Bill C-24 (Historical)

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to, among other things, update eligibility requirements for Canadian citizenship, strengthen security and fraud provisions and amend provisions governing the processing of applications and the review of decisions.
Amendments to the eligibility requirements include
(a) clarifying the meaning of being resident in Canada;
(b) modifying the period during which a permanent resident must reside in Canada before they may apply for citizenship;
(c) expediting access to citizenship for persons who are serving in, or have served in, the Canadian Armed Forces;
(d) requiring that an applicant for citizenship demonstrate, in one of Canada’s official languages, knowledge of Canada and of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship;
(e) specifying the age as of which an applicant for citizenship must demonstrate the knowledge referred to in paragraph (d) and must demonstrate an adequate knowledge of one of Canada’s official languages;
(f) requiring that an applicant meet any applicable requirement under the Income Tax Act to file a return of income;
(g) conferring citizenship on certain individuals and their descendants who may not have acquired citizenship under prior legislation;
(h) extending an exception to the first-generation limit to citizenship by descent to children born to or adopted abroad by parents who were themselves born to or adopted abroad by Crown servants; and
(i) requiring, for a grant of citizenship for an adopted person, that the adoption not have circumvented international adoption law.
Amendments to the security and fraud provisions include
(a) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who are charged outside Canada for an offence that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence under an Act of Parliament or who are serving a sentence outside Canada for such an offence;
(b) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who, while they were permanent residents, engaged in certain actions contrary to the national interest of Canada, and permanently barring those persons from acquiring citizenship;
(c) aligning the grounds related to security and organized criminality on which a person may be denied citizenship with those grounds in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and extending the period during which a person is barred from acquiring citizenship on that basis;
(d) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who, in the course of their application, misrepresent material facts and prohibiting new applications by those persons for a specified period;
(e) increasing the period during which a person is barred from applying for citizenship after having been convicted of certain offences;
(f) increasing the maximum penalties for offences related to citizenship, including fraud and trafficking in documents of citizenship;
(g) providing for the regulation of citizenship consultants;
(h) establishing a hybrid model for revoking a person’s citizenship in which the Minister will decide the majority of cases and the Federal Court will decide the cases related to inadmissibility based on security grounds, on grounds of violating human or international rights or on grounds of organized criminality;
(i) increasing the period during which a person is barred from applying for citizenship after their citizenship has been revoked;
(j) providing for the revocation of citizenship of dual citizens who, while they were Canadian citizens, engaged in certain actions contrary to the national interest of Canada, and permanently barring these individuals from reacquiring citizenship; and
(k) authorizing regulations to be made respecting the disclosure of information.
Amendments to the provisions governing the processing of applications and the review of decisions include
(a) requiring that an application must be complete to be accepted for processing;
(b) expanding the grounds and period for the suspension of applications and providing for the circumstances in which applications may be treated as abandoned;
(c) limiting the role of citizenship judges in the decision-making process, subject to the Minister periodically exercising his or her power to continue the period of application of that limitation;
(d) giving the Minister the power to make regulations concerning the making and processing of applications;
(e) providing for the judicial review of any matter under the Act and permitting, in certain circumstances, further appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal; and
(f) transferring to the Minister the discretionary power to grant citizenship in special cases.
Finally, the enactment makes consequential amendments to the Federal Courts Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Citizenship Act

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the hon. member talks about the need to not electioneer, but in fact this issue arose in what seemed to be an endless pre-election period last year.

It was an electioneering issue. Certainly people saw through it. A particularly interesting moment occurred just at the beginning of the campaign. I was in a studio of a South Asian station in Surrey. I was due to go on the air and talk about a variety of things, including Bill C-24.

Just prior to my segment, the member for Calgary Midnapore was interviewed over the phone. He made a point about Bill C-24 to the host and the audience listening to that South Asian station that the listeners did not have to worry because they could not have their citizenship stripped, because India did not permit dual citizenship.

That really twigged it for me. Okay, now all of a sudden, we have one group that can suffer a particular sanction, whereas another group, basically due to a technicality, cannot. Everyone saw through that.

How could the hon. member and his party support that kind of approach?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it bothers me to hear the Conservative Party members keep defending former Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizens. People who had dual citizenship could lose their Canadian citizenship, while people who had Canadian citizenship only could not lose it. The former immigration minister was even dismayed that Canada had signed international agreements preventing it from creating stateless people. We see how far the previous government was willing to go.

