants to demonstrate their understanding of the chief characteristics of Canadian history, geography, and our system of government. To pass the test, prospective citizens need to have knowledge of our country, which better prepares them to assume the obligations and responsibilities of being Canadian citizens and to join Canadians in celebrating what it means to be Canadian. Without this foundational knowledge, citizenship becomes meaningless, just another government form to fill out. After all, it is this knowledge of who we are and the shared celebration of it that make us the great nation that we are.

It is inspiring to learn that since its introduction in 2009, “Discover Canada” has proven to be massively popular, not only with newcomers to Canada, but also with established Canadian citizens. Hundreds of thousands of copies of this guide have been distributed across Canada. This demonstrates that Canadians have a real thirst for knowledge about our country.

Our government has also promoted a number of other measures that reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship. Of course, Bill C-24 is just the latest example of this, but it is not the only one. For example, in November 2012, our government implemented an assessment of the language abilities of new citizens to be standardized across Canada so that new citizens would have a basic language that they would need to communicate in emergency situations, to meet neighbours, or to conduct basic life skills. For decades, studies have clearly shown that the success of newcomers to Canada is directly correlated to their proficiency in either of Canada's official languages, French or English.

As Canada faces an aging population and we need more immigrants, we need to ensure that we attract immigrants who can be successful as soon as possible. The new language proficiency test at level 5 is very basic and would therefore ensure that our new citizens have the most important tool that they will need to succeed in Canada. That is the ability to communicate in one of our two official languages, enabling their full participation and success in Canadian society.

On May 12, the committee had the privilege of hearing the testimony of Paul Attia, from the organization Immigrants for Canada. He explained that language capabilities are essential not only for economic success, but also for integration. This is something that I have lived myself. He said:

Language is a unifier....Even on a values front and a cultural front, the mere fact that you have the capacity to turn to the person to your left or the person to your right and have a conversation with that person automatically creates a natural connection.

For myself, and for the many new citizens in my riding, we value sharing our diversity by using one of our unifying languages.

Canadian citizenship is more than a passport of convenience. It is a pledge of mutual responsibility and a shared commitment of values rooted in our history for our mutual future. This is why the measures in Bill C-24 are so important.

The bill before us today is another great example of the reforms that our government has introduced to strengthen and protect the value of Canadian citizenship. I urge my hon. colleagues to support these necessary measures and to ensure that Bill C-24 passes into law.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to note that I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver South.

I am honoured to rise in the House tonight to speak to our government's Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act. This legislation would be the first major overhaul of the Citizenship Act in nearly a generation.

While Bill C-24 touches on a variety of areas, all of which would make important changes strengthening the integrity of the immigration system and preserving the value of Canadian citizenship, there are several areas I am particularly passionate to be speaking to tonight. Those areas of the bill encompass the entirety of my former private member's bill, Bill C-425. When I first introduced my bill, I gave the reasons for tabling that legislation. My intention was to reward permanent residents for their service in our Canadian Armed Forces and to underscore the immense value of Canadian citizenship by revoking it from those convicted of terrorism or treason.

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to our hard-working Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and member for Ajax—Pickering for keeping those provisions of my bill alive by drafting them into Bill C-24. I would also like to thank each and every one of my current Conservative colleagues on the citizenship and immigration committee for their diligent work, and also those who have contributed long hours spent keeping these ideas alive in the face of unrelenting opposition filibustering last year.

I believe the importance of this legislation cannot be overstated. It is good news for new Canadians, good news for settled Canadians, and good news for those hoping to become Canadians, and I will tell members why.

Bill C-24 would honour our Canadian Armed Forces by fast-tracking citizenship by one year for permanent residents serving Canada in our military who have stated their intention to become citizens. As members know, service in the Canadian Armed Forces is unique. We call on our soldiers to make the ultimate sacrifice, to risk their lives in faraway places away from their families in some of the worst conditions imaginable, and they do it gladly. They are willing to lay their lives down for their fellow Canadians. That is what makes service in the Canadian Armed Forces unique and deserving of the highest possible respect.

Bill C-24 seeks not only to support these brave men and women but also to strengthen and defend the values they stand for and protect. To do this, we must act to address one of the biggest threats facing Canada today: terrorism. Bill C-24 would allow for the revocation of citizenship for any dual citizen who is convicted of a terrorism offence, treason, or waging war against the Canadian Armed Forces as part of an armed group. This measure would bring Canada into line with virtually every other western democratic nation that has similar revocation laws.

Strangely enough, the opposition Liberals and New Democrats continue to strongly oppose this measure. I know what I am about to say is not new, but it seems to me that those members on the other side of the House need to be reminded once again, perhaps again and again, that the Canadian public overwhelmingly supports revoking citizenship from convicted terrorists.

If the members were to survey their own supporters or Canadians in general, they would find the following, according to a national poll conducted by NRG: over 83% of Canadians from coast to coast to coast support the idea of stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists; of those, 80% of people who identified as NDP supporters support this measure; and, 87% of those who identified as Liberal supporters also support this measure. Also interesting to note is that among those who were polled, when it comes to those born in Canada versus those not born here, 83% of immigrants support stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists versus 82% of settled Canadians.

I would like to know why it is that the opposition Liberals and New Democrats continue to choose to ignore the will of Canadians and the international community.

Some people might be surprised by the last figure I gave, but as an immigrant myself, and as the member of Parliament for the hard-working riding of Calgary Northeast, the most diverse riding in the country, I know that new Canadians as well as settled Canadians understand the need for this measure.

Canadians understand that when a dual national willingly decides to radicalize and participate in terrorist crimes, to carry out bombings, to plot the murder of his or her fellow citizens, this is damaging to the value we attach to Canadian citizenship.

We cannot wait for the terrorists to submit an application to renounce their citizenship. We must read into their actions a deemed renunciation of that citizenship. This measure is entirely consistent with our sister jurisdictions among western democracies.

I have spoken to many ethnic organizations, groups, and constituents in my riding and across Canada. The overwhelming majority support revocation of citizenship for convicted terrorists.

For example, Salma Siddiqui, president of Muslim Canadian Congress, had this to say while testifying on my private member's bill on March 26, 2013:

Canadians who are opposed to the values of our society should not be allowed to abuse the privileges that come with holding Canadian citizenship. We must act to strip Canadian citizenship from those who seek to exploit it for violent and illegal activities.

She also conveyed similar thoughts recently when she appeared at the committee to discuss Bill C-24.

Just last night I read an article in the National Post. Fawzi Ayoub, a dual Lebanese Canadian, was recently killed fighting in a terrorist group in Syria. He was a senior member of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

In fact, he has been on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list since 2009. His crimes include attempting to enter Israel in order to carry out a terrorist bombing and attempting to hijack a passenger aircraft in Romania.

Ayoub lived in Toronto for several years and mused about returning to Canada one day. Just imagine, if he had returned to Canada, what might have happened.

This illustrates precisely why we need Bill C-24 to become law. Canadians are angry that terrorists are using Canadian citizenship simply as a convenient way to fly under the radar in order to commit terrorist acts. In doing so, they are eroding the value of Canadian citizenship.

Under the provisions of Bill C-24, those convicted of a serious terrorism offence in Canada or in jurisdictions Canada recognizes as having an equivalent judicial system would no longer be able to use a Canadian passport to facilitate their terrorist activities abroad.

Revocation is not a provision I hope to see used regularly. Ideally, it would never be used. However, Canadians are increasingly concerned about the threat of home-grown terrorism. Terrorism is closer to home than we may think. Radicalization is happening in places we least expect: our cities, towns, and neighbourhoods.

Our security services are sounding the alarm bells about the dangers of home-grown terrorism. CSIS has reported it is tracking at least 80 Canadians who have gone overseas to participate in terrorist activities.

They will return to Canada further radicalized and armed with knowledge of how to carry out terrorist activities. We cannot allow radical terrorist ideologies to thrive in Canada. We must condemn these dangerous practices and give them no safe place to hide and absolutely no legitimacy whatsoever.

If we allow terrorists to keep the Canadian citizenship they have abused, we are sending a message that our citizenship is not about shared values, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, or loyalty. It sends the message that our citizenship is simply an entitlement.

I believe Canadian citizenship is much more than a piece of paper used for identification purposes. It does represent our shared values, and its value is something we need to vigorously defend.

We must let Canadians know where their elected representatives stand. I implore members opposite to set aside their politics and join me to unanimously support Bill C-24.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, my speech today is a casualty of time allocation. I was supposed to have the floor for 20 minutes, but thanks to the Conservatives, I will have only 10 minutes even though this is a very complex bill about a fundamental issue: Canadian citizenship. We have just a few hours to debate it in the House, and only a small percentage of members will have a chance to speak to it.

To begin, I would like to demonstrate how the Conservatives have, once again, adopted an ideological approach to the immigration system. I should point out that there is currently a moratorium on applications to sponsor a parent or grandparent. Fewer family reunifications are taking place. The Conservatives seem to think that is a quaint notion best discarded.

I remember one of the first speeches I gave in the House. It was on Bill C-4, which was about refugees. The Conservatives had made refugees their big issue. They punished refugee children by detaining them and punished vulnerable refugees by denying them the health care services they were entitled to. That illustrates the Conservatives' right-wing ideological approach to the immigration system.

I think it is important to point out that the bill will not solve any of the problems related to processing times. That is smoke and mirrors, because processing times are getting longer and longer. I know this because the people who come to my constituency office say that it can take two years, sometimes even longer. This bill will not help families, children, wives, husbands and grandparents reunite and become Canadian citizens. This is just smoke and mirrors. The Conservatives will not convince anyone that this bill will reduce processing times.

In my speech, I want to focus on two very important points, one of which is the constitutionality of the bill. I do not think the Conservatives have figured it out yet. Are they not tired of being turned down by the Supreme Court of Canada? This just goes to show how the Conservatives operate: they do as they please and could not care less about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our founding principles. They have no respect for Canadians, for democracy or for the parliamentary process.

The minister's ability to revoke citizenship creates two classes of citizens. One class for Canadians who have dual citizenship, and the other for Canadians who have only Canadian citizenship. For one offence, there are two different penalties. Why the discrimination? What is the ideology behind it? Simple, it is the Conservative ideology.

There are already mechanisms in place that do not fall under the minister's authority. Why is the minister being given the power to revoke someone's citizenship? Why is he being given the power to determine what penalty will apply in a given situation? That responsibility falls to a court, an independent organization, not a minister who is being told what to do by the Prime Minister's Office of a given party and a given government. I am not talking about the Conservative minister in particular, because another party could be in power. It is a discretionary power.

In a democracy like Canada, which is under rule of law, there must always be a court or a monitoring system in place to prevent the ruling party from making partisan decisions and using power for political reasons. That is fundamental. As it stands, no independent court can rule on the minister's decisions because the minister is being granted all the power.

It is of utmost importance to talk about the constitutional validity of revoking citizenship. In his speech, the minister said that it was possible to revoke citizenship after the Second World War, right up until 1977. At that time, the only ground for revoking citizenship was fraud.

I would like to ask the minister a question.

I would like the minister to tell me one thing. Would he like to turn the clock back to the days of World War II? Is that how far back he wants to go? It is 2014 and the Conservatives want to go back to World War II. Once again, we clearly see the Conservative ideology.

In committee, professor Audrey Macklin, the chair in human rights law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, quoted the Supreme Court and asked the following question:

Can you revoke somebody's citizenship in order to punish them for what we'll call crimes against citizenship?

The Supreme Court was clear:

The social compact requires the citizen to obey the laws created by the democratic process. But it does not follow that failure to do so nullifies the citizen’s continued membership in the self-governing polity. Indeed, the remedy of imprisonment for a term rather than permanent exile implies our acceptance of continued membership in the social order.

Ms. Macklin then said:

In other words, the Supreme Court of Canada stated quite clearly that punishing somebody by depriving them of their constitutional rights, indeed, by denying them all constitutional rights and casting them out in the name of the social contract, is not constitutional. It isn't constitutional to deny somebody the right to vote, just in order to punish them. That's one right under [section 11 of] the [Canadian] charter [of Rights and Freedoms].

Therefore, depriving a person of their constitutional rights is unconstitutional.

How can the minister rise in the House today and grant himself powers that violate Canadians' fundamental rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? If he cherishes his country, then he also cherishes fundamental rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I would like to finish my speech by mentioning that section 11 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right not to be punished twice for the same offence.

The list of crimes in Bill C-24 includes terrorism and treason, and sentences are imposed by an independent tribunal, not a minister. That is a punishment that must be imposed on a criminal, not the revocation of his citizenship.

I would like to reiterate that section 11 stipulates that a person cannot be punished twice for the same offence. As a result, under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the sanction imposed by an independent tribunal is the one that must prevail. The discretionary power that the minister is giving himself is not constitutional.

Patti Tamara Lenard, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, testified that:

...the bill grants the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the discretion to revoke citizenship in too many cases. Currently, as written, the bill would give the minister discretion to revoke citizenship in cases of fraud, but there is no requirement...for a court to evaluate if fraud in fact did occur.

This bill gives the minister, who is not necessarily qualified and who is not an independent tribunal, the authority to determine what constitutes fraud.

What is more, there is no way to appeal that decision. There is no independent body to oversee the minister's decisions.

Once again, the Conservative government has decided to impose its right-wing ideology and give itself powers that violate Canadians' fundamental rights.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was a rant from the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. That was not really a speech full of any facts. I wonder whether the minister has borrowed his facts from Kijiji because we have seen that before with the Minister of Employment and Social Development with regard to the temporary foreign worker issue. However, I will leave that for today and speak to the bill.

There are quite a few holes in the bill. One of my constituents said that the holes were big enough to drive a truck through. I will try to lay it out and I would ask members to pay attention, because there may not be that many holes to drive a truck through. Maybe we could make some sensible changes to improve the legislation.

I am pleased to stand in the House today on behalf of my constituents from Surrey North to address Bill C-24, which intends to strengthen the Citizenship Act.

We in the official opposition, along with many experts and Canadians from across the country, are very concerned about a number of aspects in the bill.

We agree that changes to the Citizenship Act are greatly necessary and long overdue. This act has not been revised since 1977 and some elements of Bill C-24 would create clear injustices.

In addition, Canadians continue to face ridiculously wait times for citizenship applications.

Even though some changes are necessary, the bill is another example of the Conservative government's use of power to make secretive, arbitrary decisions by cabinet ministers.

I will first speak to a couple of good things in the bill. There are not a lot, because as I have pointed out, we could drive a big truck through the many holes in the bill.

I will be splitting my time with the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, Mr. Speaker.

The bill would do a couple of things that I do agree with and they should have been addressed a long time ago. The issue of so-called lost Canadians is addressed in the bill. The NDP has fought hard for many years to get this matter resolved. We are happy the Conservatives are bringing this forward as a result of pressure from the opposition.

The other positive aspect of Bill C-24 is the part dealing with expedited access to citizenship for permanent residents who serve in the armed forces, which the NDP supported in the last session with Bill C-425. However, for a bill that is over 50 pages long, it completely fails to accomplish what it is supposedly intended to do.

Instead of addressing the current problems, Bill C-24 would arbitrarily attribute more unnecessary powers to the minister, prolong naturalization, treat many Canadians like second-class citizens and create more injustices.

Our citizenship and immigration system is flawed. We need a bill that would actually strengthen Canadian citizenship, not one that is not even constitutional. I say that because we have heard from many experts. We have heard from the Canadian Bar Association and from lawyers. They point out the unconstitutionality of many parts of the bill, and yet the Conservatives are not willing to hear all of that.

I pointed to some of the good points of the bill and now I would like to take a look at some of the points that are really worrisome. Let us take a look at the aspect of intent to reside.

Basically, under Bill C-24, if granted citizenship, a person must declare his or her “intent to reside”. The goal of this provision is to ensure Canada's expectation that new citizens live and work in the country after completing naturalization. However, this change would empower officials to speculate on an applicant's future intentions. It portrays the image of immigrants as deserving of suspicion and mistrust, and also treats naturalized immigrants as second-class citizens.

The vagueness in this provision will severely create travel restrictions. International mobility will be imperative. It allows Canadians to study abroad, see their families and become globally aware. If Bill C-24 passes, naturalized citizens will lose this fundamental right.

Citizens who travel abroad for honest reasons may face losing their citizenship because they misrepresented their intention to reside in Canada when they were granted citizenship.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration could revoke citizenship under the false pretence of fraud. There would be no appeal, no hearing and no public knowledge of this, which brings me to another concern, and that is the powers of the minister. The bill would grant the minister more powers.

Bill C-24 would place unnecessary powers in the hands of the minister. If the bill is passed, the minister will have the authority to grant or revoke citizenship without public knowledge or any form of judicial process.

I am really worried about this aspect of the bill, because the minister will get to decide whether to revoke somebody's citizenship. There is no process, no hearing and the public will not even know about it. That is really worrisome.

Peter Edelmann, a Vancouver immigration lawyer who sits on the executive of the Canadian Bar Association, said:

What’s happening here is they’re proposing that citizens could lose their citizenship on a paper-based process with no hearing at all and no independent tribunal--forget about going in front of a judge to make the decision; you may not get to speak to or even see the officer...

This is clearly unconstitutional. The Canadian Bar Association is saying this, yet the government is not listening to some of the top lawyers in the country who point to the unconstitutionality of this power grab by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

It is not surprising to me, because I have been here a number of years now, that the Conservatives are using bills to grant themselves more discretionary powers. We have seen this in many other bills in the House where they are consolidating the power.

A Conservative member is chirping at me, Mr. Speaker. I ask you to ask those members to pay attention and maybe they will learn one or two things, oppose the bill and actually work for Canadians rather than chirping away when another member is speaking.

The Conservatives love power, even if it is at the cost of Canadian democracy and justice. By giving the minister these new powers, Canada is taking a step backward and opening the doors to decisions that are subjective and politically motivated.

Instead of providing solutions to the issues Canadians face every day, the Conservatives are using the legislative process to give themselves even more power than they already have. Unfortunately, they are not worried about the process because they have a so-called small majority, and they are ramming these changes through.

There are many other issues I could discuss such as the unconstitutionality of a number of things in the bill. There are fees and language testing issues. It seems that the only consultations the Conservatives have done in drafting the bill is among themselves or they have gone to Kijiji, as they have done before. We see time and time again Conservatives are not willing to take any sort of advice from neither the opposition, nor from the experts who testified before committees.

Along with my NDP colleagues, I will continue to fight for a fair, efficient, transparent and accountable immigration system. I urge the Conservatives to stop battering democracy and start listening to Canadians.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is correct. A private member's bill a Conservative member brought forward actually did exactly what he suggested, and that was revoke people's citizenship and create a situation of statelessness. When that bill was studied in committee, we realized how poor it was, and the Conservatives decided to kill it. Of course, they changed it from the quality work the committee did. They amended that bill, put it into Bill C-24, and are now creating two tiers of Canadian citizenship.

The answer to his question is that there are people who have only Canadian citizenship, whether it is through birth or naturalization or from renouncing another citizenship they may have had. There are also people who have dual citizenship. What is happening is that people who have dual citizenship are now being discriminated against. Because they have dual citizenship, the minister in Canada has the opportunity to revoke their Canadian citizenship and send them to their home countries, whether they have ever been in those countries or not. They could have been born in Canada, and for whatever reason have access to another citizenship. The Canadian minister can now take away their Canadian citizenship, their country of birth, just because they might have a claim to another citizenship.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am really grateful that I have the opportunity to speak to the bill before us today in the House because there are so many other bills that I wanted to speak to. The government consistently forced the ending of debate, whether it was through closure or time allocation. Its record now stands at 60. Even on this bill we are speaking under time allocation. I really wanted to do a full 20-minute speech, but now I do not have the time to do this.

In February, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration tabled Bill C-24. He stated that the bill and the changes within it are meant to actually reduce citizenship fraud, increase efficiency of the system, and reduce backlogs. He said that it would “protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it while creating a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it”. Yet the bill is not actually doing much of any of that.

I personally value my Canadian citizenship very much and I am sure everyone agrees overall that Canadian citizenship is something of enormous value to everyone. All Canadians value it very much. I do not want to see changes to our system at citizenship and immigration that play partisan politics with something that is so fundamentally important to so many.

I welcome some of the changes in the bill as it does address some long overdue deficiencies in our current system. However, many of the other changes proposed in the bill cause much concern and need significant amendments to ensure the protection of our valued Canadian citizenship.

In the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, of which I am a member, we have been doing a pre-study on the subject matter of the bill. We have had presentations and witnesses, but we have many more write to the committee hoping that they would be able to appear at committee when the bill is sent back to committee for actual study. Considering the fact that the Conservatives have now moved time allocation in the House on the debate, I am scared and nervous that we are not going to do a full study of the bill when it is sent to committee and that we are not going to be able to hear from more witnesses.

I want to list a couple of the organizations that have sent in requests to appear. These are not individual Canadians. Individual Canadians who want to make a presentation at committee should be able to. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wants to make a presentation, but will not be able to. Amnesty International wants to make a presentation, but will probably not be able to. These are expert witnesses who want to speak at committee about the bill, but I am scared that we will not be able to do a proper study of the bill when it gets to committee.

A positive element of the bill is the issue of the lost Canadians. It is high time that this issue is addressed. It is an unfair situation that has gone on for far too long. We heard from the Canadian Council for Refugees and a couple of other witnesses who welcomed the measures to address the unfair exclusions from citizenship that have been allowed to go on for decades. They are, of course, the lost Canadians who are pre-1947 cases.

However, the council said that it regrets that there are no measures to address the unfair situations created by the 2009 amendments by the government to deny citizenship to the second generation born abroad. Canada is now creating a new set of lost Canadians and making some children who were born to Canadians stateless. We are signatories to the UN convention for the prevention of statelessness and this is what is happening.

Even though I said I am going to be speaking about good things, there is a sprinkle of bad even in the good.

Another good item in the bill is expedited citizenship for permanent residents who are currently serving in the Canadian Forces. When we did another study in the citizenship committee, I remember that a representative from the forces gave us actual statistics. He said it is about 15 people on average. What it would do is shorten the residency requirements from the new four-year requirement to three years for permanent residents who are serving in the armed forces. It is a great way to thank those people who are serving in the forces.

A third good thing is stricter rules for fraudulent immigration consultants. It is high time we finally regulated these immigration consultants. The NDP has been calling for the regulation of immigration consultants. We do not tolerate or condone any form of immigration fraud. We have pushed the government to develop tough legislation to crack down on the crooked immigration consultants. We have been supportive of anti-fraud measures. We would like to see increased resources for the RCMP and CBSA to continue to identify these fraudsters who are hurting a lot of citizens in Canada and are increasing the work in many of our MPs' offices, to be honest.

Now I am going to move on to the negative aspects of this bill. I do not have enough time left to go through the many bad things in this bill.

This bill would create far too many new barriers to citizenship. It would create a longer waiting period to qualify for citizenship. It would not actually give any value to pre-PR time spent in this country. UNICEF Canada has sent us a brief that says that we would be in contravention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are a signatory.

There would be increased fees. Fees would double from $200 to $400. The language requirement right now is 18-54 years old for the language test, and Bill C-24 would change it to 14-64 years old.

Let me get into what UNICEF said about these actual changes. I know we do not have enough time for me to go through all the things I would like to say.

Bill C-24 proposes to amend subsection 5(2) of the Citizenship Act.... This shift in age requirements is problematic for immigrant and refugee children for a number of reasons. For instance, language and knowledge testing of children could lead to challenges with reuniting children with their families, and therefore could lead to the deprivation of the child's right to family reunification under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (article 10). This measure does not take into account the added stress that such testing may cause, or the children's ability to be able to be successful in test environments. In some cases, children may be still facing fear of authority, trauma from their home countries, and other experiences—depending on their individual life circumstances and migratory paths—that impair their capacity to successfully take such tests.

They go on.

I did not even touch on the fact that this bill would allow for the revocation of citizenship. The revocation would be based on the creation of two tiers of citizenship in this country.

My understanding is that one is either a Canadian citizen or not. There is no real in between. The government would create that in-between case. One would be a Canadian citizen with only Canadian citizenship or a Canadian citizen who had dual citizenship with another country or who the minister has reason to believe has dual citizenship. If that were the case, whether an individual actually had dual citizenship or wished to have it or if the minister believed the person might have another citizenship, the onus would now be on the individual to prove citizenship to the minister. The minister would have the discretion to revoke somebody's citizenship for committing a crime in another country or jurisdiction.

It just goes to show that there are so many things that are bad in this bill.

I really wish I had more time and that I was not speaking under time allocation so I could get through the other things I would like to talk about. Hopefully my colleagues will ask questions about the limitations and the values of people in Canada who are spending time as pre-permanent residents.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her highly enlightening presentation.

I think that most, if not all, of us here in the House agree on the importance of Canadian citizenship. Before granting Canadian citizenship to someone, we must ensure that the criteria we are using are as objective as possible.

What does my colleague think about the idea in Bill C-24 that, from now on, there will be a declaration of intent to reside in the country?

Having an intention means opening the door to all kinds of speculation. For example, a person might say he intends to settle in Canada and remain here, but then he might be offered work outside the country a few months later. That happens to lots of Canadians. Would anyone doubt that person's intention when he said he planned to settle and reside in Canada?

I think that this criterion is not the kind of objective criterion we are looking for, and I would like to know what my colleague thinks about it.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River.

With the exception of our first nations brothers and sisters, all of us in the chamber are newcomers to this country, every one of us, and we should be very aware of that reality when we start to bandy about and talk about citizenship. My own family came from places across the world.

My husband is from Holland, one grandmother was from the United States, a grandfather was from England, and my paternal grandfather was from Italy. In the case of my paternal grandfather, there are various stories about the reason for his departure from Italy. Some say poverty. I am inclined to believe it had something to do with him smoking under the police station veranda and accidentally causing a fire that made his departure essential. No matter what the reason, all who came here came for a better life. They came to make a new beginning, and that is what makes this bill so very important. That is also what makes it so very important to get Bill C-24 right.

Bill C-24 is an attempt to amend the Citizenship Act. It causes, at least on this side of the House, some great concerns regarding the fairness and constitutionality of the changes suggested by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Everyone agrees that Canadian citizenship is something of enormous value. It is sought after around the world. However, what we do not want to see is any approach that plays politics with the issue, a situation that we have seen all too often from the government.

The Conservatives have a track record of politicizing issues for partisan gain. They also have a history of violently denouncing anyone who dares to contradict or disagree with them, including public servants like Linda Keen, Richard Colvin, Kevin Page, Pat Strogran, Munir Sheikh, Marc Mayrand, environmental groups, scientists, unions and international NGOs. How can the government be trusted with the power to decide, with no reference to courts or appeals processes, who should have their citizenships revoked and who should be secretly granted citizenship?

Some of the changes to the Citizenship Act would address deficiencies in the current system, and they should be applauded. With respect to the bill, it is high time that the issue of the lost Canadians was addressed. This is an absurdly unfair situation that has gone on far too long. The bill would allow for individuals to finally obtain Canadian citizenship, individuals who were born before the first Canadian citizenship act took effect. This would also extend to their children born outside of Canada in the first generation, this citizenship that is their right.

Despite this positive amendment, though, other parts of the bill are, as I said, profoundly concerning. For example, the question of revoking citizenship has raised significant legal concerns and we are always worried about proposals to concentrate more power in the hands of the minister. Under the provisions of the bill, the minister may revoke citizenship if he or any staffer he authorizes is satisfied on the balance of probabilities. Staffers are not elected, they are not responsible to Canadians, and yet they may be granted the authority to say that an individual has obtained citizenship by fraud.

Until now, such cases have all typically gone through the courts and cabinet. It would not be the case anymore. Again, the judicial process would be sidestepped. Are the Conservatives telling Canadians that they do not believe we have a reliable judiciary? Well, maybe just Supreme Court judges.

This aspect poses serious issues to the extent that the minister would have the power to revoke a person's citizenship solely based on suspicion, without an independent tribunal to rule on the veracity of the allegations. Does no one on the government benches understand how terrifyingly dangerous this is? Many organizations, including the Canadian Bar Association and the United Nations Children's Fund, have also expressed a concern over this and many other of the bill's provisions, and they have offered several amendments that could strengthen the bill.

One of the major problems that we have addressed with this bill is the broad discretionary powers granted to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, especially when dealing with revocation of citizens with dual citizenship. This is extremely concerning. Canadian law has already established procedures by which to punish individuals who commit unlawful acts. It is unnecessary to grant these powers to the minister. Ministers come and go. The judicial system is the one constant, but this bill would take the Federal Court out of the equation except in very limited circumstances. Awarding this much power to the minister is, as I said, dangerous and, in a matter as serious as citizenship, a fair and impartial decision-maker must be maintained.

