House of Commons Hansard #24 of the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was citizens.

Topics

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

I am glad it is appreciated, because your time was up.

As of the next speaker, speeches will be 20 minutes, followed by a 10 minute period for questions and comments.

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate on second reading of Bill C-18, the citizenship of Canada act.

Like all other members who have spoken this morning, I too feel a sense of tremendous emotion when I attend a citizenship ceremony in my constituency. Perhaps it is one of the most meaningful and memorable occasions for us as members of Parliament. To join with new Canadians when they take the citizenship oath of Canada and to repeat the oath ourselves is truly a moving experience and a reminder of the great freedoms, rights and privileges of this nation Canada.

This is a very important debate for the House. This legislation is very important. Canadian citizenship is the highest right we as a democratic nation can confer upon those living within our borders. These rights and responsibilities define the egalitarian and democratic values that we hold. No one has legal or political rights extending beyond citizenship. A citizen's right to vote and the right to run for political office are our fundamental democratic rights.

In that context, given that tremendous feeling we have about citizenship, the rules for defining citizenship are very important. They run right to the heart of who we are as a nation.

Canada's population has now reached more than 30 million. The 2001 census data show that our growth rates declined in every province except Alberta when we compare our current rate of growth of population with the early 1990s. We also know from census data and other information that immigration was the main source of growth in Canada's population between 1996 and 2001.

It is projected that by 2011 all growth in our labour force will depend on immigration. What we do here in terms of the citizenship of Canada act, and what we do generally in terms of immigration and refugee policy, is vitally important for the economic growth of the country and the future of this land. In that context we must keep remembering that the diversity of our citizens has become a distinguishing feature of what it is to be Canadian, just as has our language duality.

I want to refer very briefly to an article by Gwynne Dyer which appeared in Canadian Geographic magazine in February 2001. I do not know of a better quotation to capture that sense of what it means to be Canadian and the diversity of our population. He said:

Canada, more than anywhere else, is truly becoming the world in one country. It attracts people for all the classic reasons, such as too little opportunity at home and lots in Canada, but also because of its growing reputation as a country that does not try to impose some new uniform identity on its immigrants--and, of course, for a thousand more quirky and individual reasons.

Canada's multicultural citizenship, our multicultural heritage, is unique and is very important. It has become a defining characteristic of our nation in the eyes of the world.

The evolution of Canadian citizenship truly reflects our evolution as a society from our ethnocentric past to our multicultural present.

I come from a riding that is probably one of the most ethnically diverse constituencies in Canada. We have an incredible history of welcoming people from all over the world. We have an area with strong multicultural roots that has always welcomed immigrants from every continent. We have experienced a large influx historically of people of Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish and German heritage. More recently, immigrants have come in large numbers from the Philippines, India, Portugal and many other Asian, Latin American, African and eastern European countries.

Our community with all of that diversity works in harmony. We have demonstrated, as other constituencies represented in the House have demonstrated, that diverse communities work and are a very positive force for building a great future in this country. In that context, I want to reference an article by Winnipegger Gerald Friesen, who wrote in response to outrageous comments made by Jean-Marie Le Pen who, in March of this year in his challenge for the presidency of France, challenged the viability of all immigrant based communities.

Gerald Friesen wrote that Winnipeg offers an alternative vision and proof that in fact diverse communities are viable and work and can be a positive force for social change and for building a civil society. I want to briefly quote Gerald Friesen because what he said is important to the debate we have at hand. He said:

The crucial story is that prairie Canada and Winnipeg, the region's largest city down to the 1960s, conducted Canada's first large-scale experiment in integrating immigrants from diverse backgrounds into a single community. The prairies demonstrated that a plural citizenship was possible.

You might say, so what? Didn't Chicago and New York and hundreds of other American cities have the same experience? Yes, they did. And the U.S. results, despite continuing struggles, are admirable. But Americans are quick to claim that they are unique. They are not. Consider the range of peoples in historic Istanbul, in historic Baghdad, in today's Sydney or London. Like these others, the Winnipeg example puts the lie to Le Pen's basic contention: it demonstrates that people of different ethnicities, races and religions can indeed live together in fruitful, vital cities.

That was a little background on my constituency and why I feel so strongly about this whole debate about citizenship as well as about immigration and refugee policy.

I want to put this in the context of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Since its passage, the charter has become instrumental in enforcing citizenship rights. It is our obligation to ensure that this standard is rigorously applied, especially to something as fundamental as a citizenship act.

The wake of the tragic September 11 events has presented the most significant challenge to our rights and freedoms as citizens in recent years. There are those who would react to this horror by severely restricting the very rights and freedoms that this terror aims to destroy.

We must guard the balance between security and freedom carefully in this defining legislation. In our view it is unacceptable that some Canadian citizens are being singled out for discriminatory treatment. The rise in the occurrence of racially or religiously motivated hate crimes is profoundly disturbing. We know the stories. We have been dealing with this in the House over the last couple of days. Some Canadian citizens have experienced discriminatory treatment abroad, particularly in the United States, due to profiling practices.

The recent case of Maher Arar, a 32-year-old Canadian citizen arrested during a stopover at New York's Kennedy airport on September 26 as he was travelling to Montreal from Tunisia and deported to Syria, brought home just how fragile our citizenship rights have become. That the confidence in Canadian citizenship has weakened to the point that one of our foremost authors, Rohinton Mistry, who was born in India, felt compelled to cancel engagements in the United States because of continued harassment by United States airport security authorities is unacceptable.

It is critical that this legislation is consistent with Canadian values that are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, often taken for granted by those who are born here and acquire those rights as their birthright.

Just as changes to our view of citizenship have acted as markers of our social progress, citizenship has also provided the focus for several of the most shameful incidents throughout our history, occasions wherein we as a nation have failed to rise above our bigotries of the moment, some racial and some gender.

In that context we ought to acknowledge the work that has been done inside and outside the House to seek recognition for Ukrainian Canadians who were interned and who were considered enemy aliens. I want to acknowledge the work of the member for Dauphin—Swan River who has a bill before the House to seek official recognition and restitution. It is important for us in this regard to acknowledge the work of those who are struggling to achieve recognition and restitution among the Chinese community and to deal appropriately in this place with the Chinese immigration head tax and the Chinese exclusion act. These two incidents in our past still haunt us. They must be addressed and deserve to be considered in the context of this debate about citizenship.

As we consider changes to the Citizenship Act, they remind us that we must be vigilant to keep our vision and ideals at the highest level and to resist the ever present pressures to backslide or settle to lesser, divisive and exclusionary alternatives. At the time, assigning the restricting of citizenship rights to certain citizens or to deny citizenship altogether to certain identifiable groups may have been acceptable to the majority. Women had to engage in an incredible struggle to attain the right to vote. First nations only won the right to vote in 1960.

These and many other affronts to our current norms were promoted as reasonable by contemporary authorities. Race based immigration policies have only been formally dropped in recent years. Some Canadians contend that lingering vestiges of that bias may still be systemically embedded in our current policy. These issues are not ancient history.

As we examine Bill C-18, the Canadian Citizenship Act, our first question must be, does the bill meet the test? Is this the best we can do to express ourselves to set the parameters for defining Canada in the year 2002?

One key objective of the bill before us is to encourage those eligible to be citizens to in fact take the final steps to become citizens. We must acknowledge that in that process our full knowledge and sense of what it means to be Canadian, respecting the rights and freedoms of all people within the borders and boundaries of this country, must be respected.

We have just completed a lengthy parliamentary discussion and debate to finalize the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The government's stated objective in introducing that legislation was to increase Canada's openness to immigrants. The House of Commons citizenship and immigration committee reviewed that legislation and also put a considerable amount of work into studying this in its report, “Competing for Immigrants”.

