Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Dhaliwal. The meeting you are quoting from was in camera, so you cannot talk about that.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, for reminding me. That's all I wanted to say.

Let's not waste any more time. Let's get this important bill through so that the people who are lost Canadians and have lost their citizenship are able to regain it. I'm sure Senator Martin will be very happy as soon as this bill goes through and she puts her name and stamp on this bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal,

Next on the list is Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

Madam Chair, first off, I want to say this. There's no question that, for people whose applications are faced with processing delays, there should be a mechanism to deal with them. I absolutely agree with that.

Now, before I go on with further comments, I want to ask the legislative clerk for a clarification.

With respect to this amendment here and the way in which it was explained by Ms. Rempel Garner, is this to say that this will now apply to every application, whether it's PR, work permits, study permits, citizenship or anything?

When there is a processing delay of over five years, the matter would automatically be referred to the minister, or there would be an ability to refer the matter to the minister, to review the cases, waive those delays and approve the application. Is that what this means?

My question is to the legislative clerk, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

The legislative clerk has referred this to the officials, so I will ask Ms. Girard to please respond to Ms. Kwan's question.

[Nicole Girard]

Thank you for the question.

This amendment is seeking to amend the Citizenship Act. The Citizenship Act refers only to applications in process under the Citizenship Act, and grant applications in particular.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to clarify that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

That's very helpful because it clarifies the muddiness that's been presented, as though this would apply to every other case and every other stream. That clearly is not the case.

Now, of course, I would be tempted—although I'm not going to do so, so you don't need to respond—to ask the officials how many people are in the situation of having to wait over five years for their grant application to process, and so on and so forth. However, the officials are not here and equipped to answer those questions because we're here to deal with the issue of lost Canadians. I would be happy to entertain these kinds of suggestions at a different time, and even a study if people want to take a look at that and to initiate that process.

I would also say that, for people who need, perhaps, an urgent recognition for citizenship, such as in the examples Mr. Kmiec has mentioned, there is of course a provision in which that could happen, and that is honorary citizenship, which the minister has the authority to grant as well. Because citizenship applications have a hardship component within them, in respect of which the minister can exercise that right to look at those cases for delays, I think that at this point we should focus on what is before us, which is the issue of lost Canadians.

I'm tempted to bring forward all manner of amendments that would be outside the scope of Bill S-245 but are something I really want to see through, such as, for example, an amendment to deal with statelessness. I recognize, however, that maybe I would not be doing that appropriately and would, therefore, be undermining the very people who are trying to get their situation addressed. That would be the families with lost Canadians, who have been waiting patiently to see what this committee does. To that end, I will not be supporting this amendment, and I'm hopeful that we can actually get through the entire package of all the amendments that are before us by 7:30 p.m. today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

I have three more people on the speaking list. Before I go there, I would request that all the members please stay on topic. We are dealing with Bill S-245, an act to amend the Citizenship Act. All your comments should be within that scope, please.

Next on this list is Ms. Rempel Garner.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'll use my time to respond to a few questions.

I'd like to draw colleagues' attention to the instructions given by the House to this committee on the review of the bill, based on a motion that was passed in terms of how this committee should be reviewing the bill. I think this is important for people who are watching.

The motion, which was voted on in the House of Commons, and that I voted against but others voted for, was that.... I'm sorry. This is the motion that was passed here, but then there was a subsequent reflective motion in the House. It is:

...that the committee recommends to the House that it be granted the power during its consideration of Bill S-245, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians) to expand the scope of the Bill such that the provisions of the bill be not limited to an application to retain his or her citizenship under section 8 as it is read before April 17, 2009.

I just want to be clear with colleagues, and I want to reiterate arguments that I made earlier. The Standing Orders and rules and procedures regarding the review of bills typically are that amendments are focused on the very narrow substance that is included within the bill as presented before our committee. What this committee—and then subsequently the House—decided to do was to expand the scope explicitly to go beyond those provisions.

My colleague Ms. Kwan argued that this wasn't in scope, but it is in scope. This amendment is in scope.

Essentially, that's what she was intimating, and also that it didn't have anything to do with the bill, but what we are now looking at, for people who are watching, is that what happened here was rather than the government introducing.... They even could have put it in the budget implementation act, frankly, if they had wanted to. Instead, the government.... I'm guessing what happened is that part of the NDP-Liberal coalition deal was that they made a bit of a behind-the-scenes deal on what needed to go into this private member's bill, which was very narrow in scope.