Why is the Conservative Party still not defending the principle of equality before the law? Why is it going against the advice of the Canadian Bar Association, the Barreau du Québec, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council for Refugees, which felt that Bill C-24 was inconsistent with our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and international law?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Durham invited a lot of responses and questions.

First of all, he started his commentary with respect to the intent-to-reside provision actually posing no conflict or confusion in the minds of newcomers. Simply put, currently, if one does not indicate an intention to reside, citizenship is not granted. If that does not sow confusion, I am not sure what does. It readily displays how out of touch my friend opposite is with the concerns of immigrants and newcomers to this country.

Second, he stated that revocation has not ended altogether and that we are therefore not principled as a government in what we are proposing in Bill C-6. However, revocation on the basis of fraud has existed in legislation in this country since 1947. We are returning to the status quo ante. The reason revocation for the purposes of fraud is the only provision that has existed, until the previous government decided to up the ante, is that we treat fraud in the context of citizenship with a citizenship sanction. We treat other acts, such as criminal acts and the litany of items raised by the member for Durham, with a criminal sanction. In fact, he said so himself that revocation is not a criminal sanction. That is right, and that is the point. It is why revocation on the basis of criminality has no place in this legislation.

On the last point, the member indicated at length that the record of the previous government on diversity was quite good. However, I find it incredible that one would start with an oath of citizenship reference and recite the oath of citizenship, when the previous government in fact limited the taking of that oath of citizenship for certain women from certain religious communities based on what they wore.

Why does the member continue to defend a diversity record that is in fact lamentable and not recognize that Bill C-24 was a barrier to integration of newcomers, as opposed to some sort of lever to promote it?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. Obviously, we New Democrats think that this government bill is a step in the right direction. We were extremely critical of the Conservatives' Bill C-24, which was divisive and created two classes of citizens. We are pleased to be fixing that mistake now, with the bill currently before us. I do have a question, however. In February 2014, the Conservatives raised the processing fees for citizenship applications from $100 to $530 per person, which means that the costs could well go over $2,000 for one family. We in the NDP believe that those fees are too high. Will the Liberal government commit to bringing down the cost to a reasonable price, which used to be $100?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for participating in this debate, but it is unfortunate to see what has been the strategy of the Liberal Party when it comes to the original Bill C-24 and then continuing on. That strategy was to spread misinformation about the bill and the effects of those provisions, and then to warn us that the bill was creating fear when in fact it was the misinformation about the bill, not the bill itself, that was creating fear.

It was clear again in this member's speech. He talked about the expectation of residency. Let us be clear. There is absolutely no requirement that Canadian citizens reside in Canada, whenever they acquired their citizenship. That was the case before Bill C-6 and that was the case under Bill C-24, as well as before that. To suggest that this is not true or that there is a fear means that if there is a fear out there we all need to step up and clarify that it was not in any way part of Bill C-24. There was an expectation that people reside in the country, but there was absolutely no such requirement. I wonder if the member is willing to acknowledge that fact and correct the record in terms of his speech.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. Bill C-6 leaves untouched the 1976 revocation provisions for those naturalized citizens who obtained their Canadian citizenship through misrepresentation. This would include, for example, the Nazi war criminals who did not disclose their participation in crimes against humanity in applying for and obtaining their Canadian citizenship.

However, I who was born in this country could never have my citizenship revoked under the provisions of the bill, but an immigrant could. The member is absolutely right: if we want to play the game about two-tier citizenship, it applies far more clearly to Bill C-6 than it did to Bill C-24.

My father was a fourth generation Canadian who had an Irish passport. He had dual citizenship. If he had joined the IRA, heaven forbid, and been convicted of that, with a penal sentence of two years, even though he was a native-born Canadian, he could have had his citizenship revoked. However, immigrants to Canada from India or China, for example, who automatically lose the citizenship of their country of origin in being naturalized to Canada could never have their citizenship revoked under the provisions of Bill C-24, because it excluded its application to people who did not have dual nationality pursuant to our obligations under the international Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-24 provided for the revocation of citizenship for both native-born Canadians and immigrants. To be clear, the bill in front of the House would restore a two-tier citizenship, because it would provide for revocation of citizenship only for immigrants. It would return us to the system that we used to have in place. Revocation would not be allowed for people who were born here but only for immigrants to this country who have become naturalized and hold a second citizenship.