I am pleased to see today that the minister has tabled a response to the committee's report, “Competing for Immigrants”. I want to register at this time some concerns about the failure of the government to address the main issue of many in our committee, and those who appeared before our committee, about setting a tone, establishing a vision. This included encouraging immigrants to come to this land, not closing the door to legitimate aspirants, or putting in place double standards that clearly are disincentives to those looking at Canada as a country of choice and emphasizing a renewed multiculturalism.

What we have looked for, and still look for, from the government both in terms of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and now the Citizenship Act, is a proactive strategy that encourages people from all walks of life to choose Canada, not one that puts in place a double standard in terms of people within this land nor differentiates between people for who are Canadians by birth and people who are here as landed immigrants or are refugees seeking protection. We want a proactive strategy to promote positive race and ethnic relations to strengthen respect for diversity in tandem with a clear and immediate response to any racially or religiously motivated hatred, and we know from recent events that is more important than ever.

Both the minister and the Prime Minister have stated that the future of Canada's prosperity depends on our success in attracting immigrants. Last July the Prime Minister, in a prelude to the dredging job done in the throne speech on resurrecting broken Liberal promises, reaffirmed the government's 1993 commitment to a 1% immigration target.

We just got the annual report for immigration for 2002. Where are we? We are not close to the 1% target established by the government as a desirable goal for immigration. It is certainly below the levels anticipated for this year. What happened to that dream? What happened to the vision?

We have some significant concerns with the legislation, in the context of the issues that I addressed, with respect to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to our traditions as a nation that assures due process is always in play. We acknowledge the work by the government to move the matter of revocation of citizenship from ministerial and cabinet decision making and discretion to the Federal Court of Canada. However we also note that many discretionary powers still remain with the minister, and vague wording applies in terms of criteria to be applied.

I want to reference, as many others have and will continue to do, the discretion to annul citizenship for false representation or to refuse citizenship based on the following words, “flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying a free and democratic society”. As parliamentarians we deserve clarification of those words. We deserve to push as hard as we can for the government to recognize the need always for due process including the right to appeal and the right to have information to defend oneself in the face of accusations.

I also want to note for parliamentarians our concerns with respect to the abolishment of citizenship judges. One would assume that we would favour objective set criteria for determining citizenship, as we are, but we also know that we lose a great deal when it comes to the role of citizenship judges in showing some flexibility and understanding of extenuating human conditions. We know that by moving the process from judges to bureaucrats we may have a more clearly defined set of rules but we will possibly lose some humanitarian approaches in terms of extenuating circumstances that cannot be ignored and must be addressed. Our concern is to hear from the government how those considerations will be met and how people in real life circumstances will have their needs addressed.

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

Bloc

Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral Bloc Laval Centre, QC

Mr. Speaker, you have been so kind to me that I just have to rise and see how kind you can get. The sky is the limit as far as your kindness goes.

First, I would like to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. I have had the privilege of sitting with her on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. As a humanist, she is extremely concerned about justice and always tries to stand up for the most vulnerable members of our society. I want to thank her for her speech today, which was a true reflection of her character.

I have a specific question for her. As we know, a number of young Haitians have been living in Quebec for many years and since they came here as youngsters, they did not apply for Canadian citizenship. They thought they already were Canadian citizens, that it was implicit. Now, these young people are facing deportation after committing crimes--which is unfortunate--but I do not think that the crimes they committed warrant their deportation to a country where they no longer have any roots.

I would like to know what the member thinks about this, because the citizenship bill now before us should in fact be exemplary legislation. When Quebec becomes a country, I hope that we can base our own citizenship act on all the features of this one. That is my question to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

I thank my colleague for her question. I would like to congratulate her first of all for her contributions to our committee and her vigilance as far as immigration and other issues affecting citizens are concerned.

I want to address the member's question in the context of fundamental rights and freedoms. I will not go down the path of putting this in the context of Quebec as a nation within Canada. We obviously will agree to disagree on that matter, but the member raises a very important point.

We tried to deal with this matter when the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was before Parliament. That is where the issue ought to have been dealt with. This is the issue. An individual may come to this country as a very young child, perhaps even as a baby, with landed immigrant status, grow up to be an adult, may get in trouble with the law. If suddenly found to be in violation of Canadian law, he or she is deported to a country that is not at all familiar to that person.

The issue we raised in the immigration committee, and that needs to be addressed again with respect to the citizenship act, was what made reasonable sense, in terms of the issues we were dealing with, and what was consistent with our charter. Our view, which I believe is the same as that of the member from the Bloc, is that one should apply the Canadian law to those individuals and ensure that appropriate consequences for those actions are taken and that appropriate punishments for crimes are carried out. That should be done within Canada and that should be done consistently on the basis of landed immigrants, as well as people who are born in this land.

The member raises a very important point that the government has failed to address over the last year or so, as we have debated all of these issues. I hope that it is not too late for the government to recognize the significance of this matter.

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

Noon

Bloc

Odina Desrochers Bloc Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC

Mr. Speaker, we are all aware of the great importance of immigration and the fact there have been a number of attempts in recent years to change the current act, which dates back to 1977.

We have seen three ministers of immigration come and go. We have heard two throne speeches since we were re-elected in the fall of 2000. It would appear that today we are being presented with a bill that does not meet the public's expectations.

I would also like to find out from my colleague whether she does not feel that the government's approach to a policy as important as immigration is not somewhat irresponsible? What, in her opinion, are the main improvements that should be made to the bill we are debating in the House at this time?

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

Noon

NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member of the Bloc for his question. It is a very important one and I shall try to answer it.

It is clear that upon reading Bill C-18, which is now before us, many of us find ourselves asking the question: Is the bill, as the government would have us believe, intended to create a positive atmosphere for immigration or is it designed more to keep people out? That is one of the key questions that must be addressed.

As the member has said, this is the Liberal government's fourth attempt to change the 1977 act. There is an old saying, “If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again”. It begs the question: Has the government finally succeeded with this try? In our view, the answer is, no. We do not believe the government has succeeded with this bill. We are therefore opposed, at this point, to Bill C-18 and will be looking for some specific changes.

We would like to see the government address concerns pertaining to cabinet discretionary powers with respect to the powers to annul and refuse citizenship. That is very important. We believe that within the revocation process, which is referred now to the federal court, there are still questions about due process that apply around appeal, access to information and general definitions.

We are concerned about the role of citizenship judges. Although we support the idea of a set of criteria and an even-handed process in determining citizenship, this initiative in the bill would eliminate the humanizing element in the process and any discretion in recognizing complex or extenuating circumstances.

We think that judges, and this was pointed out in testimony to previous bills, have played an important role, in terms of triggering language lessons, the further study of Canada and its values, counselling for battered women and their children, and employment counselling. That role was possible because citizenship judges were involved intimately with the cases at hand. Will that kind of flexibility be still at play in the system?

The citizenship test itself is a problem and judges help to deal with the problems inherent in that examination. For example, of the 20 questions that are asked of every citizenship candidate 2 are mandatory. We could end up with the situation where 19 of the 20 questions are answered correctly but the person would fail because he or she could not answer one of the mandatory questions.

It would seem that if people could get 19 out of 20 answers right, they would have a pretty good idea about Canada and what this country stands for. There could be cultural issues at play in terms of failure to answer that one question. There could be trauma involved in terms of someone who might have escaped from persecution. There could be language barriers in terms of someone not being able to understand the finer parts of a question. There could be the fear of being in an interview and having an exam. There are all kinds of reasons. A judge offered at least a hope that person could still be retested and still become a Canadian citizen.

What we should be doing is in fact--

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River.

