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.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I had to choose between the bar's opinion and the minister's, I would choose the bar's, if only because members of the bar got together and came to a clear consensus. The bill before us is steering us down the path my colleague referred to.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am really honoured to have this opportunity to speak in support of Bill C-24, which would help prevent fraud in the citizenship program. It would protect it from abuse and preserve its integrity.

Poll after poll suggests that people from around the world would choose Canada as the country they would most want to live in. Why not? We have the best quality of life. As former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker said:

I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.

Canada stands as a model of how people of different cultures, ethnicities, religions, and beliefs can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect. That is what it means to be Canadian.

Because Canadian citizenship is so valuable, many people are prepared to misrepresent facts to make it appear that they qualify for citizenship. For example, they may pretend to live in Canada, when in fact they are living abroad. Ongoing large-scale fraud investigations have identified more than 3,000 citizens and 5,000 permanent residents linked to major investigations, a majority of them related to residence. In addition, nearly 2,000 individuals linked to the citizenship fraud investigations have withdrawn their applications.

More than 85% of citizenship fraud involves falsifying residence. In typical cases, permanent residents have used the services of crooked consultants to circumvent the law to fraudulently establish evidence of residence in Canada while living abroad most, if not all, of the time.

Media reports in recent years have highlighted some of the actions taken to simulate residence in Canada. Some of the most common examples are creating home addresses by using the address of a friend or relative in Canada; paying a building owner to rent an address, usually by a consultant, or using a postal service outlet; purchasing telephones and having someone in Canada use them to create a record of incoming or outgoing calls; opening a bank account, maintaining a healthy balance, and giving the ATM access card to someone in Canada to perform regular in-Canada transactions on the account.

Canadians know that citizenship sits at the heart of our democratic institutions. The Canadian people expect their government to protect the integrity of the citizenship process. Even a small number of crooked consultants who facilitate this type of fraud represent a substantial problem, as this undermines the program and the integrity and value of Canadian citizenship. That is why Bill C-24 proposes measures to help combat fraud and to protect the citizenship program from further abuse.

In short, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act would give the government the legal authority to designate a regulatory body whose members would be authorized to act as consultants in citizenship matters. This would ensure that citizenship consultants were held to the same professional and ethical standards as immigration consultants and would help prevent fraud in the citizenship program.

Another serious issue is that the penalties for fraud in the current citizenship act have not increased since 1977 and are ineffective in deterring individuals from committing citizenship related offences, such as misrepresentation. The current penalty for citizenship fraud is a mere $1,000, the maximum fine, which is $4,000 in 2014 dollars, or one year in prison, or both.

We need to prevent fraudsters from becoming citizens, and the introduction of stiffer penalties would help deter people from committing citizenship fraud.

The proposed new penalty for fraud is a fine to a maximum of $100,000 or five years in prison,or both, which would modernize the penalty for fraud in the Citizenship Act. It would also be the same as the penalty for the equivalent offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or IRPA, thereby bringing the citizenship program in line with the immigration program.

The proposed legislation would also add a provision to refuse an application for misrepresentation of material facts and to bar applicants who misrepresent such facts from reapplying for five years. This would help deter fraud and would also bring the Citizenship Act in line with the IRPA.

Revocation is an important tool to safeguard the value of Canadian citizenship and to protect the integrity of our citizenship program. Bill C-24 would streamline the process for the government to revoke citizenship from those who are discovered to have lied or cheated on their citizenship applications. This is important, because the current revocation process can be complex and cumbersome. It can also take an inordinate amount of time to take citizenship away from someone who should not have obtained Canadian citizenship in the first place. If we want to get serious about cracking down on those who seek to undermine the value of our citizenship, it is imperative that we be in a position to revoke their citizenship in a timely manner, as proposed under Bill C-24. Individuals who have had their citizenship revoked for fraud would also be barred from reapplying for 10 years following the revocation order, up from the current bar of five years.

Our government is concerned about the recent discovery of a dual national committing a terrorist act abroad. In cases where dual nationals commit gross acts of disloyalty, such as treason or terrorism or taking up arms against our Canadian Forces, they too will lose the privilege of Canadian citizenship. We all have an interest in sending a message to such misguided individuals. They are committing serious crimes, and their actions have consequences.