Again, just to reiterate, my understanding from Senator Martin is that this was expedited through the Senate with all-party consensus so the bill could go through. My understanding is that stakeholders were, like, “yes, let's keep it narrow and to the point so it can go through”, but what happened here was that, when whatever deal was made to assuage whoever, the subsequent motion on how this bill would be disposed of was passed before this committee and the scope was opened up.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander, and since we have now increased the scope of the bill, we all have the right and, frankly, the obligation and duty to follow the terms of that motion, which is what this amendment does. It is completely acceptable. It deals with the matter at hand and I am following the order presented to this committee.

I want to be clear that many of us, when we were deliberating on this particular motion, made the point that we should be carrying forward in the spirit of non-partisanship and out of a desire to help the people Senator Martin set out to help. We all want to do that.

When we debated this motion to increase the scope, there were concerns raised, such as what my colleague Ms. Kwan said: that the department officials wouldn't be prepared to look at amendments. Well, now the members of the opposition have been forced to look at very technical, very substantive changes to the Citizenship Act with table-dropped amendments and without data on impact, on costing or on terms.

I understand that the intent is to help people here, but my job and my first responsibility—my fiduciary responsibility to the Canadian public—when I'm reviewing legislation is to understand things like cost, what the role of government is and what the impact is. Does this impact one group of people and not another? Is this going to cause downstream problems? It might not, but I don't have that data.

That is why the Standing Orders usually restrict amendments to a narrow scope of a bill. However, what we've done here is say, “Be darned with the Standing Orders and the review of legislation. We're just going to open this up.”

What I've done with this is to try to put in place a very common-sense amendment that does actually affect the scope of this bill, because we know that even people who are in this boat—lost Canadians—are subject to the same delays and same incommunicado status that we often get from the department.

I just want to be very clear to anybody who is watching. I take my duty to review legislation very seriously. Opening up the scope of the bill to put in things that aren't in scope on a bill that was already agreed to in the other place puts me in a situation where I am not prepared to vote appropriately without due diligence, and that due diligence will happen here. This is not any sort of game outside of.... It is not fair for me to be put in a position to vote on legislation without due diligence.

When there is an opportunity, when the committee has voted, to essentially do a statutory review of the Citizenship Act, then that is what we will do. We will take the time to do that because we all have the same rights on this committee to do that—opposition, in a coalition agreement or not. We all represent close to a million, roughly.... Well, I represent 120,000 people. In this room, we probably represent close to a million or over a million people. For us just to push this through because somebody in some backroom deal says that we're going to increase the scope because their private member's bill didn't get through in the last Parliament.... That's not my problem. I have to make sure that I'm doing my due diligence, and I'm not sorry for that.

My colleagues have been asking very good questions. Frankly, we haven't even received responses on some of the data we've asked for. We've been put in a position to vote on amendments that were done in a deal, and frankly, we've now had a point of privilege on this matter with stakeholders when we weren't even looped into the matter. I find this atrocious, the whole process atrocious, and I will try to maintain my composure here.

However, for somebody to intimate that it is somehow not appropriate to follow the letter of a motion that they themselves put forward and voted in favour of.... They have another think coming on how this is going to proceed. We are going to proceed with diligence and also undertake the order of that ruling. If they wanted to push this through quickly, then what should have been done was that we should have relied on the work that was done in the Senate, because it was done quickly and with diligence. However, that is not what happened here. What happened was this: “Let's put in place a whole bunch more amendments that are out of scope and then expect everybody around this table to vote without doing that diligence.” That's just not fair. It's not right, and that's why there are rules on order.

Let's get back to the matter at hand. One, this amendment here is in order, based on the instructions of the House. Two, it does impact the people who are with the original scope of the bill. Three, the staff here have, with regard to my colleague Ms. Kayabaga's question, talked about scope in terms of what it would apply to. Four, I'm just going to argue that some people have said the minister may already have certain powers and whatnot. It's not clear in this regard, and there's nothing in the Citizenship Act that talks about processing delays. It's a very unclear, nebulous process on which the minister can and can't do this. Then what happens is that, when we are communicating on this with constituents or if there are immigration lawyers who are looking at this, they are unclear as to what and when the minister may intervene. I would like more clarity, and that is why this motion is here right now. That's why we're seeking to amend this act.

Colleagues, if other colleagues are looking at amendments that are far beyond the scope of the original bill, then so will we. Again, Madam Chair, I want to re-emphasize that, should the government have wished to have done this, it could have put any other amendments in the budget implementation act. It could have put in place another piece of government legislation, or people could have put a private member's bill forward. However, that is not what happened here.

They changed the rules of Parliament, essentially. Now we are just responding to those changes.