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

12:05 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Inky Mark Canadian Alliance Dauphin—Swan River, MB

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to take part in this important debate on Bill C-18, the citizenship of Canada act.

First, let me congratulate the minister for borrowing ideas from Senator Noël Kinsella's Bill S-36, as well as my private member's bill, Bill C-417, which was tabled this past spring, the PC Party's version of the citizenship act of Canada.

I applaud and thank the member for Winnipeg North Centre for her kind remarks regarding the Ukrainian internment issue on which we had a press conference this past week. It was an educational process to inform Canadians of some of the bleaker moments in this country's history. We need to fix these things before we move ahead. The Ukrainian internment occurred from 1914 to 1920, where over 5,000 Ukrainian Canadians were interned and over 80,000 were made to register like common criminals.

There is a simple solution. The current Prime Minister wrote a letter to the Ukrainian community of Canada when he was the leader of the opposition back in 1993 telling the Ukrainian community that when he became Prime Minister he would deal with and resolve this issue. Unfortunately, the sad commentary is that the Ukrainian community, of which there are almost a million people in this country, is still waiting for this resolution.

It is simple to redress the issue. It will not cost the taxpayers any money. It will not even cost the government of the day an apology. It basically needs to recognize and acknowledge that the event took place. It was the first invocation of the War Measures Act which was passed in 1914. At that time the property of over 5,000 Ukrainian Canadians was confiscated, taken by the government of the day, and not a nickel has been returned to the rightful owners. It is time for this issue to be resolved.

As has been said this morning, this is the Liberal government's third crack at trying to pass a citizenship act. We heard about Bill C-63 and Bill C-16, both of which died on the order paper. If major changes do not take place regarding Bill C-18, I think it will end up in the same garbage container.

At this time I wish to thank the member for Kitchener—Waterloo who, through his fierce opposition during the debate on Bill C-16, brought to the government's attention some of its gross inadequacies, which we still find in this bill. Bill C-18 was supposed to be better than Bill C-16. Upon reading the bill I wonder whether it is or not.

Nevertheless there are some improvements. The criticism of Bill C-16, Bill C-36 and the former citizenship bills, which I consider more like naturalization bills of the Liberal government, has been that those bills promoted two classes of Canadian citizenship: one for those who were born in this country, and another one for those who were born elsewhere and came to Canada by choice.

The member for Kitchener—Waterloo, and other backbench members of the Liberal government, vehemently opposed this theory that there should be two classes of citizenship in this country. Last week the member for Kitchener—Waterloo introduced his own private member's bill, which I seconded. This hon. member would remedy these two classes of citizenship by placing the citizenship revocation process under the judiciary, with appeal rights, where it would be administered according to the principles of fundamental justice. That is why Canadians believe we have equality in this country. Until that happens we will never have equality in this country.

That is exactly the problem with clause 17 of Bill C-18. The irony of this is that former Bill C-16 put in place the solutions to remedy the problems within it. However, clause 17 in Bill C-18 reverses all of that.

Former Bill C-16 talked about judicial review—that we, as Canadians, should have access to the courts—but clause 17 in Bill C-18 reverses it.

Subclause 18(1), regarding the issue of annulment orders states:

If the Minister is satisfied that a person has, after the coming into force of this section, acquired, retained, renounced or resumed citizenship in contravention of section 28 or by using a false identity, the Minister may, by order, declare that the acquisition, retention, renunciation or resumption of citizenship is void.

In other words the minister has the right to revoke a person's citizenship. We call it an annulment. Subclause 18(5) dealing with limitation states:

The Minister may not make an order under subsection (1) more than five years after the day on which the citizenship was acquired--

In other words whoever receives citizenship is not secure in the first five years of obtaining citizenship in this country. Is it less than full citizenship of this country after five years? The government has it in reverse. If we think that people need to demonstrate evidence before acquiring citizenship, that is a different issue. Perhaps it should move the three year waiting period to five years, not do it after the fact.

My own belief and the belief of most Canadians is that once a person becomes a citizen, that person is a citizen and has the same full equal rights as everybody else. It is unbelievable that the government would take that attitude and that approach.

What about the rule of law? What about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Does that not apply within the first five years of obtaining citizenship? It does not under this legislation.

A just society is based on the rule of law. It is so ironic that this country takes time and effort into teaching other countries. For example, we have Canadians abroad in China teaching the Chinese how to operate under the rule of law because it is something that is missing in their system of politics. Yet at the same time at home we seem to fudge the whole area of the rule of law and the right of access to the judicial system.

We are still saying that government ministers, orders in council and governors in council can dictate whether one should have access to the courts when one is already a citizen of this country. We cannot do that. Either we are full fledged Canadians or not Canadians at all. Otherwise we will have two classes of citizens, which we have today.

In my private member's bill, Bill C-417, clause 17 clearly describes the loss of citizenship. It states:

The right of citizenship may be revoked only by the due process of law and on the grounds prescribed by law.

That is the kind of statement and clause we need in Bill C-18.

Earlier this past spring Senator Noël Kinsella tabled the same bill in the Senate that I did in the House. We considered our bill to be a citizenship bill whereas Bill C-18 is seen more as a naturalization bill.

What is lacking in Bill C-18? We should be excited about citizenship in this country. What is missing in Bill C-18 is a preamble. It should create an atmosphere of passion and commitment to this country. I will give the House our ideas of what should be a preamble to create this air of excitement when one becomes a citizen of Canada.

Our preamble would read:

Whereas Canadian citizenship is a special treasure of inestimable value to be nurtured and promoted;

Whereas the heritage of Canadian citizens speaks to their ancient and beautiful lands which they inhabit in peace with nature;

Whereas Parliament is mindful of the dignity and worth of all Canadian citizens and the rich contribution that each can make to the growth of Canada; whereas the Constitution Act, 1867, the common law, the Civil Code, the Canadian Bill of Rights, the Constitution Act, 1982, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other enactments trace the relationships among Canadian citizens over the years;

Whereas active citizens, through their labours, their democratic institutions and their laws, have built a peaceful nation where they may enjoy the harvest of nature and exercise their enterprises throughout Canada and the world community, while safeguarding the land, its creatures and resources;

Whereas the citizens of Canada enjoy the benefits of peace and prosperity, and they should be given an opportunity to make a contribution, each according to their talents and abilities; and

Whereas it is desirable to enact a measure to celebrate, protect and codify the riches of Canadian citizenship.

In other words, our version of the Citizenship Act, Bills S-36 and C-417, deals with the broad concept of citizenship as it applies to all Canadians and would replace the existing Canadian Citizenship Act which deals principally with the naturalization process. It states in positive terms the status, the rights and obligations of Canadian citizenship, encouraging all citizens to participate fully in the life and growth of the nation. It provides a modern form of oath of loyalty to be taken by new citizens and allows existing citizens to take the oath to reaffirm their loyalty to Canada if they choose to do so.

The Canadian citizenship commission would be established with a duty to promote an understanding of the nature of citizenship and respect for its value. We have heard the idea of values spoken about this morning; Canadian values, values that we believe in, such as the right to judicial process, the right to be treated equally in this country.

The commission would also advise the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration of proposed programs and events that would promote and celebrate Canada and Canadian citizenship.

Citizenship councillors would be appointed to continue the work of the former citizenship judges. They would preside at citizenship ceremonies, promote citizenship and may advise the minister on applications for citizenship. Members of the commission would be appointed from among those who hold the office of citizenship councillor.

The enactment would confirm the principal rights and responsibilities of citizens and would set out the manner in which citizenship is acquired. It would provide for the continued acquisition of citizenship at birth for everyone born in Canada. The residency for immigrants and refugees to obtain citizenship would be based on actual presence in Canada.