Let us not forget that it was our government that introduced the Combating Terrorism Act, which will make it a criminal offence to leave Canada to commit terrorist acts. Let me remind all Canadians watching at home right now and those here in the House that it was the NDP that voted against this important, overdue protective measure.

Our government also introduced the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act to make it easier to remove dangerous foreign criminals and to make it harder for those who pose a risk to Canadians to come to the country. However, both the Liberals and the New Democrats opposed this bill, and they have said repeatedly that they believe terrorists should be able to stay in Canada under humanitarian and compassionate grounds. The NDP member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park said her discussions in Lebanon a while back led her to believe:

....that it is just not helpful to label them [referring to Hezbollah] as a terrorist organization. If the political parties in Lebanon who may disagree with Hezbollah...can figure out a way to work with Hezbollah and try to get along internally, then perhaps we should take a cue from that.

The opposition members have the opportunity right now to correct their mistakes and support our government's proposals to protect Canadians from ruthless terrorists. If they do not support this bill, the New Democrats reaffirm that they are soft on terrorists and organizations like Hezbollah.

We already know the Liberal leader's admiration for dictatorships, making light of Russia's annexation of Crimea. Worst of all, he said, on the Iranian embassy closure here in Canada, “It's important to talk to each other and it's especially important to talk to regimes that you disagree with and that disagree with you to make sure that there is means of communication”.

This is the same Iranian regime that seeks nuclear weapons, that seeks the destruction of Israel, and that funds terrorist organizations around the world. It is the same regime that murdered Canadians such as Zahra Kazemi. This is the regime the Liberal Party wants to reward with diplomatic status and engage in communication with.

I just want to conclude by saying that it is imperative that the opposition parties rally themselves, rise above their own partisan interests, and do what is right for Canada and support Bill C-24.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed in my colleague. I thought he would have listened attentively to my speech and noted that the most important point is the constitutionality of the bill. My colleague surely recognizes that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms constitutes the foundation of our Canadian democracy and our beautiful country. I hope that he will support this first statement.

I would like to quote a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the revocation of citizenship:

The social compact requires the citizen to obey the laws created by the democratic process. But it does not follow that failure to do so nullifies the citizen’s continued membership in the self-governing polity. Indeed, the remedy of imprisonment for a term rather than permanent exile implies our acceptance of continued membership in the social order.

According to professor Macklin, the Supreme Court of Canada clearly stated that the revocation of Canadian citizenship is unconstitutional.

What does my colleague have to say about the Supreme Court ruling and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to her remarks earlier, but they did not make a whole lot of sense, so I am going to have to give her an answer she may not agree with but that she should be prepared to listen to in any event.

The NDP should really learn to rise above its ideological blinders and do what is right for Canada. It takes the side of being soft on terrorists and terrorist organizations, and is on the side of those who would harm our Canadian Forces or those who would betray their own Canadian citizenship by taking up arms to fight in foreign lands.

These are the kinds of people the NDP chooses to support, rather than those hard-working people who come from all over the world to our great country of Canada. They come here for hope and opportunity. They come for opportunity for themselves, and more importantly, for their children. It is so important that these are the kind of people we embrace, these immigrants who embrace Canada.

We should not be supporting terrorists and those who seek to take up arms not only against those here in Canada but against our Canadian Forces abroad. The New Democrats should really be ashamed of themselves.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague from York Centre for the best speech I have heard tonight on the issues of fraud and disloyalty to Canada and how they affect our citizenship programs.

I am very proud to be on a government side in the House that is not only saying the right things and explaining in detail why this bill should move forward but is also showing how democracy works by disagreeing with one another. I am very proud of the member for Calgary Southeast and his huge contribution to shaping this bill. I am also proud that the member for Calgary East, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, took a different opinion on one aspect of the bill. That is the strength of this side. We are able to express our own views. We are able to differ and yet come together behind an important piece of legislation like this.

