Agreed.
Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act
An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts
This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in August 2015.
Chris Alexander Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin
The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Some hon. members
Agreed.
No.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Speaker, a motion to adjourn the House was just moved. There was unanimous consent to move the motion. As we can see, the motion was not agreed to, so there has to be a vote because there was unanimous consent to move the motion in the House. That changes things. There were two motions. The first motion was for unanimous consent. Some Conservative members said no to the second motion, but the motion was moved in the House, so we have to vote.
Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB
Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I would ask for the advice of the Chair. My understanding is that a request to adjourn was made in the hope of receiving unanimous consent. Then you canvassed the House to see if there was unanimous consent and there was never any canvassing of the House to ask the question. If the answer to the initial request had been yes, then you would have had to put the question to the House. I understand that you did not put the question to the House, so that is something that still would need to be done. Based on that, I would suggest to you that we have not actually adjourned as of right now.
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Mr. Speaker, I said no and I heard the member for Richmond Hill also say no.
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Speaker, I denied consent as well, quite audibly, and I heard several other members do the same.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Speaker, you actually put the question twice. The minister and the member for Newmarket—Aurora are quite right to say that the second motion to actually adjourn the House was denied consent, but the first motion was accepted, which means the question has been put. It overrides Motion No. 10 that was adopted two weeks ago. The motion has been put.
Mr. Speaker, you asked if there was unanimous consent to adopt the motion, which would have adjourned the House. I agree with the member for Newmarket—Aurora that a number of Conservative members of Parliament at that point denied consent to adjourn the House, but the question was put unanimously. No one denied consent to put the question, which means the House now has to be called to vote on that question.
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
Mr. Speaker, there are multiple people on this side of the House who have been sitting here for a considerable length of time listening to the debate, being part of the questions and comments, and speaking as well. We were certainly here when there was a call for unanimous consent. There was no canvass of the House by the Speaker in terms of the request for unanimous consent, so whatever the House leader of the official opposition is suggesting in terms of unanimous consent being granted just simply did not happen in this place. The only way around this, in my opinion, is to have a canvass emanating from the Speaker. As far as I am concerned, it is a very clear ruling that you would have to make.
It only makes sense that there cannot be this many people who would find anything to this. It is astounding to me that the House leader for the opposition would find this to be a realistic situation with all of us present here.
The Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin
I am sorry. We cannot go to a second point of order. We are on one already.
The House leader of the official opposition had the floor first. I will recognize the Minister of Employment in a minute.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Speaker, you quite properly put the question. At that point the House said agreed, which is why you then moved on to the second motion, which is if the House is in agreement with the terms of the motion that the House now adjourn.
It is true, and I completely agree, that a number of members of the Conservative Party have come in and said they did say no to the second motion. That is very true. We all heard that. We admit that. However, the reason you put the second motion, Mr. Speaker, is that the House agreed to the first motion, which now means that the bells need to ring and we need to call in the members to have a vote on the motion to adjourn. We had unanimous consent from the House to call the vote and unanimous consent was denied. I completely agree. Because unanimous consent was denied, we now have to have a vote.
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Speaker, given the apparent confusion and ambiguity, I just want to say that I have been a member of this place for 17 years, which I think is perhaps the longest tenure of anyone in the chamber right now, with the possible exception of the government whip and the member for Vegreville—Wainwright, and I think I have learned a thing or two about how unanimous consent motions are put. I used to be deputy opposition House leader. I have probably put several dozen unanimous consent motions myself.
When a member moves for unanimous consent that a motion be heard, the formula is for the Speaker to say that the member has sought unanimous consent of the House that the following motion be put. The Speaker then seeks the consent of the House.
I was sitting here, as were several members of the government. I have no recollection of unanimous consent having been sought. The only question I heard was, “on the motion”. I, and several other members of the government, denied consent.
I would submit that unless you can get the blues, at the very least this is a question as to whether the Chair, with respect to Your Honour, properly sought unanimous consent. To be generous to the official opposition, it is at the very best a question of ambiguity, and I would submit, in the absence of clarity on this point, that we continue with the business of the House, because clearly this motion has been put in a dilatory spirit.
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, with my earpiece in, I believe I only heard the word “consent”, but said no.