Bill S-2 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act

[Don Chapman, Founder and Head, Lost Canadians]

Thank you.

When Canada stripped me of my citizenship in 1961, many of you had not been born. I was six, so I relate to the lost Canadian children of today. They're watching you, and, by not including them, you're compounding their rejection and pain. They're not stupid. They know that Canada doesn't want them. It's akin to being booted out of your own family. I know the agony and the gut-wrenching feelings both as a child and as an adult.

With Bill S-2 in 2005, I could be Canadian again but my minor-aged daughters weren't welcome, and I was born in Canada.

Canada must practice what it preaches: fairness, compassion, inclusion, peace, order, good government, equal rights and, above all, human rights. With lost Canadians, Canada has failed miserably.

As an airline pilot, I'd never ditch an airplane and willingly leave my passengers behind. As a Canadian, I can't leave fellow lost Canadians behind, particularly children and babies, and neither should you. Without amendments, you'll be condoning forced family separation, tiered citizenship, statelessness, women having fewer rights than men and booting out 111,000 of Canada's soldiers.

“To stand on guard for thee”—is that just hyperbole?

Canada is contravening three UN human rights conventions, the charter, the Canadian Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rule of law. Are you okay with that?

Lost Canadian children face depression, anxiety, loss and suicide. They suffer no differently than the residential school survivors. Did you know that lost Canadians include indigenous people and that the Catholic Church sold Canadian babies? Did you know about the murdered butter box babies and the pre-1947 Chinese Canadians? Should they be remembered as only stateless, registered aliens?

Bureaucrats talk about unintended consequences and of creating future lost Canadians. Well, that ship has sailed. Let's talk about intended consequences. By not adding amendments, you'll be creating far more lost Canadians.

Thirteen years ago, I gave a detailed report to Nicole Girard. Nothing happened except that the issue got exponentially worse. We're here today because of intended consequences. Bureaucrats want subsection 5(4) grants. It's a cruel and awful solution. An IRCC director general recently explained how the 5(4) process has become political, with the outcome being at the whim of a bureaucrat or politician. It should be by operation of law.

The children of one family have been denied five times in 14 years. From newborns to teenagers, all they have known is rejection. There's a 12-year-old Canadian citizen, an orphan boy, currently in Syria. IRCC cancelled his caretaker aunt's citizenship without a hearing or judicial review. One day she's Canadian; the next she's not. IRCC encouraged her to apply for a grant. It was approved three years ago, but two citizenship ministers won't sign off. This Canadian child is currently in an earthquake war zone. His twin sister and father were killed by a random terrorist bombing. If anything happens to this boy, Minister Fraser, by his inaction, makes Canada an accomplice.

Remember Alan Kurdi? Are you ready for that negative press from around the world? I have 28 other horror stories of 5(4) grants, including my own.

Sometimes individuals got deported. For example, Pete Geisbrecht, a 28-year-old, was given by IRCC 30 days to voluntarily get out of Canada. If he didn't leave, he would be shackled with bracelets. The authorities threatened him in front of his wife and child, and they will never forget.

Lost Canadian Roméo Dallaire called IRCC's process “inhumane” and “bureaucratic terrorists”. Bureaucrats are consistently inconsistent and make lots of mistakes. Case processors often don't know the laws, and they come and go. There have been four citizenship ministers just under Mr. Trudeau. What's needed is a dedicated citizenship ombudsman.

Since 2009 CIMM has done 128 studies. Only six were on citizenship, so obviously, citizenship is not your priority.

Canada is supposed to turn immigrants and refugees into good Canadian citizens, and I can show, with me, that they often turn Canadian citizens into immigrants. They do it the wrong way. After one of our court cases, Monte Solberg said the decision could cost tens of billions. That's a lot of money just to keep Canadians out of their own country.

There's another charter challenge. It's going to be heard next month. The government's arguing against equal rights; we're arguing for equal rights. If the government wins, out goes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as you know it.

Without amendments, there will be many more charter challenges. With amendments, that becomes moot.

As for derivative claims or conferring citizenship to people unknowingly or any other concerns, I can help you. I want to fix the issue once and for all, and I hope you do too.

Thank you.

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

I appreciate that Bill S-2 has not covered your spouse or your children, and that's an issue we want to look at in terms of the amendments, but in part it did address some issues. But you'd have to go through an application process to have them--

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

I'm not suggesting there needs to be an application form necessarily, or a cost to it, but checking on what has happened to Bill S-2 and whether there was an application in place was my first question, and the length of the application was the next question. I found that there is an application process in place. Certainly one could apply under that section, regardless of what this committee may do, and it may resolve your problem or it may not, but there's another option under Bill S-2.