Liberal members of Parliament need to be clear on this. We would be going to a two-tier citizenship with the bill in front of the House. Native-born Canadians would never have their citizenship revoked. Only the citizenship of immigrants to this country who are naturalized and hold a second citizenship could be revoked.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on his re-election. He is always a very serious participant in the debates in this place.

First of all, it was the member's own Prime Minister who said that there is no such thing as a Canadian identity and that this is a post-national state. None other than the Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, the former Liberal minister, upbraided him for that ridiculous assertion.

Second, the member is wrong in asserting that the United States does not have a power of revocation. There are limited grounds for revocation in the United States. They are not based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision but on a constitutional amendment that dealt with the granting of citizenship to slaves following the U.S. Civil War.

Here is the thing. Our Prime Minister is meeting with President Obama tonight. President Obama and the American administration have a rather less delicate way of dealing with American terrorists abroad. It is true that they do not go through the hassle of the paperwork and judicial applications to revoke their citizenships; rather, they send missiles, launched by drones, and eliminate them. I think the kinetic elimination of U.S. citizens who have committed terrorist offences rather makes the point.

As well, virtually every one of our peer liberal democracies has provisions analogous to those in Bill C-24 for the revocation of citizenship from traitors or terrorists.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are ambitious for new Canadians, for all Canadians, to know what our identity is and how, through the struggle of generations, through the organic development of these remarkable parliamentary institutions, through the core values of our society, such as the rule of law, the equality of opportunity, and equality before the law, we managed to develop this country that is something of a model for the world. It did not happen by accident, and this country is far more than just some kind of a post-modern reflection of the world. It comes from a particular set of institutions and values that are incarnated in our laws, and we are ambitious for new Canadians to know that history.

Canada is maintaining the highest sustained levels of immigration in its history. In the past decade, Canada welcomed over 2.6 million new permanent residents and swore in over 1.6 million new Canadian citizens. That was during the prime ministership of the now member for Calgary Heritage.

We are maintaining the highest per capita levels of immigration in the developed world. Some countries have aberrant years when they are a little higher, but on a sustained basis, what we are doing with respect to immigration in this country is unprecedented in our history and, indeed, in the modern history of the developed world.

I maintain that we cannot take for granted the success of our model of unity and diversity, that we must be very deliberate, intentional, about ensuring that there is unity in our diversity, that we do not end up replicating the failed experiences of certain other western countries which are struggling with problems of social exclusion, ethnic enclaves, ghettoization, often which become the precedent factors for radicalization, extremism, social discord, and even violence.

We must not, through happy talk, pretend that there are no challenges to maintain social cohesion. This is not and should not be considered an exclusively conservative value or idea. It was, after all, the late Prime Minister Mackenzie King who adopted the Citizenship Act in 1947 with these clear obligations for new Canadian citizens. It was former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who, in 1997, spoke in the chamber about the need for civic literacy as one of the factors to bind us together. What did he mean by civic literacy? He meant a certain common vocabulary about who we are as a people, about our institutions, about from whence we came.

The citizenship program, the citizenship law, is designed, in principle, to help develop that sense of social cohesion, of common Canadian values. I reject categorically the notion of the Prime Minister that there is no such thing as a common Canadian value. There is. This country, this culture, rejects completely the attitude of certain cultures around the world which treat women as property rather than people, for example. That is why, as minister of citizenship and immigration, I was proud to work with new Canadian communities.

I was also proud to work with experts and departmental officials to renew the citizenship program by making legislative and administrative changes.

When I became the citizenship and immigration minister in 2008, I discovered that many new Canadian citizens could not speak even very basic French or English. They could not communicate with their fellow citizens. In a way, they were excluded from the Canadian community.

I discovered that even though they had received 100% on the exam to test their knowledge of Canada, some people knew very little about our country, because unscrupulous immigration consultants were selling the test answers to people who were applying for citizenship.

I also learned that there were networks that were helping people who did not live in Canada and had never lived in Canada to commit fraud.

They remained outside the country in tax havens but hired unscrupulous consultants to arrange for testing and fraudulent documentation for citizenship applications. That is appalling and unacceptable.