The Canadian Bar Association believes that because revocation of citizenship is such a serious matter, a statutory tribunal like the immigration appeal division should have jurisdiction to consider the validity of the minister's decision to revoke citizenship. This provision to allow the minister such power would create a two-tier citizenship system where some Canadians would have their citizenship revoked and others would be punished by the criminal system for the same offence. The new revocation procedures are apparently related to a citizen's loyalty to Canada. However, it is unclear why only dual citizens should be so targeted. Do the Conservatives think dual citizens are less loyal than other Canadians? We have to step back from this and make a very clear statement that all Canadians should be treated fairly and equally. The Canadian Bar Association also warns that this process is likely unconstitutional and warrants serious additional review. Many of the revocation processes are quite simply discriminatory and retroactive.

UNICEF has also weighed in. It argues that these changes could place vulnerable children at risk and leave them without sufficient protection. The potential revocation of a child's parent who is of dual citizenship could lead to family separation where the child is abandoned in Canada without a parent or legal guardian. Just some weeks ago I was in Geneva at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting. We discussed at length the issue of abandoned children, children in war-torn areas or children who had lost their parents, and what the world had to do in terms of ensuring these children were protected and safe because they were alone. And here we are in this country that is supposed to be democratic, that is supposed to have principles and mores, setting up a situation where a child could be abandoned. It is unspeakable. It is unbelievable. What have we come to?

Further, under these revocation procedures, it is possible for a child to be found to be or believed to be guilty of an act that warrants revocation. How absolutely absurd to treat a child as an adult. This is undermining international law. Children who are faced with these circumstances will not likely have any familial ties in their homeland and may not have the proper channels to fight any decisions that revoke their citizenship. They are children, and we are supposed to care about that and we are supposed to protect them. These potential situations can place children in situations where their lives and their futures are at serious risk. UNICEF suggests incorporating an amendment that would require children under the age of 18 to not be included in the assessment.

Canada has a proud record of high naturalization rates. We are among the highest in the OECD, and we should continue to encourage people to become new citizens rather than creating procedures that only make it more difficult for them to do so. These individuals have the potential to be the biggest asset that we have. They account for 67% of our annual population growth. It is imperative that we make the necessary changes to this bill so that our society can continue to flourish and benefit from new Canadian immigrants.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased to follow my colleague, who did such a good job describing and talking about the Citizenship Act and the changes we would make through Bill C-24. I would like to add my part to the point of how our government is planning to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship.

Canada's 37-year-old Citizenship Act is in need of serious reforms. Its original purpose, of course, was to ensure we had individuals who worked through the process of becoming Canadian citizens and followed through on the legislation and regulation that was put forward at that time.

Indeed, the reforms today are here to work toward stopping the abuse of our immigration system and to put an end to the dubious folks who actually cheapen our citizenship by having zero connection or attachment to our country.

It is clear that our government takes the value of Canadian citizenship seriously. That is why we see this bill here before us today.

Citizenship defines who we are as Canadians, but it comes with certain responsibilities, like respect for the rule of law, contributing to the well-being of our communities, supporting ourselves and our families, and protecting our country.

Citizenship also means that we share a commitment to the values that are rooted in our history, values like peace, freedom, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Canadian citizenship is about more than the right to carry a passport. It is about the complete entity of what it is to be a Canadian citizen.

Citizens need to have an ongoing connection to their country, and in this particular case, an ongoing connection to our country of Canada.

As a government and as Canadians, we believe citizenship is truly something special.

When asked, Canadians across this country—especially those who have acquired, or recently acquired, Canadian citizenship—will say how special it is to actually achieve that end and that goal.

We cannot and do not attach a price to citizenship. Unfortunately there are those who would attempt to attach some form of monetary cost to Canadian citizenship.

The changes found in this legislation would be a real step in the fight against attempts to defraud the Canadian citizenship program and to defraud Canadian citizens of what is truly a remarkable feat once one achieves that citizenship.

It is unfortunate, but citizenship fraud is a serious issue in our country. The Government of Canada's investigation into residence fraud continues to grow, with nearly 11,000 individuals potentially implicated in lying to apply for citizenship or to maintain their permanent resident status. These are individuals who were most likely trying to establish the residency requirements for citizenship when they were actually living abroad. These practices demean and devalue what it is to be a Canadian and what it is to achieve Canadian citizenship.

The legislation before us would amend the Citizenship Act to ensure that, not only are we protecting the value of Canadian citizenship against those who would cheapen it, but we are also enhancing and building upon it.

Here is how we are proposing to do that. First and foremost, our citizenship program officers do not currently have the tools to determine if a consultant has been involved with an application for citizenship. We propose to change that and to require that applicants who use a representative when they apply for citizenship use only an authorized representative.

Changes to the Citizenship Act would give the minister the ability to designate a body to regulate and enforce citizenship consultant conduct. These changes would mirror recent changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

It was just a couple or three years ago that we passed that new legislation in which a regulatory body within the Ministry of Citizenship would actually oversee and ensure that only consultants who were licensed through the ministry, who were approved through the ministry, and who actually met the guidelines were able to represent both individuals attempting to achieve refugee status, in the case of our refugee act, and individuals attempting to achieve citizenship and who are applying for it through this new act.

In regulating consultants, we would offer a level of protection to newcomers that they do not have at the moment.

We have all heard stories and talk within our constituency offices and our ridings from those who come in to our office to sit down with us and explain how they have simply and very clearly been ripped off. They have been led down the garden path to believe they can achieve citizenship if only they pay $1,000, $5,000 or $10,000 to this individual who does not have a reputation of being able to achieve that end and who is not licensed to work within the province of Ontario.

The amendments would also bring the penalty for committing citizenship fraud in line with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. They would increase the penalties for citizenship fraud to a maximum of a $100,000 fine, or up to five years in prison, or both.

The second part of this is we are taking action to strengthen the residence requirements for citizenship. My colleague spoke about that briefly in his remarks as well. Currently the Citizenship Act does not define what “residence” actually means. The act does not say or deem what “residence” or “resident requirements” actually mean when people are applying for and working through the process of citizenship.

Under the current act, prospective Canadians apply for citizenship and are simply required to have resided in Canada for three of the past four years. Our proposed amendment to the act is to stipulate that prospective Canadians would need to be physically present in Canada. This is important, because physical presence in Canada helps newcomers to integrate and establish a sense of belonging and attachment to Canada.

However, it is more than that. It is also about the ability for those individuals to learn what it is to become a Canadian, to learn about our history, to learn about our geography and what happens in the east or west of our country, what happens in Ontario and Quebec, and the fact that we have two official languages. It gives those individuals the length and the breadth of understanding, and the ability to know that when they achieve Canadian citizenship, it is because they earned it and because they understand it.

We will, however, include an exception for applicants who are outside of Canada because they are accompanying either their Canadian spouse or parent who is employed in the Canadian Armed Forces or as a crown servant. This is to prevent these permanent residents from being penalized simply because of their family's service abroad for our country.

It is an issue that we missed in the former bill, Bill C-37, which passed unanimously. I hope this citizenship bill will also pass unanimously. The former bill, Bill C-37, did not cover this instance where an individual had a spouse, parent or child employed in the Canadian Armed Forces. It would not have given those people the ability to achieve citizenship, so we will ensure it is in this act. We also want to lengthen the current residence requirements and require prospective Canadians to be physically present in Canada for four out of the six last years.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration had the opportunity to hear key testimony on the bill. Organizations such as the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform and Immigrants For Canada as well as several immigration lawyers all agreed that extending the residence requirements would strengthen the attachment that individuals would have to Canada and that when they received that Canadian citizenship, it would enhance their ability as a Canadian.

Immigration lawyer, Mr. Reis Pagtakhan, noted that the longer an individual lived in Canada, the greater the connection would be. He accurately stated:

Citizenship bestows rights and protections many foreign nationals do not have. As Canadian citizens, they can vote and seek elected office, so it is important that they participate in Canadian life before they become citizens.

I could not agree more. Newcomers should have a deep understanding of Canada's culture and society before they apply for citizenship. We believe Canada has a strong identity, and this bill would build on that sense of nation.

Finally, as part of their applications, applicants would also be asked whether they intended to reside in Canada. If an applicant had no intention to reside in our country after they obtained citizenship, or if the government obtained information to this effect, they would not be eligible for that citizenship.

Our citizenship is highly valued around the world. Canadian citizenship is an honour and a privilege. It comes not only with rights, but it comes with responsibilities. The bill would reinforce that, build on it and take that 37 years since we have worked on the act and make it that much stronger and that much better. It would close a loop that should have been closed a long time ago.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for St. Catharines.

I am very pleased and privileged to have this opportunity to add my voice in support of Bill C-24, the government's legislation that would strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. Let me also say that it is a privilege to be a Canadian citizen and to be able to rise in the House to speak. I first came to this country as an international student in 1968, but I was made a stateless citizen in 1971 when Canada chose to change its recognition from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China. Due to the generosity of the Canadian immigration system, I was able to apply for my permanent resident status and subsequently became a citizen in 1976.

Let me address some of the issues in the new citizenship act. As we know, Canadian citizenship is highly valued around the world. The fact that more than 85% of eligible permanent residents go on to become citizens is a testament to this. Last year, this translated into nearly 129,000 new Canadians citizens from no fewer than 219 countries, a 14% increase over 2012 numbers. We can all take pride in the value of our citizenship and in our high naturalization rate. Unfortunately, because Canadian citizenship is so valuable, some people are prepared to lie or cheat in order to qualify. For example, they may break our citizenship law by pretending to be living in Canada when they are living abroad. In fact, more than 85% of Canadian citizenship fraud involves falsifying residency. In many cases, permanent residents have used the services of immigration consultants who fraudulently establish evidence of residence in Canada while living abroad most, if not all, of the time.

Ongoing large-scale fraud investigations have identified more than 3,000 citizens and 5,000 permanent residents linked to major investigations, the majority of them related to residents. In addition, nearly 2,000 individuals linked to these investigations have either abandoned or withdrawn their citizenship applications. Individuals who seek to obtain Canadian citizenship fraudulently have no real attachment to Canada. They want citizenship for no other reason than to obtain the many benefits associated with Canadian citizenship or purely for financial gain.

Right now, applicants must reside in Canada for three out of the previous four years before being eligible to apply for citizenship. The major fault with the current citizenship requirements is that “residence” is not defined under the current Citizenship Act. As a result, it is currently possible for someone to become a Canadian citizen even if he or she has spent little time actually living in Canada.

Under the changes we propose, the rules around resident requirements would be strengthened so that adults applying for citizenship would have to be physically present in Canada. We would also lengthen the residency requirement to four years out of the previous six years, with a specific requirement to reside in Canada for a minimum of 183 days during at least four of the six qualifying years.

In his testimony before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, Martin Collacott, a former Canadian diplomat and spokesman for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, said:

...I think newcomers will value their citizenship more if they know it is not something that can be acquired quickly or without meeting certain standards.

He added:

I strongly support the provisions of Bill C-24 aimed at ensuring that residency requirements are actually met, particularly in view of evidence that thousands of people have obtained their citizenship fraudulently by claiming they had spent time in Canada when they had not.

The proposed residency requirement in Bill C-24 would be consistent with the Income Tax Act, which says that those in Canada for less than 183 days with no other attachment to Canada are considered non-residents for income tax purposes. Unlike the majority of Canadians, non-residents are generally only required to pay taxes on their Canadian-sourced income. By better aligning the residency requirement for citizenship with the residency rules under the Income Tax Act, it would help to further strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. Coupled with the new residency requirement, it would also strengthen the permanent residence attachment to Canada.

Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, in a recent appearance before the standing committee, said the following:

For the first time, we have a pragmatic, transparent threshold to access Canadian citizenship. That is long overdue.

We obviously agree. I would add that these amendments to the Canadian Citizenship Act are also important because the physical presence in Canada assists with permanent residents' final integration into society.

A longer residence period would enable newcomers to develop a stronger connection to Canada. Furthermore, creating a clear and longer physical presence requirement would help deter citizens of convenience. Those individuals become citizens purely for the convenience of having a Canadian passport and to access the full range of taxpayer-funded benefits that come with this status, without any intention of contributing to Canada or even residing here.

In other words, they regard their Canadian citizenship primarily as little more than an insurance policy, to quote Mr. Collacott.

Of course in order to support their admission to Canadian society, citizens must first have an adequate knowledge of one of our official languages. As Mr. Collacott has said, the basic command of one of Canada's official languages is an essential skill for newcomers who are going to be able to contribute to society and the economy, as well as be able to realize their own dreams and aspirations as immigrants.

The government also believes that citizens must have knowledge about our country as well as the responsibility and privileges of Canadian citizenship, as this knowledge is essential to a new citizen's civic participation. This is why the amendments contained in Bill C-24 would also expand the age group who must first show proof of their language proficiency and take a citizenship knowledge test. We would expand the current age group from 18 to 54 years old, to 14 to 64 years old.

This would provide incentive for more individuals to acquire official language proficiency and civic knowledge, thus improving their integration. It would also ensure that more newcomers are better prepared to assume the responsibility of citizenship.

Lengthening the residency requirement and expanding the group that must meet knowledge and language requirements would ensure that more new citizens are better prepared for full participation in all aspects of Canadian life.

As I have said, these changes would also help deter citizenship of convenience. Taken together, the amendments in Bill C-24 would preserve and protect the value of Canadian citizenship both today and in the future by ensuring Canadians have a real, rather than a tenuous or non-existent, connection to Canada.

In his testimony before the standing committee, Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said his organization appreciates the steps taken by Bill C-24 to promote strong ties to Canada and buy-in to core Canadian values. He also added that the introduction of more robust residency requirements including physical presence to qualify for citizenship is particularly well received.

Canadian citizenship is highly valued around the world and, with this balanced set of reforms, the government is taking steps to ensure that it stays that way.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to this motion at second reading, Bill C-24, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Today in this Parliament we witnessed, for the 65th time since I have been a member of Parliament, a government using the hammer of time allocation to shut off debate. I was in this House when the time allocation motion was discussed. I was so shocked to hear the minister say that we had over 30 hours of debate on this particular bill. Let me make it very clear. We have only had two hours of debate on this bill that has many components to it. From regulating immigration and citizenship consultants, to taking away citizenship, to qualifying for citizenship, all of those different components are in this bill, and yet the only time this Parliament will have time to discuss it is this evening. I am wondering what the rush is for the government. Why is it so afraid of legislation being debated? What does it want to hide?

Let me remind the House that there is a small part of this bill that is like déjà vu. It takes me back to last June when we were dealing with a private member's bill, and through it the government tried to bring about fundamental changes to citizenship in Canada. That was outside of the rules. Then it tried to change the rules. Of course it was not able to, because it was outside of the purview and the timing ran out. What has happened here is that two elements of that bill have been taken and thrown in with at least five other elements, and a whole new bill has been produced.

I heard the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration say today that we have spent over 30 hours discussing this. He must have been having discussions in a place other than Parliament, because I have gone back and checked and this bill has only had two hours of debate. Now we are going into an evening session until midnight and then the allocated time will run out and there will be a vote on it sometime tomorrow. Then it will go on to the next stage.

This is what is beginning to worry me. There seems to be a pattern. It is a pattern in which the government is using its majority to bully. It is using bullying tactics to rush through legislation that it does not want Canadians to find out too much about. It does not want Canadians to know what is really in this piece of legislation.

Let me be clear. There are two or three elements in this legislation that I support, but they are buried. That is typical of the Conservative government. It brings in omnibus legislation, which is legislation as thick as the telephone books for many of our communities across this beautiful country, and it has taken things that we know we need to take action on and buried them in with the worst elements of legislation that it knew were not only badly written but would have been open to all kinds of constitutional challenges; and it says it is trying to fix things.

I will be the first one to say that the immigration system needs to be reformed. The Liberals allowed long waiting periods, and that created backlogs. Some clarity and updating also needed to be done, but the minister has used that as an excuse and has broken the immigration system. He has taken it from one of nation-building to one of nation-dividing. That is a real concern.

Because of the new changes, family reunification is almost impossible right now. It is taking longer for spouses to get over here. As well, thousands of applications by skilled workers were shredded, even though they played by the rules we made, and now parents and grandparents have been turned into a lottery system. I agree that we do want the young and the brightest, but the young and the brightest have parents. They do not fall out of the sky.

Our immigration policy has gone from a nation-building policy to one in which the government sees itself as agents who provide temporary foreign workers at minimum wage so that big business can make huge profits. Vulnerable workers are being exploited, while Canadians who spend hundreds of hours looking for work cannot find it because the jobs they could do are being given away. The system is broken.

This legislation purports to fix citizenship, specifically the waiting list. I worked at a citizenship ceremony recently. The judge showed me a room full of files and told me it would take him a long time to get to those files. People have to wait over 31 months after their applications are in, and this is after they have met all criteria. During that time, these potential Canadian citizens are being denied their rights as well as access to many of their responsibilities.

There is nothing in this legislation that would expedite citizenship and get rid of the backlog. The government says it has invested extra money into getting rid of the backlog, but the lists have in fact become longer and the time period to obtain citizenship has become longer.

I am pleased to see that regulation of consultants is in the bill. We hear too many stories from coast to coast to coast of unscrupulous agents and consultants who are abusive toward vulnerable people in this situation. People are looking for help, and these unscrupulous agents make all kinds of promises and commitments. Then all kinds of money changes hands, so it is good to see that kind of regulation in the bill.

However, at the same time, this legislation has something in it that I find absolutely unacceptable.

I have to share with the House what citizenship means. I chose Canada to be my home. I came to Canada in 1975 as a young teacher, excited about exploring this beautiful country. I fell in love with it and decided this was where I wanted to stay and have my children and raise them, and I now also have grandchildren.

It was a very proud moment for me when I became a Canadian citizen. I can remember meeting the judge. He asked me a couple of questions. I was a social studies teacher, so he presumed I knew a lot of the background. We talked about what my experiences were like. I stood next to him and we had a lovely photograph taken. I had become a Canadian citizen. It was a very emotional time for me, because I take Canadian citizenship very seriously. I see it as an honour and a privilege.

Citizenship has to mean something. If we attend a citizenship ceremony here in Canada, we see people from all around the world with their eyes filling with tears as citizenship is bestowed on them.

Last Friday, which was May 23, 2014, was a very significant day in Canadian history, although members may not know it. It was the 100-year anniversary of the Komagata Maru. That is the ship that arrived in Vancouver harbour, where the racist policies of the day, passed by Parliament, prevented people from landing in the harbour. They were British subjects, because India was part of the British Empire at that time, but they were turned back. Some died en route. Some were shot once they got to India. Others faced many challenges.

On that day, as we were commemorating the 100-year anniversary, a man asked if he could speak. He went up to the mike and said, “After all these years living in Canada, I got my citizenship today, of all days”. He talked about what that citizenship meant to him. That is somebody who became a naturalized Canadian citizen, just as I am.

In Canada we do not differentiate those who are born in other countries and come to this country and choose to make Canada their home because, as we know, except for our aboriginal people, most of us became Canadian citizens that way.

However, what we are seeing here in this legislation would change what citizenship means, and not just for those who are born overseas and come here and become naturalized citizens. I think it is on this aspect that Canadians need to pay close attention to what the current government is doing. This legislation, if passed as is, would mean that the minister—not the courts, not anybody else—could take away citizenship from somebody who was born in Canada. Their family could have been here for a couple of generations, but they could still have citizenship taken away from them if they have a dual citizenship.

As members know, dual citizenship is not limited to a few people in this country. There are many Canadians who have dual citizenship, and—

The House resumed from February 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Bill C-24—Time Allocation Motion

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the minister that Bill C-24 is not on solid constitutional footing. It could run into challenges regarding section 15, in particular, and section 11 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Does he realize that?

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the minister. I am sure he knows he was mistaken when he said that we had debated this bill for 36 hours. I would like to remind him that Bill C-24 was debated for just a few hours by just five members: a Liberal, a New Democrat and three Conservatives, if I remember correctly. If I am wrong about that, he can set the record straight.

That means that only five out of 308 MPs, or just 2%, have been able to speak to this bill. That means that 2% of Canadians have been able to express their views on a very important bill about the basic tenets of Canadian citizenship.

I would therefore like to ask the minister a simple question: what percentage of Canadians would have to have an opportunity to speak to this bill for the debate to be democratic?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the second reading stage of the Bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-24 opens a Pandora's box. It will give foreign courts the right to put the citizenship of Canadians in jeopardy, with no legislative guarantee that the process is fair. For example, how can the minister justify to members of Canada's Tamil community that their citizenship would be in jeopardy if they were found guilty in a Sri Lankan court?

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague that my intention here tonight is to give a very good explanation, as best as I can, to all colleagues in the chamber as to why I think it is important to put in these extra hours over the next few weeks.

There are a number of pieces of legislation that need to be looked at, and we will have an opportunity to look at them, properly debate them and, hopefully, pass them through the House. This way, we can get back to our constituents with a record of having done something for them, given the opportunity that we can do that by working additional hours.

I am referencing a couple of pieces of legislation today because I would like to impart to my hon. colleague opposite and all colleagues in the House the reasons for which I am convinced of the need to work the additional hours so that we can pass this legislation through. I am quite satisfied to work the additional hours. I appreciate your ruling on that matter.

I was speaking about Bill C-24. In fact, once enacted, the changes outlined in that particular act would mean that processing times will be shortened to less than one year. For example, with absolutely no changes and with no economic action plan funding, processing times would escalate to an unacceptable 35 months within two years. I am sure that the hon. member who made the intervention, and all members of the House, do not want to deal with this issue with their constituents, knowing that they could have done something about it and did not in an expeditious manner. It is important that we enact this legislation now, or as soon as possible, so that Canada's citizenship backlog can be eliminated by 2015-16, allowing for just-in-time processing of applications.

It would also provide a way to recognize the important contributions of those who served Canada in uniform. Once passed, Bill C-24 would allow permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces to have quicker access to Canadian citizenship. Many residents in my riding were unaware of the current rules regarding obtaining Canadian citizenship. When I explained it to them, they wanted to know why we had not done it sooner. They want it done very quickly, and I do not want to go back there, knowing that I had an opportunity to stand up in the House and represent them, and say, “We decided that, as parliamentarians, we do not want to work the additional hours from now until the end of the session to provide those things that I had been asked for and continue to be asked for”. That is why I am speaking to the specific advantages of getting this work done as quickly as possible and processed through the House.

Residents in Richmond Hill were surprised to learn that under the current rules, there is no requirement to be physically present in Canada while obtaining citizenship, and that residency alone for three out of four years was enough. They support imposing a minimum requirement of 183 days of physical presence in Canada. They support being here for four out of the last six years. In fact, we heard witnesses testify in committee, without getting into the specifics of the bill, that they believe that four out of six years is actually not enough. Some of them thought that.

Our peer countries have stricter and longer residency requirements in order to be eligible for citizenship. We must strengthen the value of our citizenship in order to compete on the world stage. We have the opportunity to do that within the next couple of weeks if we put in these extra hours. I hope that all members of the House will support it.

Many of my constituents were also surprised to learn that under existing rules, there is no requirement to file an income tax return to be eligible for a grant of citizenship. They agree with the proposed changes in the new act that would require applicants to file Canadian income taxes to be eligible for citizenship. Again, all Canadians have to complete their income tax return on an annual basis. It should be a no-brainer for anyone seeking to have the same privileges as all Canadians to have the requirement to do that as well. Canadians want that passed as soon as possible through the House.

We know that knowledge of one of Canada's official languages is a key determinant in the successful integration of new Canadians. There are changes in the new legislation that would give stronger language tools to prospective new Canadians. We believe that this would help with their integration into the country and provide more potential for successful outcomes.

I see that I have five minutes left. I will move on.

As of October 2013, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was investigating several large-scale cases of residence fraud involving more than 3,000 Canadian citizens and 5,000 permanent residents. There were also reports that nearly 2,000 individuals linked to these investigations have withdrawn their citizenship applications. We can see there is a litany of reasons why we need to put in legislation that will strengthen Canadian citizenship. Then we will be able to go back to our constituents, hopefully after the spring session, and say we did something about all of those things that they talk to us about every single day.

There are many other pieces of important legislation that I can speak about today, but there is one in particular that is of personal interest to me that was recently introduced in the House called the justice for animals in service act, more popularly known as Quanto's law.

This legislation would ensure that those who harm law enforcement, service, and Canadian Armed Forces animals, face serious consequences for their actions. It recognizes the special role that these animals play in protecting our communities and improving the quality of life for Canadians.

This legislation honours Quanto, a police dog who was stabbed to death while helping to apprehend a fleeing suspect in Edmonton, Alberta, in October of last year. It also pays tribute to other animals that have lost their lives in the line of duty such as Toronto Police Service horse Brigadier.

This is legislation the police services across the country have been asking for for many years. That piece of legislation is before the House. The minister has already introduced it. How nice would it be for all of us to go back to our ridings, meet with the police chiefs, meet police officers, meet officers working with horse and canine units and tell them that finally we did something? We worked extra hours to make sure that we were able to deliver to our police services who use police animals as tools to keep our communities safer. We did something about it.

That will go a long way, not only for members of the governing party, but for all members from every party in the House. We are doing something that is correct. It is the right thing to do. It is responding to our first responders. The police services have been asking for this many years.

Mr. Speaker, I am asking that you let me know when I have a minute left so I can conclude my comments—

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I waited five minutes before doing so. It seems to me that, during that five-minute period, the member was talking about Bill C-24 even though the debate is on Motion No. 10. I would like to know if he will get to the topic at hand, which is Motion No. 10, not Bill C-24.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to speak to the motion to extend the sitting hours of the House for the remainder of the spring session.

I would like to begin my remarks by saying that three years ago I was privileged to be elected by the wonderful residents of the great town of Richmond Hill as their member of Parliament. I made a commitment at that time to work hard on their behalf and represent their interests to the best of my ability. I promised to be diligent in my duties, to fulfill my responsibilities as their member of Parliament and to make Canada's laws by debating and voting on bills in an active, hard-working and orderly way. That commitment made three years ago remains my sole purpose each and every day as I enter this place.

I am sure my colleagues on both sides of the House also come here with that most noble of purpose. I have no doubt about that. It is this core responsibility that I will be directing the balance of my remarks toward, our obligation as legislators to make Canada's laws for the betterment of our constituents and, indeed, for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

The job of a member of Parliament is an unusual one. There are no set defined hours. It is, indeed, definitely not a nine to five job, for the business of the country takes place 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. Our obligations do not always wait for a time that is convenient because world events do not pause and families cannot put their most urgent affairs on hold. All of us are sent here by those in our respective ridings who have put their faith in each and every one of us to do the right thing at the right time. Sometimes the right thing is working extra hours, as we have been asked to do here today.

I cannot imagine any of us going back to our constituents and telling them that we are not prepared to put in extra time and that all the improvements to make our communities safer will have to wait, or telling businessmen, businesswomen and businesses in our ridings counting on tax relief so they can invest in innovation or new hires that they will have to put their expansion plans on hold for a while, or telling the handlers of police dogs that give 110% in protecting our homes and neighbourhoods that they will have to wait before we get around to protecting their faithful and most trusted companions.

I cannot imagine telling the residents of my riding, who are waiting to receive their citizenship, that I am sorry, but we just did not get around to making the changes to help them receive their Canadian citizenships faster, or telling Canadians who have been asking the government to better protect the value of Canadian citizenship that they will have to wait a bit longer until we are ready. I am not prepared to have these conversations back in my constituency this summer and I hope all of my colleagues in the chamber feel the same way.

I would like to provide a couple of examples of important legislation that I believe we will have an opportunity to address over the coming weeks before we recess for the summer. I want to elaborate on those a little.

As I mentioned, Canadians, including those with multi-generational roots in our great country and those who are new to our land, have been asking for a comprehensive reform of our Citizenship Act. The act has not changed in almost four decades, and we all know that the dynamic in Canada certainly has over those four decades.

This legislation would protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it. In February of this year, we all heard from Canada's citizenship and immigration minister, who responded to the request for such legislation by introducing the strengthening Canadian citizenship act.

This legislation would create a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it. Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, proposes to streamline Canada's citizenship program by reducing the decision-making process from three steps to one. It is very important that we work extra hours to ensure that we are able to assist those who are in that queue by giving them their citizenship that they deserve, in as expedient manner as possible. If passed, and hopefully we will pass this legislation, it is expected that by 2015 and 2016 this change would bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under one year. It is also projected in the same timeframe to reduce the current backlog by more than 80%. When I see members sitting here every single day, I know that back in their constituencies, in our multicultural mosaic that we call Canada, this is an important issue that they hear about every single day.

Additionally, citizenship application fees would be better aligned with the actual cost of processing, thereby relieving the burden on Canadian taxpayers who currently subsidize the majority of the costs. That is only fair to the taxpayer and fair to all involved in the process.