The distinction made between adopted children and children born abroad of Canadian parents is lessened for the purpose of acquiring citizenship. A right to transmit citizenship to persons born abroad of Canadian parents would be limited to the first and second generations, which I know the government borrowed from us in Bill C-18.

The enactment would continue the authority of the minister to annul the citizenship of persons who obtain their citizenship by using false identity or who were subject to prohibitions. It would allow the minister to refuse to grant citizenship on the advice of a review committee when national security required it. That is understandable. This is pre-citizenship, but the idea of the minister having the right to revoke or annul citizenship after one obtains citizenship goes against the belief in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It goes against the grain of equal treatment in this country.

Our enactment would establish a new Canadian citizenship tribunal which would consider whether an application for citizenship should be refused on the basis of public interest. If in such a case the tribunal so advises, the governor in council may refuse to grant citizenship. Again, this is pre-citizenship not post, as we would have by the Liberal government's Bill C-18.

We would also establish a process for dealing with applications for citizenship that is administrative rather than judicial. That would certainly streamline the process and would also standardize the process even further.

Prohibition and offences related to citizenship and its acquisition would be established in order to maintain the integrity of Canadian citizenship.

Many of the points that I raised may be found in Bill C-18. I applaud the minister for taking an open-minded approach and borrowing good ideas when he sees them.

At this point in time the PC Party of Canada certainly cannot support the bill in its present state, based on that one principle that we still have a scenario in the bill under clause 17 which creates an air of two classes of citizenship. We agree with many of the points and with many of the changes that have occurred in Bill C-18. However, until that one scenario changes, my recommendation is that the PC Party vote against the bill.

I look forward to seeing the bill go to committee where we will listen to witnesses and make some major changes. Hopefully we will come up with a draft that is reasonable and supportable.

Citizenship of Canada ActGovernment Orders

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to debate the new citizenship act. I will try to put this in context of what it means to Canada.

We are a nation of immigrants who come from all over the world. We are a nation that in many ways represents the best in the world, having built a tolerant society that in many cases is the envy of the world.

The member who just spoke, the critic for the Progressive Conservative Party, myself as well as another 50 members of the House were not born in Canada. We came from elsewhere. We were debating recently in the House that the practice of the Americans trying to institute racial profiling on Canadians born in certain countries who were trying to gain entry into the United States was a bad thing and was something that had to be corrected. There are members of Parliament who originally came from some of those countries but who are Canadian citizens. Under those procedures they would be subjected to being registered and having their fingerprints taken. That is not right and the American government has recognized that it is not right.

I understand that in the context of 9/11 we do look at the world in a different fashion but practices such as racial profiling do not work. They require a great deal of resources and they are not effective. In order to be successful in combating things like terrorism, the efforts have to be focused and there cannot be scarce resources.

I have been in Canada since 1957 after fleeing a revolution in Hungary. In some sense 9/11 made me as a new Canadian, appreciate how hysteria can overtake us and lead us into making bad decisions.

As much as Canada should be a beacon to the world, and in many cases it is, it is imperative that we understand our history. It is imperative that we understand why on April 17, 1982, over 20 years ago, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted to enshrine basic rights and guarantees to the citizenry of the country.

In the charter, section 7 on legal rights states:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

I underline fundamental justice and security of the person. I say that because when we talk about the security of the person there are few things that would be as important to a person like myself, who is a citizen by choice or the six million other Canadians who are also citizens by choice, than the right to our citizenship and not to be deprived of it, except in the due process of law.

I will touch briefly on the history so we will understand why we need the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There are cases before our courts right now where members of the Chinese community want compensation for the head tax. The head tax represents one of the darkest periods in our immigration history. At that time someone who came from China would have to pay a humongous amount of money, something like $5,000 at the turn of the century, which would be worth half a million dollars or more today, for the right to come into this country. The Asian exclusion act said that we did not want people coming to this country from Asia.

We have Project Roll Call going on right now that the critic on citizenship and immigration has spearheaded and spoken about. He has a private member's bill. Project Roll Call kicked off this week. It talks about Ukrainians. There are approximately one million Canadians of Ukrainian origin in Canada, or their descendants, who are living in this country. These people are looking for redress to a basic wrong where they were treated as less than human. They were classified as enemy aliens during the first world war; 5,000 were interned and another 80,000 were forced to register as enemy aliens.

We can go to other people who were Canadians living in Canada and who were forced to register as enemy aliens. We have members in the House from Italian backgrounds who have relatives who were forced to register as enemy aliens.

We had a law in this land that treated Canadians who fought in the first world war with great disrespect. We have had veterans of the first world war who were immigrants. Around 20% of the Canadian Forces who fought in the first world war were immigrants.

On May 28 we honoured the unknown soldiers by unveiling the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The person lying there could very well be one of those 20%. The practice we had in the country at that time was that if one was injured fighting overseas for Canada, then came back to this country and required relief and hospitalization, one could be deported. Surely we all recognize that this history has to be addressed.

During the second world war we had racist policies. The SS St. Louis , a ship full of Jews, travelled from Cuba to South America and past the coast of the United States and Canada. They were seeking refuge for almost 1,000 Jews who were fleeing wartorn Europe and persecution in Germany. What did we do? We turned them all down: the Americans, Cubans, South Americans and Canadians. We forced that ship to go back to Europe where many of those Jews perished in the gas chambers.

I bring that up because we also had a policy of “none is too many” for the Jews at the turn of the second world war. It was not until 1975 that we said it was not a consideration whether one was a person of colour trying to come into this country and we eliminated racial discrimination.

I say all those things because we are a nation of immigrants coming from all sorts of groups that have been discriminated against in their time. We have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which was enacted by Pierre Elliot Trudeau and signed by the Queen on April 17, 1982. I cannot stress enough the importance of that.

With regard to the groups that have been looking for redress, we gave redress to Canadians of Japanese ancestry because of some of the horrible things that happened to them during the second world war. Not only were they subjected to the Asian exclusion act, but during the war they were interned and their properties were seized. They were dispersed to camps throughout Canada. What is so incredibly unforgivable is that after the war, 4,000 Canadians, many of them of Japanese ancestry and many of them born in Canada, were forcefully repatriated to Japan, a country that was devastated with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a country that was obliterated.

It is imperative that we understand the fundamental underlying reasons why we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is in a way our day of atonement. The Ukrainian community and some Chinese communities are seeking redress right now for past wrongs. I can name all sorts of other groups that will also be seeking redress. I think to a large extent we have done that by enacting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would also suggest that we have a day of atonement, if for no other reason than for Canadians to understand the history of how we got to where we are. One only has to look at what happened to the Acadians.

It is imperative that we recognize the fundamental importance of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If we want to truly be a country that is a beacon of hope to the rest of the world as to how society should operate, we must ensure that fundamental rights are not violated.

As I mentioned, I came to Canada in 1957 as a refugee. My citizenship is important to me. I was greatly honoured by my constituents when they elected me for the first time to this House in 1993. I was honoured by the Prime Minister when he asked me to become Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in 1998.

Since I was not born in this country, notwithstanding the fact that I have been here since 1957, under Bill C-16, I and six million other Canadians, who like myself are citizens by choice, did not have the right to protection under the charter. When the government refused to give individuals those rights, I voted against the legislation and resigned as parliamentary secretary. I have been fighting the unfairness of that bill ever since.

I can tell the House that there are many more people enlightened about the Citizenship Act and what the revocation process is. I am pleased to see that in section 16 the government recognized the principle over which I resigned, which was basically that if one's citizenship were revoked, one should have the right of due process before the courts. One should have the right to appeal something as important as revocation of citizenship. One should have the right to go to the Supreme Court. One also should not be in the position where a political body like cabinet has the right to revoke an individual's citizenship. When I look back at the past injustices in this country, they were done by governor in council, by politicians.