We are a generous and open country and we simply ask for those who seek to join the Canadian family that they respect our basic laws, customs, know something of our country, and ideally are able to communicate in one of our languages. That is why we needed to reform the program.

One of the ways in which we did so was a modest expansion of the residency requirement in Canada from three out of four years to four out of six years. That still gave people a great deal of flexibility, one-third of the time spent outside of the country to address the kind of exigencies mentioned by the previous speaker. However, I do not think four years is an unreasonable request for people to develop a durable, meaningful attachment to this country. Four years was still the lowest threshold for residency to obtain citizenship of any major democracy in the world.

Canadian citizenship should be the gold standard; it should not be the bargain basement of citizenship in the world. I do not think it is unreasonable to say 48 months is a period in which to develop a meaningful attachment to our country.

With respect to the provision on declaring the intention to reside in Canada, the regulations and the legislation were absolutely clear that people who became Canadian citizens, having signed that declaration, who had to leave for any reason, would not be penalized, and their citizenship would not be revoked. We simply wanted them to consciously declare that their citizenship was not just about obtaining a Canadian passport as a political insurance package.

Millions of Canadian citizens live abroad, including members of my family and most of our families. Most of them maintain a durable attachment to our country. However, regrettably many hundreds of thousands of them who the moment they obtained their Canadian passports left this country and have never come back. We can use politically correct happy talk to pretend this does not happen, but we all know that it does.

We all know cases where we have had to organize massive evacuations for tens of thousands of people who had not lived in our country for years, who had not paid taxes to it, who had not contributed to it, but who pulled out their Canadian passport as a document of political convenience. I believe that passport represents far more. It represents a loyalty of Canada to the citizen and a reciprocal loyalty of the citizen to our country. It is not a document of convenience. It should never be that.

That is why we simply said to these applicants to please express to us that it was actually their intention to reside in Canada, their new country. We welcome them.

I spoke as minister to citizenship judges who quite literally told me that they had seen people coming to take the oath at the ceremony with their bags packed. They were going directly from the ceremony to the airport to return to their countries of origin. That is not consistent with what we consider the sense of a durable connection to Canada. Therefore, I find it regrettable that the Liberals are eliminating this.

Perhaps what I find most regrettable in this is the perverse priority given by the government to the bill to restore citizenship to convicted terrorists. We have heard a lot of demagoguery from the government about the notion that the previous Bill C-24 in the last Parliament created some ostensible two-tier Canadian citizenship. What complete rubbish. Ever since the 1947 Citizenship Act was adopted by Parliament, there has been a power to revoke citizenship or to renounce it. When people say that citizenship is irrevocable, they simply do not know the law. It is revocable in this and every other country and always has been.

In the original 1947 act, adopted by a Liberal government, among the grounds for the revocation of citizenship was the conviction for treason or acts of war against Canada. That was a provision in our law under multiple Liberal governments from 1947 until amendments to the Citizenship Act in 1976 when that was repealed.

Essentially, what we did in 2014 in Bill C-24 was to re-establish the original Liberal law to say that if individuals violently hated our country we would take a conviction of their violent hatred as evidence of their voluntary, wilful, and deliberate renunciation of the obligations implicit in their Canadian citizenship. That is what that provision, to be repealed in Bill C-6, permitted us to do, under judicial review and in compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I mentioned a case that was immediately dismissed, because they do not want to address this issue. It was dismissed out of hand. However, I would invite any member and anyone viewing this to go on line and simply Google “Canadian burning passport in Syria”. They will get two or three images of Canadians who have travelled to join a group. It is not just some group of militants, but a genocidal terrorist organization that has declared hostility and war on Canada and inspired an attack on this very Parliament. It is crucifying children, beheading members of religious minorities, and raping girls as young as eight. They have gone to join that organization, whose membership is illegal in Canada. In more than one of those images we can see these “Canadians” burning and shooting their Canadian passports.

The position of the members opposite appears to be that, if those men who are clearly expressing their violent hatred for Canada were to download a form from CIC's website to renounce their citizenship, fill out the form, sign it, put it in an envelope, and send it to Ottawa, they could therefore renounce their citizenship. That is a terribly cramped and legalistic view of the facts and of citizenship.