More importantly, Bill C-24 would reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship. To ensure that citizenship applicants maintain strong ties to Canada, proposed changes to the act would provide a clear indication that the residence period to qualify for citizenship in fact requires a physical presence in Canada. It would also ensure that more applicants meet language requirements and are better prepared to fully participate in Canadian society, in their new country. As we have heard in our pre-study on the topic, language abilities allow for integration and better potential for success in Canadian society.

I am very proud that this legislation would finally act on lost Canadians who were born before 1947 by automatically extending citizenship to these individuals who obviously have strong ties to Canada.

Improving the integrity of Canada's citizenship process is one important element of the strengthening Canadian citizenship act and it is very important that we all work very hard and agree to work these extra hours so that we can provide some of the benefits as fast as possible back to Canadians and new Canadians.

The second important element is that it would shorten processing times. In fact, once enacted—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what an odd debate. I listened with interest to the speech by the hon. member for Burlington. He is the chair of the committee and I am the vice-chair.

I found some of his statements peculiar. The fundamental problem with the motion presently before the House is not the fact of staying until midnight. The NDP team has a reputation for hard work. Anyone who wants to entertain themselves by visiting my Facebook page would see that the people of Gatineau are actually advising me to slow down because they are worried about my health. Perhaps they are right, considering the flu I have at the moment. We in the NDP work very hard. A number of bills, for example, are before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, so that they can be debated in the House or in committee. It is not the work we are afraid of.

The cat is out of the bag. There are issues that our Conservative friends want to talk about, and they want to speak about them at length. Had I been asked, I would have said—before they even rose to speak—that I expected to see a great many Conservatives rise to speak in the House about Bill C-32. Why? Because it is an opportunity for the Conservatives to give Canadians the impression that they have been dealing with this issue—and this issue alone—for weeks, months and even years. They are the ones who stand up for victims. We are all deadbeats and have washed our hands of the problem. That is not true, though. Now, when workers’ rights were at stake, the Conservatives wanted to cut debate short.

The member said that nine bills had been passed and that he is embarrassed to return to Burlington. What I would say to him is that he is absolutely right to be embarrassed; the Conservatives did nothing with their majority aside from getting nine bills passed, and they had to resort to time allocation motions to ram the bills through. There is something not quite right with this government. The Conservatives are averse to debate. They do not like hearing opinions that do not coincide with their own. When the Conservatives too often hear something they disagree with, a red light suddenly goes on. We have had to debate many a time allocation motion. I do not know how many times I have taken part in debates in the House or how many speeches I have made expressing my dissatisfaction with the fact that we have been stripped of our right to speak.

The Conservatives made mention of Bill C-13. I am fortunate to be the NDP justice critic and to have had the opportunity to voice my opinion regarding this omnibus bill, right after the minister spoke. This is no small bill; on the contrary, it is approximately 50 pages long and has an impact on numerous other pieces of legislation. It does address the issue of cyberbullying, as the government likes to point out, but it goes much farther, so far that the committee is being flooded with requests for meetings. We hear all manner of experts warning us to be careful. That is what is missing in the House.

The Senate is referred to as a chamber of sober second thought, but we were not elected to this place in order to abdicate our duty to think. Members have a responsibility to be present in the House to voice and stand up for the opinions of their constituents. Canadians expect us to go about our work in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, to take the time to properly analyze bills. I am in favour of debating this bill in the House and referring it to committee for further consideration. More often than not, bills are analyzed at lightening speed.

The Conservatives will say that the House was given an opportunity to debate Bill C-13, the bill on cyberbullying, and thank God, especially given the time allocation motion that was foisted upon us so as to ram the bill through to committee.

Suddenly, things became urgent. Why urgent after the death of Rehtaeh Parsons, and yet not after the death of Amanda Todd? That was a question a witness asked us. The notion that the government would somehow need to act urgently does not really cut it with me; these things are more politically driven than they are concrete. It is a bit worrisome.

Bill C-13 is large and contains a number of disturbing provisions. When considered alongside the remarks made by the Conservative committee members, it leads me to believe that the Conservatives will not be very receptive to the many amendments proposed by expert witnesses. If past events are any indication, I am not very optimistic. Still, I am an optimistic woman by nature.

In light of this, I have trouble believing it when the government tells us, hand on heart, that its goal is to work harder. Working harder, for a Conservative, does not necessarily mean working more effectively and harder. It simply means that members end up working until midnight in order to discuss all the bills before the House, including those bills that have not been studied for an eternity.

For example, there is Bill C-2 on safe injection sites; Bill C-3 on marine transportation; Bill C-6, which implements the Convention on Cluster Munitions; Bill C-8 on counterfeit products; and Bill C-10 on contraband tobacco, which we finished studying in committee such a long time ago that I will have to reread all my material. Indeed, since then, we have studied so many other topics that I have almost had enough time to forget all about it. We will resume studying this bill at report stage. We could have covered it a long time ago. I have been waiting for some time for this stage to be completed in the House. Everything will have to be done over. It is a colossal waste of time for everyone concerned. There is also Bill C-11 on the hiring of injured veterans. If there is a category of people in our society who have huge needs, it certainly is our veterans.

Suddenly, the Conservatives are going to try and push all this through at once. The member for Burlington has done the math when it comes to the number of hours, and the government is going to try and give us a few hours for each bill. Then the government turns around and calls itself a champion of hard work. Well done, champion.

There is also Bill C-17, Vanessa’s law, about drug safety, an extremely important bill that must be debated; Bill C-18, concerning farm regulations; and Bill C-20, concerning the Canada-Honduras agreement, which is at report stage. I no longer even remember when I gave my last speech on that subject. It has already been a heck of a long time. The Conservatives have been in no rush, but all of a sudden, they are in a rush.

We will examine Bill C-21, concerning red tape for small businesses. The junior Minister of Tourism is travelling all over Canada to talk about the importance of eliminating red tape everywhere, while this bill is stuck in some office or other. It could have been debated a long time ago.

There is Bill C-22, concerning oil, gas and nuclear liability, and Bill C-24, concerning the Citizenship Act. These are bills that are announced to us with great fanfare at big press conferences, but then they stagnate and we do not see them again.

There is Bill C-26, about sexual predators. I expected that one would move quickly, because the Conservatives told us we had to work on this issue quickly. There is also Bill C-27, about hiring veterans in the public service. It is extremely important, I repeat, because it concerns a category of people in our society who have needs that are just as important.

Then there is Bill C-32, about the victims bill of rights. I think it is the reason why this government’s Motion No. 10 has no credibility at all. For a full year, I was treated to one press conference after another. If it was not the Prime Minister, it was the Minister of Justice with his senator from the other side. They told us they were going to work very hard, listen, set up panels and do everything we could wish for, and then they brought forth a charter that was denounced by many people, starting with victims, because they expected a lot more. That may be why the Conservatives kept their charter hidden for some time.

Apart from the minister, one Liberal and myself, no one has yet spoken on this subject. I am going to make a wager with my colleagues in the House. I expect there will be a time allocation motion on this. The Conservatives are going to rend their garments and plead that it is urgent, that it is extremely important and that it must be passed immediately, or the opposite will happen, because they will want to talk to us about it for hours on end. It becomes part of their narrative.

Every Conservative member wants to go back to their riding and have their householder and the excerpt from their speech in the House, which they made to show that they are protecting victims’ rights.

In the NDP, we want to talk about important issues and show that we could do even better than Bill C-32, specifically by amending it. We want to talk about the proposals made by the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. In fact, Bill C-32 does not contain a large percentage of her recommendations. A balance has to be struck. For every Conservative who speaks, the New Democrats will also speak.

When we want to talk about something, it is not important. That is the message we constantly get in the House, and, perhaps because we are approaching the end of the session, it is becoming extremely annoying, to put it mildly and stay within the bounds of parliamentary language.

It is appalling to see that people who are elected to represent the residents of their riding are silenced as often as we are by this government. We get told they are not interested. I have also heard the member for Burlington say—and I am going to talk to him about it again, in fact, at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—that sometimes we just need to go and read because members all read pretty much the same thing.

If the people of Gatineau think the same thing as the people of Laval, I think it is important that this be pointed out. Who has more right than whom to speak in the House on a particular bill? There is something indecent about wanting to constantly silence people.

Sometimes, I tell the members opposite that they should stop imposing time allocation motions and motions to get things done, as they like to say. I very much liked the expression my colleague used yesterday, when he talked about motions that are “a licence for laziness”.

This is unpleasant. If they had taken the time spent on debating those motions and instead used the time to finish the debate on the bill that they were trying to stop from being debated, we would probably have finished. The fact is that not all members in the NDP caucus or the Liberal Party or the Green Party or whatever colour you like necessarily wish to speak.

However, if the government limits the speaking time of a single member who wishes to speak, we cannot claim to be living in a democratic system. That is what is known as the tyranny of the majority. I believe we have to stand up against that, loud and clear. Every time that happens here, we are going to speak out against it, in every way possible.

We are told that we could perhaps go faster. I listened to the Minister of Foreign Affairs say that, and what he said made sense, in some respects. The way that Manitoba and the NDP government operate makes sense. Those consensus-based approaches make sense.

Quebec managed to pass a bill on a very sensitive issue, end-of-life care, with the agreement of all parties. There was an election, and the members all agreed to reinstate the bill once the election was over. That is being discussed.

The problem here is that the people on the Conservative benches are not talking to the opposition parties. All they talk about is strategies. We keep wondering who is going to pull a fast one on us. They use roundabout tactics such as counting how many MPs are in the House, catching them off guard, and forcing a party leader to go testify before a committee. This is unprecedented—and they say they are democratic.

Then the Conservatives get all offended when we say that Motion No. 10 is total nonsense. This is not about giving us more time. This is about taking all of the bills—there are more on the agenda than have already been passed, and that took much longer than the amount of time we have between now and June 20—and making us think they are giving us more time. They are not giving us a thing. I do not believe in Conservative gifts, and nobody in Canada should believe in any Conservative gift whatsoever.

The truth is that the Conservatives are going to shove their agenda down our throats because they could not get through it in a mature, parliamentary, by-the-rules way. They could have said that the House leaders would discuss it and try to see if some of the bills were more palatable or if we could agree to pass some of them more quickly. Then the real committee work could have started.

It is true, for Bill C-13, we had a lot of witnesses. However, I am not yet ready to give a seal of approval to the government in power, indicating that the bill has been studied in depth, because we still have the entire amendment stage. I believe that what the other side wants to accept is under so much remote control that the committee is not really doing the work. Instead, the higher-ups are dictating to our colleagues opposite what they have to do, while at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we are trying to bring out the best in the bill.

I have not even mentioned the upcoming Bill C-35, dealing with service animals. Bill S-2 deals with statutory instruments and may not seem like much. However, it is a very significant bill that is going to change an entire way of doing things in terms of regulations. We know that regulations have an impact on the everyday lives of our fellow Canadians in all kinds of areas: the environment, transportation, health and what have you. This is a real concern. I bet that we will analyze it very quickly. That concerns me.

The fact that we are extending our hours until midnight does not encourage any belief on my part that we will be having constructive debates followed by more productive work in committee. That is why the Conservatives have this problem with credibility. We are not the only ones saying so. When their measures are challenged in court, the Conservatives get slammed.

I will take a deep breath and take a little time to say that perhaps we should review our way of doing things. Our friends in the House may not know this, but the bill on prostitution may well be coming our way next week. We hear whispering in the corridors that the government wants the bill passed. It is huge, though, since it comes as a response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision. Everyone in the House knows that passing the bill will not be easy because there are people on all sides of that issue. I would bet that we are going to have just a few hours of debate before they pitch it—to put it very nicely—to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We can expect a hot and heavy summer on that one.

Extending the sitting hours until midnight just to work harder is one more tactic that is just like their time allocation motions, closure motions and any other kind of motion they can think of. It is part of the Conservatives' bag of undemocratic tricks. They will force these tricks on the House, but not on themselves, as ministers. Based on how the motion is written, I think it will be quite humourous. It will be interesting to see how many of them will be here in the House to happily participate in the debates on all the topics I mentioned, instead of at a cocktail party. That is why it is extremely important that we amend this motion.

Seconded by the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “place” and substituting the following:

(b) when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply, Private Members’ Business, or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57,

(i) before 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at that day’s sitting,

(ii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at the next day’s sitting,

(iii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until 6:30 p.m. on the following Monday.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the time.

I want to speak about why it is important we do this. I have been here eight years. Every year we get a calendar printed in the fall that indicates with little stars the days we can have extended hours. Extended hours are not new. This year, I will admit, that we are doing extended hours about a week prior to when it normally would have happened. It is a normal process, a normal way of doing business in this House that I have experienced eight times.

My understanding is it was the process prior to that. In fact, there were years in the past when extended hours took place in the evenings throughout the year, not just at the end of the session. However, things have changed and this is a normal way of proceeding so we can get some of the work done we need to do.

We have added approximately 20 hours of opportunity for debate per week. That is 20 hours, so 40 members of Parliament could make 20-minute speeches with 10 minutes of questions and comments. Often people split their time. Technically we could get as many as 40 people of the 308, or whatever there is, of us at this particular time. There are byelections going. That would be 40 more opportunities to get up and say what the constituents we represent feel about a particular issue or about a particular bill.

We often get complaints that there is not enough time and that more members from whatever party in the opposition want to speak. This motion provides that opportunity for them to speak.

I would be the first to agree that likely at 11:30 p.m. there would not be a lot of people in the House. Some people would have said their piece and are not interested in talking about whatever issue is before the House, but there is opportunity for other members of Parliament to say their piece. That is what extended hours do. They provide opportunity for as many as 40 members a week. If we do it for three weeks, that is 120 more spots, so almost half the House would be able to speak in those extended hours.

That does not mean we are not meeting during the day, that we are still not opening at 10 and having debate all day long with a break for question period, routine proceedings, and private members' hour. All that opportunity is still there.

We are not limiting debate. We are increasing debate. It is important, in my view. We need to do this. When I go back to my constituency and tell the folks at the local riding association that we passed nine bills, people say to me, “That's it? What did you do the rest of the time?”

I did research on how many hours we spend on this. I think there is a better way of doing it more efficiently and effectively, and I may speak to that. We need to use our time efficiently and effectively to get changes made. Of the 18 bills that we have standing, a lot of them have not even got to committee yet, so all we need to do is move them on to committee.

Our committee right now is dealing with Bill C-13. We have had excellent panels come before us to talk about that bill. We have two more weeks of analyzing that bill, and I think it is an excellent demonstration of why it is important to get things out of the House. Each party has its say, a number of members put on the record their position and what they would like to see changed or why they support the bill, and then it goes to committee for a real discussion with debate. I think we should be doing that much faster, and maybe even providing more time for that at committee, but that does not work with the process we have here.

We are going to debate a private member's bill later tonight that talks about some changes in how we operate. It was brought forward by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. There is some real opportunity for further change. Many of us spend hours and hours having staff members change our schedules because we have to get coverage for this and we are here and we have to give a speech at committee meetings, so we have to have someone cover us here. I do not know what it is like on the opposition benches, but I know what it is like on our side of the House.

There should be a review of how we operate here. Maybe we should have all our committee meetings in the morning with the House not sitting in the morning. Members would not be missing coverage or House duty because House duty would not start. Maybe we should do that. Maybe we should start debate on different items after question period. Maybe we should have all the votes after question period. I know this motion does that, but if we were a corporation we would not be operating this way. It is not efficient. It is not effective and it does not produce results as the smart people in the chamber could do.

My suggestion is that the House leaders from all sides look at why we need to bring the system of how we operate into the 20th century, maybe even the 21st century. It has been a traditional way of doing things. I think it is time to look at all those issues.

People will ask why we need to extend. As chair of the justice committee I will give one perfect example of why we need this time. The Minister of Justice introduced the victims bill of rights, a very important bill to the House. Tonight we will start debating that issue even further. In this case, there are many members of Parliament who would like to speak to the bill because it would make some fundamental changes to how we treat victims of crime in this country. It is appropriate that it is on the agenda for this evening and it gives us an opportunity for many more members to speak to it because we have extended the hours.

I would like to see the bill go to committee. It is still at second reading. I fully understand why so many members would like to speak to it. Extended hours provide that opportunity to do. Then I hope it will come to a vote before we rise for the summer. That would provide the justice committee with an opportunity to get ready over the summer for this very important bill, to make sure we invite the right number of witnesses. A relatively large list of people would like to come and talk on what could be improved, what they like about the bill. I do not know if people understand there are only nine weeks in the fall session between September until we leave at Christmastime. Nine weeks is not a lot of time. It does not provide much opportunity for members to speak to this fundamental bill.

We also will deal with Bill C-24 this week. Many members in the House would like to speak to strengthening the Citizenship Act. There are some fundamental changes in it. If we do not get it done and sent to committee before we leave, we basically will have to start over again in September. People now are engaged in the topic and understand what is going on. There is debate in the House and then the summer comes. Members go back and work in their ridings all summer and they have to get geared up again when they come back here.

I think it is important that we get that bill through, and there are a number of other bills. The opposition finance critic is at committee tonight dealing with the implementation bill, which is a significant bill. There is a lot of discussion about what is happening with that.

We need to be able to move forward, and there is nothing wrong with working late. I heard from the leader of the Green Party and the previous speaker. I do not think there is a lot of opposition to working late on these particular items because it does provide opportunity.

We have heard a little on who can bring forward certain motions, and the opposition is not happy about that. However, the whole concept of adding hours is to make the place a little more efficient and not bogged down with procedural motions, because that is what slows us down here.

There is a place for procedure. As chair of the justice committee, I understand that there needs to be procedure and it can move efficiently and effectively. Those rules are in place for a purpose, and I believe they have a role to play here, but we need to move forward.

There are nine bills, and to be frank about it, there are 18 bills still on the order paper from the government now. We have nine weeks in the fall and then we come to the last session before we break in 2015, and we know we will not be coming back before an election. We do not have a lot of time left from the government's perspective to get the legislation through the House, through the Senate, to royal assent, and into law. Once it becomes law, it then takes time to implement.

In Ontario, I talk to a grade 5 civics class and a grade 10 civics class. They ask how long it takes to get a law through. I am honest with them. I tell them that the reality is it takes at least a year. Some bills are a little faster than others, but in a normal process, from the start when a minister introduces it in the House to royal assent, it is approximately a year. Then, it depends on what kind of law it is, but let us say it is on the Criminal Code, it takes a while for it to get implemented. Also, there are often regulations in other areas that have to be added before it actually comes into force. It is a slow process to begin with.

With the process we have here, in my view, as a city councillor who advocated for the council to go from 17 to 7 for improved efficiency and effectiveness of the councillors, I think we can do a much better job here in the House of Commons for efficiency and effectiveness. We need to look at that in the future, but in the meantime, extended hours help us get our legislation through this House.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 20, 2014:

(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, except that it shall be 10 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;

(b) subject to paragraph (d), when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday;

(c) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1);

(d) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is demanded, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(e) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(f) a recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);

(g) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);

(h) no dilatory motion may be proposed, except by a Minister of the Crown, after 6:30 p.m.; and

(i) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the twentieth sitting day after the interruption.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the government's motion proposing that we work a little bit of overtime over the next few weeks in the House.

I have the pleasure of serving in my fourth year as the government House leader during the 41st Parliament. That is, of course, on top of another 22 months during a previous Parliament, though some days it feels like I am just getting started since our government continues to implement an ambitious agenda that focuses on the priorities of Canadians. We still have much to do, and that is the basis for Motion No. 10, which we are debating today. Regardless of what other theories that folks might come up with, our objective is simple: to deliver results for Canadians, results on things Canadians want to see from their government.

As government House leader, I have worked to have the House operate in a productive, orderly, and hard-working fashion. Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf. We agree, and that is exactly what has happened here in the House of Commons. However, do not take my word for it. Let us look at the facts.

In the previous session of the 41st Parliament, 61 government bills received royal assent and are now law. In 2013 alone, which was a shorter parliamentary year than normal, the government had a record-breaking year with 40 bills becoming law, more than any other calendar year since we took office, breaking our previous record of 37 new laws in 2007 when I also had the honour to be the leader of the House. That is the record of a hard-working, orderly, and productive Parliament. With more than a year left in this Parliament, the House has accomplished so much already, handing many bills over to the Senate for the final steps in the legislative process.

Just as we had a record year for legislative output, Canadian grain farmers experienced a bumper crop with a record yield in 2013. Understanding the real challenges faced by grain farmers, our government acted quickly on Bill C-30, the fair rail for grain farmers act, moving the bill through three readings and a committee study before handing it over to the Senate. This bill would support economic growth by ensuring that grain is able to get to market quickly and efficiently. The House also passed Bill C-23, the fair elections act, which would ensure that everyday citizens are in charge of democracy, ensuring the integrity of our electoral system and putting rule breakers out of business.

Two supply bills received royal assent, thereby ensuring that the government has the money it needs to continue providing services to the people.

When we passed Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act, we fulfilled our promise to protect the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation's enrolment process, making it fair and equitable while ensuring that only eligible individuals will be granted membership.

Earlier this spring, royal assent was also given to Bill C-16, the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation Governance Act, making the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation the first self-governing nation on the prairies and the 34th aboriginal community in Canada to achieve self-governance.

Next on the agenda is Bill C-34, the Tla'amin Final Agreement Act, which will implement the agreement with the Tla'amin Nation. Bill C-34 will give the Tla'amin increased control over their own affairs. They will have ownership of their land and resources and will be able to create new investment opportunities and make decisions determining their economic future.

We considered and passed through all stages of Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act, which will enhance safety standards for workers in Canada’s Atlantic offshore oil and gas industry to protect Canadians and the environment while supporting jobs and growth.

Bill C-14, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, became law just a few weeks ago. This act will ensure that public safety should be the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

Also, this spring, our government passed Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act, which honoured our government's commitment to giving northerners greater control over their resources and decision-making and completing devolution all before the agreed-upon implementation date of April 1, as well as Bill C-9, the First Nations Elections Act, which supports the Government of Canada's commitment to provide all Canadians with strong, accountable, and transparent government. Bill C-9 provides a robust election framework, improves the capacity of first nations to select leadership, build prosperous communities, and improve economic development in their communities.

However, despite these many accomplishments, there is more work to be done yet before we return to our constituencies for the summer, let alone before we seek the privilege of representing our constituents in the 42nd Parliament.

During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity.

It is worth saying that again. During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth, and long-term prosperity. That continues. Through three years and four budgets since the 2012 budget, we have passed initiatives that have helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Canadians, as part of the one million net new jobs since the global economic downturn. We have achieved this record while also ensuring that Canada's debt burden is the lowest in the G7 and we are on track to balance the budget in 2015.

As part of our efforts to build on this strong track record, our government has put forward this motion today. Motion No. 10 is simple. It is straightforward. It would extend the hours of the House to sit from Monday through Thursday. Instead of finishing the day around 6:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., the House would, instead, sit until midnight. This would give us an additional 20 hours each week to debate important bills. Of course, the hours on Friday would not change.

Extended sitting hours is something that happens practically every June. Our government just wants to roll up its sleeves and work a little harder a bit earlier this year.

Productivity is not just a function of time invested, but also of efficiency. To that end, our motion would allow most votes to be deferred, automatically, until the end of question period to allow for all hon. members' schedules to be a bit more orderly.

Last year, we saw the New Democrats profess to be willing to work hard. Then, mere hours later, after the sun would go down and people were not watching, what would the NDP do? It would suggest we pack it in early and move adjournment, without any accomplishment to show for it.

In order to keep our focus on delivering results and not gamesmanship, we are suggesting that we use our extra evening hours to get something done, not to play idle, unproductive games. We are interested in working hard and being productive, and doing so in an orderly fashion. That is the extent of what Motion No. 10 would do. Members on this side of the House are willing to work a few extra hours to deliver real results for Canadians. What results are we seeking? Bills on which we want to see progress, that are of great significance to Canadians, are worth spending a little extra time to see them considered and, ideally, passed.

Of course, we have the important matter of passing Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014, No. 1. This bill implements our government’s budget—a low tax plan for jobs, growth and a stronger Canadian economy. It is also an essential tool in placing the government on track to balanced budgets, starting in 2015.

We have a number of bills that continue to build on the work we have done in support of victims of crime. Bill C-13, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, is another essential piece of legislation that will crack down on cyberbullies and online threats by giving law enforcement officials the tools necessary to investigate and tackle these crimes. We are taking clear action to combat cyberbullying and I ask the opposition to join us in this pursuit.

Every day in Canada, our most vulnerable—our children—are the victims of sexual abuse. This is truly unacceptable and as a society we must do our part to better protect our youth. With Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, we are doing our part.

Our government's comprehensive legislation will better protect children from a range of sexual offences, including child pornography, while making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on the predators who hurt, abuse, and exploit our children.

Therefore, I ask the opposition to work with us, support this important piece of legislation by supporting this motion.

It is also important that we move forward with one of the most recent additions to our roster of other tackling crime legislation. Last month, we introduced Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, which will give victims of crime a more efficient and more effective voice in the criminal justice system. It seeks to create clear statutory rights at the federal level for victims of crime, for the first time in Canada's history. The legislation would establish rights to information, protection, participation, and restitution, and ensure a complaint process is in place for breaches of those rights on the part of victims. It would protect victims, and help to rebalance the justice system to give victims their rightful place. I hope we can debate this bill tomorrow night. By passing Motion No. 10, we will make that possible.

Our efforts to protect families and communities also extend to keeping contraband tobacco off our streets, so that the cheap baggies of illegal cigarettes do not lure children into the dangers of smoking. Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, would combat this by establishing mandatory jail time for repeat offenders trafficking in contraband. Aside from protecting Canadian children from the health hazards of smoking, it will also address the more general problems with trafficking and contraband tobacco propelled by organized crime roots. With luck, I hope we can pass this bill on Friday.

Just before the constituency week, the Prime Minister announced Quanto's law. Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act, would pose stiffer penalties on anyone who kills or injures a law enforcement, military, or service animal. I know that the hon. member for Richmond Hill, having previously introduced a private member's bill on the subject, will be keen to see the extra time used to debate and pass this bill at second reading before we head back to our constituencies.

Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act, could also have a chance for some debate time if we pass Motion No. 10. This particular bill will tackle drug use and trade in the federal penitentiaries to make the correctional system a safer place, particularly for staff, but also for inmates, while also increasing the potential for success and rehabilitation of those inmates. As a former public safety minister, I can say that this is indeed an important initiative.

Delivering these results for Canadians is worth working a few extra hours each week. Our clear and steady focus on the strength of our Canadian economy does not simply apply to our budgets. We will also work hard next week to bring the Canada-Honduras free trade agreement into law. Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, would enhance provisions on cross-border trading services, investment, and government procurement between our two countries. It would also immediately benefit key sectors in the Canadian economy, by providing enhanced market access for beef, pork, potato products, vegetable oils, and grain products.

As a former trade minister, I can say first-hand that this government understands that trade and investment are the twin engines of the global economy that lead to more growth, the creation of good jobs, and greater prosperity. Trade is particularly important for a country like Canada, one that is relatively small yet stands tall in terms of its relationship and ability to export and trade with the rest of the world. If we are to enjoy that prosperity in the future, it is only through expanding free trade and seizing those opportunities that we can look forward to that kind of long-term prosperity.

Through Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act, we are providing further support to Canada's agriculture producers. This bill would modernize nine statues that regulate Canada's agriculture sector to bring them in line with modern science and technology, innovation, and international practices within the agriculture industry. The act will strengthen and safeguard Canada's agriculture sector by providing farmers with greater access to new crop varieties, enhancing both trade opportunities and the safety of agriculture products, and contributing to Canada's overall economic growth.

As the House knows, our government has made the interests of farmers a very important priority. We recognize that since Canada was born, our farmers in our agriculture sector have been key to Canada's economic success. As a result, Bill C-18 will be debated this afternoon. It would be nice to have the bill passed at second reading before the summer, so that the agriculture committee can harvest stakeholder opinion this autumn.

Over the next few weeks, with the co-operation and support of the opposition parties, we will hopefully work to make progress on other important initiatives.

My good friend, the President of the Treasury Board, will be happy to know that these extra hours would mean that I can find some time to debate Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act. This important bill should not be underestimated. It would enshrine into law our government's one-for-one rule, a successful system-wide control on regulatory red tape that affects Canadian employers. Treasury Board already takes seriously the practice of opining that rule, but we want to heighten its importance and ensure that it is binding on governments in the future. We want to ensure that Canadians do not face unreasonable red tape when they are simply trying to make a better living for themselves, and creating jobs and economic growth in their communities.

Another important government initiative sets out to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. For the first time in more than 35 years, our government is taking action to update the Citizenship Act. Through Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, we are proposing stronger rules around access to Canadian citizenship to underline its true value and ensure that new Canadians are better prepared for full participation in Canadian life. This legislation will be called for debate on Wednesday.

The health and safety of Canadians is something that our government believes is worthy of some extra time and further hard work in the House of Commons.

