Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 6th, 2008

[Melynda Jarratt]

This cannot continue, because there are just too many people's lives that have been put on hold here. I'm not joking there. When you can't even buy.... I know people who have bought tickets to go to Britain thinking they were Canadian citizens, and then they thought, I have to get my passport renewed. They hadn't had a passport in, say, 10 years. They had had passports before. And then in filling out the form they suddenly found out that they were not Canadian citizens. And boy oh boy, that's just one small thing. CPP, OAP, health care provisions—it just goes on and on and on.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I certainly can indicate that there are obstacles we can deal with. As Mr. Janzen and Mr. Chapman said, there are statelessness provisions that we can deal with. There is the sponsorship provision we can deal with to address some of the issues. But I respect the three of you enough, from what I've heard all this time, that I would actually.... Because you want to support this bill as it is and you want it to pass, I would like to hear our members say we're behind you and that we will support that bill as is in order to have it passed. I'll see to it that we get it here for that purpose, and through the House, in an expeditious manner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have four seconds left. Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.

I'll now go to Mr. Telegdi.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The first meeting of the committee that we were supposed to have was cancelled. In the second meeting of the committee we were listening to strippers. Then we had the Conservatives vying so we could listen to some strippers some more. At the last meeting we had of this committee, the parliamentary secretary was again pushing to get the strippers back.

Mr. Janzen, you said perfect is the enemy of good. Yes, but I think what we also have to recognize is that we have two citizenship acts that were total screw-ups. We have 50 amendments attached to them. It's a citizenship act where you have barnacles growing upon barnacles growing upon barnacles. You need to be a constitutional lawyer to try to understand it, and it has very many unintended consequences.

So for the Conservatives to try to grandstand at this point in time—

[An hon. member]

It's a real shame.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

—when they waited until the last second in December to table a bill—

[An hon. member]

Where are the figures? Bring the figures forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Order.

Give Mr. Telegdi the courtesy that he gave you when you were speaking, please. He didn't interrupt, and I ask that he be given the same courtesy.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To watch the grandstanding is a little bit much. Olivia named those reports, and we did those reports with unanimous agreement from the Conservatives. But when they got into government, it was not a priority.

We had a minister, when she was first confronted with it, who told us that we were dealing with a couple of hundred people. We know that we're dealing with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people.

Now, I am very keen to see the bill go through, but I'm not going to sit through another bill that has many unintended consequences. We have to do due diligence on the bill, and we have to have the public able to respond if we are going to be changing something as important as the Citizenship Act.

Let's be clear. The fact that you are here today and that we're talking about this has everything to do with the opposition on this side, despite the obstruction of the government on the other side. Here we're talking about a bill that isn't even before this committee. It was the opposition that fought to get this bill to this committee.

The kind of position the government is putting you in, putting us in, and putting Canadians in is, quite frankly, terrible. It's bad government. That's how you get bad legislation. Make no mistake, we are keen on getting this thing resolved, but we are also keen on doing a good job so that somebody doesn't have to come here and clean up after our mess.

In terms of the question Mr. Karygiannis asked, I think it's a fair question to ask: how many people are affected? We have asked this of the government. We have had no answer. We have to know what the scope of this is. How many people is this impacting? That's very critical. We really have to know that.

The opposition has been willing to sit extended hours to do whatever it takes to deal with the bill, but also to get the answers to our questions to make sure we can craft the best possible bill.

As I said, again, I understand politics. I've been sitting here for 14 years. But I'm not going to listen to the government grandstand about something on which we had to drag them along to get any action at all.

I hope the government is going to be forthcoming with that information. I hope they table the bill in the House and bring it here, because we have some important work to do. If need be, we will sit extra hours. We agreed to do that the last time around, because we wanted to get the bill done and we wanted to get the report done. Any foot-dragging on it has been by the government. Any grandstanding politically on this has been by the government.

So I am hoping that the push you provided today is going to result in our getting the bill and getting down to seriously working on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Telegdi.

We'll now go to Mr. Carrier.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm relatively new to this Committee: I began in late November, early December. I was working alongside Ms. Meili Faille, who had been the Bloc critic in this area for several years. I know she did very good work.

One of the first things I reviewed was the infamous Committee report. The draft was dated November 20, 2007. So, it's recent. And, if the decision was made to write a report, it's because there was a need for a joint study that would enable the Committee to set out the facts. Unfortunately, I cannot go back in time, as Olivia did, to explain the various timelines. I'm trying to look towards the future.