I am sorry, but if individuals deliberately go and join an organization at war with Canada—parenthetically, committing genocide—destroy their Canadian passports as a clear indication of their renunciation of those passports and the citizenship they symbolize, we should have no compunction about saying we read their actions for what they are, they constitute renunciation, and we will renounce their citizenship if they are engaged in such acts of terrorism.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for whom I have great respect, raised a completely ridiculous, demagogic argument. This is not about having a sign of Che Guevara on a website requiring a conviction in a Canadian court of a terrorist offence or treason that would carry at least a two-year penal sentence. No one in the history of our legal system has faced a terrorist conviction of two years for expressing views. This is about violent terrorism.

What the government is telling us in the bill is that someone can take up arms against our country, so violently do they hate it, like that man in Toronto whose citizenship has been revoked. He was the ringleader of a plot that planned to kill thousands of his fellow citizens in an act of extreme political violence, to demonstrate his violent hatred for our country. In so doing, he renounced his citizenship. He did so through his volition.

The power of revocation simply reflects the volition of those who renounce it violently through such acts of treason or terrorism. The power of revocation does not apply to immigrants versus native-born citizens, as the demagogues in this debate have implied. The only reason it is limited to dual citizens in this application is our legal obligation under the international convention on the prevention of statelessness.

Therefore, I appeal to the members opposite and around this place to think seriously about the meaning of our citizenship and to oppose the provisions of the bill.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to raise two hypothetical situations for the hon. member for Surrey—Newton.

I want to say on the record how pleased I am that the new government is bringing in Bill C-6. I wish that the Liberals would repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety.

I will give another example to the member for Calgary Midnapore, who paints the worst case. I will take that worst case and ask how does it benefit world peace and security to take someone who is dangerous and put them back in their country of origin? Would that government feel well with them? Are they barred from ever coming back to Canada?

Let me take another example. The reckless Bill C-51 passed by the previous government included offences of so-called terrorism. Part 3 of Bill C-51, which I call the “thought chill section”, deals with things placed on websites that might encourage “terrorism in general”. It could include a Che Guevara poster the way it is worded. Therefore, a person who is innocent, but might have dual citizenship, could be found guilty of a terrorism-related offence for something as innocuous as an image on a website. It is anti-democratic and wrong, and thank God the current government is bringing it down.

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

Madam Speaker, as an immigrant to this country, I fondly remember the day, July 17, 1987, when I became a Canadian citizen. It was one of the proudest days of my life and something I had dreamed about ever since I moved to Canada in January of 1984.

This is my frame of reference in speaking in support of Bill C-6. I always understood Canada to be a country that welcomed refugees and immigrants and inspired them to strive to become Canadian citizens, to take that step toward full membership and permanent belonging in Canadian society. This is why Conservative Bill C-24, introduced in 2014 by the previous government, is so concerning to Canadians across Canada.

Even the hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn, a former parliamentary secretary and the longest continuously serving Conservative MP in the House, has publicly said that he has always opposed the bill.

The member has been quoted as stating that he was “taken to task” by members of his own party for being one of the few MPs on that side of the House to vote against Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 was an attempt by the Conservative Party to fundamentally change what it meant to be a Canadian as part of political branding exercise. The act created two classes of Canadians: those that only had Canadian citizenship and those who were at risk by having dual citizenship. Using their typical rhetoric of being tough on terrorism as justification, the Conservatives completely devalued what it meant to hold a Canadian passport.

One of the most troubling aspects of the act is the way that Canadian citizenship could be so easily revoked. For example, convictions abroad that convinced a government official that an individual was a national security threat may prompt a process where Canadian citizenship could be stripped away.

By no means does our government support citizens involved in terrorist offences, or espionage, or treason inside or outside of Canada's borders. However, this ability to remove citizenship from dual citizens is a problem.

First, a Canadian citizen without dual citizenship from another country could never have their passport revoked for the same crimes committed abroad.

Second, it makes Canadian citizenship a tool for the criminal justice system. Punishment for crimes should be decided in courts of law, either in Canada or outside of Canada, but the possibility of losing one's Canadian passport as a form of punishment is completely inappropriate.

Last, for the minister to have such wide discretionary powers in the review and revocation process is a complete breach of due process and fairness.

There are also aspects of the Conservative's Bill C-24 that only serve to discourage immigrants from wanting to become Canadian citizens. Immigrants want to apply for Canadian citizenship are automatically treated with distrust. The act measures their loyalty and attachment to Canada by the days they were physically present in the country. As a result, thousands of immigrant applicants are forced to sacrifice academic and employment opportunities or family obligations abroad just so they do not put their citizenship application process in jeopardy.

