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

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am so excited and happy to be back in the House of Commons to represent the good people of London West, and to also see my colleagues, who are energized and ready to serve Canadians.

I will be sharing my time with my amazing colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the second reading debate on Bill C‑71, a bill that would amend the Citizenship Act to expand access to Canadian citizenship by affiliation beyond the first generation.

I also want to thank my colleagues in the House who spoke before me and advocated on behalf of lost Canadians because of the complexity and shortcomings of previous legislative changes to the Citizenship Act under the Harper government.

Bill C-71 proposes amendments to the Canadian Citizenship Act in response to issues raised in both Parliament and the courts. These changes would restore citizenship to the remaining lost Canadians, the individuals who either could not become citizens or who lost their citizenship due to outdated legislative provisions.

While previous amendments helped many, a small cohort of lost Canadians remain. The legislative amendments outlined in Bill C-71 would help lost Canadians and their descendants regain or obtain citizenship. They also address the status of descendants impacted by the Harper Conservatives' first-generation limit. The revised law would establish clear guidelines for acquiring Canadian citizenship by descent.

Once this legislation is enacted, the harmful first-generation limit would no longer apply. It would allow Canadian citizens born abroad to pass their citizenship to their children, provided they can demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada. Canadian parents born outside the country would be able to transfer citizenship to their child if they have lived in Canada for more than three years before the child's birth. These changes would result in a more inclusive and fair Citizenship Act and would right the wrongs of the previous Conservative government.

Additionally, this new legislation would continue to reduce the differences between children born abroad and adopted by Canadians and those born abroad to Canadian parents. Any children adopted overseas by a Canadian parent before the law takes effect would be eligible for the current direct citizenship grant for adoptees, even if they were previously excluded by the first-generation limit. Once the new law is in place, the same criteria would apply to children adopted by Canadian citizens abroad. If the adoptive parent born outside of Canada can show a substantial connection to Canada, the adopted child would be eligible for citizenship as well.

Basically, we are saying that Bill C-71 would restore citizenship to those who have been wrongfully excluded and would establish consistent rules of citizenship by descent moving forward.

I would like to pause here to thank the many families who have worked alongside our committees and our staff, and the many people who have helped get us to this place where the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship has introduced this legislation.

Not only do Conservatives not want this bill to pass, they spent the whole afternoon yesterday filibustering and trying to move motions that would delay its passing and delay the many Canadians who have been harmed in the process from receiving justice. It is important to note that this legislation would not only fix the mess the Harper government created, but would also respond to the reckless government the current Leader of the Opposition was a member of.

In 2009, Harper and the Leader of the Opposition moved legislative amendments to the Citizenship Act to restrict citizenship by descent to the first generation born abroad. For many young Canadians who were perhaps too young to remember, the Leader of the Opposition was also part of the government that introduced Bill C-24. Not only did it seek to create second-class citizens, it also gave itself the power to revoke citizenship for dual citizens by targeting nearly one million Canadians. Therefore, it is not a surprise that Conservatives not only want to prevent Bill C-71, a bill that is in collaboration with all parties in the House to restore the Charter rights of Canadians, but also want to delay it even at committee.

Being a Canadian citizen is a privilege we should never take for granted. In fact, we should all advocate as strongly for our rights to citizenship as the lost Canadians have done for themselves. Canadian citizenship represents more than just a legal status. It embodies the ongoing commitment and responsibility.

What does it mean to be Canadian? There is no right answer to this question, and that is one of the great things about our country. Let us start with how our commitment defines us. One of those commitments is to understand ourselves and our history, as flawed as it is, and to work toward a better future for all. That is the oath that some of us took to become citizens, and that is the oath we should all continue to honour.

Our country has a rich and complicated history, dating from before the founding of Canada. The indigenous people who have lived on these lands since time immemorial have stewarded the country we all love and call Canada today. Since Confederation, many diverse people have chosen Canada as their new home. Apart from indigenous people, every Canadian's history begins with the story of a migrant.