I understand your impatience. Ms. Jarratt said that the bill was tabled in December. Sixty days later, it has yet to be passed. However, you have to consider the holiday break. We are only at our second week now. And, we are aware that it is important for the bill to come back to Committee to be reviewed.

The Bloc Québécois is definitely in favour of quick passage of this bill, which is based on the Committee report. You confirm that the bill is consistent with that report. Although it may not be perfect, it is a major step forward as regards the many cases that you mentioned.

The Bloc Québécois is prepared to cooperate in order to expedite passage of this bill. Coming to Ottawa from Quebec, one cannot help but notice that the parliamentary process is very slow. Even though it can be passed at third reading and after many different steps—debate in committee, second reading, third reading—when we get here, we are told that it then has to be reviewed by the Senate, which is like a second level of Parliament. Furthermore, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of its abolition, as it prevents effective government.

However, we cannot start an armed revolution in order to change things; that is just the way our democratic system works. When you don't have a majority government in place for four years, it can happen that several bills die at the end of a Parliament, because an election is called. I just wanted to convey that to you. Meili would have liked to tell you that we fully understand the issue, because she worked on it actively. We will be supporting this bill in as constructive a manner as possible, to ensure its quick passage.

I won't go into detail with you regarding those who have lost their citizenship, because that has already been discussed. We fully understand your issue. If we had to go through this, we would be in the same position.

[Don Chapman]

If I could comment, I was the person behind Bill S-2. It was the first bill on lost Canadians to restore citizenship for one particular group.

It was interesting that it failed twice in the House. The Senate picked it up, which was very historic in some ways. That's why it was Bill S-2. The Senate ended up passing the bill in one week--passed, done, over, unanimous. Then they sent it back to the House and forced the House's hand, because in the House they played politics.

Anyway, it was very interesting. I brought that up today, that if we can't do it in the House, let's go to the Senate and get them to do it, and then force it back in the other direction.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Yes, but if it comes back...[Inaudible--Editor]...before.

[Don Chapman]

Either way, yes. Merci.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Do I have a minute left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have 20 seconds.

[Robert Carrier, Bloc, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I will let…

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Go ahead and ask a question, if you want, Monsieur St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I just wanted to respond to Mr. Komarnicki with respect to his proposal. The Bloc Québécois is in full agreement with the idea of moving quickly, insofar as we abide by the spirit of the unanimous report. We don't intend to start drafting a whole series of amendments but, of course, if we discover a major flaw in the meantime, which would do more harm than good, we reserve the right to move amendments. As there doesn't seem to be any, I believe there should be no problem passing it quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. St-Cyr.

We'll go over to Mr. Batters.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome all of you back to committee and to thank you very much for your hard work and persistence. Persistence is an understatement when it comes to this file. Thank you very much for your passion and all the work you've put into this.

Ms. Jarratt, I feel your passion. This is an issue where we should be able to put all partisan politics aside. I'm relatively new to this committee. Frankly, I don't even know the history of which party started this push, or all the different reports that Ms. Chow alluded to. I just know where we are now and what you'd like to see done. I don't have to read all of your supportive quotes and to have you reiterate on the record that you're very supportive of the legislation as is.

As Mr. St-Cyr just said, the Bloc Québécois is supportive of the legislation as is, based on the unanimous report of this committee. Ms. Chow is just about begging the government to bring back this legislation to the House for second reading, so it can go through special passage.

I want to say, before I go on, that I have a great deal of respect for my colleague Mr. Karygiannis, as I do for Mr. Telegdi. I know they are both very passionate about this issue. They've pushed very hard on this for their constituents and Canadians. However, I'm a bit confused by Mr. Telegdi's statement that we have to do our due diligence. He did state on CBC that, “As long as the legislation fits the report, it will get very quick passage, and I think they'll get great cooperation from the House of Commons to make this a reality.”

That is all we're seeking today—and I'll get to my question at the very end.

Mr. Karygiannis, I ask for your indulgence. At the very end, there will be a question for these three witnesses.

I know that Mr. Karygiannis, who's fought hard on this issue, wasn't here the week of the unanimous report—

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, if we're going to go through this thing, I don't think—

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Don't count this against my time.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

We have the same rules as we do in the House on a member's presence. So I'd like the member to make a retraction, as well as to apologize. The fact of whether I was here or not here is not something that should be—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That's a valid point of order. There's no need for an apology, but a retraction is—