Mr. Speaker, we are determined to make that processing happen, but we are also determined to continue to reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship to show that it is not just by being interested in Canada, by being domiciled in Canada, or by having visited Canada that one becomes a Canadian citizen.
There has always been a principle of residency in this country behind Canadian citizenship, since 1914 when the length of time in that bill was actually raised to five years. It stayed there for a good long time. It was reduced to three years under the Trudeau government of the 1970s. That was too little. It was not only a much shorter time than Australia, the U.K., the U.S., all of our peers, France, and other European countries have. Many of them have much longer periods, seven or ten years.
It was also a short period of time during which a select few of those who paid the right lawyers or paid the right crooked consultants were able to leave requirements unfulfilled. They pretended they were here for three years when, in fact, they were not. That cheapened Canadian citizenship. That undermined the value of Canadian citizenship. That made us, in some parts of the world, in terms of citizenship, a laughingstock.
It is this government that has done more than any in our history to clean up that abuse, abuse that began in 1977 under a flawed model of citizenship, and we are absolutely convinced that it is the right thing to do to require four out of six years of physical residency in this country, and to be able to check that people are actually here, to be able to avoid all of that paperwork, those banker's boxes of receipts and plane tickets that people used to have to bring with their citizenship applications. We would be able to do it electronically starting next year, and there would not be fraud associated with our residency requirement.
We would also clarify that residence means physical presence. We would ask prospective citizens not just to be physically present but to say up front that they intend to reside in Canada. It sounds reasonable that someone who is physically present in Canada for three, now four, years would actually have the intention of being here.
The opposition seems to think that people end up here by accident, that they do not intend to be here and that we should not ask them what they intend because they are here anyway. They kind of sleepwalk into Canada. That is the perspective of the Canadian Bar Association. That is the perspective of a few on the other side.
Would it curb their mobility rights? Absolutely not. For people who say they intend to reside in Canada and then decide to go somewhere else or marry someone else or accept a job offer somewhere else, their intent to reside in Canada ends. Their physical presence in Canada is curtailed. They would not qualify for Canadian citizenship at that point in their lives. So be it.
Their human rights, their rights under the Canadian charter, their rights as permanent residents would not be affected. They have just changed their plans. Anyone who pretends that this is interference, that this is an unfair burden on new Canadians, has not talked to any new immigrants lately. New immigrants are proud to say that they intend to reside here. They want to become citizens as quickly as possible.
Right now, already, it is not three years on average that people spend here; it is actually four years, on average, that the majority of new Canadians have spent here before they apply to be Canadian citizens. We are actually catching up with reality. It is actually something that Canadians want us to do to ensure that the connection, the integration, and the sense of belonging are strong, the way they should be among citizens who share political institutions, who share the burden of participating in this democracy together.
The third set of measures we have in this bill relates to citizenship fraud, combatting abuse of the citizenship process, among other reforms. I am glad to hear some on the opposition side say they are happy to see a regulatory body set to be designated for citizenship consultants.
There is a much larger of immigration consultants. We made a very successful effort to regulate them, to make sure that they are self-regulating and that the ones who were counselling people and guiding them down the wrong path toward residency fraud and all kinds of abuses would be left out of the game from now on. We made sure that people would get good, honest advice.
We have all heard cases in our constituency offices of people who spent large amounts of money in different parts of the world to supposedly come to Canada, but then the person disappeared or the advice was wrong or the application was only half filled in. We do not want our citizenship to be associated with that kind of advice. Under this measure, we would take another important step toward making sure that we are not.
We would also increase the penalty for committing citizenship fraud. We would streamline the revocation process and bar people whose citizenship was revoked because they obtained it fraudulently from reapplying for citizenship for 10 years. Did members know that? Did they know that those who obtained citizenship fraudulently and who had it revoked by cabinet could then reapply for citizenship? It was not considered a crime.
Criminals are inadmissible to Canada. They would be inadmissible as citizens under this bill, but we were still letting people who had committed citizenship fraud come back and be citizens. That would no longer happen.
We would also revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who are members of an armed force or an organized armed group engaged in armed conflict against Canada. We would deny citizenship to permanent residents involved in the same actions. Dual citizens and permanent residents convicted of terrorism, high treason, treason, or spying offences would be similarly affected, depending on the sentence received.
Some on the other side, and the bar association again, like a bad Greek chorus, have said this would create two classes of citizenship. I mean no offence to the parliamentary secretary; I am talking about an ancient Greek chorus.
It is actually very simple, and everyone on the opposition benches would do well to understand the difference. People are citizens if they do not commit these crimes; if they commit the crimes, they are no longer citizens. That is the difference. There are not two classes of citizenship. We would not have citizens who have other nationalities in circumstances where these very grave acts of disloyalty to Canada are committed.
