moved that Bill C-343, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to be standing here this morning regarding this issue. I would like to thank the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast for initiating this private member's bill, Bill C-343, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.
I ask Canadians, especially the government, to listen carefully to what the bill is about because what I am about to disclose is an eye opener. It is an eye opener that may put into question whether an individual is truly a Canadian citizen because being born in Canada may not necessarily mean that one is a citizen.
We never question our birthright. We take it for granted. We assume that because we are born here we are automatically a Canadian citizen for life. This may not be the case for some, especially if they were born in Canada between 1946 and 1977, if their parents moved to another country and while in that other country became citizens of that country. This could happen to someone we know: a neighbour, a friend or a relative.
This private members bill, Bill C-343, would correct a wrong that should have been resolved when the Citizenship and Immigration Act, replaced in 1977, allowed dual citizenship, but the dual citizenship allowed in 1977 was not retroactive.
Let me go back to the provisions of the first Citizenship Act that was introduced in 1946. The 1946 first Citizenship Act meant that children born in Canada could lose their citizenship if their parents became citizens of another country. This private member's bill would amend the existing act to recognize Canadian born children who left the country between 1946 and 1977.
A person born in Canada today is a Canadian citizen for life but there are thousands of people who do not have this right. Why? It because these people, through no fault of their own, lost their Canadian citizenship. They are called “lost Canadians”. Not only have they lost their Canadian citizenship, the government has made these children stateless because at that time children did not automatically become U.S. citizens when their parents did.
Let me take a few minutes to outline the gist of this private member's bill. Bill C-343 is designed to remedy the situation where people were, as children, deprived of their Canadian citizenship as a result of the operation of “section 18 of the Canadian Citizenship Act, chapter 15 ofthe Statutes of Canada, 1946”. This provision was in force until February 14, 1977, and provided that a minor child ceased to be a Canadian citizen upon the responsible parent becoming the citizen of another country.
Bill C-343 would make it easier for those people to regain their Canadian citizenship as they would no longer have to be established as a permanent resident in order to do so.
Many do not meet the landed immigrant entry requirement which is required in order to be considered lawfully admitted. People like Mr. Don Chapman, a U.S. airline pilot, does not meet the resident requirement of one year to resume his citizenship because of the nature of his employment.
Bill C-343 makes reference to amending Section 11 of the Citizenship Act by adding the following after subsection 1(1):
The requirement set out in paragraph 1(d) does not apply to a person who ceased to be a Canadian citizen as a result of a parent of that person acquiring the citizenship or nationality of another country before February 15, 1977.
Further, the Liberal bill, Bill C-18, introduced in the second session of the 37th Parliament entitled the citizenship of Canada act, fails to remedy the problem faced by lost Canadians.
Bill C-343 is about lost Canadians, Canadians like Don Chapman, who I mentioned earlier. Don is presently a pilot for a U.S. airline. He was born in Canada of Canadian parents. In 1961 he moved with his parents to Seattle. He was seven years old.
Mr. Chapman lost his rights as a Canadian because his parents swore allegiance to the United States. Mr. Chapman wants to return to his homeland where he was born, but Canada will not give him his citizenship back.
Federal immigration officials said that Mr. Chapman's parents had effectively forfeited his Canadian citizenship in 1961 when they moved to the U.S.A. and took out American citizenship. To me, this is ridiculous. Don Chapman did not apply for American citizenship. His parents did.
Another example is of Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr, a fourth generation Montreal Canadian born in 1959. Her mother is a Canadian citizen but her father became a U.S. citizen and, because of her father's actions, she was stripped of her Canadian citizenship. Did Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr know she was no longer a Canadian citizen? No, she did not.
She discovered she had lost her Canadian citizenship when in 2001 she applied for Canadian citizenship certificates for her two sons. She was informed by a Citizenship and Immigration official in October 2001 that she had ceased to be a Canadian citizen in 1975 when her father became a U.S. citizen.
Ms. Castro-Gyr is living in Canada. She has a Canadian passport. She has a social insurance number and she has a job as a teacher.
Some people, like Ms. Castro-Gyr, may not know they are not legally Canadians until they apply for a passport and are turned down.
There are many other lost Canadians, like Mr. Charles Bosdet who was born in Manitoba in 1956. His father became a Mexican citizen and, in 1965, his mother and father became U.S. citizens. Mr. Bosdet discovered that he was not a Canadian because his father became an American citizen. In fact, Mr. Bosdet is stateless.
There are many hundreds more Canadians who believe they are legally Canadian citizens but have actually lost their citizenship because of one or both of their parents moved and became citizens of another country.
I strongly urge that Canadians born in Canada between 1946 and 1977, whose parents became citizens of another country, to check their documents. They may discover they are no longer Canadians.
Under the 1947 Citizenship Act women were, in essence, property of their husbands and children were property of their fathers.
In Bill C-18, presently before the House, the government has addressed the women affected by the original Citizenship Act of 1947 saying that they should be allowed back into Canada as full-fledged citizens.
What about the lost Canadian children? Should our lost Canadian children not also be allowed full-fledged citizenship?
Let me restate that Bill C-343 is exclusive to those individuals who fall within the parameters of losing their citizenship through no fault of their own, as a consequence of their parents taking out citizenship in another country. These lost Canadians did not voluntarily choose to be citizens of another country. Their parents did.
We should adopt this private member's bill, Bill C-343, and welcome our lost Canadians home.
As stated earlier, the 1977 Citizenship Act which replaced the 1947 act allowed for dual citizenship but was not retroactive. Those Canadian children lost their citizenship under the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, an act that came into force from January 1, 1947 to February 14, 1977.
The act stated:
Where the responsible parent of a minor child ceases to be a Canadian citizen under section 15, 16 or 17, the child thereupon ceases to be a Canadian citizen if he is or thereupon becomes, under the law of any country other than Canada, a national or citizen of that country.
Bill C-343 would allow these individuals, in most cases children who lost their Canadian citizenship between the years 1946 and 1977 as a consequence of their parents acquiring another country's citizenship, to have their Canadian citizenship reinstated if desired.
I will wind up as I know many members in the House want to speak to this issue. Bill C-343 should be incorporated into Bill C-18, the Citizenship and Immigration Act to correct historic wrongs and bring the 2003 act up to current morals and standards of what it means to be Canadian.
Let us pass this bill and finally welcome home our lost Canadians. Allow them to reclaim the birthright they lost as a child. As the Canadian Alliance citizenship and immigration senior critic from Calgary West stated in Halifax on February 10, “citizenship should not be stripped from anyone except by their own decision or by their own actions”.
This private member's bill is to correct a wrong that should have been resolved in 1977. I ask the House to support this private member's bill, Bill C-343, so this wrong can be corrected and allow our lost Canadians to finally come home.