Could the member for York Centre please remind the House why it is so important to point out to Canadians how vulnerable the system has been to fraud and how important it is to fight terrorism, when basically, all the opposition has done tonight is defend spies, traitors, and terrorists?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I want to thank the finest Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that Canada has ever had. He deserves all kinds of credit for the hard work that he has done, putting his heart and soul into Bill C-24 to make Canada a better country. We should all be proud of our Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

Just let me say quickly—

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The member had 30 seconds and he used them on congratulating the minister, which I am sure the minister appreciates, but unfortunately there is not enough time to answer the question.

We will move on and resume debate with the hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say at this late hour, that was a very fine example of Conservative self-glorification at its best. I would like to thank both the minister and the hon. member for the wonderful job they did of patting each other on the back regarding the most dreadful bill that we have had before this House.

Believe it or not, I can remember a day when the current government was in opposition. Those members would have been outraged that a bill, which was so important, had two hours of debate back in February and then today, for the 65th time, was put under a censure order so that we will just have debate tonight and then it moves on. This has become such a familiar pattern, but it really is very disturbing. I remember when Conservative members would have stood up in this House decrying the fact that the government of the day was doing this. Yet, here they are, worse than anybody has ever been.

I feel honoured to represent Vancouver East, a riding where immigration and new citizenship are very honoured. It is something that has built our communities, whether the Chinese Canadian, Japanese Canadian, or the Filipino Canadian community. There are people from all over the world. It is a working-class, hard-working riding. People have come from all over and built businesses. They have contributed to community services and have gone to school here.

I feel very proud to be part of a community that is very much built on immigration. It is a place where people feel very proud about being a Canadian citizen. Therefore, this issue of citizenship and what it means is an important subject in Canada. We are basically a country of new Canadians. Other than first nations, we are all newcomers. Some of us have been here for generations and some folks are here for the very first time. I myself come from a first-generation immigrant family and so I very much value the notion of what it means to be a Canadian citizen, which is all the more reason to look at Bill C-24 and go through it.

My colleagues here tonight and I are very concerned about the bill. Listening to the debate from the Conservative members, I feel as if we are in different worlds. Maybe we identify some of the same problems, but from two different worlds.

In the Conservative world, everything is good or evil. If anyone dares to speak about the rule of law or due process, somehow means that one is in favour of terrorists or criminal behaviour. I mean, it is so juvenile it is sort of pathetic. One would want to see the level of debate in this House be a little more thoughtful, but that is what it has come down to.

Of course, in the NDP, like anybody else, we are very concerned about terrorists and criminal acts, but the question that we are looking at tonight with Bill C-24 when we identify these problems is: how do we respond to them? How do we deal with them?

When we look at the bill, the conclusion that I come to is that basically Conservatives hold themselves above the law. Bill C-24 lays out a process whereby there are extraordinary powers conferred upon a minister to revoke citizenship in certain instances based on suspicion, without any regard to due process, without any regard to independent tribunals or court process. The government really does see itself as the final arbiter.

We believe that is fundamentally wrong, which is why we feel so concerned about the bill. Not only is it being rushed through, but this premise in the bill of affixing problems that have been identified is so suspicious in the power that it confers on an individual. Again, it is a familiar pattern that we have seen on numerous occasions with different legislation.

In the NDP, we do believe in the rule of law. We do believe in the legitimate role of Parliament to debate, to investigate, and to improve legislation. That is what we are here to do.

That is what we are here to do. That is what we are elected to do by our constituents. However, we see more and more legislation rushed through Parliament and rushed through committee, sometimes at all stages, through closure, censure, and time allocation. As I said earlier, we have seen it tonight for the 65th time, and it really does make a mockery of what debate and investigation of legislation should be in the House of Commons.

I feel a sense of dismay tonight, even at this late hour. I am sure we are all tired because we have had a long, busy day, but there is a compelling argument that makes us want to take this on again and again and respond to the absolutely irrational arguments being put forward on the government side.

I heard the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration say earlier in the debate that NDP was fearmongering, yet when we look at the bill and the powers that the minister would have, there is a sense of fear over what the consequences of this bill would be. When we look at the expert organizations in this field and the concerns they have expressed—and I certainly hope they will be heard in committee—surely we see that there has to be a rational debate about whether this bill tips the balance and goes to an extreme in conferring on the minister such extraordinary powers to revoke citizenship.