I hope my colleagues will support this, because it gives the minister an additional tool. It recognizes the fact that oftentimes the department doesn't really have any political imperative to maintain service standards, even within a narrow scope, and it clearly gives people who are stuck in quagmire situations, such as the ones we've been discussing in the scope of this bill, some hope. I would hope that my colleagues would give the minister another tool and give people some hope.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

Next is Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm not going rehash what my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner just said, as I think she said it well, but I do want to remind us here and anybody who might be watching that we were on a certain track. The track was that the Senate had provided this bill to the House without even studying it. They knew the content of it had previously gone through the Senate, so they entrusted it to the House. Why did they do that? It was because they wanted it done quickly. Everybody agreed that this needed to be done quickly.

That was the track we were on. It came here. One of the key issues was lost Canadians. Was that all of the issues? No, of course not. It was one of them, but that was the whole point of it. Rather than fix everything at once, the sponsor of the bill wanted to fix one significant chunk of this problem and actually get it done.

The fix has been attempted numerous times. There's always been too much bitten off and too much attempted at once to fix it. It's never made it through. It was a new strategy this time to keep it simple, focus on one thing, go through the Senate quickly and come to the House. That was the track we were on. Here at this committee we would have looked at it. I think there was broad agreement for what was in that bill. Once we had completed it and sent it back to the House, had the House voted in favour, that would have been the end of the story. It would have been implemented. That's the track we were on.

The track we are now on is because of, as my colleague described, the motion in the House to expand the scope of this. The government, the NDP and whoever else wanted to go back to the former strategy of doing everything at once. You know, if at first you don't succeed, try again—except the definition of insanity is doing the same thing multiple times and expecting different results.

What has happened now is that we've expanded the scope of this bill broadly. Yes, it's taken longer to get through committee here, but this isn't the end of it, because the track we're now on, should it be voted through the House, is that it will have to go back to the Senate. The Senate will not just rubber-stamp it. We already have indications—

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

Madam Chair, I'm so sorry. I have a point of order.

Listen, I'm a very big proponent of

history and history classes, but I'd like my colleague to go back to the motion that was put forward by his colleague on

the relevancy of this discussion on history, Madam Chair. Let's go back to the point that we are having a conversation on, which is my colleague's.

Thank you.

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

On a point of order, Madam Chair, with regard to relevancy, my colleagues Ms. Kayabaga and Ms. Kwan in their remarks both raised questions about process and scoping. I believe my colleague's comments are relevant, because he is talking about how the expansion—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We're getting into debate. It's not a point of order.

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

It was on the point of order. It's just before you make a ruling, that's all. I do get to intervene. Isn't that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes. That's what I'm saying. We are getting into debate. This is not like a point of order. It's getting into debate.

I will go back to Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

The reason I'm going through this is because of exactly what was just said and what the questions were. Why do we seem to be going beyond lost Canadians? I'm just reminding—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Just as a reminder, as I said previously, everyone should stay on the bill that we have before us. Let's not go too much into other discussions or side discussions. Let's focus on the bill that we have before us.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Chair, the question asked was, why are we going down this path that isn't directly on the subject of lost Canadians? That's part of the answer to that question being asked. That's why I am—

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

It's an inconvenient truth.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Yes. I'm trying to answer the question as to why we are going down that path. I'm reminding the committee of the path we are now on. The significance of this is that, because we're now on this other path.... I've explained that. It's going to take longer in the Senate. It's just a longer process and the odds of this finally being approved are getting smaller because of the longer process due to this path.

The other point of this path is that, as my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner just explained, we now have the ability to do the same. It's a fair point. You don't often have a chance to change things in the Citizenship Act. The government and the NDP have said, “Hey, let's fix problems two, three, four and five.” I think the amendment being proposed is problem six. We have a few ideas, as well, about things we would like to do. Since we've opened the hood, so to speak, on the Citizenship Act, now we have a chance to throw in our few cents on what we think should be fixed. This is one of the amendments we discussed.

I think it's perfectly relevant for us to suggest something like this and get it done. For that, I support it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Redekopp.

I have more people on the speaking list. I'll just remind all the members that, right now, we are debating the amendment moved by Ms. Rempel Garner. I would request that all members stay on that amendment, please.

I have Mr. Kmiec and then Ms. Kwan.

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

To reiterate, there are 294,000 citizenship applications that are backlogged right now that this could apply to. There must be some that have extensive delays assigned to them that this would directly help.

My colleagues have raised the issue that this is.... All of this is germane to the discussion. We're trying to find ways to propose amendments so that, when we go back to our caucus to seek caucus solidarity, we can all vote for the final product that this committee produces for the House to consider, and our Conservative team will be for it.