Canada is known for its commitment to multiculturalism and inclusion. This commitment was made official in the 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which promotes the recognition and celebration of diversity.

Canada's approach to multiculturalism emphasizes the active integration and celebration of its citizens' diverse cultural identities. This approach creates a society in which people from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds can retain their identity, take pride in their roots and feel a sense of belonging in our country. Canada's communities, from coast to coast to coast, are a living example of multiculturalism.

At the heart of Canadian identity lies our commitment to human rights. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of all citizens and residents, including freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of peaceful assembly, as well as the rights to equality and non-discrimination.

Canada also demonstrates its commitment to human rights through its support for many international human rights initiatives. Over the years, Canada has defended the rights of women and marginalized groups, both nationally and internationally.

Our citizenship provides security, rights and opportunities. It helps people to feel more included in Canadian society and gives them the opportunity to participate in it. It offers many benefits that improve the lives of individuals and communities.

One of those advantages is the fundamental right to actively participate in the country's democratic process. This includes the right to vote in federal, provincial, territorial and municipal elections, which empowers citizens to have a direct impact on government policy. It is also important to note that only citizens can run for office, giving them the opportunity to represent their communities and contribute to the governance of Canada.

All Canadian citizens also enjoy all the legal protections and rights set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This ensures that their civil liberties and rights as individuals are protected at the highest level, in addition to providing a solid framework for justice and equality.

While we are on the subject of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I would like to remind members that the leader of the official opposition has hinted that he would use the notwithstanding clause if given the opportunity. Canadians should take note of this and of what the Conservatives have done in the past, in particular, as I mentioned earlier, what they did in 2009.

Many Canadians who are around the same age as me maybe do not remember what happened, but in 2009, the Harper government took the right to interfere with Canadians' rights. They amended the Citizenship Act to limit citizenship by descent by introducing the first-generation limit. I would also like to remind the House that the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the first-generation limit imposed by the Harper government following legislative amendments in 2009 was unconstitutional in terms of both mobility rights and equality rights, and it is a clear example of how the Conservative Party continues to disenfranchise Canadians.

Don Chapman is one of those people who were affected by this generational limit. He has dedicated his time, advocated for Bill C-71 and worked through different committees to amend it and get to the place where we are today. I just want to give him a shout-out because I know how hard he worked, how many phone calls he had to make and how many of my colleagues he called over a long period of time.

Another important advantage of Canadian citizenship is access to the Canadian passport. This passport is recognized worldwide as one of the most valuable and offers visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to many countries.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for London West.

It is a pleasure to rise for the first time in this House after the summer recess to represent the good people of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country. It is especially important today because we are debating Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act. It is very important that we start our session with this legislation because it strikes right at the core of what it means to be Canadian or, rather, how.

What do Mary Pickford, Leslie Nielsen, Ricky Gervais, Jimi Hendrix, Glenn Ford and Roméo Dallaire all have in common? These folks are well known as eminent Canadians, but they are also what are known as lost Canadians. Lost Canadians are individuals who were born in Canada or believed they were Canadian citizens but who lost or never acquired citizenship due to certain provisions in our outdated and confusing citizenship legislation.

For instance, first-generation Canadians born abroad are unable to confer citizenship to their children, and those born to a first-generation Canadian abroad automatically lose their citizenship at the age of 28 due to a cruel and unconstitutional law passed by the Harper Conservative government. The legislation we are debating today would fix these issues by amending the Citizenship Act to extend access to citizenship to descent beyond the first generation.

Once passed, Bill C-71 will automatically confer citizenship by descent to all those born abroad to Canadian parents before the coming-into-force date of the legislation. For those born after the coming-into-force date, there would be a new framework governing citizenship where citizenship by descent can be passed on beyond the first generation if a Canadian parent is present in Canada for 195 days straight, in what is being called the substantial connection test.