I do not want two-tiered citizenship in this country. There are other countries that have that kind of regime. That is something that Canada should stay away from. A Canadian citizen is a Canadian citizen. If a person has gone through the process of becoming a citizen, that is good, and then citizenship becomes a right.

There are also responsibilities, and if there is wrongdoing, then we have provisions in this country—I think it is called the Criminal Code—that allow for a process to be enacted, for due process to happen, and for people to be prosecuted and jailed if necessary. We have that system in place, but in reading this bill, one would think that none of it existed.

I find it really quite extraordinary that we are dealing with a bill that would in effect allow the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to act as prosecutor, judge, and enforcer. To me, that is simply wrong. We have a separation of powers in this country for a very good reason. We have a balance of powers in terms of a legislature with regard to the execution and enforcement of the law. There is a reason we have those checks and balances, so the legislation before us is very disturbing.

There is no question that there are issues in the bill that need to be dealt with, such as the issue of the lost Canadians. That is a long-standing issue that has needed to be addressed. I am glad that it is being addressed, but it is being smothered in this bill by other provisions, particularly the revocation of citizenship, which I think is very offensive.

There is also the question of why some of the real concerns we have about our immigration system are not being addressed. Many members tonight spoke about the issue of the backlog, the fact that there are over 300,000 people still waiting and that it takes an extraordinarily long time for applications to be processed. The Conservatives have promised and failed on many occasions to rectify that problem. We have not seen it happen, and it is not rectified in this bill.

If we look at an issue like family reunification, which is very important in terms of citizenship and immigration, we see that it is not dealt with at all; in fact, to the contrary, all of the measures we have seen from the government have actually narrowed family reunification and made it a lot more difficult.

At the end of the day, Bill C-24 is a bad bill. There might be some good provisions in it, but overall, the powers that it would confer upon the minister are unnecessary. They are not needed. They are powers that would cause problems in the long term.

I am very proud that New Democrats have been standing tonight to debate this bill and expose how fundamentally flawed it is. It will go to committee, and we will do our utmost to ensure that there are witnesses and that there are amendments. We can only hope that members of the House will be willing to consider amendments to make sure this bill is improved.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, from the remarks of the member for Vancouver East, it is very clear what the fundamental difference is between us and the opposition on this bill.

The NDP believes that it can somehow be coherent, that it can somehow be consonant with Canadian citizenship to have someone be convicted of terrorism and retain their citizenship. We respectfully disagree.

Gross acts of disloyalty deserve to result in penalties under the Criminal Code, but also the revocation of citizenship when statelessness is not a result. Many other countries agree with us, all of our allies in NATO, except one.

Could the member opposite cite one example of revocation of citizenship for citizenship fraud that was done improperly or that was unfounded? Has she seen any case where the power and duty to revoke under the law has not been implemented properly by the government or others? Will the member come clean with Canadians and admit that when there are cases of revocation for terrorism, or espionage or treason, there will be judicial supervision and involvement? That is required under the bill.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here tonight to talk about what this bill means and what it would do.

In reading the bill, what is very clear is that it would confer extraordinary power on the minister to allow the minister, he or she, to revoke citizenship in certain circumstances. That is wrong. We believe it violates due process, that it is not done through the judiciary with independent tribunals. It has been strongly criticized and condemned by a number of organizations that have examined the bill.

Why does the minister think a minister alone should have that kind of power? It just seems so fundamentally wrong. I do not think the government has answered that question. Where is the accountability? We have not heard that tonight from the government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I share the concerns of the hon. member for Vancouver East.

There are some good elements of the bill. I appreciate the member for York Centre pointing out he is best minister we have ever had, although I do not know how the current Minister of Employment and Social Development feels about that. However, with all due respect to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the bill represents a dangerous departure from fundamental understanding of what it means to be a citizen. It runs contrary to international commitments that Canada has made under the Convention on Statelessness and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It arguably also runs contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in treating classes of Canadian citizens differently from each other.

I do not quarrel for one moment with what the minister says. If somebody obtains his or her Canadian citizenship by fraud, there are already ways in which that citizenship can be revoked because it was obtained fraudulently.

