Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 29th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good afternoon, everybody. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting 67 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Before we get into our work for today, there is a quick matter for the committee to decide.

On November 15, 2022, the committee adopted a motion ordering the department to provide monthly data on the number of people claiming asylum after entering Canada through non-official points of entry. Now that the committee has presented its report on the asylum seeker study, and given that the data are publicly available online, the department would like to know if it is still the will of the committee to receive these monthly reports.

The members would like to continue receiving the monthly reports...?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Now we will proceed to our clause-by-clause study of Bill S-245.

Mr. Redekopp, go ahead.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I have a question on scheduling.

As you know, my colleague Tom Kmiec and I have been dealing with this issue of the Indian students who were issued fraudulent college acceptance letters by immigration consultants and who are now facing deportation. I'm sure you've seen that in the motion I have on notice.

I also want you to know that I did a petition on this on Friday. We already have over 4,000 signatures on this, so it's definitely an issue people care about.

I heard through the grapevine that we might be scheduling something on this. I'm curious. I've just heard that we might do a meeting or something on this. Can you advise us as to whether anything like that is happening?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Before we get on to any other study, we have legislation before the committee. We have to complete this because we cannot get a further extension. We have already taken that extension. I don't know how many meetings we will have on this.

First and foremost, we have to complete this and get it back to the House. After that, we can proceed into any other business.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

There's no way we can review that issue...? You're not going to allow us to review that issue or talk about it—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We don't have time because of the number of meetings we have already had. We already got a 30-day extension and we will not be able to get any further extensions, so we have to complete this before we proceed to anything else.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Not to belabour this point, but I hope this will give some comfort to committee members and to the public. On the issue of the 700 international students who have been mistreated by bad actors with ghost consultants, I wrote a letter to the minister about that early last week, to call on the government to take action, especially in terms of staying the deportation of these students and finding a permanent pathway for the students, whether that be through an H and C application process or a regularization process.

That's something I am working on actively with the minister's office, and I am hopeful that this will be addressed. That's definitely a big concern for people, and rightfully so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Dhaliwal, go ahead.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Kmiec and Mr. Redekopp for bringing this issue forward. It's a very important issue to the government on this side as well.

As Ms. Kwan is in constant touch with the minister to resolve this matter, so am I on this side. We want to see this matter come forward at some point in time. The reason is that we do not want these bad actors to take advantage of these innocent people time and time again. I'm sure on this side the minister is paying attention to the victims and not to the culprits. That's the plan, and that's what is happening right now. I'm sure that in the coming days we will be able to see better results on this.

As far as my understanding goes, we are talking about not even 700 students. I think at some point in time we can have a briefing from the minister or the parliamentary secretary, who is sitting along with us, to see the number of those affected by this. Every case is at a different level as well in the processing stage. Every case needs to have attention paid to it, because some of them might have already been approved and some of them are in the queue. As far as I see, I don't think it's 700 people. However, even if there's one, it is important that we deal with it.

Madam Chair, you mentioned the bill we are doing right now, the citizenship bill. I ran into Senator Martin today, but I couldn't even say much besides “good morning” because we want to get this bill through this committee so it can get passed in the House, go back through the Senate and get royal assent one day. She's very proud of bringing this forward. We, as committee members, agree as well.

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec and Mr. Redekopp, for bringing this forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal.

Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

With respect to Mr. Dhaliwal, the only thing I see the minister doing is sending tweets. We need more action than that. I think it's important that we deal with this here at committee as soon as we possibly can.

Ms. Kwan said that she sent a letter to the minister. Would it be possible for you to provide that to us? We haven't seen that, and I would be curious.... We sent a letter that I think was public, so I'd love to see yours as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm happy to provide that letter to the committee. That letter is on the public record as well, by the way, as it is an open letter to the minister.

Since that time, I have also written a response to the minister's announcement that he is aware of the situation and that they would undertake to target the bad actors and not penalize the students. I have also issued a follow-up letter to the minister with respect to that. I'm happy to table that as well.

In essence, we need action on the staying of the deportation for those students who are impacted and a regularization pathway for permanent resident status or through an H and C application process.

I'd be happy to table those documents for the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Chair, I think that this is enough for now. Let's move on to the important bill that we need to get through, as we have a deadline to meet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Bill S-245.

Today, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, November 16, 2022, the committee will resume consideration of Bill S-245, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to certain Canadians.

We are continuing our clause-by-clause study of the bill.

(On clause 1)

When we left off, we were on clause 1.

Ms. Kwan moved NDP-5. Mrs. Lalonde moved a subamendment, which was adopted. Mrs. Lalonde then moved a second subamendment.

The floor is open for debate on the subamendment.

Mrs. Lalonde.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Madam Chair, thank you very much.

Welcome back, everyone. It's nice to see you all. Hopefully we can finish the very important bill that is in front of us.

Very briefly, as an explanation to remind everyone regarding this subamendment that we brought forward, it is to clarify that a child born since 2009 who received automatic citizenship due to the fact that their parents had the substantial connection is deemed to have been a citizen retroactively, from the time of their birth, as opposed to only starting from when the bill comes into force.

Colleagues, this subamendment would also ensure that the new (g.1) category, which is the former section 8, is correctly included, wherever it would be in the amendment, for consistency purposes.

Thank you.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Okay, so the.... I'm sorry, but I have to get my head back into this from two weeks ago. As you know, it's a very complicated law.

I guess my question would be for the officials.

Thank you for being here again and for being so patient with us.

Could you please give us your assessment of what this is doing?

[Nicole Girard, Director General, Citizenship Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

As was stated by the member, this is a technical amendment that is necessary to ensure that those who are becoming citizens through the provisions of this bill are considered citizens from the time of their birth. That will also be consistent with how lost Canadians were remedied by the previous legislative amendments in 2009 and 2015. Thank you.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Can you explain this to us? If it isn't done from birth—if it's done from a certain point—what are the implications of that? Why does this need to go back to birth?

[Nicole Girard]

Thank you for the question.

The technical amendment is necessary to treat the extending of citizenship in an equitable way, in the same way that was done through previous legislative remedies in 2009 and 2015. If the amendment is not done, then there would be a distinction, as the member mentioned. In that case, citizenship would only be extended from the time that this bill comes into force, if it passes, which means that citizenship would only be applicable for these individuals from that time moving forward.

As to what the impacts would be, there may be some unintended impacts and that's not necessarily desirable.

Other than that, I will ask my colleague from the Department of Justice whether there is anything she may wish to add on that front.

[Erika Schneidereit, Counsel, Legal Services, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you for the question.

What I would just add, perhaps, is the framing of citizenship in the Citizenship Act currently, in that we have citizenship by grant and citizenship by operation of law. Generally, with citizenship by operation of law, we're recognizing citizenship as a status that was acquired sort of inherent to you as a person, and I think there's something sort of conceptual there as well. That's all I'll add.

Thank you.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Ms. Schneidereit. Is there an issue, though, with acquiring citizenship at a certain age, or is this just to be consistent? I'm struggling to understand why it would matter. What matters in my mind is from now forward, so I'm struggling to understand why the past is important here.

[Erika Schneidereit]

On that specific question, I don't think I have anything to add. My colleague has given I think a fulsome response.

Thank you.