With the institutions that we have built in our judiciary it is very important that we separate the mob that can exist because of 9/11. Everyone understands that because we lived through it. We should give that to the courts where the due process of law applies. Unless we do that, we do not really have a right to full citizenship. I am very pleased the minister put that section in.

I am not very pleased with clause 56. While we recognize that the law was bad and that it needed to be improved, clause 56 says that if a person is before the courts on citizenship revocation, the person will get the bad old process, not the new process. It seems to me that if we abolish capital punishment, we do not hang people on death row. That is a very fundamental principle. I look forward to working with the committee and the House to rectify that.

Clause 17 is totally new. It came in because of what happened on 9/11. We have to be very careful not to be stampeded into ruining what we accomplished in clause 16 by putting into clause 17 secret trials, no right to judicial review, a test of evidence, the rules of evidence do not apply and no appeal, not even a judicial review.

Clause 18 is also new. It would create a probationary citizen. For the first five years the judicial process would not apply. It would be done by the minister. The minister is good fellow and I like him, but the fact is that we all know it is not the minister who will make those decisions, it will be a faceless bureaucrat who does not have to answer for his or her decision. I think we can work with that, recognizing that 9/11 did happen to make it better.

One of the discomforts I have with the whole citizenship act is that it only deals with naturalization. It does not deal with all those other Canadians out there. Citizenship should be great news and something we should celebrate. I think a lot of that is lacking.

While there was an improvement in the citizenship oath, because it really put Canada first and foremost before the Queen, I can only say that my colleague from Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, in a private member's bill, Bill C-203, proposed another citizenship oath. I do not agree with all his wording but he has a fundamental section in it. He talks about the five principles of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of the law.

I am pleased to be engaging in this debate and this process. I look forward to working with the committee, the minister and all my colleagues in the House collectively with our wisdom, in a non-partisan way, because citizenship is not something we should ever play politics with. I really learned to appreciate my colleagues from the other side, and of course some on my side, when I was going through this battle over two years ago. I know that if we work together in a non-partisan way we will come up with a bill that will answer the issues I have raised. As Canadians, all 31 million of us, can celebrate the joy of being Canadian citizens.

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12:40 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Inky Mark Canadian Alliance Dauphin—Swan River, MB

Madam Speaker, first I want to thank the member for Kitchener—Waterloo for reminding Canadians of their history. Their history is important to them. Certainly as we move forth into the future we need to resolve all those bleak moments and issues with all Canadians.

As we know, this country is made up of people from all over the world who come here seeking a better place to live and a better future for their children, me included. I am a very lucky person. I emigrated here as a young child in 1955. I am even more lucky because my father came here the year before the Chinese exclusion act of 1923 was invoked. That is how lucky I am. My grandfather came here to help build the CPR before the 1900s.

This being Veterans Week, it is a time to remember the reason Canadians went overseas and gave their lives. The reason, as we all know, was so that we could live in a free and democratic society. I think there is a relationship between Veterans Week and what we are doing today in the House in debating the issue of the new citizenship bill for the country. Most Canadians, me included, take their freedoms and liberties for granted probably 99% of the time, unless they come under attack.

This is a great time in history. We need to ensure that we remember in more ways than one. We need to remember the sacrifices that our young men and women made during the war years and to remind ourselves of why they did so. My question to the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo is whether he thinks Bill C-18 as it stands would survive a charter challenge.

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12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Madam Speaker, I am not sure that it would. I think not. When the present bill finally is tested by the charter I am pretty confident that it will not meet a charter challenge.

Let me make a statement about the member's comments because I think there are some important components to them, about rights and about abuses that have happened in the past. I was not around, nor was I in this country, when the Chinese exclusion act was enacted or when any of the other atrocities happened. This is not to try to make people in Canada feel guilty, but to have them understand and recognize it. I was not around for what happened to the Acadians, but I recognize from reading history that it was very wrong.

It is through having something like a day of atonement and recognizing the importance of the charter that people understand where the charter comes from and why we have put it in place. It is a very basic contract, with every Canadian, on individual human rights. I think that if we were to have that kind of situation, if we were to have their struggles and mistreatment recognized, a lot of groups like Canadians of Ukrainian descent would feel a lot better about that part of their history. It can be very haunting, as it is haunting for the Acadians to learn what happened to them, to learn about their struggles and not have them recognized. I think it is very important for us to recognize these things that have happened, such as the unjust internments that occurred. I think then we can truly move forward as Canadians equal before the law.

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12:45 p.m.

Bloc

Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral Bloc Laval Centre, QC

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Kitchener—Waterloo for his comments. It is no surprise for anyone in the House that this member chose to speak. We know how much he cares about the citizenship issue, especially everything that has to do with the revocation process.

As we know, the bill before us provides a fully judicial process whereby a judge will decide whether or not a person's citizenship must be revoked. I would like to hear his views on clause 17(4) and the various paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g) and others, which deal with a number of elements I will mention.

During the judicial review, based on the information that a person has acquired or resumed citizenship by fraud, the judge must, among other things, first ensure the confidentiality of any information that could be injurious to national security; second, deal with all matters informally, that is without paying attention to the rules. He may proceed expeditiously, which means quickly. We all know that the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow.

Third, the judge must examine the information and the evidence in private. That means that the accused will not be present.

Fourth, on each request of the minister, the judge may hear, in the absence of the person and counsel, any other information that would be injurious to national security if disclosed.

Fifth, the judge may provide the person with a summary of the evidence excluding anything that would be injurious to national security if disclosed.

Sixth, the judge may receive into evidence anything--even if it is inadmissible in a court of law.

Last, a determination made by a judge to revoke citizenship would be absolutely final and could not be appealed.

As the member is particularly concerned with justice in this country, I would like to know how he feels about the idea that some Canadian citizens may become different from other citizens, since we know full well that the appeal process is a fundamental element of the justice system and goes to the heart of the trust we have in it.

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12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Madam Speaker, I mentioned in my comments that this is a new section. It is a section that causes me concern because it was under the guise of terrorism and fighting organized crime and human rights violations that we ended up with this kind of process. Secret evidence is very dangerous. Not having the rules of evidence apply is also very dangerous.

If we recognize a possible risk to security or if we are dealing with a dangerous individual, there are mechanisms in place now such that people can be detained in custody while their cases are handled. Just because we make that determination in very serious cases, we do not take away all the rules of evidence and we do not take away the right to appeal.

As I mentioned, I look forward to working in committee on that section because it also takes in information from governments. There are governments like the one in Iraq. Do we take information from Iraq if it happens to be looking for somebody it would like to have returned to Iraq to execute? It is not a clear-cut thing. Some governments are good and some governments are bad.

I think this section needs to be clarified and worked on. Ultimately, if one is a citizen, one should have the rights of a citizen. That is not to say that if people are involved in something bad we cannot get them out of the country and take away their citizenship. That is not the issue. The issue is that we have fundamental justice. It may be alleged that one has done something but that does not mean one has done it unless a court of law, with appeal, comes to that conclusion.

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12:50 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Val Meredith Canadian Alliance South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys.

I am pleased to be speaking on Bill C-18 regarding the replacement of the Canadian Citizenship Act. The bill covers a number of issues regarding citizenship: who is a Canadian citizen, especially those born outside Canada; how people can be denied citizenship or how they can be stripped of their citizenship; changes in the citizenship application process; and a new citizenship oath. The bill is certainly an improvement over Bill C-16 from the second session of the 36th Parliament and is the government's third attempt to revise the Citizenship Act.