However, for Canadian citizens who arguably might or might not be dual citizens of another nation, to lose their citizenship from Canada is a dangerous and slippery slop.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has identified a real problem in the bill, in that the bill would create two tiers of citizenship. That is unheard of in Canada. I do not know what kind of debate there has been out there in the community. I do not know if people are even aware that this is what the consequence of the bill would be.

We have yet to see whether it will contravene international conventions. As we see with so much of the legislation passed by the government, there are all kinds of legal challenges that have to take place because legislation is brought forward in such a narrow partisan way.

I feel that the whole notion of sound public policy is being eroded by the Conservative government. Bill C-24 is a very good example of that.

I thank the member because her comments are very relevant.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a great honour to be here this evening. We stand in a historic place and we look forward to a historic anniversary. Our 150th celebration as a nation is coming. If we look back 100 years from today, Prime Minister Borden was bringing in the Naturalization Act that precipitated the Citizenship Act of 1947, and here we are today, generations later, finally updating our Citizenship Act.

We stand in the name of great people. I am honoured to represent people from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, people who really care about their citizenship, a varied population of different ethnic backgrounds and first nation backgrounds. They are people who cherish their citizenship.

I stand in the name of my father and my uncle. My late father was a prisoner of war in World War II. My late uncle, Smoky Smith, was the last surviving Victoria Cross holder. I am very proud this day, and I know that they would be very proud, considering what we are doing to protect the rights of Canadian citizens and ensuring the rights of a group that I am about to speak about, the lost Canadians.

I am proud to speak on behalf of my predecessor, the former member of Parliament for this riding, John Reynolds, who was an ardent advocate for the lost Canadians, for the people whose rights will be restored in Bill C-24. I am proud to speak on behalf of constituents who have worked for this day, including people like Don Chapman, who helped John Reynolds on his way to advocate for lost Canadians.

Given these personal connections, I am also very glad to speak on behalf of all Canadians who have been watching the evolution of this bill from coast to coast and who have waited with anticipation for us to do something truly historic.

The measures in Bill C-24 represent the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation, and they deserve the support of every member in this House. Canadian citizenship is central to our identity, values, and traditions and is a tremendous source of pride for all of us who are fortunate enough to have it.

Generations of Canadians have made great sacrifices to defend our way of life, to ensure that our country remains strong and free, and to guarantee the rights and responsibilities that come with citizenship. Among those Canadians are the people I have mentioned, and there are others, such as the people who have returned from Afghanistan so recently and those at that poignant ceremony that we celebrated, the Day of Honour. Those are the people who are watching this evening.

In short, Canadian citizenship is precious, and it should never be taken for granted. Its value must always be preserved and strengthened whenever possible. That is why Bill C-24 is such an important piece of legislation.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I would like to focus on one particular measure in this bill: the restoration of citizenship to those who are known as the lost Canadians.

Under the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, there were groups of people who were either not eligible for citizenship or who lost their citizenship for various reasons. They included people born outside Canada to a Canadian parent and people born in Canada who naturalized in another country. They were people who might have justifiably but erroneously thought they were Canadians. They were excluded because of outdated and inconsistent provisions in previous citizenship legislation. Those affected by these provisions became popularly known as “lost Canadians”.

Some lost Canadians spent many years of their lives believing in their hearts that they were Canadian citizens and publicly identified themselves as such. They did not realize that they did not actually have Canadian citizenship. In some cases, the bad news of their actual status came as a nasty surprise when, for example, they applied for a Canadian passport for the first time. Other lost Canadians spent many years yearning for the citizenship they felt would rightfully be theirs if not for outdated legal provisions.

This was a unique and unfortunate situation. I am sure all of us in this House can sympathize with the plight of these unlucky individuals.

Over time, many lost Canadians asked the Government of Canada to give them citizenship. Four and a half years ago, building on the advocacy of my predecessor John Reynolds and others, the government did just that. In 2009, significant changes to Canada's citizenship legislation were implemented. The changes restored citizenship or granted it for the first time to the vast majority of lost Canadians. The amendments reflected the seriousness with which our government takes the issue of people's citizenship.

On the day that law came into effect, most lost Canadians automatically obtained their citizenship retroactively, as of the date they lost their citizenship if they were former citizens, or as of the date of their birth.