Bill C-71 would also allow people born abroad and adopted by a Canadian citizen who was born abroad to have a pathway to citizenship by way of a grant of citizenship. This different process is required because to comply with the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, which seeks to protect the child's best interest and prevent abuses such as the abduction, sale and trafficking of children, an assessment is necessary to ensure that an adoption complies with international adoption requirements.

Many of those currently affected by this issue are, in fact, children who are unable to access Canadian citizenship and the benefits that we so often take for granted, such as access to universal health care and education. The consequences these children face as a result of this outdated legislation are unacceptable. Take, for instance, the story of 12-year-old Zach Hirschfeld. He was born in Mexico to his Canadian father Bert, who was born in the United States and later naturalized to become a Canadian citizen. At the time, Zach's Canadian grandmother could not confer citizenship to Zach's father due to the discrimination against women that remains embedded in the Citizenship Act, which I will get to later in my speech.

Last year, Zach applied for proof of citizenship and was denied. As a naturalized Canadian, Bert was deemed to be born in Canada and thus could confer citizenship to his son, but this was later rescinded by Conservative Bill C-37 when it became law. Under Bill C-37, Conservatives took away the right for Canadians born abroad to pass on citizenship to their children. This law not only separated families, but created an undemocratic tiered system of citizenship and a new class of Canadians.

Today, Zach does not have citizenship in Mexico or Canada, and there is a legitimate question of him being stateless. Zach's father tragically died during COVID and his family in Vancouver wants him to live with them. The problem is that Zach has no legal status in Canada and thus cannot enrol in school, get medical coverage or get a social insurance number. To access these things, he needs to become a Canadian citizen. Under Bill C-71, he would.

To be clear, this is not an issue of immigration, as some members of the opposition claim. This is an issue of citizenship. As we can see from Zach's story, it is also an issue of equality and women's rights.

Prior to 1977, women could not confer citizenship on their children. Instead, children were seen as property of the father if they were born in wedlock, and property of the mother if born out of wedlock. This inequality has lasting impacts on new generations of Canadians born abroad. Bill C-71 would correct this by acknowledging the rights of second-generation Canadians born abroad to obtain citizenship, including descendants of women who previously could not confer citizenship due to these inequalities. This is not only the right thing to do; it is also necessary in order to make sure the legislation is compliant with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bill C-71 would also bring our laws into compliance with international standards set by the United Nations. Currently our legislation violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that all children have a right to education. It violates the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which outlines the measures countries must take to provide a nationality to those who are stateless. It also violates the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

While the bill is a step in the right direction, there is more work that needs to be done to ensure that citizenship remains protected. However, we know that not all parties in the House share this view. With the passage of Bill C-37 in 2009, the Conservatives demonstrated their willingness to strip Canadians of their rights and identity. In 2014, the Conservatives also passed Bill C-24, which allowed them to revoke the citizenship of dual citizens. This created an entire category of second-class citizens whose status as Canadians is insecure.

Further, we know that the Leader of the Opposition's flagship bill as the minister of democratic reform was to make it harder for indigenous people, youth and less affluent people to vote. We already know that the Conservatives would not care about being out of compliance with international law, because they have openly committed to withdrawing from the United Nations. Even more concerning is that the leader of the Conservative Party has committed to ignoring charter-protected rights and freedoms by invoking the notwithstanding clause. We would not be able to rely on the courts to protect us from the Conservatives' revoking citizenship, which can be changed on a whim.

Let us think of what those whims may be, because we know the tried-and-true playbook that the Conservatives use to ostracize minority groups to create fear in the population of people they do not know, to rally support. We know this is an effective method, but that is why we should be concerned to see the Conservative leader cozying up to white national groups, and it even filters into the anti-trans policy.