The legislation introduces a number of good things, but I still have concerns about a number of areas and I know other Canadians have concerns about them too.

I will start by saying that citizenship is a privilege. Canadian citizenship is a privilege and not necessarily a right. Given the right of automatic citizenship for any child born in Canada, it can cause problems. I will raise the issue of what has occurred on the west coast of Canada. Foreign individuals come to Canada specifically to give birth. They are here for the amount of time that it takes to deliver the baby and then they depart.

Those babies are Canadian citizens and can return to Canada at any time under any circumstances because they were born in Canada. Even if they have spent only the first few days of their life here, if they as adults have committed serious crimes, if they have become well known criminals or even terrorists, they cannot be denied access to Canada because they are Canadian citizens. This may not be a serious problem, but we have had very few years in which to monitor the situation. The oldest citizens under this provision would be 25 now. We do not know what kind of long term implications this will have. I think there should be some consideration of these loopholes that still exist.

Another concern I have is that children born to Canadian citizens who live abroad automatically become Canadian citizens. Not only do they, as a second generation, become Canadian citizens, but their children, the third generation, become Canadian citizens even if they have not been born in Canada. The new law proposes that for the third generation those children must reside in Canada for three years in the six years prior to the application for the retention of their Canadian citizenship.The government's reason for introducing this concept is to ensure that future Canadians have a strong link to Canada. This is why the government has done this.

One has to wonder, though, about the second generation. When those children, born from Canadian parents who live out of the country, do not have to live in Canada for any part of their life and still retain their Canadian citizenship, we have to ask ourselves how this ensures that future Canadians will have a strong link to Canada. I would suggest that instead of having just third generation children having to spend three out of the last six years here, the second generation of children should also have to meet that requirement. The bill should be amended to include the second generation of children. If the goal is in fact to ensure a stronger link to Canada, then there should be some onus on that second generation, as there is, I believe, in the present legislation we are changing. There should be some onus on that second generation of Canadians to also spend some time in the country for which they hold citizenship.

The new legislation gives clear details and more details about how citizenship applications would be handled. One of the new ways is that the bill is more specific about the time somebody applying for Canadian citizenship would have to spend in Canada.

Now it is suggesting that for acquisition of citizenship new applicants would be required to live in Canada three years or 1,095 days during the six year naturalization process. I have a concern with individuals who meet the minimum requirements, receive their citizenship and then leave the country when there is no commitment to the country itself. They get a citizenship from this country with no expectation to live here or contribute to our Canadian society.

Specific days will make it easier for those who make the determination to say people do or do not meet the requirements. However I still have problems with the requirement itself. We are basically saying to people they can get Canadian citizenship for expediency's sake or for convenience but we do not have any expectation of them being Canadian and contributing to our society.

Cabinet now has the power to deny citizenship to persons who have demonstrated a flagrant and serious disregard for the principles and values underlying the free and democratic society. I know there are some in the House who have a problem with that.

I think there are examples of individuals who have shown that they have no regard for a free and democratic society and that they do not believe in the principles under which this country operates. If they chose to come to this country from somewhere else because of our free and democratic society and all those things that support a free and democratic society, then one has to question whether we should give citizenship to somebody who has chosen Canada for the very reasons that they refuse to accept, or even worse, work against?

I do not have quite the same concern that some of my hon. colleagues have. I do have a concern that they have just process and that they are able to address the charges and whatever through our courts. There needs to be some kind of an appeal but I do not like appeals that last for four and five years. There can be something that is more expeditious than that.

One of the bigger questions is to have individuals who we can prove have a serious disregard for the principles and values. If we are hesitant to give them citizenship, then we have to ask ourselves why these individuals are allowed to remain in Canada as permanent residents. If they cause this concern and if they are working against our free and democratic society, why are they here as permanent residents in the first place?

The revocation process that this bill would bring in is a good one. Revoking of Canadian citizenship would have to go through the courts. That is something about which we can feel good. We are taking it out of the political realm and putting it into a judicial realm. It is a very good change.

The act would allow an accelerated removal process for persons accused of terrorism or organized crimes. It would allow the government to utilize protected information which disclosure would endanger the safety of people or compromise our national security. These are deserved and good improvements. However there needs to be more emphasis on the need for this information at the immigration stages to be dealt with before it gets to the citizenship part.

There are some improvements. An oath to our country is something of which my constituents are very supportive. They think that if people get Canadian citizenship they should make an oath to Canada. That again is another improvement. I am glad to see the government moving on that.

There are some concerns I have with this new legislation and there are some improvements that we need to acknowledge.

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1 p.m.

Bloc

Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral Bloc Laval Centre, QC

Madam Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague from South Surrey—White Rock—Langley for her remarks. I am pleased to note that she too has concerns about Bill C-18. I would very much like to hear her on what is missing in this bill.

In the previous citizenship bill, Bill C-16, clause 10 recognized the minister's right to grant permanent residency to a person who immigrated to the country at a young age and was still under the impression that he or she was a Canadian citizen. The minister had the authority to grant this person residency status. There is no such provision in Bill C-18.

I have a question and I would like her to answer it for me. In the case of a child aged two or three or a six month old infant who came with its parents to Canada, Quebec or elsewhere, grew up, went to school and developed in a Canadian or Quebec setting, and whose parents became Canadian citizens—it is therefore clear in the child's mind that he or she is a Canadian citizen—but did not go through the process of applying for permanent residency and citizenship, does she consider this child who grew up as a Canadian and was raised in a Canadian setting to be a Canadian or of a different nationality?

Would she be in favour of including in Bill C-18 this provision that enabled the minister to grant permanent resident status to children who came to this country at a young age, so that they can have full citizenship?

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1:05 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Val Meredith Canadian Alliance South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC

Madam Speaker, I take it from the question that she, like myself, has run into cases where constituents assume that they are Canadian and then find out down the road, when they are an adult, that they are not because their parents did not put them on their application. There needs to be some provision for that.

I would suggest that a child in that case has more right to be a Canadian citizen than the child of a foreigner who comes to Canada, gives birth to that child and then takes the baby out of the country at four days old, never to live in Canada. A child raised in Canada from the age of whatever, whether the child is two months old or even six years old, who went to school, went to university, got jobs and worked in and contributed to Canada, has a far greater right to be a Canadian than a child who was merely born here.

I would certainly support an amendment acknowledging that there might be some other things we would want to work into it to ensure that there are some definitions regarding how that would be handled.

However I am interested as to why it would only be landed status and not Canadian citizenship, if it could be proved that he or she was brought over as a child and the parents were both Canadian citizens. I would argue that probably there should be some allowance for that child to become a Canadian citizen rather than just have permanent status.

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1:05 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Betty Hinton Canadian Alliance Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC

Madam Speaker, one of the favourite functions that I have as a member of Parliament is to attend citizenship court. Having been born in Canada myself and having come from a long line of Canadians, I never had the privilege of attending it before. It was something that I had never even thought about doing. When I became a member of Parliament and I began to go to citizenship court, I took on a new respect for my country and for the people who make up my country. I especially enjoy the look on the faces of the people who are becoming Canadian citizens for the first time.

I take some exception to some of the things that are in the bill, which I will go into in a moment, but I want to give credit to the minister for putting this forward. It has been fairly well thought out and si an improvement over the previous legislation.

Now we will go to the part that I do not like and I will tell members why. It removes the new oath of affirmation. It removes swearing allegiance to the Queen and her successors. That may seem like a very minor detail but for someone like myself who is a fifth generation Canadian, whose original ancestor came as a soldier from the Scottish regiment to defend the Crown, we are a family that is used to swearing allegiance to the Crown and I take some offence to having that part removed. It is not such a serious thing that I will get really worked up about it, but if someone has been in the country as long as my family has and has had those ties to the crown, it is a difficult thing of which to let go.