Tomorrow evening, we will debate Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act. Under Vanessa's law, as we have called it, we are proposing steps to protect Canadian families and children from unsafe medicines. Among other actions, the bill would enable the government to recall unsafe drugs, require stronger surveillance, provide the courts with discretion to impose stronger fines if violations were intentionally caused, and compel drug companies to do further testing on a product. In general, the bill would make sure that the interests of individual Canadians are looked out for and become a major priority when it comes to dealing with new medications and drugs.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, would modernize safety and security for Canada's offshore and nuclear energy industries, thereby ensuring a world-class regulatory system, and strengthening safety and environmental protections. This legislation, at second reading, will be debated on Thursday.

Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act, could pass at third reading under the extended hours, so that we can secure these important updates and improvements to transportation law in Canada.

We could also pass the prohibiting cluster munitions act. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained at committee, the Government of Canada is committed to ridding the world of cluster munitions. Bill C-6 is an important step in that direction, but it is just the beginning of our work. Extending the relevant elements of the Oslo Convention into domestic law would allow Canada to join the growing list of countries that share that same goal. I hope members of all parties will support us in this worthy objective.

By supporting today's motion, the opposition would also be showing support for Canada's veterans. The extra hours would allow us to make progress on Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act. The measures included in this legislation would create new opportunities for men and women who have served their country to continue working for Canadians through the federal public service. As a nation, we have a responsibility to ensure that veterans have access to a broad range of programs and services to help them achieve new success after their time in uniform is complete. This initiative would do exactly that.

Of course, a quick reading of today's order paper would show that there are still more bills before the House of Commons for consideration and passage. I could go on and on, literally, since I have unlimited time to speak this afternoon, but I will not. Suffice it to say that we have a bold, ambitious, and important legislative agenda to implement. All of these measures are important, and they will improve the lives of Canadians. Each merits consideration and hard work on our part. Canadians expect each one of us to come to Ottawa to work hard, to vote on bills, to make decisions, and to get things done on their behalf.

I hope that opposition parties will be willing to support this reasonable plan and let it come to a vote. I am sure that members opposite would not be interested in going back to their constituents to say that they voted against working a little overtime before the House rises for the summer.

I commend this motion to the House and encourage all hon. members to vote for adding a few hours to our day to continue the work of our productive, orderly, and hard-working Parliament, and deliver real results for Canadians.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let me start by sharing a couple of sentiments with my friend.

First, on this side of the House—speaking for myself at least, and many others, including the Prime Minister—we congratulate the Montreal Canadiens on their success and wish them all the best in the next round, where I am optimistic Canadians will have much to look forward to.

Second, I have to agree with the member about the fact that what we saw today was a preview of what we would see if the NDP were ever to win government. We saw a grilling where the highlight was the question of NDP corruption and abuse of taxpayers' dollars. That is what we could expect to see if the NDP were ever to become government, and because Canadians know that, we will never have to fear it happening.

That abuse of taxpayers' funds goes beyond the question of breaking rules and not following rules. It goes to the whole NDP philosophy that taxpayers' money is there for them, they should get more of it, and they should spend it in every way possible. That is what the NDP is all about.

We in the Conservative Party, on the other hand, have an approach that is focused on a productive, hard-working, and orderly Parliament that respects taxpayers' dollars. As a result, we will continue with our agenda.

I will note the highlight today from the NDP. The NDP was defending itself on charges of improper spending and improperly using taxpayers' dollars for partisan activity. The member did not point out that the NDP's positive agenda was what they were proposing today in the House of Commons on one of the rare days when NDP members actually get to put forward their own policy proposals. It is funny how he says, “That is not the highlight”. I agree with him, because when they do get in power, they will have very little to advocate for.

That said, we on this side do follow the rules, and the rules require that we continue with the NDP opposition day motion for the balance of the day.

Tomorrow we will start the second reading debate of Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, before we return to our constituencies for a week.

Upon our return we will roll up our sleeves and work hard for Canadians in the final sittings until the summer.

On Monday, May 26, we will consider Bill C-18, which is the agricultural growth act.

On Tuesday, May 27, we will resume the second reading debate on Vanessa's law, Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act.

That will be followed by Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act at second reading.

The next day will see us continue our productive, hard-working, and orderly agenda by returning to the second reading debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship act. As hon. members might recall, the New Democrats proposed a second reading amendment to block the passage of this important bill.

On Thursday, May 29, we will continue the second reading debate on Bill C-22, the Energy Safety and Security Act. After that debate concludes, we will consider Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, at report stage. Finally, we will consider Bill C-10, the Tackling Contraband Tobacco Act, at report stage and third reading on Friday, May 30.

As you can see, Mr. Speaker, we still have a lot of work ahead of us this spring.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this government has introduced Bill C-24, which would strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship by fast-tracking it for the Canadian Armed Forces and revoking it from convicted terrorists. However, the Liberals and the NDP continue to oppose revoking the citizenship of convicted terrorists.

The Liberals and NDP either fail to understand the bill or are intentionally misleading Canadians by saying that there is not enough due process for convicted terrorists before their citizenship is revoked. We all know that anyone charged with terrorism in Canada is innocent until proven guilty and that they have the right to appeal up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

According to a national poll, 80% of NDP voters, 87% of Liberal voters and 83% of those who immigrated to Canada support stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists.

I ask the opposition Liberals and NDP to stop playing dangerous games and support this measure in Bill C-24.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Considering the fact that the House has not actually requested that the citizenship and immigration committee study this bill, the bill isn't before us.... This is not officially a pre-study. What we're actually looking at is the subject matter of a bill, and that's not a regular procedure.

A lot of the civil society groups would normally be paying attention to what's happening in the House of Commons, and if there's a bill that's being directed to a committee, they would contact us as members of the committee, or the clerk as a person who helps make this happen. They didn't know we were studying this topic, and now that they know this subject matter is being studied, we've had many people and organizations sending us requests to appear before this committee. I have received many emails from Julie, our clerk, about people requesting to appear before the committee. I know that even the UNHCR, the UN High Commissioner, was mentioning he would have loved to have been invited to come and speak and didn't get an opportunity.

Now it's too late for us to invite more witnesses to appear. I think such a study of what's going to be changing so much with respect to people's rights in this country is very important, and if the UN High Commissioner for Refugees wants to make a presentation and appear before this committee, we should at least be able to entertain that. As well, last week we had some witnesses who came but then lost their opportunity to speak before the committee.

For all those reasons—I can go on longer but I don't want to, because I want to move forward—I'm asking for three more hours to have more witnesses come before the committee. That's my motion.

While I have the floor, I have a question for the clerk, the chair, or the analyst, I'm not sure who: have we given instructions to the analyst about a report on the study we're doing right now on the subject matter of Bill C-24? I'm not sure, so I wanted to ask that question.

Thank you.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It reads: that, notwithstanding the motion of the committee of Tuesday, April 1, 2014, the committee schedule three hours to hear witnesses on the subject matter of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

That is the wording of the motion, and I'd like to motivate it, Madam Chair. Considering the fact that we are currently looking at the subject matter of Bill C-24 outside of the regular procedure of how we do things around here, considering the fact that this bill hasn't been—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Pagtakhan, I'm going to interrupt you, because I only have less than two minutes left at this point and we're not talking about the subject matter before us, which is the subject matter of Bill C-24. You're talking about the revocation of permanent residency rather than citizenship at this point.

While I still have the floor, Madam Chair, I'd like to move a motion.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to change gears now and go to revocation. Citizenship revocation seems to be the topic of the day today.

Mr. Pagtakhan, you mentioned that revocation—I'm paraphrasing, and I'm sorry if I use the wrong word—is good or that you're fine with it as long as the Canadian courts are deciding this. It was along those lines.

The subject matter in Bill C-24 actually gives the minister the discretion to revoke somebody's citizenship without a hearing before an independent tribunal. It also gives broad powers to the minister to strip Canadians of their Canadian citizenship, including those who were born in Canada and if they have a claim to citizenship in another country. I'm reading from notes that were given to us by another witness, who is also an immigration lawyer.

Examples of people who could have their citizenship stripped are Canadian-born children with Chinese, U.S., British, or Italian parents, because they automatically have dual citizenship, and also Jewish Canadian citizens who have the right to return to Israel and claim Israeli citizenship. Even though they are born in Canada, these people are not naturalized Canadians; they are born Canadian.

We're creating two tiers of citizenship. We're creating naturalized Canadians and born-in-Canada Canadians, but then some of those born-in-Canada Canadians can also have their citizenship revoked by a minister, who is an elected person, not a judge, and not through the courts.

I think my opinions on this don't matter. I want to know what your opinions are, Mr. Pagtakhan first, because you're an immigration lawyer.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

We are resuming the meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We are still studying the subject matter of Bill C-24.

During the second hour, we are hearing from two witnesses.

With us as an individual is Mr. Reis Pagtakhan, immigration lawyer.

Thank you for being with us.

We are also hearing from, by live videoconference from Montreal, Quebec, Jonathan Chodjai, Chair of the Governing Council of Immigrant Québec.

Thank you for your participation.

We will begin with Mr. Pagtakhan, who will have up to eight minutes to deliver his opening statement. We will then continue with our second witness.

Mr. Pagtakhan, go ahead.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Gupta.

Ms. Siddiqui, now I'm going to ask you something on the same line, on the provisions in Bill C-24 that would revoke the citizenship of a convicted terrorist who had chosen to seek the destruction of Canada and Canadian values.

When you testified on my private member's bill, Bill C-425, on March 26 last year, you said, “We cannot be politically correct in everything and it's not about political correctness, because at the end of the day, by being politically correct we are not doing service to the immigrants who have come here and are working in an honest manner.”

I would like you to expand a little on the impact homegrown terrorism has on the vast majority of honest, hard-working immigrants who share our values and who come to Canada seeking a better life and seeking to make Canada even a better place.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Currently under Bill C-24 the minister will decide many revocation cases. Given the magnitude of these decisions, I think it's critical that they be made with due diligence and impartiality. I have trouble with the minister deciding that, so I think a better course would be for a court case or the judiciary deciding and looking at all the facts before we deport somebody from this county.

You talked about increasing the time from three years to four years. As you know, we have many students who come into this country. They are in school at universities. They are attending university for three or four years. Yet when they decide to become permanent residents, they may have been in this country for four or five years, and the government as it currently stands does not take into account the time that has been spent by those students here up to the time they get their permanent residency. Do you think we should be including that time that students have been in this country as part of the criteria to recognize the four years?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I want to touch a little bit on the revocation aspects in Bill C-24.

I'll go back to you, Madam Siddiqui, with this. Do you think it's important to send a message to these terrorists who are Canadian citizens that their actions will not be tolerated and will be seen for what they clearly are, a violent renunciation of their loyalty to Canada and their citizenship?

Let's keep in mind, of course, that these are dual citizens who have another citizenship, and they also have all of the benefits of that other citizenship. So while they have the benefits of the other citizenship, here they are in this country perpetrating—this is who this would affect—an act of terror or an act of treason against Canada or our Canadian troops.

Can you comment on that?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to say a special thank you to our witnesses for being here with us today, and for coming back to this committee. I know you've appeared in front of us before.

Mr. Gupta, for me, born and raised in Montreal and growing up in this country, June 23 was always the last day of school. It was a day when kids were happy. We were all excited that it was the end of the school year. There we were, going into the summer, which was, for me and my family and my friends, generally a happy time. All of that changed, of course, on June 23, 1985, on that very bleak Sunday. I'm sure it was a lot bleaker for those families who were directly affected by the tragic and heinous crimes that took away so many lives, including, as you said, sir, 86 children and 29 families.

I want to thank you for sharing your personal story here with us today and for the courage you've shown in bringing up your boys and building a new life, if you will, moving forward but never forgetting, of course, the impact that the tragic event had in your family. I have to tell you that your being here so many years later, talking about it with such passion, is not only commendable but very inspiring to see. Thank you for being here and for appearing before us today.

I have to say, Madam Siddiqui, that your description in your presentation today of your story as an immigrant to this country is pretty well my mother's story and my father's story. Many of us on this committee can identify with the families who came here for a better life, always respecting and never forgetting the language, the traditions, and the culture of where they came from, but so appreciative of all the great things this great nation has to offer. I thank you for sharing your story with us today.

When Minister Alexander appeared before us on Bill C-24, the minister said that in his deliberations across the country, he was hearing uniformly from Canadians, those born here and those who immigrated here, in many instances new citizens, that the residency requirement and all of the measures to back up the integrity of Canadian citizenship, to make sure that the rules are followed for obtaining Canadian citizenship, are the right moves for today. That's generally what he heard going across the country and continues to hear, as do I and many other folks on this committee. But as we've been told, it's not only important to come up with a bill; it's also important that we enforce these rules and we make sure that the value of citizenship is enhanced.

I'll start with you, Madam Siddiqui. Can you tell me what you are hearing about this bill from Canadians, specifically from members of your organization?

[Salma Siddiqui]

We have heard stories of Canadians being involved in terrorist activities at different hot spots throughout the world. Some have killed and others have trained—as my colleague just before me mentioned—and are training with known terrorist groups and continue to plot attacks against our interests and those of our allies.

Then there are the “Canadians” who, after obtaining their Canadian citizenship, have departed to fight alongside the al-Shabaab jihadis. Others used their Canadian citizenship to fight in Afghanistan, while yet others have their citizenship and have stayed here to undermine Canada.

Indeed, it is an affront to our men and women in uniform who serve to protect Canadian values around the world that they should have to confront violence perpetrated by opportunistic and disloyal Canadians. The flow of young Canadians to terrorist training camps around the world is indeed a matter of concern. We cannot allow this to continue.

Canadians who are opposed to the values of our society should not be allowed to abuse the privileges that come with holding Canadian citizenship. We must act to strip Canadian citizenship from those who seek to exploit it for violent and illegal activities.

I am strongly of the view that immigration from failed state countries, where money can buy fresh identities, birth certificates, and genuine university degrees, along with police clearance security certificates, must be suspended while we ensure that terrorists, white-collar criminals, and hate-mongers do not contaminate our soil in Canada.

I have heard concerns that Bill C-24 represents a knee-jerk reaction or that it serves a—quote—political process. I disagree. Bill C-24 represents an assertion of the pride we hold in our values of an open, liberal democracy, where our freedoms are applied to all. Ladies and gentlemen, we must be reasonable.

In closing, I would like to thank you for your time and would ask that you support the passage of Bill C-24. It is an essential step in all of us taking a stand.

[Dr. Bal Gupta, Chair, Air India 182 Victims Families Association]

I thank the committee for giving us an opportunity to testify.

From the perspective of victims impacted directly by the most heinous violent crime in Canadian history, namely the terrorist bombing of Air India flight 182 on June 23, 1985, Air India 182 Victims Families Association strongly supports two provisions of Bill C-24. I will talk about only two provisions.

The first provision reduces the residence requirement for Canadian citizenship by one year for permanent residents who serve in the Canadian Forces. The second provision strips Canadian citizenship from those dual citizens who engage in acts of terrorism or engage in armed conflict with Canada. These provisions, if enacted into law, will on the one hand encourage, acknowledge, and support those who put themselves on the front lines for Canada to protect our freedom and democracy, and on the other hand act as a deterrent against those Canadians who violently demonstrate their opposition to our freedom and democracy by engaging in acts of terrorism or acts of war against Canada.

I speak to you not as an expert in legal or constitutional matters but as a victim of the worst violent terrorist crime in Canada. In the AI-182 tragedy I lost my wife, Ramwati Gupta, to whom, at the time, I had been married for over 20 years. In a tragic moment, I was left a single parent, with two young sons aged 12 and 18.

The AI-182 tragedy was a result of a terrorist conspiracy conceived and executed on Canadian soil by criminals who brought their problems from India into Canada. The terrorist bombing of AI-182 killed 329 innocent persons. Most victims were Canadians, coming from every province except P.E.I. Others came from many states in India and the U.S.A. They came from almost all religious backgrounds, from atheism to Zoroastrianism.

Eighty-six victims were children under 12 years of age. Twenty-nine families, including husband, wife, and all children, were wiped out. Thirty-two persons were left alone; the other spouse and all children were gone. Seven parents lost all their children.Two children, around 10 years of age, lost both parents.

The terrorist criminals took away our Canadian democratic rights to life, liberty, peace, and prosperity. Sadly, even today, the real culprits are still roaming free in Canada and elsewhere.

As families of the victims of the terrorist bombing of AI-182, we have suffered and continue to suffer incalculable grief and pain, which we do not wish to befall any other Canadian due to future violent criminal or terrorist acts. Part of our mission is to speak out on crime, violence, and/or terrorism issues to ensure that our country is safer and more secure for its citizens.

One provision in the bill proposes to reduce the residence requirement for Canadian citizenship by one year for permanent residents who serve in the Canadian Forces. In the last few years our forces have been on duty in Afghanistan, Jerusalem, Egypt, Mali, and the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast. The Canadian Forces are not an occupying force. They are either working as peacekeepers or fighting on the front lines against terrorism and other violent crimes, like piracy on the seas, which fuel terrorism and lawlessness.

These overseas criminals and terrorists do not hesitate to export terrorism to Canada or to lure and embrace misguided Canadians into their causes. Thus, our soldiers on the front lines are defending our freedom, democracy, and democratic values and rights. This provision in Bill C-24 acknowledges, encourages, and supports the loyalty of those permanent citizens who have joined the Canadian Armed Forces and have put themselves on the front lines for Canada.

Another provision in the bill strips Canadian citizenship from those Canadians with dual citizenship who engage in acts of terrorism or in armed conflict with Canada. Such persons demonstrate clearly that they have no loyalty whatsoever to Canada and no value for the Canadian democratic system. Thus, they do not deserve Canadian citizenship, which they are using as a matter of convenience to further their criminal and terrorist activities.

A Canadian citizen engaging in acts of terrorism and/or war against the Canadian Forces is not a far-fetched scenario. Today, terrorism is an international phenomena, and the terrorists, in most cases, may have worldwide connections. The proven cases of Khawaja in Canada and the millennium bomber in the U.S.A. are well-known examples of Canadians connected to terrorist activities outside of Canada.

Also, in the last few years, there have been many reports of highly indoctrinated persons from different parts of Canada leaving our soil to join terrorist training camps or terrorist activities in other countries. I will give you some examples: two Canadians involved in the terrorist attack on a gas plant in Algeria; a Canadian sentenced to two years in prison for terrorist conspiracy in Mauritania; a Canadian with dual citizenship involved in a deadly bus bombing in Bulgaria in the summer of 2012; CSIS being aware of dozens of Canadians, “many in their early twenties, who have travelled or attempted to travel” overseas to engage in terrorism activities in recent years; a Canadian's lost bid to lead Syria's rebels; and one of Syria's rebel groups, the al-Nusra Front, formally pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri.

There are probably many more unreported cases of Canadians involved in terrorist activities around the world. Given the appropriate right or wrong circumstances, such individuals may engage in acts of war against Canadian Forces on duty abroad and may pose a potentially mortal threat and danger to our soldiers. This provision for revoking Canadian citizenship in Bill C-24 provides a deterrent against such a probability.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

We are resuming the 27th meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Is everyone ready? Yes?

We are continuing our study of the subject matter of Bill C-24.

I'd like to thank our two witnesses for accepting the invitation and contributing to this study. We have with us the chair of the Air India 182 Victims Families Association, Mr. Bal Gupta.

It's nice to see you.

From the Coalition of Progressive Canadian Muslim Organizations is Madam Salma Siddiqui, who is the president.

Thank you.

You each have up to eight minutes for your opening remarks.

Mr. Gupta, you have the floor.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're right. As I look around this room I see five MPs who are from other countries, and at least two who are first generation, born here to immigrant parents, as I was, and I know as Mr. Menegakis was.

I thank you, Mr. Attia, for your comments at the front end about the transparency of this public debate and this process, because that's what this committee is all about, to be able to kick around this bill and find areas where we can strengthen it. It's always been the case that we're willing to do that, and that's why these things come to committee.

I hear you loud and clear about language. I grew up in a Polish community in Toronto, and there were people, quite frankly, who lived in those communities for 30 years or longer who didn't speak a word of English, or barely any. They managed because they spoke the language at the church, at the bank, at the local stores, and so forth.

Anyhow it was very important. That made an impact on me. I recognized that from growing up because it made people's lives very difficult. They were very limited in how they could integrate into Canadian society, and what they could achieve, and in some cases what their kids could achieve because the parents weren't well versed in being able to instruct them or to provide.

By the way my parents came in the late forties. They had the two-year contract. When you got here, first you were given a job. You weren't allowed to go wherever you wanted. You had to work very hard for those sorts of things. That's very important.

Mr. Attia, you wrote a letter to the National Post conveying your support for the minister, who at the time was Jason Kenney, for cracking down on immigration fraud. Of course as we know Bill C-24 aims to crack down on citizenship fraud.

Immigrants and their families here work very hard. We know that. As Mr. Menegakis said, we allow in more immigrants historically than anybody else ever has. They do come with values of honesty, integrity, and wanting to get ahead, and of course they appreciate the cost of all of that.

In terms of the residency requirement, do you believe spending a certain amount of time, in this case four years out of six, in Canada is too much? I preface that by saying we often use European models as a model for Canada, but many of those European models have much longer residency requirements than we do.

I'd ask you to comment on that.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for appearing here today.

Before I ask some questions, for the benefit of all of us, I want to set the record straight on this pre-PR time, so that everyone knows that only 15% of applicants use their non-PR time for their application.

Mr. Attia, I will ask some questions of you.

I am an immigrant to Canada. I will be talking about what I experienced and what I can tell you is the key for success for immigrants, new Canadians. Based upon my own experiences, I can tell you, and I hear this from...I represent a multicultural riding with almost 26 ethnic groups. I hear day in and day out that the basic ability to communicate, in either English or French, which are our official languages, is the key for success, and also it is the key for successful integration into this society.

In Bill C-24, we are asking that high school-aged children, from 14 years old, and people of working age, up to 65 years of age, should complete a basic knowledge test in either English or French, of course.

My question is this. Do you believe and agree with me that language ability plays a vital role in the success newcomers have in integrating into our society successfully?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

We've heard from some critics of Bill C-24 about the whole issue of dual citizenship and revocation. Mr. Attia, is it reasonable for Canadians to expect that those who obtain Canadian citizenship not perform an act of terror or treason against our troops and our country?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

As you know, it's been some 37 years since the Citizenship Act has been examined, and on the fee side, it's been 20 years. With changes to Bill C-24 we're trying to make it quicker for people to obtain citizenship, but at the same time, balancing that with the integrity of citizenship.

It's not an easy thing that you come here and automatically get it. My parents came, I suspect like members of your family, and it was a five-year waiting period. It was one of the highlights of their lives when they obtained Canadian citizenship. In the new legislation, a change to the Citizenship Act that we're proposing, is that it become four of the last six years. We want to integrate people more into Canadian society so they can have a better opportunity to have successful outcomes once they are here.

We have to balance those two. Do you have any thoughts on where the majority of the balance should lie?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us today and for your testimonies.

First of all, I want to correct the record because I heard the words “cash grab” in the testimony, because the fees are going to be increased to $300. For your information, Mr. Farber, it costs us $550 to process a citizenship application. This will just be bringing it closer to what someone should be paying. When you compare it to our peer countries, in the United States, it's the equivalent of $669.48 Canadian. In the United Kingdom, it's $1,615.94 Canadian. In New Zealand, it's $433.64 Canadian, just to put things in perspective. It's asking citizenship applicants to bear more of the costs of what it actually costs for that application to come to the country.

Mr. Attia, recently there was an article in a Korean outlet about the importance of implementing Bill C-24 as soon as possible. The article explained that the sooner the bill gets passed, the sooner wait times will be reduced to under a year. We know that we here in Canada welcome a record number of immigrants and new citizens. We average better than a quarter of a million new immigrants per year and since 2006 we have welcomed over 1.4 million new Canadians. These are record numbers.

As a Conservative government we have the highest sustained level of immigration in Canadian history. Under the new decision-making model, citizenship cases will go from a three-step process to a one-step process.

Streamlining this application process to less than a year, how do you think this will affect immigrants and newcomers hoping to become Canadian citizens?

[Bernie M. Farber, Founding Member, Jewish Refugee Action Network (JRAN), As an Individual]

Good afternoon.

[The witness spoke in his language]

This is the diversity of our great country.

Good afternoon, members of the committee, and thank you for this opportunity to appear before you to speak on Bill C-24. My name is Bernie Farber, and beside me is my friend and colleague Mitchell Goldberg. We both bring varied experiences to this presentation, I as a human rights activist and now a semi-retired journalist, and Mitch as an immigration law expert, but we wish to speak to you today as members of the Jewish Refugee Action Network, JRAN.

For those who are not familiar with us, JRAN is a national organization and we bring individuals together from diverse backgrounds who are deeply concerned about the changes made in 2012 to Canada's refugee determination system and to refugee health care coverage. We are a Jewish initiative that invites multifaith, multicultural support, and we welcome the involvement of individuals throughout Canada.

The Jewish community, of course, has a deep connection to the refugee and immigration experience. From the Exodus and the experience of slavery in Egypt, to the shameful refusal by Canada to receive 900 Jewish refugees who managed to escape Germany in 1939 aboard the St. Louis, of which two-thirds were killed in Nazi concentration camps. But we also know from our experience and the experience of other communities that many refugees, when treated with fairness and compassion, go on to become contributing citizens. Both my parents were refugees, both of them fleeing anti-Semitism in countries of eastern Europe, and both of them coming here basically stateless, basically without a penny to their name, and making lives for themselves and for their children and for their grandchildren.

Citizenship must be something refugees aspire to as a reason for hope, many having overcome unimaginable trauma, as did my own parents. It is, therefore, only just for our federal government to ensure a reasonable path to citizenship for refugees.

That brings me to why we are here today. JRAN is deeply concerned that Bill C-24 will make citizenship not a rewarding end to their long and difficult journey, but an unreachable destination filled with roadblocks and diversions. Let me just give you a few examples.

Financial barriers—there are new and increased costs to becoming a citizen. The government is tripling the application fee, which will be added to the new cost imposed on applicants a year ago when the government privatized language testing. The price of applying for citizenship will now cost four times more than it did in 2006. The path to citizenship should not be a toll road. Tapping some of the most vulnerable among us for user fees is nothing more than a cash grab that is both unseemly and counterproductive.

Language barriers—Bill C-24 extends the difficult language testing process to include applicants aged 14 to 64, rather than 18 to 55 as it is presently. Consider this; children and grandparents will now be affected. This appears to be yet another barrier to citizenship made all the more difficult when you consider previous federal government cuts to language training programs for newcomers.

The bureaucratic barrier—under the proposed law, applicants for Canadian citizenship will now have to be permanent residents for four years, instead of three, before they can become citizens. In addition, accepted refugees to Canada will no longer receive credit for time spent in Canada as recognized refugees before they obtain permanent residence. These, my friends, we believe are arbitrary, unnecessary, and unjust wait times.

I will now invite my colleague Mitchell Goldberg to provide some more specific areas of concern.

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go, Clinic Director, Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic]

Thank you.

I'm the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, which is a non-profit community-based organization providing free legal services to Chinese and other Southeast Asian community members in Toronto. I would like to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to comment on this bill.

Citizenship defines who we are as a people and as a nation. For Chinese Canadians and many others who had historically been excluded from Canadian citizenship, citizenship is as much about equal respect as it is about a sense of belonging. To ensure we do not repeat the historical mistakes of injustice and exclusion, any change to Canada's Citizenship Act must be examined through the lens of equality and respect.

Under Bill C-24 the pathway to Canadian citizenship will become more restrictive and the avenue for the Canadian government to revoke citizenship will be widened. Furthermore, Bill C-24 will disproportionately exclude certain groups of immigrants from citizenship, most notably women, as well as immigrants from certain racialized communities. In the remainder of my time I will summarize why that is the case.

First, the bill proposes to increase the residency requirement from the current three over four, to four over six years, which will automatically increase the time it will take for someone to become a citizen. But more troubling, however, is the non-recognition of the time spent prior to obtaining permanent resident status. This change will negatively affect refugees. It will also affect live-in caregivers who are overwhelmingly women of colour and who have to endure years of exploitative working conditions just to acquire the permanent resident status. It may also affect women who enter Canada as sponsored spouses and are subject to the two-year conditional permanent resident requirement.

Second, not only is the new intent to reside provision unfair, as it only applies to people who are naturalized citizens, not people who are born in Canada, but it could lead to revocation of citizenship from Canadians who are deemed to have obtained their citizenship status by misrepresenting their intent to reside, even when they may have legitimate reasons to leave Canada, such as for employment reasons or family obligations. As well, this provision is potentially in breach of section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the mobility rights to all Canadian citizens, both native born and naturalized alike, as well as section 15 of the charter, the equality rights provision.