The complete and utter silence of the Conservatives on the plight of Palestinians over the last year has been deafening. How safe would someone feel in protesting in support of the Palestinian cause under a Conservative government? We already saw the Conservatives label environmentalists as a violent threat to Canada's security, pass legislation to spy on environmental NGOs and weaponize the Canada Revenue Agency to silence awareness that these groups were raising about the impact of fossil fuels.

How safe would someone feel speaking out about the impacts of climate change? How safe would someone feel about their Canadian citizenship? The answer is that they would probably feel a lot safer in an insurrection to overthrow the government because they might get brought coffee and donuts.

Therefore, I believe that citizenship should be enshrined as a right rather than a revocable privilege, so that we can protect all Canadians, whether dual citizen or not, born in or out of wedlock, adopted or not, from the Conservatives or any future government, from manipulating citizenship laws to exclude those they do not agree with. This risks eroding our democratic principles and turning citizenship into a privilege rather than a fundamental human right.

There also remain questions regarding when citizenship in Canada began. For many, it is assumed it began with the introduction of the Citizenship Act in 1947. However, that would mean that thousands of Canadian servicemen and women who died in the First World War and the Second World War would not be technically considered Canadian citizens. This ambiguity goes beyond just legal definitions; it influences how we remember our history and those who contributed to it.

Citizenship provides us with a sense of duty and belonging to the country we all are proud to call home. With the passage of Bill C-71, the Citizenship Act would have laws that are equally enforced and consistent with international human rights principles for the first time in Canadian history. It would grant citizenship to individuals like Zach, for whom there is genuine fear they may become stateless. It is an opportunity for us to modernize our citizenship legislation to ensure that those who rightfully deserve to be Canadian citizens do not get left behind. I hope all members of the House will support the legislation.

I want to give a special shout-out to Don Chapman, a constituent of mine in Gibsons who has worked so hard to move the legislation forward through the courts, and today through legislation we are debating.

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Normally, I am even more pleased to rise in the House, but I want to point out that we are here sitting late in the session. At 10:15 in the evening, I am sure most other people are watching the Raptors game.

I want to point out that the Liberal government is rushing through a lot of legislation at the last minute. We have seen a bill today that was just introduced two weeks ago and that the government is moving closure on. The Liberals have moved closure on this bill in a big rush. They have woken up like a teenager at school and realized that the end of the session is upon them and they have not finished any of their assignments.

I am happy to be here and debate this legislation. I do not have any family or a spouse who would be an issue. However, a lot of members do have young families or spouses. We talk about this being a family-friendly Parliament. A lot of rhetoric often goes on by members on the other side, but we can see that the Liberals are using their powers as government to drive an agenda that is not family-friendly.

I would be remiss, as the shadow health minister, if I did not point out that these late sessions that go until midnight are not good from a sleep perspective. There are a number of more aged members of Parliament. It is not good for them either.

While it is worthwhile debating Bill C-88, the government should have done more careful planning so as to avoid coming to the end of the session and realizing that none of its legislation was passed.

I do not want to be accused of not being relevant tonight, so I will tell the House in advance what I am going to speak about so members will understand where I am going with this whole thing.

First, I am going to talk about what the bill would do and what it proposes to do, and then I will discuss my concerns about the bill. Then, I want to talk a bit about how the bill aligns overall to indigenous reconciliation in Canada, which is on the minds of all Canadians and I am sure is important.

Then, I will speak a bit about how the bill aligns to natural resource sector development. The natural resource sector is a huge part of Canada's GDP and our economic growth. It is an important industry, so every time we make a change to something that will impact that industry, it is important to look at how it will align to the overall plan. We have a strategy for the north. It is important to look at this bill and how it will align to our northern strategy. Does it fit in? Are there any concerns there?

The bill actually has three parts. The first part would amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, from 1998, to reverse provisions that would have consolidated the Mackenzie Valley land and water boards into one.