Many of my hon. colleagues may remember the day in April 2009 when this law came into effect. There was a lot of media coverage of what was naturally a very happy story of these lost Canadians, so-called, returning home. In fact, a number of former lost Canadians showed up here on Parliament Hill that day, determined to celebrate the restoration of their citizenship and to apply for a Canadian passport at their earliest opportunity.

Our government resolved the vast majority of lost Canadian cases in 2009, and we are committed now to fix the remaining ones. The Liberals could have done this, but they failed to do so.

Although the 2009 legislation did cover the overwhelming majority of lost Canadians, there still remained a small number of people who did not benefit from those changes. The lost Canadians who would gain citizenship under the provisions of Bill C-24, the bill we see before us this evening, fall into three categories: people born or naturalized in Canada before 1947 who subsequently lost their British subject status and did not become Canadian citizens on January 1, 1947; second, British subjects ordinarily resident in Canada prior to 1947 who did not become citizens on January 1, 1947; and third, children born abroad in the first generation to any parent who was born, naturalized, or was a British subject ordinarily resident in Canada prior to 1947.

Here is what Bill Janzen, consultant for the Central Mennonite Committee said about Bill C-24:

I welcome the government's decision to include “Lost Canadians” in their changes to the Citizenship Act. The decision will improve the situation of people born outside of Canada who until now were deemed ineligible for Canadians citizenship....

For instance, someone who was born out of wedlock before 1947 to a Canadian father and a non-Canadian mother did not automatically gain Canadian citizenship when the 1947 law came into force. Neither did someone born in wedlock to a Canadian mother and a non-Canadian father.

It goes without saying that these, seen from our perspective today, are archaic provisions. There is why the measures in Bill C-24 pertaining to remaining lost Canadians are so timely and necessary.

In summary, these measures, measures that I have advocated for since becoming an MP, much of which time I was on the citizenship and immigration committee, would extend citizenship to more lost Canadians born before 1947 and their children born in the first generation outside Canada who did not benefit from the 2009 changes.

It is proposed to extend citizenship to these individuals retroactively to January 1, 1947, or to their date of birth if they were born after this date.

I urge all hon. members of this House to join me in supporting the passage of this bill in order to ensure that Canadian citizenship remains strong and that we can ensure these lost Canadians are welcome and remain a part of the Canadian family.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is important that the issue of lost Canadians be redressed. I would like to remind the member that there was a first stab at it in 2007 when a bill was adopted that dealt with the largest part of those now-called lost Canadians. Some were left behind. Addressing that problem is worthy business of the House.

The problem is that the bill does not just deal with lost Canadians; it deals with a lot more. We could have easily dealt with the lost Canadians as an independent bill, but we have not done that. We should have redressed that years ago. The fact that the bill in 2007 did not sufficiently address the problem is a problem from 2007, so the government now seven years later is fixing a problem that has been dragging on for many years.

Now, all of a sudden, after the government first presented this legislation in February, the Conservatives are in a massive hurry to pass it before the summer recess. I do not know why they could not have brought it back to the House long before today. Again, they tabled it the first time on February 27 and now they seem to be in the biggest hurry to pass it, send it to committee, and who knows how long it will spend in committee. I tend to think that it might not last very long in committee either.

We need to have a fulsome debate on the bill if only because we are talking about the possibility of removing citizenship. Adding citizenship to lost Canadians is a worthy cause. Removing citizenship, especially in a process that seems to lack a serious amount of due process, is questionable and may very well contravene international obligations.

I would like the member's comments on the revocation of citizenship that the bill would bring in, not just fixing a problem that unfortunately the government left standing for seven years.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is the hallmark of an optimist who will compliment a good deed and the hallmark of a pessimist who asks why it was not done earlier.

It is welcome news that my colleague across the way is basically saying that we are taking a good step by enacting these provisions to enfranchise the lost Canadians.

He also mentioned due process. There are at least two provisions in the bill. There will be a federal court review and there is a new level of court review through the Court of Appeal for anybody who is in the unfortunate position of having citizenship removed.

As a lawyer myself, I look at this and think that not only would we be securing the sacredness of citizenship with the bill, but we would be ensuring that people who ought to have their rights removed would have them removed only subject to due process.