We have been in Canada since the early 1800s. When my ancestor came, he came as a soldier to quell an uprising in Canada. The first two generations were in Ontario. Their roots were very deep. I would like to take exception to what my ancestors did. They very foolishly sold the property they had for next to nothing. That right now is about 14 city blocks in the City of Toronto. If I could go back and change anything, I would change that.

Regardless of what happened, we then came to British Columbia. One of my uncles was the first motorcycle policeman for B.C. He is also used to swearing allegiance to the Crown, so it goes a long way. When I was sworn in as a member of Parliament, I too swore allegiance to the Crown, so removal of that does upset me. However I have gone on about that long enough.

Citizenship commissioners is the other thing. I really like the idea that we are now calling the people who swear in the new citizens citizenship commissioners rather than citizenship judges. I often felt at the ceremonies that we were misleading new citizens by calling the people who were swearing them in judges. They are not judges. They are political appointees. To call them judges is a misnomer and somewhat misleading.

However I wonder why we are calling them anything at all. Why do we need to have a specific person for that role? I went to the bother of finding out what we pay citizenship judges and I was shocked. We pay up to $87,100 a year for a full time appointed citizenship judge, who will now be called a citizenship commissioner.

When I was thinking about ways to save Canada money and ways that we could find the funding we were looking for the important issues in Canada such as health care, I thought as a first step we could maybe look at eliminating those kinds of positions and putting that responsibility on to the member of Parliament, for example, with no pay. The member of Parliament is the representative of the federal level of government. We are here anyway, and if we were to ask the general public, they believe we are all overpaid because they do not quite understand what we do in here. Therefore why do we not take on that responsibility and not have a commissioner per se?

We have fabulous ceremonies in the Kamloops area which is the central portion of my riding. They are put together by a lady named Trisha Chmiel out of Kelowna. She works for Citizenship and Immigration. If people have not had the pleasure of meeting this lady, they have missed something. My colleague from Kelowna knows the lady well. She is incredibly efficient and effective. Those ceremonies have meaning.

She already works for the Government of Canada and therefore the people of Canada. Why would we not put her in this position? Why would we put an extra person into this position, especially when it is a political appointment? It makes no sense to me. We could cover all of these little areas without any difficulty at all.

We could also look at the possibility of using someone who is an Order of Canada recipient to administer these functions. That would also make sense and would be much more expedient than having extra people coming in.

The other thing I was concerned about when I read this, and I read it fairly carefully, was that there was some wording I did not like. One of the words I did not like was that we are pledging our loyalty and allegiance. When I hear the word “pledge”, I think “American”. I guess I get very territorial about the difference between Canadian and American when it comes to something like this. It would be better to use a word like “swear”, “affirm” or “give”, rather than the word “pledge”. I know this sounds petty but it is all in the way I hear it. When I hear it, it sounds more American. I would like us to maintain Canada's dignity and our tradition, and so I would like that wording changed.

When we are talking to these new citizens and having them swear an oath, in that oath I would like them to affirm that they understand that when they come to Canada, they certainly have the right to maintain their language, their culture, their religion, their food, their clothing and all of the things that are dear to them, but we also have to emphasize to them that they do not have the right to maintain old hatreds that they may have brought from another country. I would like to see something in the oath that allows people to denounce openly the negative things from their country of origin and affirms how they feel about being part of Canada.

We need to make people who come here feel as though they are part of the fabric and weave of Canada. If we think of Canada as a large piece of cloth, each of us is a thread and all of the threads form one large unit. We need to make people who come here feel a part of that. Having talked to enough immigrants who have told me what they have come from, these new citizens who are looking for a new life here, I think they would welcome the opportunity to denounce some of the negative things of the countries from which they have just come.

Generally speaking, the citizenship ceremonies are wonderful. People beam from ear to ear. Children are part of them. It never ceases to amaze me from how many countries we attract new citizens. It is what makes us so diverse and so unique in the world.

I want to elaborate a little on one of the ceremonies I attended. In the last ceremony for example, Canada received the gift of people from 42 separate countries. Does that not say a lot to the world about what we have to offer? What I am trying to put into this entire discussion is how much we need to protect that. We need to protect what people who choose us as a country value so highly. In order to do that we have to be very careful about the wording.

In closing, I applaud what the minister is trying to do. It definitely is an improvement over what there was before, but I would like him to take into consideration some of the things that I have said. I do not want to lose that connection of swearing to the Queen and her successors. To me it is as meaningful as the ties that the French Canadian people feel to their heritage. There is room to leave it in. It does not hurt anyone and it certainly adds to the tradition of the ceremony.

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1:15 p.m.

Liberal

John Bryden Liberal Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her excellent speech which was very sensitive to some of the issues about citizenship. I was particularly attracted to the fact that she focused her remarks on the oath of citizenship. I will be speaking very shortly on that very subject.

She said something that to me was very important. She said that in the oath of citizenship she regretted that there was not something that actually made newcomers to Canada commit themselves to some of the basic principles of being Canadian. She regretted that it did not say that.

I would ask the member how she feels about a change in the oath that I will be proposing by amendment later. I would change these words that are in the oath that is before us now which are “to faithfully observe our laws and fulfill my duties and obligations as a Canadian citizen”. I would like to change those words to “promise to uphold these five principles: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law”.

By specifying these concepts that are straight from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, do we not do more to give newcomers to Canada an appreciation of their true obligations of being Canadian?

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1:15 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Betty Hinton Canadian Alliance Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC

Madam Speaker, I think those are very thoughtful remarks that the member made. I would like time to think more seriously about the exact wording that he has given.

We are in agreement on one major issue. I think it is important to not only to affirm the rights that people who have become Canadian citizens have but we also have to affirm the responsibilities that becoming a Canadian citizen brings with it.

Anything we can do as a group in a non-partisan manner to improve the wording of this new legislation would be to the benefit of the minister and all new Canadians.

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1:20 p.m.

Liberal

Janko Peric Liberal Cambridge, ON

Madam Speaker, a long time ago I chose this country. When I received my citizenship, I felt very proud. I had become a member of the best society on the globe.

Our hon. colleague mentioned some very important issues. I believe that each member of the House would have a different opinion about different issues in the bill.

It bothers me as well, as a citizen who chose this country, that we are a bit loose on the side where newcomers spend three years here, receive their citizenship and then leave the country. They work somewhere else and then come back. Some of them even collect welfare and social assistance on purpose. They are abusing the system.

Some of the proposals that I have heard today in the House are commendable. Is the hon. member proposing that the oath be changed? Would she agree that new citizens should commit to this country, not just pledge and sort of voluntarily accept this?

Once one becomes a citizen, one is a citizen and is part of this society. One should be fully committed to the nation which has accepted the person and the nation that one chose to be part of. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Does the hon. member agree that we should change the wording so that it is very strong? Those who receive citizenship should be 100% committed to the nation and should respect the laws, not observe but respect the laws and the people of this country.

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1:20 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Betty Hinton Canadian Alliance Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC

Madam Speaker, this is going to be strange for a politician, a short answer, which is yes.

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1:20 p.m.

Liberal

John Bryden Liberal Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON

Madam Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to speak to this legislation. I will be confining my remarks almost entirely to the oath of citizenship that is proposed in this legislation.

I had before the House, up until last week, a private member's bill proposing changes to the oath of citizenship which would reflect the principles of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but that bill has become non-votable as the result of the introduction of this government bill which also has a new version of the oath of citizenship. I would like to deal with the government's version that is before the House, my version, and just discuss some of the other oaths around the Commonwealth.