Bill C-6 will correct and repeal many of the wrongs contained in Bill C-24. Allow me to outline some of the significant changes being proposed by sharing stories I have heard over the past few months in my riding of Surrey—Newton.

To the young man I met in November who was scared about travelling to the country of his dad's birth for fear of being targeted and arrested by a repressive government regime, I say that Bill C-6 will remove the grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security.

To the immigrant mother of two young children who came to my constituency office worried about what might happen to her application if she temporarily returned to her homeland to care for her sick mother, I say that Bill C-6 will reduce the number of days that someone will have to be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship, and that they will receive credit for the time they have spent in Canada before becoming a permanent resident.

There was also a man who was very nervous about applying for citizenship for his quite elderly, sick mother, who struggled with English.

When the Minister of Immigration was giving his speech, I got a call from one of my constituents, Dawinder Mann. He came to this country many years ago as a refugee. His mother, sister, and all his brothers and children are settled here, but unfortunately his wife was not able to apply for Canadian citizenship. She is in a position where her country of origin will not issue her a passport. Now she is not able to pass the English requirement. She is 54. Therefore, she would not be able to get a passport either from Canada or her country of origin. Now her husband is very happy that his wife, Harjinder Mann, under the new legislation, in a year's time will be able to apply proudly for Canadian citizenship and be able to carry a Canadian passport.

These are the types of stories that encourage me to support the Minister of Immigration, the work he is doing, and the bill he has brought forward.

I believe passionately in the power of Canadian citizenship. I believe that the Government of Canada should do everything in its power to encourage newcomers to become Canadian citizens. The Canadian passport is sacred and highly sought after across the globe.

This is why using Canadian citizenship to fearmonger or as a means of control or simply as a political prop is so very wrong. As our Prime Minister has said, and I say again, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and our Minister of Immigration has also said that. This is why he brought Bill C-6 forward, so that every Canadian can feel that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

I encourage all members to support Bill C-6 so that what it means to be a Canadian can once again to be used to unite rather than divide us.

I am thankful for this opportunity to share my thoughts with my fellow members.

[Arnold Chan, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my friend from Surrey—Newton.

It is a pleasure to rise today to speak to the government's plan to repeal the unfair provisions found under the Citizenship Act that were passed in the previous Parliament under Bill C-24, which allowed for the revocation of Canadian citizenship of dual or multiple nationals on the grounds of national interest.

Once again, our government is delivering on the commitments we promised Canadians during last year's federal election. From my perspective, Bill C-24 is not only a bill that personally affects the lives of many of my constituents but it also affects many Canadians across this country.

I note that in the speech by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, he articulated two broad principles that governed the intent behind Bill C-6.

First and foremost, he enunciated the concept of a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, which was something that we had heard throughout the campaign, and that we found the notion of two different types of classes of Canadian citizens to be offensive.

The second concept that was articulated by the minister was with respect to peeling back the changes found in Bill C-24 that imposed new barriers on welcoming immigrants to this country and becoming Canadian citizens.

There are a series of four provisions within Bill C-6 that attempt to bring back a much more welcoming atmosphere to becoming a Canadian citizen. Those are very important principles. However, I want to focus on two different principles.

I first want to note that I appreciated the speech made by my friend from the New Democratic Party, the member for Vancouver East, who I thought articulated in very clear terms the reasons why her party would be supporting the provisions of Bill C-6. She also put forth some legitimate criticisms that she found, namely, that we did not necessarily go far enough in Bill C-6.

I take the point the minister raised that this government remains open to making reasonable changes, which is a reflection of this particular government. For example, this government would definitely entertain some of the issues the member articulated.

I want to get to those two broad principles that I would like to articulate in the short time I have to talk to Bill C-6 that I feel were particularly offensive under Bill C-24.

The first concept I want to advance, which was a central theme that had been articulated by the previous government and in particular by the former minister of citizenship and immigration, Chris Alexander, is the concept that citizenship is a privilege as opposed to a right. I strongly disagree with the former minister's position on this substantive fate.