When this went through our caucus, it was.... Basically, it's what we call a slam dunk. Everybody agrees. We agreed with the original principle and scope of the bill, and we were onside, because there were two different versions of it.

This amendment would help us make the case that the other portions of the amendments that have been introduced and passed over our objections.... This would help us to say, “Okay, we got a few things we like. There are some things we don't like, but on balance, it is, perhaps, a bill that we can live with on a go-forward basis.” This amendment does exactly that. We would be able to achieve that, I think, with our caucus. We would have to go back and convince them that this bill has been used for other purposes to expand to other groups of lost Canadians.

We've been very amenable. We voted for some amendments, like the previous one on matters of adoption. After asking a few questions to get a better understanding of it, Conservative members were for it. It can't be said that we haven't been reasonable when there was reason.

There are other amendments that we could not agree with. Those are amendments that our caucus colleagues will look at and say, “Why did these pass? This is not what was originally agreed to. They go far beyond the original scope.” We'll remind them of what happened in the House. I mentioned in the House that this would essentially be treated like a statutory review, so why not put in a compassionate waiver provision for the minister to consider? That's almost 300,000 applications right there. When there's a backlog of almost two million, that's still a large amount that could be considered. Who knows, into the future, how many more extra ones could occur?

I'm hoping that IRCC, the department, and the minister abandon the plan to do that click citizenship and the attestation format, and that we move back to in-person ceremonies. They are, maybe, more difficult to do, or maybe it's more inconvenient to hold in-person ceremonies, but I think they're important.

Again, I had a naturalization ceremony back in 1989. I think they're very valuable. It's the third word in the department's name and it's the first one in this committee's official name—“citizenship”. That's the whole point of immigration. It's to make new citizens in Canada, and that's what we want.

Providing a waiver for some of these applications that are massively backlogged, and again, only those over five years—it's a very narrow scope—and only those on compassionate grounds.... Maybe there are certain situations whereby a person missed a lot of ceremonies they were invited to. Maybe they were invited to a virtual one and they dropped out before it could be completed. I know that would be a problem as well. Because it's a narrow scope, because it's a delegation of a bit more executive authority by Parliament in the Citizenship Act to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, it's only for waivers on compassionate grounds, only for those over five years and only for citizenship applications. That's what I've come to understand would be the general interpretation of this. I don't see why not. It's a reasonable amendment, and it would help us go back.

I want to remind you, Madam Chair, that you allowed another member from the opposite side to speak. I have a great appreciation for Mr. Dhaliwal. He is a veteran of the House and has been here for a long time. I will remind him that, actually, the number for parents and grandparents, family class and PRs is 39 months right now. That's according to data sent to this committee by IRCC. As of March 2023, it's 60 months for applications for spouses, partners and children. It's way beyond the 12 months. I'm going back to 2019, when it was 12 months. It was very quick. There have been long delays.

When he spoke about the applications that were returned, everybody's money was returned, as well, in that situation. We're not talking about returning the 294,000 applications for citizenship, their money and their applications. That's not what we're doing. We're creating a waiver here.

I would remind him that this was a Liberal backlog that was created. The minister of immigration at the time returned everybody's applications and reset the system, because there was no other choice. It was so backlogged because of what the previous Liberal government had done under former prime minister Paul Martin. It completely jammed the entire system right up. That's just a reminder of history. The numbers provided here are not correct. I checked today and, again, it's 294,000 citizenship applications.

Let's vote yes for this and move on to the next one. I think it's entirely reasonable.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Next, I have Ms. Kwan.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Very briefly, the amendments that are out of scope pertaining to Bill S-245 on the lost Canadian issue were items I brought to the attention of Senator Yonah Martin. I actually had a discussion with her. She indicated she would support that, if I were able to get the government's support. She advised me that she met with the minister in this regard as well. I know there was literally a last-minute change of mind out of respect for her Conservative colleagues around this table here.

With that being said, though, my focus here is.... It has always been. I think there has never actually been, at any point in time throughout this entire process, from the minute Bill S-245 was tabled or coming.... I indicated that the scope was too narrow and we needed to address these other things specifically related to lost Canadians.

On this amendment here.... As I said, I would be happy to entertain this in a different arena. That is not to say you can't bring out-of-scope amendments to Bill S-245. Yes, you can. However, I have indicated to everyone that the amendments I intend to bring forward are related to lost Canadians. I was always open and transparent on what my intentions were with anyone who cared to talk to me about this.

To that end, Madam Chair, I'll reiterate that I will not be supporting this amendment.