Third, the bill dramatically expands the group of individuals who have to meet the language and knowledge requirement in order to become citizens, without the use of an interpreter, from those between the ages of 18 and 54 to those between the ages of 14 and 64. This will have a serious impact on refugees, as well as new Canadians who come under the family class program, including sponsored women who came as a sponsored spouse, as well as parents and grandparents.

As I noted in my paper, the average age of parents and grandparents at the time of arrival is only 60, so a large majority will be affected by this rule. It will also have a disproportionate negative impact on immigrants from countries where English is not the first language, and the majority of those are racialized immigrants.

Fourth is the new ministerial power to strip citizenship from dual citizens based on foreign convictions of treason, terrorism, and the like. There are two main problems. First, it creates a two-tier citizenship status, separating those who have dual citizenship from those who do not. Second, this provision applies even if the convictions are handed down by countries that have questionable human rights records and don't obey the rule of law. Under this new rule, even Nelson Mandela could have been stripped of his honorary Canadian citizenship status because he was convicted of treason under the South African government during the apartheid era. As one of your previous witnesses pointed out, about 150,000 Canadians are dual citizens by birth; they too will be affected by this change.

The bill also finally proposes to replace the automatic right of appeal to the Federal Court with an application for judicial review with leave from the court. This will not only limit the access for applicants to challenge negative decisions, but more importantly, it will reduce judicial oversight of the ministerial exercise of power.

Along with a number of other changes, including the fee increase and the tougher language requirement, the passage of this bill will mean fewer immigrants can become citizens of Canada.

Apart from considering the fact that there will be more disenfranchised immigrants, we also need to examine what these changes could mean for Canada. The vast majority of Canadians embrace such fundamental values of an inclusive society, such as the principles of equality, rule of law, and democracy, which we all strive to achieve in part by ensuring that every person in Canada has equal access to the most important right of all, namely the right to become a citizen. Denying immigrants that right signals to them that they are not welcome in Canada.

It is in Canada's interest to allow more immigrants to become citizens. Newcomers who cannot become citizens will not see Canada as their home and will have second thoughts about whether they should put down their roots in this country, and both they and Canada will lose.

Rather than moving forward to becoming a more inclusive and equal society by making citizenship more accessible to all immigrants, Bill C-24 will take us back to the era of exclusion and discrimination by denying many immigrants the right to call Canada their home. Therefore we respectfully ask the committee to adopt the recommendations we have highlighted in our written submission, to reinforce the true value of Canadian citizenship while at the same time promoting the interests of Canada.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 26th meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Today, we are continuing our study of the subject matter of Bill C-24.

Thanks to our witnesses for being with us for this first hour of committee.

With us around the table we have, from Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, Madam Avvy Yao-Yao Go, clinic director. Welcome. From Immigrants for Canada we have Mr. Paul Attia, spokesperson. Welcome. As individuals who will share their time, we have Mr. Bernie M. Farber, founding member, Jewish Refugee Action Network , also known as JRAN, and Mr. Mitchell J. Goldberg, lawyer. Welcome.

We will start right now with the opening remarks.

Madam Yao-Yao Go, you have up to eight minutes. I give you the floor.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you very much.

Again, I'd like to apologize for the inconvenience caused by the time change in today's meeting.

To all of you ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your important contributions to our study on the subject matter of Bill C-24.

Meeting adjourned.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Well I think we agree on that, and I think the vast majority of Canadians would.

Our government takes immigration policy clearly very seriously. We've made a number of reforms to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in order to protect the safety and security of Canadians, obviously. We have welcomed a record number of immigrants and new citizens since 2006, over 1.4 million new citizens. Since the beginning of 2014, there have been 75,000.

How would you say Bill C-24 would support a newcomer's integration into the Canadian economy, and into communities, and to ensure that our new citizens have a stronger and deeper attachment to Canada?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Khan, welcome back, sir. It's nice to have you with us again.

You stated at the outset of your presentation to us today that, in principle, you and your organization support BillC-24. I wonder if I could ask, in your opinion, how Bill C-24 helps promote strong ties to Canada, core Canadian values, and attachment to Canada and Canadian citizenship.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

First of all, thank you for appearing before us today and for putting up with the very short timeframe we have, given that we had the vote in the House.

We've heard from some witnesses that a short visit and a short work period or study period are not same. I believe that came from the witnesses from Pre-PR Time Counts. In fact, not all who came here for different purposes stayed, and we know that. But 87%, basically, use their permanent residency time to meet their citizenship requirements.

So, Mr. Bissett, my first question is to you. I'd like to hear your comments about the flexibility that Bill C-24 provides by giving a six-year period in which somebody can complete a four-year residency requirement to become Canadian citizens. Can you comment on that, please?

[Maria Smirnoff, Representative, Pre-PR Time Counts]

Second, by eliminating the pre-PR time provision, the new legislation actually favours immigrants without prior Canadian experience. Let me explain this by giving a simple example. Imagine two individuals who receive their permanent residency today. One of the persons has been in Canada for over five years. He graduated from a Canadian university, works for a Canadian firm, and has been fully participating in Canadian society. Another person just arrived in Canada today and received permanent residence at a point of entry. For him Canada is a new country where he does not have any social or economic investment.

Currently, the first person will be eligible to apply for citizenship in just two years from today; the second person in three years. With Bill C-24, both individuals will have to wait at least four years before applying for citizenship, so the individual with the Canadian experience is no more advantaged than someone who just arrived in Canada today. To summarize, Bill C-24 will increase wait time for someone with Canadian experience by two years and only by one year for someone without previous Canadian experience.

Bills that change the playing field equally for all groups are not objectionable. Bills that take away something valuable from one group and not others are the types of bills we need to look more closely at. Therefore we ask, how does the elimination of counting of pre-PR time help strengthen ties to Canada for someone who has lived here for five or ten years? Or how and precisely by how much will the processing time be reduced by eliminating pre-PR time counting?

Our third point is that the elimination of the pre-PR clause puts Canada at a relative disadvantage as an immigrant-accepting country relative to its peers like Australia, U.K., Germany, and others. These countries recognize that former students and temporary foreign workers are the best candidates for future citizens, and those countries allow them to count temporary residence time one for one towards their citizenship application. For example, Australia allows three years of pre-permanent residency time, four years in the U.K., and eight years in Germany.

In conclusion, we ask that the committee make the following recommendations to the government so that the government can achieve its vision of a strengthened Canadian citizenship. We ask the government to implement a transition period for the coming into force of the new residency requirement. This has been a common practice in other Commonwealth countries that undergo a citizenship law reform, for example Australia and New Zealand. We also ask that the government continue to recognize temporary residence time one for one based on practices of other peer countries.

In making these recommendations, we ask the committee to be judicial and to recognize we have lived here, worked here, studied, and paid taxes here. We chose Canada to be our home long ago, and in doing so we have had the opportunity to fully Canadianize ourselves, which is arguably the most important element of consideration when the granting of Canadian citizenship is considered.

Thank you.

[Prof. Elke Winter]

Yes, okay. I have my third point, and then I'm complete.

Regarding those who aim to commit terrorist attacks against Canada, is it doubtful that the proposed law contains anything that would deter them from their actions? Research suggests that perpetrators seldom refrain from heinous crimes due to drastic penalties, not even the death penalty.

Further, the discourse of fear and the raising of suspicion against dual nationals have detrimental impacts upon some communities, particularly upon Muslim and Arab Canadians. With a team of researchers at the University of Ottawa, we're currently investigating the public debates that were kick-started by the honourable MP Devinder Shory's Bill C-425. While our investigation is ongoing, I can already tell you that it led to numerous rants against Muslims in Canada in the print media, online fora, and social media. Bill C-24 extends and amplifies these negative stereotypes.

I will conclude here and send you my notes.

[Professor Elke Winter, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I am going to give my presentation in English, but you can obviously ask me your questions in French.

Thank you for inviting me and for giving me the opportunity to speak to you about Bill C-24.

In my testimony I would like to offer you a sociological perspective based on past and ongoing research. I will start with three statements that are widely accepted in academic scholarship.

First, immigration is a fundamental element of Canadian nation building, and Canada is widely regarded as having practised this type of nation building with great success.

Second, the Canadian immigration system is to a large extent driven by economic considerations. Canada practices what former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called with much envy—

“ immigration choisie et non plus subie”

—meaning Canada selects a large part of its migrants according to rational economic criteria.

Third, economic migration and nation building only go well together if the harsh, utilitarian selection of migrants is complemented by a warm welcome. In this sense, multiculturalism as a policy, discourse, and form of national identity has done its fair share of signalling this warm welcome to immigrants. The encouragement of immigrants to quickly take up Canadian citizenship extends this welcome. Research has shown that holding citizenship of the country where one resides is a huge factor for achieving employment at one's skill level. There's also evidence that citizenship fosters feelings of belonging. If I'm not mistaken, these are all elements that the Canadian government wants to achieve.

Some elements of Bill C-24 risk undermining Canada's success in nation building. Citizenship should always be viewed as an important step toward integration. By contrast, Bill C-24 seems to suggest that citizenship is an end point, a reward of integration.

From a sociological point of view, this approach has at least three flaws. First, for the less educated, the non-European language speakers, and the economically vulnerable, it makes citizenship much harder to obtain. The more difficult citizenship tests and stricter language rules create barriers, specifically for accompanying family members, often women. The new cumbersome residence questionnaire is particularly difficult to comply with for citizenship candidates who come from politically unstable countries, or from countries with less developed bureaucracies. Some may feel too discouraged to apply for Canadian citizenship due to high application fees and a need to submit income tax assessments.

Bill C-24 also limits credit toward the residence requirement for students, refugees, and former temporary workers. It thereby bars an increasing portion of migrants to Canada from having access to citizenship. This is not only ethically dubious, but also not conducive to nation building.

Second, for the highly skilled and highly mobile, the so-called “best brains in the world” that Canada wants to attract, Bill C-24 also prolongs and discourages the obtainment of citizenship. The longer residence periods may be too long for those who are highly mobile and are looking for a place to settle. Not being encouraged to become Canadian citizens quickly, they may opt to behave as rationally and in as utilitarian a manner as Canada did in selecting them; they must simply leave for a place where they can get better pay for their skills. This is counterproductive to successful nation building.

Those who are highly mobile and able to create offshore business opportunities are particularly penalized by the proposed physical residence requirement. Let us not forget, physical presence in a country is only a proxy for attachment, loyalty, and feelings of belonging. Hence it should be treated with flexibility and a sense of proportion, presumably by a citizenship judge.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you very much.

Once again, I'd like to thank our three witnesses for taking the time to contribute to our study on Bill C-24.

I would also like to thank all the committee members for their cooperation.

Meeting adjourned.

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

Only in the cases where a person is subject to revocation for misrepresenting or committing fraud in relation to acts done before acquiring citizenship, which are related to terrorism and national security, will a court be called upon to make a declaration that the person so engaged in those acts. It's not a trial. It's just that the court will be called upon to declare that those acts occurred.

Similarly, where the ground for revocation is serving in an armed force that is engaged in conflict against Canada—where that is the ground for revocation—there again a judge will be called upon to make a declaration that the person so served in an enemy force. But again, it's not a trial.

Let me just add something about that latter ground as well. Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts empowers the minister—

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

The provisions of Bill C-24 that permit revocation for what I will broadly talk of as crimes against citizenship, crimes committed while a citizen—terrorism, treason, and so on—are only applicable against people who are dual citizens, because to strip citizenship from a mono-citizen would create statelessness.

But what this means, of course, is that dual citizens are vulnerable to a kind of punishment that mono-citizen individuals are not. Yet in all other respects one would expect they are similarly situated. For example, there is no reason to think that an offence committed by somebody who is a dual citizen is any more severe, graver, or harsher, as it were, than a crime committed by somebody who is only a citizen of Canada, yet they are exposed to differential punishment. That's a kind of inequality that would breach section 15 of the charter and be very difficult to justify under section 1.

After all, whatever objectives one seeks to achieve through stripping citizenship, apparently you can't do it to people who are mono-citizens. So clearly, whatever the objectives are can't be so significant that you can't achieve them through other mechanisms of punishment. We have lots of ways of punishing people who are convicted of treason, terrorism, and other offences. We have a functioning criminal justice system. There is no reason to think that it is inadequate to deal with people who commit those offences, who also happen to be dual citizens.

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

Thank you.

I think I have mentioned most of the affected constitutional provisions. I will add only a couple. One is section 12 of the charter that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment or treatment. Now, in a line of U.S. constitutional cases culminating in a case called Afroyim v. Rusk, the United States effectively made it unconstitutional to strip U.S. citizens of their citizenship. In some of those cases, they relied on the U.S. equivalent of the prohibition on cruel and unusual treatment or punishment to do so. So that's one provision, again, one aspect of the charter violations here.

Another is the prohibition on retroactive punishment. We consider it unjust to punish somebody for an act that was not prohibited before the law was passed. So in this case, Bill C-24 would impose retroactive punishment on people who are convicted of the listed offences before section 24 came into effect. So it would also violate the charter prohibition on retroactive punishment.

In addition to that, section 11 of the charter also guarantees the right not to be punished twice for the same offence, so in the listed offences, what you have are convictions for terrorism, treason, etc., and punishments that are meted out in a court of law by an independent judge, like imprisonment, and then, supplementing that, ministerial discretion to add yet another punishment in the form of citizenship revocation and ultimately banishment.

So those are yet more charter violations that are imposed under the provisions of this bill.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Again, good afternoon, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

My first question would be to Madam Macklin.

Madam Macklin, you pointed out a number of cases where this Bill C-24 is not consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You mentioned section 15 of the charter. You mentioned other sections of the charter. Is there one section of this particular bill you haven't had a chance to talk about? Would you like to have a few minutes to talk about that?

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Agreed.

You made mention of immigrants. As I said before, I'm an immigrant. Immigrants have made great contributions to this country. I always say that Canada is built by immigrants. Some came thousands of years ago. Some maybe 500 years ago, and they will keep on coming. But you're right that we are talking about that small portion of people who like to have the right to be Canadian but no responsibility toward Canadian citizenship. That is the key here and that is very important to understand. Lately we see articles like the one from The Globe and Mail just this past February stating that CSIS is tracking 130 Canadians who have gone abroad to participate in extremist activities with known terrorist groups. It's not like they are there just by chance. They know what they are doing.

In your opinion, are we beginning to see an erosion in the value and prestige of the Canadian passport and Canadian citizenship? Do you think that Bill C-24 is on the right track to maintain Canada's reputation on the world stage, as well as to protect the safety of our own citizens?

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming to share their views with the committee, which will definitely help us in our study of Bill C-24.

I'll start with Ms. Basnicki.

Ms. Basnicki, I know that your life has been personally touched by terrorism and you have lived through it. I can tell you that no one in this room has the level of understanding of what terrorism is, what effect on one's life terrorism can have, as much as you do. That's very clear in my mind.

I'll also be talking about this revocation part of Bill C-24. When we talk about revocation, we are talking about that group of convicted terrorists who have done a heinous act against humanity. In my view, when we talk about Canadian passports, when we talk about Canadian citizenship, I always say this: I am an immigrant.

I immigrated to Canada only in 1989. I always say that any individual who has the opportunity to come and live in Canada has actually hit the jackpot. This is my belief. We must do everything to protect those values. That is that, in my personal belief—I have seen this.

Everybody knows that a Canadian passport is very highly regarded around the world. When I fill out that landing paper anywhere, when I write “Canadian”, it reminds me of the day when I talked to the CBSA guys for the first time, and I'm very thankful for that day and very thankful to this country. Very thankful to God as well.

Here we are talking about the reputation of Canada as a safe country and a law-abiding nation in the world. We see more and more Canadian passports being used to fly under the radar and commit terrorist acts abroad.

Could you give me your opinion on Bill C-24 and what it proposes to do to combat those actions and those individuals?

[Professor Audrey Macklin, Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and Executive Member, Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for inviting me to join you today via videoconference.

I am going to give my presentation in English.

I will take questions in English as well, but I look forward to the committee's inquiries.

I'm going to confine my presentation as well to the revocation provisions. Within that I will limit myself more narrowly to the legality of those provisions.

First, I'd like to clarify the provisions regarding revocation for fraud, misrepresentation, or concealment of material facts.

I understand that you have heard testimony from the minister that the inclusion of a condition requiring an applicant to intend to reside in Canada after citizenship is a provision that would not be applicable after obtaining citizenship. Perhaps the minister is there expressing the way he would desire or intend to use the law that is proposed, but I'd like to clarify that's not, in fact, how the law presently drafted is written.

What Bill C-24 does is take existing conditions for citizenship by naturalization. These are: that one reside in Canada for a certain length of time, that one pass language and knowledge of Canada tests, and that one have, broadly speaking, a clean record. The way these conditions work is that if they are not fulfilled or if an applicant conceals, misrepresents, or commits fraud with respect to any of those conditions, then citizenship obtained through that means can be revoked after the fact.

The proposed law adds a requirement that one intend to reside in Canada after acquiring naturalization to the conditions of citizenship acquisition. It follows from the structure of the provision that, if the minister takes the view that one committed fraud or misrepresentation or concealment of facts in one's intention to reside in Canada after citizenship acquisition, then the minister could, in principle, seek revocation for fraud or misrepresentation. Whether the minister chooses to do so or not, of course, is a matter of his discretion, but I'd like to insist here that the law, as presently drafted, does grant the minister power to seek revocation for an individual who, after obtaining citizenship, the minister believes did not honestly state his or her intention to reside in Canada after obtaining citizenship. So that's one clarification about the law and the legality.

Secondly, I'd like to turn to the constitutionality of the revocation provisions. Here I'm going to begin not with the revocation on grounds of fraud or misrepresentation, but the provisions that our two previous witnesses testified about, which is revocation for misconduct as a citizen; in other words, the use of citizenship revocation as punishment.

Here I think it is important to understand that we have a jurisprudence in Canada that deals with the constitutionality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of certain forms of punishment. The most relevant case for our purposes today is a case called Sauvé. In Sauvé we had a law that denied the right to vote to inmates of Canadian prisons serving more than two years. In other words, they were denied their constitutional rights under section 2 of the charter to vote for the period of time that they were prisoners.

This law was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada as a violation of section 2 of the charter that could not be justified under section 1 of the charter. I'd just like to reference a couple of parts of that judgment that are particularly relevant to considering revocation as punishment here.

Can you revoke somebody's citizenship in order to punish them for what we'll call crimes against citizenship? Let me draw to your attention what the Supreme Court of Canada said, because it goes directly to this claim that was made by the two other speakers about this idea of the social contract, this idea that it's a part of the social contract that people do not commit certain kinds of crime, and if they do, they have broken their part of the social contract, and it follows from that they could have their citizenship revoked from them.

Here's what the Supreme Court of Canada said about that kind of approach:

The social compact requires the citizen to obey the laws created by the democratic process. But it does not follow that failure to do so nullifies the citizen’s continued membership in the self-governing polity. Indeed, the remedy of imprisonment for a term rather than permanent exile implies our acceptance of continued membership in the social order.

In other words, the Supreme Court of Canada stated quite clearly that punishing somebody by depriving them of their constitutional rights, indeed, by denying them all constitutional rights and casting them out in the name of the social contract, is not constitutional. It isn't constitutional to deny somebody the right to vote, just in order to punish them. That's one right under the charter. It seems to follow that denying them of all constitutional rights, which is the effect of stripping someone of citizenship and exiling them from Canada, could not be constitutional either.

So it seemed to me that reading the Sauvé case provides a fairly complete answer to the constitutionality of banishment as a valid punishment under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But certainly if one wants to go further and consider other aspects of citizenship ratification under the charter, there are certainly other dimensions of it that also appear unconstitutional on their face. For example, it is required under section 11 of the charter that if somebody is going to face a penal consequence for their actions—in this case, punishment by citizenship revocation—they're entitled to certain procedural rights.

Those rights include, under section 11 of the charter, the presumption of innocence. In the present legislation, the presumption of innocence is violated in the following way. If the minister believes that the person is a dual citizen, and therefore exposed to the risk of denationalization through citizenship stripping, the minister puts the burden on the citizen to prove that he or she is not a citizen of another country, in other words, to prove a negative in order to escape the consequence of citizenship revocation. A reverse onus violates section 11 of the charter and has been found to be unconstitutional. Bill C-24 contains a reverse-onus provision.

The charter requires that before somebody is found guilty and sentenced to a crime and punished, that person be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Bill C-24 requires no such standard of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Our charter requires that if somebody is going to be punished, that they be tried in an open and fair trial before an independent and impartial tribunal. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration doesn't qualify as an independent and impartial tribunal. He's a government minister, not a judge.

[Sheryl Saperia, Director of Policy for Canada, Foundation for Defense of Democracies]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me here today.

I want to give credit; many of the ideas I'll be discussing today were formulated with my friend Danny Eisen, who's with the Canadian Coalition Against Terror. I just wanted to mention him by name.

My comments will focus exclusively on the provisions in Bill C-24 that deal with the revocation of citizenship for treason, terrorism, and armed conflict against Canada. As I have stated in previous testimony, I support these provisions conceptually. They amount to a 21st-century updating of the social contract that has always existed between Canada and its citizens. This contract, common to liberal democracies, broadly refers to the understanding that citizens consent to abide by certain obligations towards the state in exchange for other benefits. Bill C-24 suggests that Canadian citizenship, whether bestowed by birthright or naturalization, is predicated on a most basic commitment to the state: that citizens abstain from committing those offences considered most contrary to the national security interests of Canada.

Treason and armed conflict against Canada are actions clearly intended to damage the country as a national entity and political community. It is therefore fitting that one consequence of these crimes may be loss of citizenship to the country the offender seeks to harm.

What about terrorism? One could make a persuasive case that terrorism, as a unique crime—it’s not me saying this, it's the Canadian courts who call terrorism a unique crime—is so antithetical to Canadian values that anyone choosing to embrace such violence has effectively declared that his or her allegiance lays elsewhere.

Nonetheless, I personally would recommend that the bill stipulate a tighter connection between the crime and the consequence of losing one’s citizenship. Specifically, I suggest that revocation of citizenship for terrorism be triggered only by either terrorist offences in Canada or against a Canadian target elsewhere, or in association with a listed entity. Listed entities have been publicly designated by Canada as terrorist organizations, and in effect have become public enemies of the state. Working with a listed entity in the commission of a terrorist act is a clear statement of allegiance to forces acting to damage Canada.

The bill provides that revocation can stem not only from a domestic terrorism conviction with a sentence of five years or more, but also from a foreign conviction. When the conviction comes from a like-minded country with legal standards similar to Canada’s, this makes sense. But what about a country whose legal system we don't trust?

I understand from last week’s hearing that Minister Alexander envisions a two-step process in his ministerial discretion. The first step would be to examine the substance of the foreign offence and whether it is equivalent to a Canadian Criminal Code terrorist act. This is set out in the legislation. But the second step of the review, which was described as an examination of the fairness of the process by which the conviction was achieved, is not mentioned anywhere in the bill. I would recommend an amendment in this regard.

One option is for the minister’s two-part analysis, which was described by his officials last week, to be codified in the legislation—to be explicit, in other words—that both the substance of the act and the fairness of the conviction would be factors taken into account when deciding on a terrorism revocation case. Alternatively, revocation resulting from a foreign terrorism conviction could involve both a ministerial recommendation and court approval, which would take into account whether, for example, the conviction was politically motivated or the judge was truly independent.

The point is that a measure as severe as the revocation of citizenship needs to be drafted carefully to ensure conformity to Canadian laws and values and of course our international obligations. To that end, I do credit the bill for its consistency with the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Bill C-24 provides that if a person holds only Canadian citizenship, it is not possible for that citizenship to be revoked, regardless of the crime, because no person can be stateless.

However, this has opened up the argument that the bill unfairly creates two classes of citizens: those with dual or multiple nationalities, who are at risk of having their citizenship stripped, and those with only Canadian citizenship, who may be punished in a variety of ways but cannot lose their citizenship.

For dual nationals who have chosen that status, often because of personal connection to or benefit from more than one citizenship, this is simply not a compelling argument. Dual citizenship was not forced on them. They are not being subjected to discrimination as a result of any inherent trait. It is a choice they have made, just as they can choose to renounce their other citizenship so as to be solely Canadian and therefore not subject to these provisions.

But what about countries that do not permit renunciation of citizenship? If the government is reluctant to uphold the legal status of a citizenship that a person has unsuccessfully tried to renounce, the following could be considered as a solution.

When someone commits terrorism, treason, or armed conflict, and his or her other citizenship is from a country where renunciation is not allowed, the minister could use his discretion to assess the extent of what I've called “active relationship” to that citizenship. For instance, does the person maintain deep ties to that other country? Has he invoked any of the rights of that citizenship? Has he travelled with the passport of that country, or served in an official capacity only open to citizens? The more active the citizenship, the weaker would be any claim that it was forced on him.

I should note that while stripping away citizenship is one tool to deal with those convicted of the most serious crimes against Canada, preventive or disruptive action should be taken to prevent, in the first place, a situation leading to citizenship revocation. Counter-radicalization programs are essential, and I am heartened to hear that a federal program is set to be unveiled in the near future.

Stronger exit controls are another option. Ray Boisvert, who is a former assistant director of intelligence at CSIS, suggested last year, I believe, that:

There has to be an easy way to trigger a denial of a passport—or the removal of somebody's passport—if there is sufficient information to demonstrate this person has become highly radicalized and/or made threats, or done things to threaten lives or the welfare and well-being of others.

This could apply equally to sole and dual citizens, and unlike citizenship revocation, which is reactive, the removal of a passport might actually prevent Canadians from engaging in terrorism or armed conflict abroad. The RCMP's recently disclosed high-risk traveller case management system, which is intended “to prevent radicalized youths from leaving for conflict zones like Syria, Somalia and North Africa”, seems to employ just such a mechanism.

Western security agencies are concerned that their citizens are travelling to these countries to participate in jihad, gaining the skills and motives to pursue similar acts in their home countries. At least one study has found that terrorists with foreign experience are far more lethal, dangerous, and sophisticated than are purely domestic cells. If the citizenship revocation provisions in Bill C-24 help prevent bloodshed from being exported to or from Canada, they are worth parliamentary consideration. Let us remember that it took only 19 hijackers to perpetrate the 9/11 attacks.

I have one last comment. If this bill goes through, perhaps it should be accompanied by a change to the application for a Canadian passport. Anyone who is 16 years or older should be required to acknowledge on paper the terms of citizenship. The document would clarify to the applicant that engaging in treason, terrorism, or armed conflict with Canada entails the possible revocation of citizenship. It essentially becomes a contract, and if you break the terms of the agreement, you are subject to the penalties.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have.

I would like to once again thank the three witnesses for appearing before the committee to contribute to our study of Bill C-24.

I am now going to suspend the meeting and ask our next panel of witnesses to take their seats.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Your organization works with many cultural ethnic groups from various economic backgrounds. Do you think Bill C-24's proposed increase in time for residency requirements will affect citizenship applications equally?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

Madam Sadoway, I have a question for you. We've been raising concerns in the House and also in the committee with regard to the need for Canadians to be consulted on the proposed changes to Bill C-24. The last time significant changes to this act were made was in 1977. The government at that time published a white paper and there were wide consultations throughout the country, forums were held, and opinions were sought from Canadians across this country.

Increasing the residency requirement isn't necessarily a bad thing on paper, but that depends on what additional changes are made. I have a number of questions for you.

First, why should the increase in residency requirements as it currently stands in Bill C-24 be a concern to this committee and Canadians?

[Shimon Fogel, Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am pleased to appear before the committee today to discuss Bill C-24.

I'd like to begin by echoing the consensus surrounding the need to update the Citizenship Act and thank the government for taking on this important initiative.

We look forward to immigrants enjoying the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship quickly, efficiently and with greater integrity under a reformed legal framework.

Canadian citizenship is one of the most valuable and highly respected commodities in the world, but it is far from being just a prestigious status one acquires. Citizenship in this country is an unparalleled package of balanced rights and responsibilities, based on a set of core values, designed to ensure dignity, freedom, and equality for all.

The story of Canada is largely the story of immigrants, a reality that Jewish communities across this country know well.

Despite the dark era of Canada's “none is too many” immigration and refugee policy for Jews, we've been able to come here from all corners of the world over the last 200-plus years and contribute positively to the Canadian story, like so many other groups whom we join in appreciating the extraordinary opportunity and privilege inherent in being Canadian.

Immigrants to Canada are a source of cultural vitality and economic strength. Many of those who choose to come to Canada embrace our values because they know the reality of living in their absence.

Immigrants are among the proudest patriots and shapers of this country, and indeed the modernization of the Citizenship Act will benefit all Canadians as a result.

The vast majority of Canadian citizens appreciate the gift they have, but unfortunately, there are those who reject our core values and abuse the trust that underpins our social contract. We appreciate the steps taken by Bill C-24 to promote strong ties to Canada and buy-in to core Canadian values.