While I'm at that, I might ask Mr. Chapman this. There may be issues regarding whether or not you ought to apply, but I know you were quite instrumental--or maybe not quite instrumental, but at least involved--in the passage of Bill S-2, which resolved part of the problem, which would at least apply, I would think, to you. Have you applied under Bill S-2 to get your citizenship done?

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

I have a question I might ask you. I know you've attempted to apply for citizenship, but as you mentioned, Bill S-2 was passed more recently, and you had indicated that the efforts of John Reynolds were instrumental. Did you apply under the provision of that particular bill, Bill S-2?

[Don Chapman]

Thank you.

I'll start with a Jimmy Stewart quote. I always liked the show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which he says, “You're not going to have a country that can make these kinds of rules work if you haven't learned to tell human rights from a punch in the nose”.

Ms. Jennings made a comment. She said the laws are so very complicated that even the head people can't figure them out. Fortunately, the solution is really simple. It really is something that anybody could do, so we should be able to wrap this up really quickly behind the scenes.

Mr. Teichroeb made a comment about his children. We are going to have somebody testifying from a Canadian NGO for the United Nations, and she's saying one of the factors that people haven't really considered here is what it does to the children, and it's Canada's right to protect the children. Am I right? Look at your children. We've had people uprooted. The children of Magali Castro-Gyr, who was here the other day, had to get up and leave the country. It's a complete violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada sponsored in the United Nations.

Another thing I found interesting is this. If we take the last couple of weeks, when we all had some time off, I too decided to contact the call centre, but I couldn't do it from my home in Phoenix, Arizona, so I had to get patched through, and finally I made it. I called to ask some very specific questions about my citizenship and my sister's citizenship. Now, here are families and family reunification in Canada; we're all supposed to have the right to bring our families. Well, my sister and my brother are Canadians, and I'm not--same family, same parents. How do we do this?

They gave me all the wrong answers. I happen to know the right answers. The gentleman I was talking to absolutely said my sister is not Canadian and there's no use even applying for her. What he didn't realize is that my sister is Canadian but Canada denied her citizenship for 43 years. Here he's telling me, “Don't even bother applying”, and she's Canadian. The information is completely false.

I also found another thing that happened in the last two weeks interesting, and that's the child who was born in Canada to Iranian parents. He was taken down to the States, and the family was in a detention centre. Finally, the government here in Canada said, we have to bring that child, who was born in Canada, back to Canada--it's a Canadian child--and we have to bring the parents with him; that's only fair.

Think about this from my eyes--and I'm making no judgment as to whether Canada did anything wrong here. My comment is in relation to the lost Canadians.

I won in Bill S-2. I have the right to get my citizenship, although it could take a couple of years for me to get it. But I cannot bring my children. So now we have the situation of the Iranian child in reverse. How can Canada make the argument that we have to bring those parents because that's human rights and that's fair? Okay, I buy that argument, but if we're going to use that argument, we have to use it with me. Do I leave my minor-age child behind, and my mother? I think Canada is better than that.

In the last few weeks we also had the Hislop decision, a unanimous Supreme Court decision, again citing the Benner case, which was a unanimous Supreme Court decision on the 1947 Citizenship Act, saying that there was blatant discrimination involved in this. So we know it's there.

Finally, let me wrap up. Last September, I think it was, Canada gave citizenship to a gentleman and said we are giving you honorary citizenship because of all the wonderful things that you do, and your fairness and your compassion and your human rights. It was the Dalai Lama. And this last week there was an article in The Globe and Mail that said the dream shall never die. For all of us on this committee, for all people who have been stripped of their Canadian citizenship, the dream of being Canadian in this wonderful country will never die--just like the Dalai Lama.

I'm going to read it twice. He's saying:

I also express my deep admiration to the Tibetans...who, against all odds, have made efforts to preserve the Tibetan identity.... I am confident that they will continue to strive for our common cause with renewed dedication and commitment. I urge all Tibetans in and outside Tibet to work unitedly for a secure future based on equality....

That's how one of your newest citizens, the Dalai Lama, said it, and with great admiration from all the Canadian people.

Now I'm going to give it a Canadian twist for the committee: I express my deep admiration to the Canadians who, against all odds, have made efforts to preserve Canadian identity. I am confident that they will continue to strive for our common cause with renewed dedication and commitment. I urge all Canadians, in and outside Canada, to work in unity for a secure future based on equality.

I think that says it best. It's time for the committee to do its work. Let's fix this law.

Thank you.