The oath of citizenship that is in this bill states:

From this day forward, I pledge my loyalty and allegiance to Canada and Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada. I promise to respect our country's rights and freedoms, to uphold our democratic values, to faithfully observe our laws and fulfill my duties and obligations as a Canadian citizen.

Madam Speaker, you might be interested to hear the text of the current oath of allegiance of New Zealand, another former Commonwealth colony. It states:

I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and her heirs and successors according to law, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of New Zealand and fulfill my duties as a New Zealand citizen, so help me God.

You might note, Madam Speaker, that the words at the end of the New Zealand oath are exactly the same as those of the current Canadian oath, “to faithfully observe our laws and fulfill my duties and obligations as a Canadian citizen” or “as a New Zealand citizen”. The wording is exactly the same. The wording is taken from pre-existing oaths of allegiance that had been established in the Commonwealth going back quite a long time.

It is also interesting to the hear the text of the Australian oath of allegiance. Australia is an important country vis-à-vis Canada because our histories are very alike. We are both parliamentary democracies based on the crown. Indeed Australia just very recently went through a debate about retaining the monarchy and it significantly chose to retain the monarch. The oath of Australia states:

From this time forward, under God, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.

I would submit, at the very least, that the Australian oath has a much better ring to it than either the New Zealand oath or the Canadian oath that is being proposed in this legislation. Madam Speaker, I also draw your attention to the fact that in Australia there is, in my view, a correct distinction made in that an oath of citizenship should be to the country and it does not necessarily have to be to the monarch of that country in a parliamentary democracy. This is relevant too, because the oath of allegiance in Great Britain runs thusly:

I swear, by almighty God, that on becoming a British citizen I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, and her heirs and successors according to law.

Madam Speaker, you can see that the Canadian oath actually in the bill before us now is a combination of wording. The first half is the wording from the British oath and the second half is basically the wording from the Commonwealth oath that was used across the Commonwealth.

I should point out to you, Madam Speaker, that up until 1981, the British did not have an oath of citizenship whatsoever. The oath which I just read to the House is an oath of naturalization which was in response to the flood of immigrants that the United Kingdom has been experiencing.

I wish to provide a little history. The oaths of allegiance of New Zealand and Canada date their origins back to the 18th century when the British Crown felt obligated to require the people in its colonies, that it acquired by force of arms or by purchase because they were not British, to bear faithful and true allegiance to Her Majesty or His Majesty. The oath of citizenship that we have, that New Zealand has, and that Australia does not have, is wording that was derived from the United Kingdom as a colonial power.

The oath that I would like to put forward in the House--and I do so now--I would hope that people when they read Hansard can compare it to the previous oaths that I just read into the record. The oath that I offer the House for its deliberations would read:

In pledging allegiance to Canada, I take my place among Canadians, a people united by their solemn trust to uphold these five principles: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law.

The important thing is not to have a citizenship oath that requires the new person to swear to obey the laws, because the laws of a nation can from time to time be wrong. There are many examples in Europe. In Germany, which was a democracy after the first world war, a government took power and changed the laws that deprived people of their civil liberties. It led, indeed, to the second world war.

Simply saying that one will faithfully uphold the laws of a country I do not believe is good enough. Indeed, I think it is very dangerous in this age when countries across the world are struggling to find balance between civil liberties and the new threats of terrorism that have been emerging across the world.

It is vitally important for Canada to send a message to the world, through its oath of citizenship, about what Canada really stands for in this world that has become such a dark and dangerous place. I would submit that what identifies a Canadian more than anything else and how Canadians are perceived around the world and why so many people around the world want to come to Canada is because of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is not just a document that is part of our Parliament. This is the way Canadians live and act. This is what defines us as Canadians.

Whether we speak French, whether we are aboriginal, whether our history is from the Far East, the Middle East or central Europe, whether we are new Canadians or established Canadians, what identifies us as Canadians is the fact that all of us uphold the five principles of the charter: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law.

That is not just a commitment of newcomers to Canada. It is a commitment of the government, of Parliament, and of the people, that not just at this point in time but forever, as long as that oath of citizenship exists. And I hope that our oath of citizenship would exist as long as the country, it commits the country to uphold the rule of law, basic human rights, democracy and freedom of speech.

Another speaker was referring to the problems of revocation. He was very successful in changing the legislation because the previous bill, Bill C-16, actually created a second class citizen out of people who had their citizenship and who were accused of war crimes. A mechanism was inserted into that legislation that would have enabled the government to revoke citizenship without due process of law.

I submit that had we had an oath of citizenship that specifically committed the government to uphold the rule of law, then the government would not have been able to advance a bill that deprived a person of the due process of law, much less the basic human right of having that due process of law.

As times goes on I will be moving an amendment to the oath. The oath is here and I will be offering to the House the wording that I have just given. There will be two versions. One version will involve an invocation to God because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins with an invocation to God. I am sensitive to the fact that some people would prefer an affirmation and it is important to offer that opportunity to them.

There will be some debate about whether the Queen should be in our oath of citizenship. I do not believe she should be. I had so many opportunities as a member of the citizenship and immigration committee, as we developed policy for this very legislation in 1994-95, to hear representations from newcomers to Canada who could not understand why they had to swear allegiance to the Queen. People from around the world understand that the Queen is attached to the United Kingdom and it is a puzzle to them as to why they have to swear allegiance to her.

I note that Australia, our near cousin as a Commonwealth country, took the Queen out of its oath a very long time ago. It had precisely the same oath as New Zealand and has gone to an oath that at the very least is better than the Canadian one before the House now.

We can improve the oath of allegiance. I would like to see us committed as Canadians to the five principles of the charter: equality of opportunity, freedom of speech, democracy, basic human rights, and the rule of law. That is who we are as Canadians and we should say so.

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1:35 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Werner Schmidt Canadian Alliance Kelowna, BC

Madam Speaker, I thought the hon. member was going to deliver a wonderful speech. He was going in the right direction until he got into some interesting sidebars where I had to wonder where he was going with the issue.

It was interesting as he went through the various oaths and held up the Australian oath as a model. I also found it interesting when he talked about the recognition of Canada as a sovereign nation and not a colony. We as citizens pledge our allegiance to this country. That is who we are.

The member made an interesting observation when he said that our laws could be wrong. He also said it was not good enough to simply pledge our allegiance to obey the law. What kind of citizen would actually take on the responsibility of trading his or her own laws which would supercede those of the government that was running the country? I agree with the hon. member that laws could in fact be wrong, but the fact remains that those are the laws of the land. However there is a way to change those laws. Is the member advocating civil disobedience as a way of handling this situation?

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1:35 p.m.

Liberal

John Bryden Liberal Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question because it is important to clarify it.

Basically, what I am saying by these five principles is that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the law above the laws of Parliament and, indeed, it is in our Constitution now. Theoretically, we should not be able to pass laws in this place that are contrary to the principles of the charter which are summarized in the five principles I gave.

The difficulty is that sometimes in this place, and the previous citizenship bill is a classic example, legislation goes through this House that is contrary to the charter simply because members of Parliament and the bureaucracy are perhaps not as sensitive to the principles of the charter as they should be because the charter is a document of some length.

I tried to capture in the five principles of the charter the ultimate law that governs being Canadian, and that ultimate law is expressed in the five principles: the commitment to uphold democracy, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, basic human rights and the rule of law.

Madam Speaker, that is the ultimate law of being Canadian.

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1:35 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Werner Schmidt Canadian Alliance Kelowna, BC

Madam Speaker, I have another question for the hon. member. It is all very nice to talk about the rights and freedoms that we have in the charter. It is wonderful. We do have rights and we want fundamental rights. What does the hon. member do with the sense of responsibility? When we have all these rights and freedoms, what happens to responsibility for the actions that we take?