The introduction of more robust residency requirements, including physical presence to qualify for citizenship, is particularly well-received.

That, coupled with basic language and knowledge requirements, will go a long way toward facilitating integration and decreasing the marginalization of new immigrants.

In addition, it will go a long way towards preventing the importation of anti-Semitic views that, though marginalized in Canada, are unfortunately still prevalent in some parts of the world.

We also support the introduction of measures to ensure that those who apply for Canadian citizenship actually intend to maintain a meaningful connection to Canada after taking the oath. The “intent to reside” provisions are an important element in this regard and could have a significant impact on reducing the problem of citizens of convenience. There's a problem with people taking advantage of Canadian citizenship, availing themselves of Canadian generosity but demonstrating absolutely no real connection or contribution to this country. Their citizenship is a matter of convenience, with no real intention to ever reside in Canada.

We acknowledge, however, that there may be a potential for abuse of this provision. There doesn't appear to be any safeguard that would preclude a minister from commencing a revocation proceeding for someone who declared intent to reside, but then went abroad to study, work, or tend to an ill relative. It's unlikely the minister would do so but it's not an impossibility.

In our view, the problem of potential abuse could be dealt with by requiring the minister to seek a court declaration in cases of misrepresentation of intent to reside, similar to the requirement included for other cases of fraud. In addition to intent to reside, the proposed legislation will streamline the process for revoking citizenship from those who obtained Canadian citizenship while misrepresenting their involvement in violating human or international rights.

Given the arduous experience of trying to remove Nazi war criminals from Canada, for which the Canadian Jewish Congress, one of our predecessor organizations, fought for so long, this is a measure that the Jewish community is particularly glad to see included. The proposed changes will eliminate cabinet's ability to overrule the court's determination to remove someone who misrepresented their involvement in such heinous acts, which actually happened with Nazi war criminals, and consolidates the process to ensure that the criminals in question can be removed from Canada within a reasonable timeframe.

In a previous session of this committee's study, an assertion was made that, rather than further protecting Jewish Canadians as I've suggested, the bill would actually make Jewish Canadians particularly vulnerable for having their citizenships revoked due to Israel's Law of Return. This is not the case.

According to the UN 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, a stateless person is defined as someone who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has clarified that the convention does not ask whether a person should or could be a national of a particular state based on its legislation, but rather whether the person is a national of another state. Israel does not consider Jews in Canada to be nationals of the state under the Law of Return; rather, they have a legal right to become naturalized as Israeli citizens through a voluntary immigration process subject to certain restrictions.

For a Canadian Jew to be considered an Israeli national, they would first have to immigrate to that country and be certified as a new immigrant.

The possibility to become an Israeli citizen does not equate to dual nationality for Canadian Jews, according to the UN convention on statelessness, or according to Bill C-24. Were the minister to seek the revocation of a Jewish Canadian citizenship, the individual facing revocation, you'd only prove they are not a citizen of another state—be it Israel, the United States, the U.K., or anywhere else—in order to prevent the revocation due to Canada's international obligations regarding statelessness. This is no different for Jews than for any other Canadian citizen. As long as Jewish Canadians are not dual citizens and do not commit one of the prescribed offences, there would be no ability for the minister to revoke their citizenship.

The bill provides recourse to revoke citizenship from Canadians with dual nationality who commit certain offences, such as treason, espionage, or taking up arms against Canadian Forces. These offences are inherently actions against the institution of citizenship and the state itself. Revocation of citizenship is a reasonable consequence of these actions, and it's surprising that Canada is one of the only western democracies that does not have the ability to revoke citizenship from dual nationals in these types of instances.

There are other political crimes that are so heinous in nature that they attack the core values on which Canadian citizenship is based. Acts of terrorism are one example of this, for which revocation of citizenship is a reasonable consequence. We're pleased to see it included in the bill within this context.

While we support the revocation of citizenship as a consequence of terrorism in principle, there are some details in the application of this provision that we believe could be improved.

We take the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and his officials at their word that foreign convictions of Canadian dual nationals for terrorism offences would be subject to a two-stage evaluation to determine that the foreign terrorism offence is equivalent to a terrorism offence under the Criminal Code here in Canada, and that the judicial process for convicting the offender is fair, transparent, and independent. This two-stage evaluation is crucial, yet the second step does not appear to be explicitly codified as a requirement for revocation in the bill.

Accordingly, there appears to be a potential for a future minister to forgo the second step of this critical process. This could lead to the unintended consequence of Canadian dual nationals having their citizenship revoked based on false allegations, politically motivated charges, and kangaroo court proceedings. Accordingly, we suggest that the bill be amended to codify an explicit requirement that equivalent evidentiary standards and due process are employed in a foreign conviction in order for that conviction to be grounds for the minister to revoke Canadian citizenship.

In addition, we suggest that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide should also be included as grounds for revoking citizenship. As in the case of terrorism, these are political crimes that are so heinous in nature, that they attack the core values on which Canadian citizenship is based.

The principle that applies to terrorism also applies to those cases.

Furthermore, just as a terrorist could benefit from Canadian citizenship to enjoy greater mobility to perpetrate attacks and evade justice, so too the utility of Canadian citizenship should be removed from those who perpetrate these crimes. That Canadian citizens who are dual nationals could have their citizenship revoked for lying about their involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide before becoming citizens but not for committing them even while brandishing a Canadian passport is puzzling. The Jewish community has tragically been victimized by terrorism, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide all too often.

We appreciate consideration being given to our perspective on this important issue.

[Geraldine Sadoway, Staff Lawyer, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group]

Thank you.

Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to speak with the committee about the proposed changes to the citizenship law in Canada. Our eight recommendations are set out in our written brief and summarized on the second page of the brief. We have extras if you need them.

In this oral presentation I will focus on the issue of the increased residency requirement and explain how this will not do anything to strengthen Canadian citizenship. Nicole Veitch will talk about the problem of barriers to citizenship for some refugees and family-class immigrants that will become more serious barriers and more serious obstacles if Bill C-24 becomes law.

I'd like to begin with an example of strong Canadian citizenship. When the representatives of our community legal clinics first met to talk about Bill C-24, one of our colleagues, Rosalinda, told us how important it was for her and her family to become Canadian citizens. She was 16 when she arrived in Canada in 1975 with her parents and six brothers and sisters. They had come to Canada from Chile via Argentina after the Pinochet military coup. Her father had been detained and tortured in Chile. When he was released the family fled to Argentina where they were recognized by the UNHCR as refugees and then accepted by Canada for resettlement.

Rosalinda's father had previously worked as a pipefitter in a big factory in Chile. He got a job at Holmes Foundry in Sarnia and later at the Bruce nuclear plant. Her mother, who had not worked outside the home before, took a job in a tomato-canning factory in Aylmer. Rosalinda and her brothers and sisters were encouraged by their parents to learn English and to learn everything about Canada. In 1978, three years after their arrival in Canada, the very day that they became eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship, they all filed their applications. Eight months later, they were granted citizenship.

For their citizenship ceremony, Rosalinda's mother made all the girls beautiful red velvet pantsuits that they wore with white blouses. Afterwards, Rosalinda's father always wore his Canadian flag lapel pin when dressed up for any special occasion, and that's the prop that you have in front of you. Rosalinda said that her father, who died last year, always spoke of how they were treated with respect and consideration at the Canadian embassy in Argentina. After their arrival in Canada they experienced nothing but kind and caring treatment by government officials and Canadian people.

She said her father felt his human dignity had been restored to him. He wanted to become a Canadian citizen so that he would feel that he truly belonged here and so that he could participate fully in Canadian life, including being able to vote. He was always very proud of being Canadian and made it clear to his family in his last illness that he wished to be buried in Canada.

In his later years, Rosalinda's father worked as a volunteer and a paralegal, translating and interpreting for new refugees and immigrants and helping them to become settled. He instilled in all of his children his strong sense of dedication and loyalty to Canada.

Now I doubt that there can be any greater degree of love, loyalty, and dedication to Canada than that felt by refugees who have been forced to flee their country at a time of war and political oppression and who've been granted protection in Canada.

The point of this story is that Canada will lose some of its most devoted and loyal citizens if refugees who've been accepted here find that they are unable to gain Canadian citizenship. Refugees need citizenship even more than other immigrants, because in most cases they are legally or practically stateless. They have no other place to go. Their only home is Canada, yet they cannot feel that they fully belong here if they are unable to become citizens.

As we've noted in our written submissions, under article 34 of the refugee convention, Canada also has a legal obligation to facilitate the integration and naturalization of refugees in Canada.

Under Bill C-24 the lengthening of the residency requirement to four out of six years, with no credit for the time already spent in Canada before becoming a permanent resident, will not strengthen Canadian citizenship. This increase in the residency requirement will only delay the integration and naturalization of many refugees and immigrants, and discourage some from applying.

Our recommendations are therefore focused on reducing the barriers that could prevent or delay refugees and other new immigrants from becoming citizens. Nicole will describe some of the barriers we have seen, to illustrate why we are making these recommendations.

Thank you.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Super.

Ms. Douglas, we talked about the fact that a second-generation Canadian could be exiled to another country even if they had never lived there and did not know the language.

Ms. Douglas and Mr. Matas, under Bill C-24, could someone be exiled to a country where they had never lived and did not know the language? In your opinion, would it be fair to penalize someone because of their parents' origins?

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses also.

Bill C-24 carries the provisions of my private member’s bill, particularly when we talk about revocation of citizenship and also giving some credit to those who serve in our Canadian Armed Forces.

Before I talk about that, I want to clarify something in this bill.

First of all, Mr. McKay, I want to thank you for recognizing this government's stand on the position in Sri Lanka, which shows that when we talk about foreign jurisdictions, criminality, we simply do not “take it”.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again to our witnesses for appearing before us today and for your informative testimony.

I'm going to make a few comments and ask a couple of questions. We've heard from the witnesses today, both in the first session and in this session now, some commentary on the residency requirement and language requirements and the application of those potentially moving forward when this bill is passed by Parliament.

On the issue of residency requirement, a question came from a member of Parliament to a witness in this committee, asking, “I am a naturalized Canadian, basically, and if I wanted to leave the country and take my Ph.D. studies for five years outside the country, could my citizenship be revoked?” Nothing in this bill would prevent any Canadian citizen, naturalized or otherwise, from leaving to study in the United States or somewhere else around the world for fear of their citizenship being revoked. There is no such thing written in any clause in this bill, and it would be a tremendous stretch for someone to suggest, whether the person were a legal expert or not, that yes, it could be applied in the case where somebody left the country and decided to do a Ph.D. at Columbia University in New York. You became a Canadian citizen 15 years ago; we're not going to revoke your citizenship.

It is just so out there, so far-stretched, that I think we have to be very cautious when we're reviewing this bill—all of us here on the committee, and certainly all parliamentarians—that we don't use extreme examples that have no basis in law or no basis in substance for determining how we move forward in our assessment of this bill.

On the question of language requirements, I have this now back to the necessary residency requirement going from three years to four of the last six years and achieving a level of language requirement, and the language requirement age changing from 18 to 54 to 14 to 64.

We firmly believe that allowing more time in Canada for all aspiring Canadians to develop language skills will give them a better opportunity. They will be more integrated into Canadian society, and it will give a better opportunity to have much more potential for successful outcomes moving forward, and what we want for newcomers coming to Canada is for them to succeed. We want them to do well and we want them to have every tool at their disposal moving forward as Canadian citizens, and that's the spirit in which Bill C-24 was drafted, and that certainly is the intent of the bill.

I believe it was Mr. Collacott who said that it is in line with, in fact, even more generous than some of our peer countries around the world in terms of their requirements for residency and language. There is no country that we could point to that we would consider a peer country that would have only a three-year requirement for residency, and then you automatically can apply for Canadian citizenship.

I want to talk about a few things in the bill because mention has been made on the backlog of Canadian citizenship. I believe one witness we heard over the course of the discourse here said that the backlog has been created over the last few years because we're focusing more on fraud. Well, let's just be abundantly clear about that. If we need to take more time to do due diligence to ensure there is no fraud in the system and that only law-abiding people want to become citizens of our country, we are going to do that, and 90% of our applications get processed, and there is no issue.

If we're going to focus on that 10% to make sure that only people who are in the same bracket as those 90% can come into Canada and become Canadian citizens, then that's exactly what we're going to do. We want law-abiding citizens coming into Canada. We certainly don't want anybody who's perpetrated fraud in any way, shape, or form. If they have, then they're not welcome to come here.

In addition to that, I might add, the best way for someone not to have their citizenship revoked is not to commit the crime. It's very easy. It's very simple. One of the witnesses exercised the option of pointing to the names of the people sitting around the table at one point, and said that, look at the names around the table, she could be talking about us. Well, guess what, none of the people around this table are perpetrating crimes. We're not worried about being kicked out.

My name is Menegakis. It's clearly not a native Canadian name. My parents came here from Greece. If I don't perpetrate the crime, my citizenship is not going to be revoked, nor is my children's or anybody else's in my family. That is the best way to avoid having it revoked.

Let's just go back a little bit to reality here. I have one question.

Do I have any time left here?

[Martin Collacott, Spokesperson, Centre for Immigration Policy Reform]

Thank you, Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to speak before you today. I'm pleased to be able to contribute my views on this comprehensive overhaul of Canadian citizenship legislation, which in my view is long overdue.

I might mention in this regard that, prior to my careers overseas with the Canadian International Development Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs, I served as citizenship adviser to the Ontario Ministry of Education, and therefore, I've had a long-term interest in matters related to this topic.

My comments on specific provisions of the proposed legislation are as follows:

I support the extension of the residency requirements for citizenship applications from three out of four years to four out of six years. I would have preferred that it be extended to the five-year residency requirement, which had been in effect prior to 1977, and which I had recommended in a paper published in 2008, but I understand that compromise may be required to get agreement on this.

It should be noted that no other immigrant-receiving country—at least none I’m aware of—has as short a residency requirement as Canada does at present. Australia has a four-year requirement, it's five years in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Ireland. The last time I checked it was seven years in Norway and eight in Germany and Switzerland, so we will still have among the shortest residency period required.

The argument has been made that the sooner a newcomer can get their citizenship the more attached they will feel to Canada. While this may be true in some instances, one hears far more often of cases of those who are interested in acquiring citizenship as quickly as possible and wish to do so to move back overseas as fast as possible and regard their Canadian citizenship primarily as little more than an insurance policy.

If anything, I think newcomers will value their citizenship more if they know it is not something that can be acquired quickly or without meeting certain standards.

I strongly support the provisions of Bill C-24 aimed at ensuring that residency requirements are actually met, particularly in view of evidence that thousands of people have obtained their citizenship fraudulently by claiming they had spent time in Canada when they had not.

Bill C-24 includes greatly increased penalties for such fraud as well as requiring the filing of income tax returns in Canada and a commitment to living here. While these are all useful measures with regard to ensuring that residency requirements are met, I believe it is also important that Canada proceed as quickly as possible with plans to introduce comprehensive screening and recording of the entry and exit of all non-Canadians into or from our soil. In this way we'll have a much more accurate picture of whether residency requirements have been met.

By the same token, I am glad to see that the bill includes measures to speed up the processing of citizenship applications and to reduce the large backlog of applications that has developed. Once someone has met the residency and other requirements for acquisition of citizenship, it is important that they receive it without delay.

In other areas, I fully support those parts of the bill designed to enhance the value of citizenship, such as expanded language requirements. Ability to communicate with some fluency in English or in French, if you’re going to Quebec, is clearly one of the key factors in enabling a newcomer to become a contributing member of Canadian society and to feel at home here, as well as crucial to their employment opportunities in this country.

I am therefore very pleased to see that the provisions of Bill C-24 recognize the importance of having a basic command of one of Canada’s official languages as an essential skill for newcomers who are going to be able to contribute to Canadian society and the economy, as well as be able to realize their own dreams and aspirations as immigrants.

I would add, however, that the level required—Canadian language benchmark level 4—is still quite low, and that for immigrants hoping to find employment in many different professions and in managerial positions, significantly higher levels of competency are necessary.

I equally support those sections that provide for the revocation of citizenship for those who obtained or retained citizenship on the basis of providing false information in such areas as residence fraud, concealing criminal inadmissibility, or identity fraud, as well as those who commit acts of terrorism.

As I mentioned before this committee in April of last year, there is strong public support for tougher measures for revoking citizenship. A survey in 2012 found that 8 out of 10 people polled agreed that Canadians found guilty of treason or terrorism should lose their citizenship. A poll taken some years earlier by Ipsos Reid found that three out of four Canadians would support revoking the citizenship of people who had obtained it and went on to commit serious crime, and also found, interestingly, that 35% of respondents supported such measures, even in cases where the offenders were born in Canada. That's unlikely to happen, but that gives you an idea of public support.

I understand that birth certificate is not dealt with in the current bill and is a complicated issue that involves the provinces and territories, inasmuch as they're responsible for health care facilities and registration of births. Birth certificate, however, is an issue that should be dealt with with a minimum of delay. What it provides for now is that any infant born on Canadian soil can get Canadian citizenship. It is known to be widely abused by people who have no connection with this country, but arrange to give birth here so their children will be able to enjoy all the benefits of Canadian citizenship when they're older.

The concept of birth certificate, by the way, was developed in the United States after their civil war, in order to ensure that former slaves born in the U.S.A. would not be denied American citizenship. It's no longer needed for that purpose, however, and has been abolished by virtually every country in the world except Canada and the United States. Efforts have been under way for some time to eliminate it in the United States.

Chairman, this completes my opening comments, and I'll be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you.

[Debbie Douglas, Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)]

Thank you very much. It's good to be back to speak with you about Bill C-24. As you know, the bill was introduced on February 26, 2014, and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration at the time said that the bill is meant to reduce citizenship fraud, increase efficiency of the system, and reduce backlogs.

At OCASI we believe that the bill is likely to exclude more people from citizenship by making the process more difficult. We are especially concerned that the bill diminishes the value of Canadian citizenship by treating differently those who have dual citizenship and those who don't between Canadian-born citizens and naturalized citizens, and between immigrants who do not work in the Canadian armed forces and those who do.

The bill gives more power to the minister to revoke citizenship and reduces judicial oversight.

We are particularly concerned about the impact on racialized immigrants and refugees and on immigrant and refugee women and children.

I wanted to remind us that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru and the 75th anniversary of the SS St Louis, reminders of Canada's history of shamefully racist immigration policies.

Changes to the Citizenship Act must work to undo the racist policies of the past by welcoming newcomers, bearing in mind that the majority of new immigrants and refugees today are people who 75 or 100 years ago would have been deliberately excluded from Canada.

We believe that, in discussing this bill and moving forward with our discussions, there are certain principles we must pay attention to. The act lays out citizenship rules and thus defines who is Canadian and who we are as a country. This important legislation must therefore incorporate the following principles:

a) Respect for the principle that all citizens are equal.

b) Respect for the principle that citizenship is a status from which rights derive, and is thus similar to our status as human beings. It is not something that can be lost through bad behaviour.

c) We must ensure that the legislation is consistent with the best interests of the child.

d) And we must recognize that some permanent residents face systemic barriers to full participation, including refugees who have suffered persecution and long years of deprivation.

I am going to touch on a number of clauses in the bill that we wanted to respond to.

The first involves longer periods of residence in Canada before applying. Bill C-24 would require applicants for citizenship to have lived four out of the last six years in Canada, compared to three out of the last four under the current law. It will no longer allow applicants to count time in Canada before becoming a permanent resident. The change will result in making people wait longer before they can qualify to apply for becoming a citizen, undermining Canada's stated commitment to integrate newcomers.

Becoming a citizen is particularly important for refugees who have no other country they can turn to. Until they are citizens, they have a sense of insecurity and face practical problems, such as difficulty travelling without a passport.

Certain permanent residents will be disproportionately affected, such as refugees and live-in caregivers. Racialized women are over-represented among live-in caregivers, and many typically endure years of exploitative working conditions. Not being allowed to count time spent working in Canada to qualify for permanent resident status will further disadvantage these individuals. Other permanent residents such as those who qualify for the Canadian experience class, including international students graduating from Canadian universities, will also be disproportionately impacted by this change.

And in Ontario, over and over I've been hearing from international students that part of the drawing card to come to Canada for school is because there is a pathway to permanent residency and then to citizenship.

We have two recommendations here: keep the period of residence to three out of the last four years and keep the rule allowing applicants to count at least one year in Canada before becoming permanent residents.

The intention to reside in Canada. I know the last panel spent some time on this, the fact that applicants for citizenship have to swear an intention to reside. The provision will apply only to naturalized citizens, thus creating a different and less inclusive category. Their mobility rights will be in jeopardy for fear that their citizenship might be revoked for misrepresentation or fraud, while those born in Canada will have the ability to travel freely and pursue education or work opportunities overseas.

OCASI has heard that a growing number of immigrants return to their country of origin or travel to another country for employment because systemic barriers in the Canadian labour market have made it difficult to find suitable employment here at times.

Many others have returned for a period of time to meet other obligations such as looking after aging parents, a practice that will likely increase as it becomes increasingly difficult to reunite with parents and grandparents in Canada.

There is a serious risk that these Canadians would be seen as engaging in misrepresentation simply because they have to go elsewhere to make a living or to fulfill family obligations. We have one clear recommendation here: delete this new provision.

Regarding language acknowledgement, the bill greatly expands the group of individuals who must meet language and knowledge requirements in order to become citizens of Canada. Under the current law, individuals between the ages of 18 and 54 are required to meet these requirements in order to become Canadian citizens. Bill C-24 will require applicants between the ages of 14 and 64 to pass the citizenship test.

There are a number of other issues. Older refugees may be able to learn enough English or French to function but may nonetheless have difficulty passing the legislated language test.

Older permanent residents must be encouraged and supported when learning one of the official languages and acquiring knowledge about Canada. However, given the greater difficulties in learning a new language at an older age and in passing tests, expanding the requirements to include those up to age 64 will result in excluding a significant number of individuals from citizenship. Older people are generally recognized as vulnerable members of our society. Creating more barriers to citizenship will make them more vulnerable.

The rationale for extending the test requirements to applicants aged 14 to 18 is not clear. Youth at this age will be in high school and must have been in Canadian schools for the past several years. If they do not speak French or English or know about Canada, the fault surely lies with our schools. Furthermore, with respect to language testing, it is not known what proof of language ability will be accepted. The proofs currently accepted will not work for youth—completion of high school or government-funded language classes—and there is no standardized documentation across school boards throughout Canada. The fear is that adolescents will face significant administrative hurdles to prove their language ability or face the cost of an approved language test, which can run up to $200, a cost that is often beyond the capacity of families. By adding new requirements for youth aged 14 to 18, we risk producing a new category of youth who have spent most of their formative years in Canada but are denied citizenship and thus the possibility of participating fully in society.

Our recommendation: keep language and knowledge test requirements to the existing age group of those who are 18 to 54 years of age. I want to add here that we've been successful in having Citizenship and Immigration Canada also recognize that passing a speaking and listening test does not work for deaf and hard-of-hearing immigrants, and so we were able to have an exception made under which an audiology report will be accepted as an exception. We want to applaud that move, but we also want to see this done.

[Robin Seligman]

Yes, clearly. Again I tried to set out what a judicial review is and again it's permission to appeal, and it goes through the Federal Court. They have very limited jurisdiction. It's an administrative review. They're looking for errors of law. Was the proper procedure followed? They're not looking at the substance of the decision unless it's absolutely perverse and doesn't make sense.

Other than that, it's extremely hard to get judicial review. Again, it's not an in-person hearing, you don't introduce humanitarian factors or new evidence. Under this legislation, if you were convicted, you are done, with no right of review. You can't add all the circumstances of your case, so judicial review would be totally inappropriate under these circumstances. There would have to be a full and fair hearing as Mr. Kurland and the bar have mentioned. And again, I can reiterate, a parking ticket has more rights than Bill C-24. You get your day in court. I've provided you with the materials.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

My question is for all of you. If I understand correctly, you suggest that the provisions involving the possibility of exile for persons targeted by Bill C-24 simply be withdrawn.

Is that what you are proposing?

Ms. Jackman, I yield the floor to you.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

As for exile, I think you spoke about this, Ms. Seligman, as well as the Canadian Bar Association.

I would like to ask Ms. Jackman and perhaps also Mr. Kurland if it is true that under Bill C-24 a person born in Canada could be exiled to a country where he or she did not speak the language, nor know anything else about the country.

Is that true?

[Robin Seligman]

Thank you very much.

I very much support the Canadian Bar Association's position. I'll try to elaborate on some of the points that we were not able to because of time constraints.

We're very concerned—and I'm very concerned—about this serious change in direction of citizenship. It makes citizenship more vulnerable and totally insecure.

Once again, please remember this impacts people born in Canada, so people who have never lived in another country but might , through relatives or grandparents, have a claim to citizenship.

Looking around at the names in this room, I can tell you that most people here probably have a claim. It affects people that have Italian parents, British parents, U.K. parents, Chinese parents, and of particular concern is that every Jewish person in Canada has the right to move to Israel and claim Israeli citizenship. In effect—and I've provided materials on the right of the law of return—every Jewish person in Canada can be impacted by this legislation, because they could claim status in Israel.

Of particular concern to me as well is the reverse onus that this legislation puts on a person to prove that they would not become stateless, so I ask that you look at proposed section 10.4 that specifies this.

Also, there are no appeal rights. It only talks about a leave for judicial review, and if I have time I'll talk about what that means.

To be honest with you, if a person gets a parking ticket in the City of Toronto, or probably anywhere in Canada, you would have more judicial rights and appeal rights and the right to a fair hearing than you would under the Citizenship Act as proposed under Bill C-24. As a parking-ticket holder you have a right to a fair hearing. Under the Citizenship Act, as proposed, there is no hearing. It is up to the minister to decide whether there's a hearing or not. This can be very political, and these decisions should definitely be taken out of the hands of a minister.

As well, there's no discretion. There's no humanitarian and compassionate review, or allowing a decision-maker to review the full circumstances of a case. The legislation appears—as Barb said—to be focusing on young Canadians who have committed acts that seem to be heinous. However, if you look at the definition of terrorism under the Criminal Code, it's very broad. It includes funding, giving money, giving a donation. For example, right now we see Mohamed Fahmy, the journalist, who is in Egypt in jail. He would be caught under these provisions. He's been charged with terrorism in Egypt for helping put the Muslim Brotherhood's position by reporting through the news. This would be covered under our legislation. Do we really want this type of thing to happen? Is this what we want citizenship to be valued at? Or not valued at?

I respectfully submit that if you've read the legislation, read the details, you may not fully comprehend how broad the provisions are and how many people they'll capture. And I clearly don't think that most Canadians would understand this, so I fully support proper debate and discussion across Canada about this legislation and its broad ramifications.

As I said, almost everyone in this room, or their children or grandchildren, would probably be affected because they might have a claim to citizenship in another country. So it doesn't only affect those who are citizens of other countries now. If they have a claim based on the laws of another country, then they would be affected by this legislation. Once again, it's very broad in terms of terrorism and the offences that would qualify under this act.

Do I have more time?

[Christopher Veeman, Executive Member, National Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

We all share the goal of strengthening Canadian citizenship. In the CBA's view, a full public debate on this topic is very important.

We understand that the last time there were significant amendments to the act in 1977, the government published a white paper and cross-country forums were organized to make sure that all citizens of Canada were able to be involved in the discussion. We would encourage the government to consider a similar approach in this case. Many of the proposals in the bill come out of the blue in some respects, and we're reacting without knowing the true rationale.

I'm going to talk about two of the topics that we covered in our submission: the grants of citizenship, and a particular aspect of that, the intention to reside in Canada.

In general, the CBA is of the view that this bill, which is entitled the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, proceeds on the assumption that by making something harder to obtain you increase its worth. The CBA takes the view that citizenship is a bundle of rights that should be assessed on the rights that it gives to the holder. Simply making it harder to obtain doesn't make it better.

Bill C-24 does make it harder for people to become citizens of Canada, but in the CBA's view, it doesn't enhance the rights that accrue to citizens. The CBA takes the position that the bill diminishes Canadian citizenship by focusing solely on administrative efficiency in determining citizenship applications, reducing appeal rights for people involved in citizenship matters, and the topic that my colleague's going to discuss, permitting the possibility of banishment of Canadian citizens.

In terms of grants, Bill C-24 focuses on efficiency in the handling of citizenship applications. Unfortunately, in the CBA's view, this efficiency is achieved at the cost of the Canadian values of discretion and compassion. The only residency that's recognized under the bill is physical presence in Canada. In our submission we point to a number of examples that are published in the CIC's citizenship processing manual CP5, which shows the types of situations that, in the CBA's view, merit consideration for citizenship applicants. As an example, consider a young permanent resident who wins a Rhodes Scholarship and is off to study at Oxford. Bill C-24 might force such a person to forsake either the opportunity offered by the scholarship or their citizenship application.