The whole concept of strengthening the Canadian Citizenship Act, as minister Alexander had framed it, was that citizenship was somehow a privilege. From my perspective, once it is conferred, it attaches rights. There are obligations and responsibilities that come with citizenship, but it confers rights that are protected specifically under the charter, as my friend from Vancouver East had noted. Therefore, once it is legitimately acquired, the concept of citizenship should not be taken away capriciously.

That brings me to the second concept. My friends in the New Democratic Party touched upon this particular theme both in the comments made by my friend from Vancouver East and in the question from the finance critic for the NDP, which is the concept of the encroachment of executive power and the lack of procedural due process that was found under Bill C-24. Again, I deeply oppose this concept.

I take the comments that my friend from Vancouver East noted seriously. She remains concerned that there needs to be procedural due process whenever citizenship is stripped away. This government would be amendable to those kinds of amendments to the legislation.

I found particularly odious the previous government's perspective to grant the minister the arbitrary right to decide which individuals would get to keep their citizenship and which ones would not. It was particularly odious because it could be done capriciously and without any sort of procedural due process. There would be no capacity to appeal. There would be no capacity to bring new facts to the table.

I know what members of the Conservative Party are ultimately going to say. They are going to say we would only be stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists. All we heard in the debate in the House from the previous minister and from my friends in the opposition is that at the end of the day once individuals are convicted of a particular crime, they should serve their time, and that is the ultimate sanction. Stripping citizenship from certain classes of individuals is not fundamentally appropriate. More important, it would undermine the whole concept of the fundamental principle of rule of law, where all citizens are treated equally. I note that concept was very well articulated earlier, and I want to reinforce that principle in my comments today.

These are really the fundamental issues of why I will be supporting Bill C-6 in addition to the principles that were enunciated by the minister.

My sense is that this is about what it means to be Canadian, what it ultimately means to create conditions where we are a welcoming society, as noted in the opening comments of the minister, a society that values people who come from around the world. My friend from Calgary Nose Hill articulated the same principles.

I do not agree with my friend from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan that somehow this is about an elevation of values. This is very much a values debate, but the value we are attaching is to the protection of fundamental principles, principles that are found in the charter, the principle of rule of law, the principle of equality. That is why we are here in this place. If we cannot protect those fundamental principles for the people we find most offensive in our society, then why are we here? That for me is the core of the debate and why Bill C-6 must be supported.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the member that during the campaign the Prime Minister made a commitment to the Chinese community, particularly through the Chinese media, that if the Liberals formed government he would repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety. If we use that as a barometer to what is happening right now with Bill C-6, it actually falls short.

That being said, I do support the measures brought forward under Bill C-6 for the most part. There are areas I have identified where it needs further action and I hope I can count on the member's support in that regard.

I know the member made a comment in the media regarding the citizenship language issue, particularly the proficiency, or the level of the language. I hope I can count on his support to get his government and his minister to move in the right direction to reduce the proficiency level and to recognize the contributions of immigrants in that regard.

I hope I can also count on the member's support on the financial barriers and reducing the citizenship application fees.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, the critic for finance. He has a history, having been here when Bill C-24 was tabled, and has gone through the debate. I appreciate the concern around discretionary powers given to the minister.

Bill C-6 does not actually address that. It still allows for the minister to have the discretionary power to revoke a citizenship. What I hope the government will do and would urge it to do is to, in fact, go back to the way the system was and put the authority to revoke citizenship before an independent body through the Federal Court system and for a Federal Court judge to make that decision.

That is the best way to do it, openly, with accountability, and to ensure politics stays out of somebody's citizenship.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent speech, which I think most members appreciated.

I am very pleased that we are going to vote in favour of Bill C-6 at second reading. I was here during the previous Parliament when the House passed Bill C-24, and this bill does address a number of problems.

However, like most members of the NDP, who made up the official opposition at the time, I opposed the discretionary power that the bill gave to the minister. Bill C-24 was not the only example of this. Various other bills gave discretionary powers to the finance minister, the public safety minister and, in this case, the immigration minister. I remember quite well that, at the time, the Liberal opposition agreed with us and was opposed to giving ministers new discretionary powers that would allow them to make decisions without necessarily going through the proper channels.

I would like to ask my colleague what she thinks of the provisions that grant this sort of discretionary power and how important she thinks they are. How does she suggest we make the process fairer than just allowing the minister to make decisions at his or her discretion?