I want to talk briefly about the “intention to reside” requirement. As you'll see in the submission, the CBA has concerns with this provision. First of all, contrary to the rest of the thrust of the bill, it's the CBA's view that this will complicate the adjudication of citizenship applications. Trying to determine someone's intention at the time of application is next to impossible.

The other problem that this provision creates is discrimination between natural born citizens, who have no obligation to reside in Canada, and naturalized citizens.

I'm realizing I'm already almost out of time, so I'm going to turn it over to Barbara.

[Kerri Froc, Staff Lawyer, Law Reform and Equality, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

The Canadian Bar Association is pleased to appear before the committee today to address Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

The Canadian Bar Association is a voluntary association of 37,500 lawyers across Canada, whose primary objectives include promotion of the rule of law, improvement of the law, and improvement to the administration of justice. It's in the spirit of this mandate that the members of our immigration law section have made the comments we've submitted to you in writing and we will speak to you about today.

Chris Veeman, an executive member of the CBA's immigration law section, and Barbara Jackman, a member of the section, are here with me today. I will now turn things over to them to address the substance of our comments on the bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 23.

We are studying Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

This meeting is televised.

We have three representatives from the Canadian Bar Association: Christopher Veeman, Barbara Jackman, and Kerri Froc. Good afternoon to you, and thank you for coming. We also have Robin Seligman, a lawyer—this is lawyers' day—and we have, from British Columbia by teleconference, Richard Kurland, who is well-known to this committee and also a lawyer. You will all have to be very careful with what you say today.

Ms. Jackman, are you speaking on behalf of the Bar Association?

[Nicole Girard]

The fast track for individuals working in the military is broadly in line with the allies. The proposal under Bill C-24 to extend that not only to permanent residents but also to individuals on exchanges is the most closely aligned with what they do in the United States, where they don't require you to have permanent resident status in order to have the opportunity to be fast-tracked for citizenship.

[Nicole Girard]

The proposed measures in the bill are limited to permanent residents and individuals on exchange to recognize their extraordinary service to the country. It doesn't extend to others. This is a function of the fact that when we did our homework and our comparative research on what other countries do, in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand they offer a fast track to individuals who work in their military only. Canada's proposed approach under Bill C-24 is in line with what those comparator countries do.

[Nicole Girard]

Citizenship officers are independent decision-makers now. They decide in the range of about 100,000 citizenship applications that deal with certain matters, including proofs of citizenship, adoption cases, and grants of citizenship to minors. They already make those decisions guided by criteria under the law, as they would be under the measures proposed in the bill. Certainly they would have additional training to take on these new functions that are proposed in Bill C-24.

[Robert Orr]

To add to that, I think the impact is going to be very significant in bringing down processing to under a year, estimated by 2015–16, with the new decision-maker model. With the new money, if we kept the current system, we would be down to only 14 months by 2017–18. I think that's on the chart that was distributed. It gives you some indication of the very significant efficiencies that would be accrued through Bill C-24.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

Switching gears again, I may have misunderstood the concept, and if so, I'd like the analysts or somebody to correct me. Under Bill C-24, I think individuals who have been accused of or charged with committing certain crimes in their country, with or without a trial, and who have maybe been jailed for whatever reason, can now—I don't remember which one it is and somebody can correct me—either be denied citizenship or have their Canadian citizenship revoked. It doesn't matter which one of those two it is; my question is about the fact that these individuals are being judged in Canada for what they may or may not have done in another country. They may or may not have had a fair trial or due process, because I know many countries where individuals don't have due process.

My understanding is that one of our honorary Canadian citizens, Nelson Mandela, would not be able to become a Canadian citizen after Bill C-24 passes, because he was charged with, I think, terrorism or treason in his country and was jailed for that. Does that mean he wouldn't be able to be a Canadian citizen? I want to know the rationale behind why we're...and who? Is it a Citizenship and Immigration Canada official, a bureaucrat, who would be given the task of being the judge, of assessing whether said country has due process and fair trials, and of making that decision? Is it going to be one CIC official who makes that decision on another country's judicial processes?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I would like to talk about people with temporary residency status. Under Bill C-24 periods of temporary residence will no longer be applied toward the meeting of the physical presence requirement for naturalization to become Canadians.

There are higher numbers and growing numbers of international students who come to Canada and are taxpaying members of our society while they're students because they're able to find work and then they, the lucky ones anyway, will find work on a temporary basis as they apply for permanent residence. We're seeing a growing trend toward a two-step migration process, especially with international students where they first come as students temporarily and then transition into permanent residents.

What is the rationale for this change, where it's inviting students from all around the world to come here and then saying the time they spent doesn't count?

[Nicole Girard]

That's quite right. In fact the measures proposed in Bill C-24 would make us more comparable with those like-minded countries. For example, the U.S. requires those requirements to be met for up to age 65. For the U.K., it's up to age 64.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

They wouldn't apply.

With respect to the language requirement in Bill C-24, how do we compare to other English-speaking jurisdictions, for example the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the United States? Are we comparable or are we even more stringent?

[Nicole Girard]

We certainly have now and would have under Bill C-24 accommodations for persons who may experience different difficulties, whether it's a learning disability, whether it's a speech impairment, whether the individual may be deaf. Those people can self-identify now at the start of the process, and they do.

We will continue to take on board the comments of the committee and stakeholders in terms of best practices on any other measures that we may need to look at in this area.

[Nicole Girard]

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Canada is one of the few countries, as part of our study, that we identified that don't have this ability to revoke that's proposed in Bill C-24. For example, like-minded countries like Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, all have such authority, as do most European countries that we looked at.

Many of these countries have broader, less defined powers than what is proposed in Bill C-24.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

Now I'll talk about one of my favourite topics. Bill C-24 also provides the ability to strip citizenship from convicted terrorists who hold dual citizenship, or deems an application for citizenship to be renounced. Have you done any comparative studies with other western countries that have similar legislation? My understanding is that all western democratic nations have this power, and for some of them, the requirements for revoking citizenship are far less stringent than what is being proposed in Bill C-24. Could you please comment on that?

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, folks, again.

I want to explore the role of the citizenship judges in the process, and how they're used to improve it.

Can you confirm the role the citizenship judges will have in the faster processing model in Bill C-24?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Who will make those decisions instead of the judges under Bill C-24?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

All right, sir.

You mentioned integrity a couple of times. How do the changes in Bill C-24 affect the integrity of the citizenship program and the fraud that has been seen in the citizenship application process?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

That's not what I had understood, and it would appear that a number of lawyers, and perhaps even the Canadian Bar Association, do not have that understanding of the bill as it is currently worded. We will probably have an opportunity to hear from lawyers, and we will see whether the bill should be improved to better reflect your intent.

I would now like to talk about the fact that the time people spend in Canada as non-permanent residents will no longer be taken into consideration. If Bill C-24 is passed, students will no longer be able to use the time they spent in Canada while they were non-permanent residents. Even if they have worked and paid taxes for a number of years, they could no longer use the time they spent in Canada to become permanent residents.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

You may want to comment on what you are hearing from local constituents, stakeholders, and the Canadian public on Bill C-24 during your Canadian tour.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me go back to talking about the provisions in Bill C-24 that strengthen and protect Canada's values. I had a private member's bill, as everyone knows, that dealt with protecting Canadian interests and promoting integration. These two provisions would fast-track citizenship to those who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces and would strip citizenship from those convicted of terrorism and treason. I know, Mr. Minister, that these provisions enjoy broad support across a broad spectrum of Canadians and I am very thankful to you for adopting the contents of my bill in Bill C-24.

Would you please share with the committee the reasons behind protecting and promoting the values of Canadian citizenship through these two provisions?

I have a second question. You have been criss-crossing Canada to discuss Bill C-24 with stakeholders and constituents. Could you also tell us what you are hearing from local constituents, stakeholders, and the Canadian public on Bill C-24?

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Minister, thank you to you and your department for appearing here today.

I am not surprised by the line of questioning from the NDP, because that is the party that supports the left-wing groups where no one is illegal, but let me talk about something else today.

I want to talk about the provisions in Bill C-24 that strengthen and protect Canadian values.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Bill C-24 proposes to change the Citizenship Act to extend the requirement of successfully completion of official language and knowledge requirements to those in the age group of 14 to 18 years. These requirements compromise the rights of the child under the age of 18 by violating the child's right to family reunification under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

What is the rationale behind this change, Mr. Minister?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Minister, if I have understood your answer correctly, the criteria is already set out in the bill, and you have no further obligation to justify your decision whether or not to grant citizenship. I think that harms your intention to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. If that citizenship has so much value, I see a problem with a minister being able to grant it to individuals without necessarily having to explain why or under what conditions. A minister is a minister, of course, but they are also a member of a political party. The Conservative government tends to use its bills to give more discretionary powers to its ministers. That opens the door to partisan influences in the granting of Canadian citizenship or to a lack of transparency in ministerial decisions. We think that is a reason for concern.

My next question is about lost Canadians. A few experts have told us that the bill does not go far enough, that lost Canadians have been forgotten and that their situation will not be resolved through this bill. If experts came before our committees and proved that some lost Canadians will not be able to regain their citizenship despite Bill C-24, would you be able to broaden the measures related to lost Canadians in order to ensure that justice is served for everyone?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I assume that this is what you would want, but Bill C-24 poses a risk when it comes to the intent to reside in Canada. If an individual leaves Canada owing to unforeseen circumstances—if they have to take care of an ailing relative for a certain period of time, if a job often takes them abroad, if they have to accept a job abroad because they are unable to find one here and they receive an offer, and so on—they could be accused of fraud for having made a false statement, since they expressed an intent to reside in Canada. Is that not a possibility, minister?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Pardon me, minister. If I have understood your point of view correctly, you feel that the bill is constitutional. I think that is strange because the Canadian Bar Association expressed some doubts about this legislation's constitutionality. That makes me think about the way Bill C-23 was presented, but regardless, my question is about the intent to reside in Canada, which is covered in Bill C-23.

If someone accepts a contract abroad shortly after becoming a Canadian citizen, could they have their citizenship revoked, yes or no?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today.

I think it's important to say that the NDP welcomes a number of the changes proposed in Bill C-24. However, since we have very little time, I will focus more on the changes that worry us a bit.

Many people said they thought several measures set out in Bill C-24 were probably unconstitutional, such as the provision on the intent to reside. That is a new measure introduced by the bill, and it may be contrary to section 6 of the charter, which concerns the mobility rights of Canadians. Moreover, the revocation of citizenship could violate section 15. Major associations such as the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the Canadian Bar Association are raising important questions regarding the bill's constitutionality.

I hope that, following the testimony we will hear during this committee's meetings, the committee or the minister will be willing to make the necessary changes in case of serious doubts about the constitutionality of Bill C-24.

I have a few questions about the intent to reside in Canada, and I would like you to keep your answers brief.

For instance, can an individual who acquires Canadian citizenship and then accepts a contract abroad have their citizenship revoked?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

You held up the graphs, Minister.

Can you give us an indication of what the backlog of applications will look like when the changes to Bill C-24 are made and fully implemented?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Minister, the demand for citizenship is up and it's up for a lot of reasons. As we all know, our Conservative government has welcomed over 1.4 million new citizens since 2006. As Canadians we're all proud that there's such a high demand for Canadian citizenship. Our government recognizes that backlogs and processing times however need to be tackled.

Minister, how will the changes in Bill C-24 result in faster citizenship processing?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Minister, and thank you to the officials who are here with us today.

We are on day one of starting the study on this very important bill. As you know, Minister, since 2006 Canada has welcomed the highest sustained level of immigration in our country's history. The current Citizenship Act is 37 years old. It certainly needs amendments to reflect the reality today, and to certainly assist us in processing the demand for immigration that this country continues to have, which continues to increase, and that we've been able to sustain since our election as a government in 2006.

Minister, in your opening remarks you stated that Bill C-24 aims to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. Could you explain exactly how the bill does this, please?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chair and dear colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to speak today about Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

As you all know, since 2006 Canada has enjoyed the highest sustained levels of immigration in our history, an average of 257,000 newcomers per year. As a consequence of this achievement, demand for citizenship has increased over that time by 30%. Furthermore, Canada continues to have, and by a widening margin, the highest rate of naturalization in the world. Of eligible permanent residents, 85% become citizens.

Last year CIC received more than 330,000 citizenship applications, the highest volume ever in one year.

So far in 2014 Canada has welcomed more than 75,900 new citizens at 759 ceremonies held across the country in this first quarter of 2014, from school gymnasiums to CIC offices to city halls and hotel conference rooms. This is something of which we can all be very proud. If we compare this to 2013, when we welcomed—it's still a high number—35,320, we're well over twice the rate of last year so far in 2014. So we can say with confidence that we're off to a great start in offering citizenship to those many who want it, and the increasing numbers who qualify for it.

These high numbers demonstrate the system is becoming more efficient. The backlog of citizenship applications is decreasing, helping more people realize their dream of becoming a Canadian sooner.

In the Speech from the Throne, our government committed to strengthening and protecting the integrity of Canadian citizenship by introducing the first comprehensive reforms to the act in over a generation.

The changes in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act mean more newcomers will be able to acquire Canadian citizenship faster. These reforms are taking place after decades of neglect by previous governments.

We are now taking action to deliver better services to Canadians. Our government is restoring the great importance Canadians place in their citizenship and deterring citizens of convenience.

These significant, necessary, and long-overdue reforms fulfill our government's commitment in four specific ways. First, they improve processing efficiency. Second, they reinforce the value of citizenship. Third, they strengthen integrity. Fourth, they protect Canadian interests and honour service.

Let me begin by describing some of the improvements in the act that enhance efficiency. One of the most important changes, as you all know from our debate in the House and from public discussion, is that there will be a streamlined approach to citizenship processing that will offer faster and better service standards for applicants.

The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act changes application processing from a three-step to a single-step process, reducing the current duplication of work and wait times.

A common reason for long processing times is incomplete applications. Under the old system, each application received had to be processed, regardless of whether or not all required forms were properly filled out. Now, however, applicants who have delivered complete applications will not wait behind those who failed to do their due diligence. Incomplete applications will be returned and not processed until all documentation is present in one complete package.

Taken together, these and other measures will significantly reduce the backlog and average processing to less than a year by 2015-2016.

We want people to show their connection to Canada by ensuring they have a physical presence here. That is why we're lengthening the residence requirements from three out of four years to four out of six years before applying for citizenship. This will ensure new citizens are better prepared to participate fully in Canadian life.

Citizenship applicants will also be required to file income taxes for four years out of the previous six if required to do so under the Income Tax Act and make the commitment up front that they intend to reside in Canada. Taxpaying Canadians should not be left on the hook for those who have no intention of becoming active members of our communities or living in Canada. We want new citizens to earn their passport and stay to be part of our great Canadian society.

Many immigration lawyers, consultants, and observers of the system to date agree with us. As Raj Sharma said in a CTV program, “immigration fraud is rampant and you did see ghost consultants and unregulated consultants counsel individuals to embellish or exaggerate the time in Canada”. He, as most immigration lawyers know, went on to say, “the Canadian passport is an incredibly valuable commodity and individuals are willing to lie, cheat, and deceive us to obtain that benefit”.

Obviously not every one but a considerable number of cases have had to be investigated. Measures contained in this bill will help us to ensure that this kind of abuse doesn't arise in the future. Because Canadian citizenship is so valuable, many people are prepared to misrepresent facts to make it appear that they qualify.

Several recent RCMP investigations clearly showed that the citizenship program was vulnerable to fraud. Our government is putting an end to this abuse, and we're cracking down on crooked citizenship consultants by designating a body that regulates them.

The current penalty for citizenship fraud, such as misrepresentation, is a maximum fine of $1,000, or one year in prison, or both. This penalty has not increased since 1977. Our government takes this form of fraud very seriously. We won't let crooked consultants or those who misrepresent themselves cheapen our Canadian citizenship. That's why the penalty will rise under the provisions of this bill to $100,000, or five years in prison, or both, in the case of an indictable conviction.

In addition, our government will streamline the revocation process and bar people whose citizenship was revoked because they obtained it fraudulently from reapplying for citizenship for 10 years.

Our message to foreign fraudsters and criminals is clear: Canadian citizenship is not for sale. We will revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who were members of an armed force or an organized armed group engaged in armed conflict against Canada, and deny citizenship to permanent residents involved in the same actions.

Dual citizens and permanent residents convicted of serious offences such as terrorism, high treason, treason or spying will be denied citizenship. These are serious crimes that will not be tolerated in Canada.

Those who betray our country and take up arms against our armed forces will forfeit their right to hold Canadian citizenship. As a result, they won't continue to enjoy the privilege of calling themselves Canadian citizens. We also expect those who hold Canadian citizenship to obey the law. We'll bar individuals charged with or convicted of serious crimes outside Canada or serving a sentence outside Canada from becoming Canadian citizens. As we bar visitors to Canada for these reasons already, this seems like a common sense extension of that principle. The security of Canadians is paramount, and we won't compromise the safety of our country.

Our government will also reward those who have served Canada honourably in the Canadian Armed Forces and have a strong connection to Canada by fast-tracking citizenship for permanent residents serving or individuals on exchange with the Canadian Armed Forces.

We'll extend citizenship to more lost Canadians. In 2009 our government restored citizenship to the majority of lost Canadians, and now we're extending it to first generation children born abroad who were not eligible under the old system.

Our government will also ensure that children born or adopted outside of Canada to serving crown servants or members of the Canadian Armed Forces are not adversely affected by their parents' service and are able to pass on citizenship to any children that they may have or adopt outside Canada.

Overall, our changes to the Citizenship Act will protect the value of citizenship and ensure that new Canadians have a stronger attachment to our country. The changes will safeguard Canadian citizenship against fraud and abuse, and ensure that the process to become a citizen of this great country is faster and more efficient for eligible applicants.

Canadian citizenship continues to be the envy of the world and something all Canadians can be proud of. It is our duty to protect the integrity and strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. The reforms we're proposing today attack all important issues of integrity. They will deliver better service for Canadians very much in the spirit of older reforms we've undertaken across the board to immigration and citizenship programs over the past eight years.

We will show by so doing that the value of Canadian citizenship continues to rise, continues to draw unprecedented numbers of people to this country as visitors, ultimately as immigrants and permanent residents, and gives them that unique opportunity that no other country affords on this scale to become citizens once they show the knowledge, achieve the language abilities, and prove they can live under our laws in a way that so many new Canadians are proudly able to do.

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to answer any questions committee members may have, and as always, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration meeting number 22.

Today we are starting to study Bill C-24, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2). Bill C-24 is an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

To help us with the start of our study, we have the Honourable Chris Alexander, who is the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

We have with us the usual people who help us out with many things: Robert Orr, the assistant deputy minister of operations; Catrina Tapley, the associate assistant deputy minister of strategic and program policy; Nicole Gerard, the director general of the citizenship and multiculturalism branch; and Mory Afshar, a lawyer.

It's good to have you. Thank you and welcome to the committee.

Minister, thank you for coming. You have the usual 10 minutes to make your presentation, and then the committee will have some questions for you. Thank you, sir.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition concerns Bill C-24. Constituents are asking the government to eliminate the portion of the bill that gets rid of the current practice of giving partial credit to time spent living and working in Canada before somebody achieves permanent resident status, to also consider giving full credit to that time, and to consider recognizing up to four years of time spent before achieving permanent resident status.

Bill C-24—Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose, at the next sitting, a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the bill.

Citizenship

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition with respect to Bill C-24 and the fact that it does unfairly treat current Canadian permanent residents who came to Canada as temporary foreign workers or international students.

The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to consider amending the Canadian Citizenship Act to recognize non-permanent residency time to be counted toward the citizenship residency requirement.

Canadian Citizenship

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to join our hard-working Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Toronto and Calgary a few weeks ago to announce our Conservative government's Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, which will strengthen the immense value of Canadian citizenship and ensure that a Canadian passport remains highly regarded around the world.

I also want to personally thank the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for working with me and transferring the contents of my private member's bill, Bill C-425, into his new act. Once this bill becomes law, Canada will fall into line with virtually every other western democratic nation. It will have the ability to strip the citizenship of convicted terrorists. According to a national poll, this measure has the support of over 85% of Canadians from across Canada, including 80% of NDP supporters, 87% of Liberal supporters, and 83% of those who immigrated to Canada.

I call upon the opposition to represent the will of their constituents and support this bill.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Minister, for being here.

Let me first begin by congratulating your department for reducing the wait times on some of the citizenship issues and the continuing work that you're doing on that.

I can't help noticing how non-governmental organizations are preaching how important it is to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. I know when we debated Bill C-24 last week in the House of Commons, the members opposite said they would not support the bill. Can you tell me in light of us voting on giving these funds to the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, how exactly Bill C-24 will strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

—we're backing Bill C-24 to strengthen the Canadian Citizenship Act.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to be here to rise to speak in support of Bill C-24, which really does demonstrate our government's commitment to strengthening the value of Canadian citizenship.

Canadian citizenship, as every one of us in the House knows, is among the most valued citizenships in the world and the bill would ensure that it remains that way.

First, let me be clear. We want newcomers to come to Canada. We need them to grow this country, as Canada has throughout its great history. They are the nation builders of today and the nation builders of tomorrow. The question is how we get there.

We have accepted 1.4 million new citizens to Canada since the Conservatives were elected in 2006. That is an unprecedented number that puts Canada among the top countries among our peers. That is a lot of people, and we welcome them.

We also believe we should help to prepare those people, those newcomers, in the very best way we can, so they can succeed here. Enter Bill C-24. It is in all of our best interests to do that.

What does this really mean on the ground? There are three things it means.

First of all, it means we want newcomers to bond with their new home. We want them to feel they are part of Canada. We believe they should have a strong attachment to this country by having a significant Canadian experience before they become citizens. Hence, that means adding one year, going from three years to four years' residency, or actually 1,460 days now, before they can become a citizen.

Second, we require that they, yes, actually be present here in Canada while they are building that understanding of Canadian values and way of life.

Third, to help our newcomers integrate, we believe they should know one of our official languages. It seems reasonable to most people. This will help our newcomers to succeed and it will help Canada to succeed by opening its doors to them.

Gillian Smith of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship works extensively with Canada's newcomers, and she said she has found overwhelming support among them for these kinds of changes. Our newest citizens report that the measures that actually help them to foster their connections and attachment with Canada have had the most positive effect on their integration.

Their sense of belonging comes in large measure from actually experiencing Canada first-hand, its people, nature, culture, heritage, and yes, its cold winters, its hockey, its Tim Hortons, and all of that which goes along with being a Canadian. This is where our connections with each other really develop.

An understanding of one of our official languages and a deeper knowledge of these kinds of values and traditions help newcomers become active members of Canadian society a lot sooner. This will assist them on their path to seize the opportunities that are the reason they are coming to Canada, and that is what we want.

Our government's proposed changes would also expand the ages for citizenship applicants who are required to demonstrate this kind of language proficiency, as well as take the knowledge test. Currently, it is from ages 18 to 54. It would go from ages 14 to 64.

There are critics who will say that these moves to strengthen the residency and language requirements would make it harder to become a Canadian citizen. We believe that people who really wish to hold the coveted Canadian passport, to call Canada their home, will achieve these requirements. Something valued is something that really is worth working for.

In the past, it has not always been that way. I point to immigration lawyer Raj Sharma, who told my friend Doug Dirks, the host of CBC Calgary's The Homestretch, that “basically, an eight-year-old with a crayon could have passed the previous knowledge test to become a Canadian citizen...”. That is actually what he said. This is one very busy immigration lawyer.

This is something we do not take lightly. By strengthening the residency and knowledge requirements, we are making sure new citizens are both more committed and fully prepared to actually take up life here in Canada. This is balancing rights and responsibilities.

The Aga Khan was here in this House today, and he spoke about this very thing. He talked about a healthy civil society, and he said that Canada accepted a major wave of Ismailis in the 1970s during the brutal Idi Amin era. The Aga Khan placed Canada first among all in creating a pluralistic society. However, in building a healthy civil society, the Aga Khan said what that takes is balancing rights and responsibilities. That is exactly what the act would do for new citizens.

Author Nick Noorani expressed a similar sentiment on CBC Radio a while back when he said it is not becoming more difficult, it is putting in place checks and balances.

He also said he is a very proud Canadian and believes that anyone who wants to become a Canadian should follow certain rules and regulations. For instance, he said, for people who have misused the system, the government is now putting a premium on Canadian citizenship, as well it should be.

To come back to the residency requirement, it would only include time that the person spends in Canada as a permanent resident, which has not always been the case. In the past, the rules were a little fuzzy and often taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. We are making them crystal clear. Newcomers who are coming to build Canada expect and want to be contributors, and this would give them more time to establish themselves here.

My own son-in-law would be affected by these proposed changes. He would have to spend an extra year in Canada to get citizenship, and that is okay. Canadian citizenship is something worth working for.

This is what Canadians rightly expect. They welcome newcomers as citizens and full members of our Canadian family, but not people who want to hold a citizenship of convenience as a backup plan while they live and work somewhere else.

However, there will be exceptions. Applicants who are outside of Canada because they are accompanying either their Canadian spouse or parent who is employed in the Canadian Armed Forces, or as a servant of the Crown, could still qualify for citizenship. This is to prevent residents from being penalized for their family's service abroad for Canada. We are honouring those who serve Canada, and showing our gratitude for those who put their lives on hold in service to our country.

Canadian citizenship is an honour and a privilege. It comes not only with rights, but with responsibilities. Immigrants understand that. They are very proud to fulfill these responsibilities. In fact, over 85% of permanent residents who have gone on to become citizens support these initiatives.

In 2012, more than 110,000 people became proud Canadian citizens. This year alone, we held 1,722 citizenship ceremonies from coast to coast to coast.

One of my favourite things to do as a member Parliament is to preside over citizenship ceremonies. They are heartwarming and even tear-jerking. As a Canadian, I feel honoured that these people have chosen Canada and are taking a pledge to become part of the Canadian family. They have often undergone great hardship to come to Canada, but it has been worth it because of the value of Canadian citizenship that this act underscores.

These people want to come and contribute to our economy. Many have come to Canada for security for their home and family under the rule of law. They are overwhelmingly pleased with these changes because, again, they value Canadian citizenship. They believe that it should only be granted to people like them who live and play by the rules.

We have to continue to ensure that this is the Canada we are protecting and preserving for all of us into the future. The strengthening Canadian citizenship act would enhance the value and integrity of our Canadian citizenship and would ensure that it is going to be valued just as much by future generations.

We are accepting unprecedented numbers of immigrants, and earlier I mentioned it has been 1.4 million people since 2006. We are ranked as the top among our peer countries in this.

The strengthening Canadian citizenship act that we are very proud to be putting forward today is a necessary measure. It is supported by newcomers to Canada. It will ensure that we can continue to keep the doors to Canada open, create this pluralistic society that the Aga Khan talked about and that all of us are proud of, and ensure that newcomers are in the very best position to succeed when they come to Canada.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to join this lively debate. However, before I do that, let me just say that I will be splitting my time with the hard-working member for Calgary Centre.

I am pleased to rise to discuss how our government plans to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship.

Canadian citizenship is about far more than the right to carry a passport, as some might think, or to vote. Canadian citizenship is a commitment and forever a connection to our great country, Canada.

Citizenship defines who we are as Canadians, including our mutual responsibilities to one another, responsibilities such as respect for the rule of law, contributing to the well-being of the Canadian community, and protecting our heritage and our traditions. Citizenship means that we share a commitment to the values rooted in our history, values such as freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.

As a government, we believe that Canadian citizenship is truly something special and should be valued. We believe that is what Canadians want. However, there are those who attempt to attach a monetary cost to Canadian citizenship.

The strengthening Canadian citizen act, Bill C-24, would send a clear message to those who attempt to take advantage of our generous system.

Canadian citizenship never was, is not now, and never will be for sale. A Canadian passport is highly valued around the world. However, we will not stand by as people treat our passport as a commodity that can be traded or sold to the highest bidder.

Our government takes citizenship fraud very seriously. We are taking action to ensure that those who are convicted of citizenship fraud face the full force of the law. This is very important.

There are those who, for their financial advantage, prey on people who are legitimately wanting to become Canadian citizens. They fraudulently approach them with schemes. We would like to crack down on those people. We believe it is incumbent on our government, on any government, to do that to protect law-abiding residents, permanent residents, and citizens in our country.

As of October 2013, the RCMP was conducting fraud investigations involving more than 3,000 citizens and more than 5,000 permanent residents, a majority of them related to residence fraud.

This a serious issue, which is why we are bringing forward these changes to the Citizenship Act. These are individuals who create fake addresses, purchase fake phone lines, open ghost bank accounts, and draft false letters of employment in an attempt to show that they live in Canada. In reality, many of these individuals may have never set foot in Canada and probably live somewhere else in the world.

These practices demean and devalue what it means to be a Canadian citizen. The strengthening Canadian citizenship act introduced by our government would ensure that we are not only protecting the value of Canadian citizenship from those who would cheapen it but that we are also improving the citizenship system.

Unfortunately, there is a global industry of unscrupulous, unethical immigration and citizenship agents posing as bona fide consultants. These unscrupulous agents typically coach people to establish fake proof of residency in Canada in order to apply for and obtain our Canadian citizenship.

Do not just take it from me. Immigration lawyers like Raj Sharma also agree that this is a serious problem. He admitted:

...immigration fraud was rampant and you did see ghost consultants and unregulated consultants counsel individuals to embellish or exaggerate the time in Canada. Let's face it. The Canadian passport is an incredibly valuable commodity and individuals are willing to lie, cheat, and deceive us to obtain that benefit.

Currently, there are no tools in the toolbox to identify citizenship fraud upfront at the application stage. As a result, many applicants fall victim to crooked citizenship consultants. The strengthening Canadian citizenship act would change that. With our changes, applicants would have to declare on the citizenship application form whether they used an authorized consultant or representative. The key here is that the representative would have to be accredited and part of a regulatory body specified by the minister. This would put an end to crooked citizenship consultants.

Bill C-24 would increase the penalties for citizenship fraud to a maximum fine of $100,000 or up to five years in prison.

We are also taking action to strengthen the residence requirements for citizenship. There has been a lot of ambiguity over what it means to be physically present in Canada. Our government is taking out the guesswork and making it clear. Prospective Canadian citizens would need to be physically present in Canada in four out of the past six years. Respected lawyer Richard Kurland stated:

It makes it easier. For the very first time there is going to be a definition for “residence”. You'd think it would be in the law. It never has been. It is now 183 days in a year, four years on the previous six. So now you know in advance, using math, whether you're in or you're out.

Even Toronto Sun columnist Simon Kent agrees. As part of his comment, he said if people want to live in Canada, if they want to enjoy living in a free and prosperous country like Canada, they should spend time here, they should live here, and they should contribute to civil society. I know that sounds like something out of Politics 101, but it is basically saying to live here, enjoy the fruits of one's labour, pay one's taxes, show that one is committed. I think extending the period of permanent residency here from three to four years, or maybe even five years, before being able to take up citizenship is a fair and reasonable proposition.

This is a subject that is very close and dear to my heart; not only because I have the privilege of representing one of the most diverse communities in the country in my riding, the great riding of Richmond Hill, but also because I am very proud that my parents were immigrants to this country. They came here during John Diefenbaker's prime ministership in this House. They had to wait five years to get their citizenship. I remember because I was born and I was there. I remember how proud they were when they studied and they learned the language requirements they needed, and they went and wrote those tests and they spoke and obtained their Canadian citizenship. Let me tell members that I believe my parents are representative of the vast majority of Canadian citizens who have chosen this great country as their new home.

I heard with great attention what the critics from the opposition parties said, and I would be very happy to listen to and take any questions they might have.

In closing, I would just say this. The strengthening Canadian citizenship act demonstrates our government's commitment to ensuring new Canadians understand the value of citizenship. The changes would make it harder for those who wish to take advantage of our generous immigration system and would send a strong message. Canadian citizenship is not a right; it is a privilege for those who commit themselves to Canada, our way of life, our values, and our traditions.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

The NDP agrees that changes to the Citizenship Act are badly needed. This act has not been revised since 1977, and some elements of our Citizenship Act create injustices. The NDP has fought a long time to correct some of these injustices. I enthusiastically welcomed the news that the government was preparing a bill to amend the Citizenship Act.

There are a number of good elements in this bill that the NDP is happy to see. We would be happy to support some of these changes that have been needed for a long time. However, true to form, the Conservatives have introduced a bill that is over 50 pages long and that amends all kinds of things and affects several aspects of citizenship.

There are so many things in this bill. Some are very positive, while others are worrisome. Civil society organizations, legal experts and other Canadian experts have already expressed some legal and human rights concerns. The public is very upset about some aspects of this bill, and I hope to explain why certain parts of this bill are worrisome and very problematic.

First, I will talk about what I am happy to see in Bill C-24. The NDP certainly supports the fact that this bill resolves the issue of people whose citizenship has been dispossessed, the so-called lost Canadians. I would like to give a practical example to show why it is so important to address this injustice.

John is two years old. He lives in the Eastern Townships in Quebec. His father is Canadian and his father's father is Canadian. Is John Canadian? No, he is not. Little John is here in Canada and lives with his Canadian father, but has only a temporary visa that will expire in May. The family's situation is rather unstable. Why does John not have citizenship? It is because his father, who is a Canadian and was born to a Canadian father, was born outside the country while his father was serving in the Canadian Forces. Instead of being proud to have a grandfather who served in the Canadian Forces, John is being penalized because his grandfather was serving outside the country when his wife gave birth to their child.

This deprives little John of medicare and day care, which is an enormous burden for the family. Little John is not the only one in this unfair situation. In fact, there are approximately 80 lost Canadians. These people are often in a tragic situation that also adversely affects many people who are close to them. The NDP fought for a long time for the government to resolve these unfair situations. From critic to critic, MP to MP, from motions to news releases, the NDP fought this battle, and we are pleased to see that, today, justice will be served for these people who should already be Canadian.

The other positive aspect of this bill is the expedited access to citizenship for permanent residents who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. In fact, this aspect, which the NDP already supported, is found in Bill C-425 from the last session. I would like to raise one issue, however. This bill will not affect hundreds or even dozens of people. It will affect only a few, perhaps five or 10. It is very rare for permanent residents to be accepted into the Canadian Forces. Usually, a person must already be Canadian to be accepted. Only in very exceptional cases are permanent residents allowed to serve in the Canadian Forces.

That being said, these people serve our country in an exemplary way. They meet important needs that only they can meet within our armed forces. In our opinion, it is therefore completely reasonable, acceptable and desirable to reward these individuals by expediting their access to Canadian citizenship, if they so desire.

The NDP also fought hard for the implementation of measures to train immigration consultants and to fight more effectively against fraudulent consultants. The hon. member for Trinity—Spadina spoke out loud and clear, as she called on the government to take action in this regard. In a news release made public in 2010, she called for the creation of a regulatory body to enforce the rules and protect the public. It was not until today that practical measures were proposed to better train immigration consultants. That is positive aspect of the bill, because many people are victims of immigration consultants who betray their trust—although most consultants are honest individuals. These are the good things I wanted to say about Bill C-24.

I would like to point out some parts of the bill that should be the subject of consultations with experts and the public because they are worrisome in some way or because people have differing opinions on them. The first is the longer term of Canadian residency required to obtain citizenship. The longer term is not necessarily a bad thing, and I understand the goal of it. It is a good idea to make sure that people with citizenship have lived in Canada for a certain period of time. This is good, but I also want to point out that this particular measure adds clarification that was not in the act before, making it very clear to people how many days they must reside in Canada before being eligible for Canadian citizenship. This measure makes sense.

However, we should talk about the ridiculously long processing time for citizenship applications. If the government is asking people to reside in Canada for a longer period of time, then it really must ensure that their applications are processed quickly and efficiently, which is what they might expect.

Increasing application fees is also a contentious issue. I will explain why. People certainly understand that the fees need to change. Fees for citizenship applications have not changed in several years. Now the processing fees will be higher than the fees people have to pay to submit their application.

However, why are these fees jumping from $200 to $400? What justifies that amount? So far, nobody has provided us with all of the information justifying that specific amount. Why not $50 more or $50 less? Does this amount really just cover the costs, or is it merely a way to get money from people who want citizenship? I would like a lot more information about that. If the government charges more, people are naturally going to expect better service.

This brings me back to the processing times, which are unacceptable. They have more than doubled under the Conservatives. Asking someone to pay more for a service is one thing, but providing a service that gets worse and worse is another. The government needs to make sure that higher fees go hand in hand with better service.

Furthermore, changing the age at which people must take the test in one of the official languages has upset many communities across the country. In the past, people aged 18 to 54 had to take the test in one of Canada's official languages. From now on, people aged 14 to 64 will have to do so.

I understand the importance of learning one of Canada's official languages. However, many people are worried. For instance, people aged 54 to 64 might have a harder time learning one of the official languages, studying for an exam or managing the related stress this could bring. Many people live within a community and could very easily get by in Canada without necessarily mastering a certain level of language. Such a change could cause a lot of stress, especially regarding the lower age limit at which people will have to take the test. Indeed, children as young as 14 will now have to take the test, and this could determine whether they get to become citizens or not.

What happens to a child who does not pass the test for some reason or another, while the rest of his or her family passes? Will that child be the only non-citizen in the family? Could this cause problems when the family wants to travel, for instance? Why impose a test with such serious consequences on children as young as 14, when we know that young people living here in Canada have to go to school in one of Canada's official languages and learn the language day in and day out? Why put that kind of pressure on a 14-year-old child? This is highly questionable. As I said, we had many discussions with a number of groups and individuals who all questioned this.

Another aspect worth debating that is upsetting people is the elimination of the use of the length of stay in Canada as a non-permanent resident. This measure is really troubling for many foreign students and temporary workers who have been in Canada for a few months, or even a few years, and who were planning on applying for citizenship in the near future. They now see that they might have to wait for many more years. This really changes their plans.

I have gotten a number of emails from my constituents and from people across Quebec and Canada. I think it is worth sharing some of them. For example, Abdoul Haseeb Awan said:

I chose and moved to Canada three years ago after being offered admission in world leading universities. I have won various prizes, grants and awards during the last three years. After graduating as Master in Engineering, I chose entrepreneurship. I was promised a PR status within 12 months, which took 19 months. [Yes, the delays are very long. I will have to wait] 2 more years for citizenship.

That person contributed, studied here, worked here, created jobs here, and does not understand why we would deny him consideration for the time he has lived and contributed in Canada.

Another example is an email from Andras Korinek. I will quote a few sentences from his email. He said:

The second issue I see with this bill is the new method of counting residence days. I personally came into Canada through a work permit and it took me 2 years to finally become a permanent resident. I think the intention of the bill to make sure applicants are supporting Canadian society and sharing Canadian values are honourable, however, the metrics used to measure this are flawed. I am contributing to Canada by working here and paying taxes. I have a Canadian spouse, Canadian friends, I joined a local sports team. I would like to be officially welcomed into Canadian society as a proud citizen.

One last example, though I have a lot of them, is from Sultan Ali Ahmed, a McGill University student, who arrived in August 2007. He says:

...there should be recognition given to students graduating from canadian universities, who were initially on study permits, started working after graduation and then applied for their PRs.

As members can see, many people are worried about seeing their plans change and are urging us to review this measure. This subject is worthy of an honest debate.

I would now like to talk about the elements that I do not even think are worthy of debate. I think they are extremely worrisome for several reasons. First, Bill C-24 increases the minister's discretionary power. Under this bill, the minister will now have the right to grant or revoke citizenship in special cases.

We have seen a lot of this from the Conservatives: using bills to grant themselves more discretionary powers. The NDP disagrees with this measure. This kind of discretionary power opens the door to turning our citizenship system into a political tool. The minister has said that he was not necessarily prepared to say to whom he would grant citizenship.

That a member of a political party could do such things behind closed doors is unacceptable. These are great powers. The citizenship process must be part of a system that people can trust because of its impartiality and transparency. I am very worried that by granting such powers to a minister we are moving in the opposite direction.

The bill raises another concern. According to the provisions of this bill, the minister can revoke citizenship—in the case of a dual citizen—when there is a suspicion of fraud. The key word here is “suspicion”. In fact, the minister has the power to revoke citizenship or to authorize a person to revoke it in his name if he is “satisfied on a balance of probabilities” that the person obtained citizenship fraudulently.

The problem is that the person will no longer be able to appear before an independent tribunal that would determine whether or not the allegations are true. That is important. A person with Canadian citizenship is a Canadian and should have access to a fair and just process under our justice system. It is worrisome in this case, and also in the case of someone who is accused of terrorism abroad and who must spend a few years in jail. Because of this charge, a person's citizenship can be revoked.

In a question to the minister, I mentioned earlier that the main concern in this case is that people can be accused of terrorism without having the right to a fair and just process in a country where the justice system is not immune to political pressure, for example.

We have already seen a number of such cases, even in Canada. People have been charged, spent several years in prison and then may have become heroes because they were imprisoned for political and partisan reasons. Someone behind me whispered the name of Nelson Mandela and, indeed, that could be one example. These are serious concerns.

In closing, this bill does not tackle the main problems with our citizenship system at present—the wait times and the backlog. The wait times are horrible. They have more than doubled under the Conservatives, who waited all these years before pretending to take an interest in the problem.

The government says that this bill will resolve the situation, but I am not so sure. Nothing in this bill can prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that there will be significant changes. On one hand, we are adjusting certain administrative measures to help the process run more smoothly or more quickly than before, but on the other, we are increasing the use of the residency questionnaire, which is extremely long to compile and analyze. Other criteria, such as a declaration of intent to live in Canada, are being added.

What is the point in making the system more efficient if we are asking the people who have to review the files to do extra work? How will that really help? People are fed up with being told to wait when they apply for citizenship and are entitled to it. They should get a response quickly and efficiently.

For a number of the reasons that I mentioned, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following:

this House decline to give second reading to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, because it:

(a) does not provide an adequate solution for reducing citizenship application processing times, which have been steadily increasing;

(b) puts new significant powers in the hands of the Minister that will allow this government to politicize the granting of Canadian citizenship;

(c) gives the Minister the power to revoke citizenship, which will deny some Canadians access to a fair trial in Canada and will raise serious questions since Canadian law already includes mechanisms to punish those who engage in unlawful acts; and

(d) includes a declaration of intent to reside provision, which in fact gives officials the power to speculate on the intent of a citizenship applicant and then potentially deny citizenship based on this conjecture.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the member for Calgary Northeast endorsing that view. Canadians across this country are passionate about their citizenship as never before.

This government is passionate about the contribution of the member for Calgary Northeast to this bill. This has been the work of many hands, including those of my hon. colleague the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country and many others who have been absolutely instrumental in weaving together the reforms that we are now presenting and debating.

Why is citizenship seen as being so important? What is citizenship in the 21st century? It is an ancient concept. Some have traced it back to biblical times, to the Holy Scripture. In many different countries some refer to the holy covenant that the people of Israel had with their God, a kind of contract between a whole people and a God that had given law, according to which those people felt obliged to live.

In ancient Greece, the concept of citizenship achieved a new level and a new recognition of the role of individuals in participating in the life of their cities, of their communities, of their political entities. It became clear even in the fourth and fifth century before the Christian era that true freedom, true human potential in all of its facets, could only be realized when people work together on the basis of laws, when no one person was the arbitrary master of others, that slavery was an inferior way of living, and that the freedom that underpins citizenship would be one of the primary aspirations of humanity, and so it remains today.

Citizenship is quite simply the opportunity to be at our best. It provides the opportunity to participate in institutions that have been handed down to us by generations over generations. It is a balance between the responsibilities that go with participation on the one hand, and the obligations and rights on the other hand. Citizenship is sharing in the civic life of a country, in the full sense of the word, not just holding a passport. It is not just coming every four years on voting day to mark one's ballot, although both of those are absolutely fundamental aspects of our citizenship.

Citizenship is participation in the fullest sense, participation in the needs of our neighbours, participation in voluntary organizations, participation in the economy and the economic excellence that a country like Canada has managed to achieve. These are the gains of freedom to which citizenship has opened the door over centuries, indeed millennia, and which have been achieved on a level in this country that we think is without parallel in the history of humanity.

What is Canadian citizenship? What is our version of this great global legacy to which so many aspire but few actually achieve in the highest sense; where freedom is a reality for individuals, including minorities?

In Canada, our citizenship has involved first nations and Inuit. It has involved their languages and culture, their love of the land.

This has involved the creation of institutions that date back to Cartier and Champlain, and to their colleague Mathieu da Costa, whom we honour during Black History Month every year in Canada. It goes back to the era of New France when people like Frontenac, La Salle and La Vérendrye set off to discover an entire continent. They were forging a vision of a country that inspires us to this day.

It is also a citizenship that as you know, Mr. Speaker, has striven to make institutions as representative as possible.

There was already a conseil souverain under the ancien régime at the time of Nouvelle-France, but we know that Canada was one of the first countries to establish assemblies in the two Canadas. In Nova Scotia, a representative assembly was established as far back as 1758, which was among the earliest in the British Empire.

Through the War of 1812, when those traditions were challenged and our numbers were augmented by those who had fled the United States decades earlier during the American Revolution and in the decades leading up to Confederation, we fought in this country to have not only assemblies and honest government, free of corruption; we also fought to have accountable, responsible government. It was citizens across this country, in cities, towns, rural areas, and urban centres who paved the pathway to Confederation. They underpinned that national policy. They brought us, strong and free, into the 20th century, when the story of a larger Canada, and a Canada that eventually adopted a Citizenship Act in 1947, begins.

It is a tremendously exciting legacy. It is one that we all have a responsibility to live up to in this day and age. It is one that we are seeking to renew and reinforce with this bill.

The bill has three highlights. First, it aims to reinforce the value of citizenship by strengthening that value and improving the efficiency of processing. It would also deter citizenships of convenience and the idea that the passport is all that it is about. It would deter the idea that Canadian citizenship could be, for some, a flag of convenience without the full participation of Canadian life that we know is so essential to the success of our country.

Secondly, it is about maintaining the integrity of citizenship. It is about combatting fraud, which we have to do across our programs as the challenge of fraud becomes more sophisticated throughout modern life. It is also about deterring disloyalty. There are those who would plant disastrous ideologies through the Internet, or through other forms of recruitment, and into the minds of our young people and turn them against Canada. We are pleased to be able to report that those are a very limited number in this country, but we want to deter that kind of behaviour altogether.

Finally, as always on this side of the House, we want to honour those who serve Canada. There are several measures in this bill that would do so.

I would like to begin by discussing, in more detail, ways to reinforce the value of citizenship. As I said, Canadian citizenship is considered extremely valuable around the world, and our policies must reflect and reinforce that value.

I do not think that all hon. members of the House understand just how desirable Canadian citizenship is to people around the world. Many people admire us, respect us and want to become immigrants and citizens.

Among the measures in Bill C-24 that will achieve that objective, I would like to point out changes to residency requirements for granting citizenship, in other words, the time period during which those seeking citizenship must be present in Canada before they may apply for it.

These changes will promote the integration of new immigrants by changing the residency requirement from three out of the four years preceding the application to four out of the six. The bill also clarifies that residency means physical a presence in Canada.

In other words, we would ask those who apply for Canadian citizenship to make that commitment explicitly and upfront, to be physically present in Canada not for three out of four years but for four out of six years. That is something we did not do before.

Canada's presence requirement will help newcomers better integrate into Canadian society. For people to understand Canada's social and cultural norms, they need to experience them. Nothing can replace experiencing our customs, landscape, institutions and communities first-hand.

I would like to add, before we get too far into this, that the rules would only apply after this law comes into force and after the necessary orders in council have been gazetted, changing the regulations in this respect. So anyone who is making an application to become a Canadian citizen now or for the foreseeable future as this bill moves through this House and the other place, will be treated under the current rules. I want to be absolutely explicit on that point.

As well, citizenship applicants would no longer be able to use the time they spent in Canada as non-permanent residents to meet the citizenship residence requirements. Again, this would reinforce the value of citizenship by requiring applicants to demonstrate a commitment to Canada through permanent residence. We do this for most permanent residents, so why should we not do it for all in a country where equality is such a highly prized principle, and a defensible principle in this case? Any move to part ways with that principle would risk confusing a situation that in the past has been confused and has led to abuse on a significant scale.

Another proposed measure relating to residence requirements would require applicants to declare, prior to obtaining citizenship, their intention to reside, something that I have already mentioned.

However, these are not the only measures in the bill that would reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship. A proposed amendment would require more citizenship applicants to meet the language and knowledge of Canada requirements.

We want to ensure that potential citizens can speak French or English when they apply for citizenship, which will enable them to become full-fledged members of Canadian society. We also want to ensure that they have adequate knowledge of our country.

Consequently, if Bill C-24 is passed, applicants aged 14 to 64 will have to meet language requirements and pass a knowledge test in one of our two official languages.

Right now, applicants aged 18 to 54 are required to meet language and knowledge requirements.

I must say that we are making this move because the language and knowledge requirements we have put in place so far have proven to be so successful and popular. They have actually increased the interest in and popularity of Canadian citizenship. All of those who come to this country understand how important it is to know the place they are living and to have some knowledge of the local languages, at least during their working years or high school years.

Second, a number of the measures in Bill C-24 will give us more effective tools for fighting citizenship fraud and, more broadly speaking, ensuring the integrity of our system.

Bill C-24 contains provisions that target unscrupulous citizenship consultants. Under these provisions, the government will have the ability to designate a regulatory body whose members would be authorized to act as citizenship consultants. Individuals not authorized to act as citizenship consultants or representatives will be charged with an offence, and the sentences will be harsher for fraud and false statements related to citizenship matters.

As we know, this reflects or mirrors in many ways a move that my hon. colleague, now the Minister of Employment and Social Development, made with regard to immigration consultants. It has had an extremely positive, felicitous effect. We trust that the same would happen for the smaller group of citizenship consultants.

Currently, the Citizenship Act bars applicants from citizenship when they have been charged with or convicted of an indictable offence in Canada, or if they are serving a sentence in Canada.

The provisions in Bill C-24 would expand criminal provisions to bar applicants for equivalent foreign convictions. No, we would not accept bogus foreign convictions. There would be a provision by which a person who had been falsely charged and convicted abroad by a repressive regime, an abusive regime, an autocratic regime, could still become a Canadian citizen on the basis of an administrative and, if necessary, judicial review here in Canada.

If passed, Bill C-24 would also streamline the process to revoke citizenship acquired by fraudulent means, leading to timelier revocation decisions while still ensuring legal recourse to individuals.

As well, measures in the bill would ensure that international adoption safeguards are met.

Finally, on the integrity and fraud front, dual citizens and permanent residents convicted of terrorism, high treason, treason, or certain spying offences, or who received a specified minimum sentence, would be similarly affected.

Let me emphasize. This is a matter that relates only to dual nationals or to those who are permanent residents seeking to become citizens.

However, there is the following aspect, unfortunately, to our global reality today. According to CSIS, 130 Canadians are fighting with extremists somewhere in the world, with terrorist groups that have been listed by Canada or that face listing by Canada, some 30 of them in Syria. There is a real question for us, and I think for most Canadians, about whether those Canadians, when they are dual nationals, have not literally breached their contract with Canada. This legislation, thanks to the hon. member for Calgary Northeast, would allow us to take action against them.

I almost passed over one of the most popular parts of the bill, the measures that would make the citizenship program more efficient and ensure that qualified applicants become citizens more quickly. These include a streamlined decision-making model that would reduce the duplication of work from a three-step to a one-step process, giving the government authority to define what constitutes a complete citizenship application, and ensuring a more uniform judicial review system for decisions under the Citizenship Act.

A third group of provisions in Bill C-24 will pay tribute to those who serve Canada. One of those provisions would extend the granting of citizenship to the children of persons born or adopted abroad whose parents were working for the Government of Canada or serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. Under another initiative, permanent residents who are serving in the Canadian Armed Forces would be granted citizenship sooner. The measures in the bill will allow the government to revoke the Canadian citizenship of people with dual citizenship who are members of an army or an organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada.

In conclusion, I should mention the question of lost Canadians, those born before January 1, 1947, when the first Citizenship Act came into force, or, in the case of Newfoundland, before 1949, who have not so far been entitled to the benefits, privileges, and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship.

My colleague the minister of Minister of Employment and Social Development took the most important steps to right the grievous wrong that had been left unaddressed for decades. The bill would ensure that we take the final steps to make sure that the lost Canadians, the children of those who fought in World War II, those who were among the most committed to the defence and service of this country, enjoy all the benefits of Canadians, not just in the first generation but also in succeeding generations, as governed by the provisions of this law.

We are proud of the bill. We are proud to be presenting it on a day when His Highness the Aga Khan said in the House that Canada has among the highest activity of voluntary institutions and not-for-profit organizations in the world. We think that is proof of the value of Canadian citizenship, that is proof of the dynamism of our society, and those are the grounds for strengthening Canadian citizenship for a new century, for a new millennium.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

moved that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to all who are joining us for today's second reading debate on an important bill. I am delighted to rise today to speak to Bill C-24. the strengthening Canadian citizenship act. These are the first comprehensive reforms to our citizenship act in more than a generation, since 1977. Its aim is very clear. It is to strengthen and protect the value of Canadian citizenship. This was a commitment our government made in its most recent Speech from the Throne, and it is one that we are keeping with today's debate and by making this a legislative priority of our government.

As everyone knows, our government has transformed Canada's immigration system over the past eight years to better meet Canada's current needs and those of its economy and to ensure that it serves our national interests. Having done that, we must now improve the process for granting Canadian citizenship to qualified applicants. In Canada, the two go hand in hand. Immigrants want citizenship, and the quality of our immigration programs depends heavily on the quality and integrity of our citizenship program. We have to ensure that our policies and practices properly reflect the tremendous value of Canadian citizenship.

That is the reality that has driven this legislation, that has driven our thinking, that has driven the support that this government is receiving across the country for these reforms.

Canadians take enormous pride in their citizenship, an unprecedented pride.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the members of the procedure and House affairs committee are very much looking forward to when the NDP members cease their filibuster and actually allow the committee to get on with the business of hearing from witnesses. It is the NDP, in fact, that for many months called on this government to ensure that legislation was in place by the end of this spring. Oddly, its efforts to prevent any evidence from being heard on this legislation is in contradiction to that. I look forward to that changing, now that the House finally voted on that question conclusively this week.

I would also like to note that something else the House voted on this week is Canada's economic action plan 2014. The House endorsed a plan that sees our government on track to balance the budget next year, all the while keeping taxes low and protecting the programs and services upon which Canadians rely.

Unfortunately, the hon. member for Papineau voted against this sound budget, which received both accolades and praise from all parts of the country and diverse sectors of the economy. Perhaps the member does not appreciate the extraordinary effort that went into such a fiscally sound budget. After all, the Liberal leader does hold the view that budgets balance themselves. We know better. We understand the hard work that fiscal leadership actually requires and the hard work that governing demands, something with which he is apparently unacquainted.

With the budget adopted, the House will work on other legislation. Today, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act. That debate will continue next Wednesday, if need be. Monday, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act. Tuesday shall be the sixth allotted day. Finally, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I think that was the Thursday question and a question about what business we will be undertaking.

This afternoon we will continue the second day of debate on economic action plan 2014.

As we learned in Tuesday's budget, and have been hearing in this House in the debate since, our government is on track to balance the budget while keeping taxes low and protecting the programs and services Canadians count on.

Since the global recession, Canada has achieved the best job creation record in the G7, the strongest income growth and one of the best economic performances in the G7.

Economic action plan 2014 builds on this record of achievement with positive measures to grow the economy and help create jobs.

Under the terms of a motion adopted by the House yesterday, the vote on the Liberal subamendment to the budget will be held on the evening of Monday, February 24. The third and fourth days of debate on this year's budget will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 25 and 26.

Of course, those dates follow the upcoming constituency week. However, before we get there, we will debate Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories devolution act, at third reading tomorrow.

On Thursday, February 27, we will be sitting with a Wednesday schedule because at 11:00 a.m. that morning His Highness the Aga Khan will give an address to both Houses of Parliament, an event that I am sure all hon. members will eagerly anticipate.

That afternoon, we will start second reading debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. This bill represents the first comprehensive overhaul of Canada's citizenship laws in a generation.

That day will also be the day designated, pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), for concluding the debate on concurrence on the third report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Monday, February 24, shall be the fifth allotted day.

Finally, while it is not reflected in Standing Order 28, tomorrow, Friday, is Valentine's Day. To this I say to my wife Cheryl:

Liberals are red,
Conservatives are blue,
this motion is not debatable,
I really love you.

In the spirit of love on Valentine's Day, I wish all the best for everyone, and those who are close to them, here in the House.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday our government unveiled the first comprehensive reform of the Citizenship Act since 1977. Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, would increase the efficiency of the citizenship program, reinforce the value of citizenship, and combat fraud. It would promote Canada's interests by honouring those who serve Canada, and it would protect Canadians from foreign criminals and those who pose a threat to our national security.

As Canadians, we understand the value and sacredness of citizenship. This bill encourages new Canadians to form a stronger attachment to Canada and to embrace Canadian values and traditions and the Canadian way of life. We have welcomed 1.4 million new Canadian citizens since our Conservative government took office. We have welcomed more families and more permanent residents, and we continue to attract the world's most talented and innovative immigrants to Canada.

I encourage all members of the House to support this very important piece of legislation.

Citizenship Act

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Nunavut, NU]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)