These provisions were introduced by the former Conservative government within Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act. By way of history, we know that a major component of Bill C-15, where this originated, was the restructuring of the four land and water boards from the Mackenzie Valley into one. Following its passage in 2014, the Tlicho government and the Sahtu Secretariat filed lawsuits against Canada, arguing that the restructuring violated their land claim agreements.

In February 2015, the Northwest Territories Supreme Court issued an injunction preventing the board restructuring provisions from coming into force until a decision on the case was issued. The Liberals paused that legal battle shortly after forming government, and it remains an unresolved issue.

To try to consolidate the land and water boards into one seems to be, in my view, an efficiency, but again, it is important to consult and understand what the people who have the land claims are thinking.

For the government to leave it so late in the session, when there is a lawsuit that pertains to this, is troubling. When we rise from this Parliament, there will be an election, and whatever government is elected will not be able to get back to this matter in a timely way. That is unfortunate.

The second part of the bill would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to issue orders, when in the national interest, to prohibit oil and gas activities, and it would freeze the terms of existing licences to prevent them from expiring during a moratorium. There are a lot of vague terms there. What is the national interest? How is that determined, and who determines that? I assume it is the Liberal cabinet, and I am not sure it would be necessarily unbiased in its definition. What are oil and gas activities? There is a bit of vagueness in the second part of the bill.

The third part of the bill, as we heard earlier, talks about the regulatory items that were brought forward from the previous Conservative bill, which I have heard members on the opposite side say were actually good. It is not surprising, because the Conservative government has, in the past, done a very good job with respect to regulations that have brought us forward in terms of emission reductions and a number of other items. I do not have much objection to the regulatory items. I agree the Conservative government brought them forward, and they are fine as they are.

Let me go to concerns about the bill. In addition to the litigation cycle that is hanging over this bill, I am concerned with the number of powers the government would have to politically interfere in the development of our natural resources as a result of this bill. We have seen lots of political interference by the government.

Today, I participated in a debate on Bill C-101, a bill about the government politically interfering in the steel market. We have the USMCA agreement with the U.S. and, as members know, there were tariffs on steel for nearly a year that were very punishing to our businesses. In order to get rid of those tariffs, the Liberal government traded away our ability to strategically put tariffs in place on the U.S., which, ironically, is how we got rid of the tariffs on steel in the first place.

It is troubling to me, having the knowledge that the U.S. may again put tariffs on steel, which it is not prohibited from doing under the agreement that has been signed, that the government would immediately virtue-signal to the steel industry that it is doing something. It came forward with a bill two weeks ago, with the dying days of Parliament before us, trying to rush it through in order to make it seem as though it is doing something, when, in fact, it is trying to politically interfere in the free market for steel.

That is not the first time, as I mentioned. There is a pattern of behaviour that I want to talk a bit about. We saw with Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, that this bill would hugely interfere in projects that are proposed to be built in Canada. It would give the environment minister powers to, for any reason, at any time, reset the process and start the clock again, to veto the process. That is a huge amount of power, and it causes great uncertainty. Those looking to invest and do large projects in Canada are not going to want to invest billions of dollars, knowing that at the whim of the environment minister, projects may die on the vine.

I will talk a bit about the reason the government brings these bills forward and the reaction in the indigenous community. Part of the bill would allow the government to put a moratorium on oil and gas development. I heard in some of the speeches earlier the comment that just before Christmas 2016, the Prime Minister travelled to Washington, D.C. to make an announcement with then U.S. president Barrack Obama, even though there had been no consultation with northerners, despite consistent rhetoric about consulting with Canada's indigenous peoples prior to decision-making. The Prime Minister's Office made this decision and, with 20 minutes' notice, elected leaders in Canada's north were made aware of the announcement. Some of the comments that followed from the community are probably worthy of note.

Wally Schumann, who is the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment and the Minister of Infrastructure for the Northwest Territories, said:

I guess we can be very frank because we're in front of the committee.

When it first came out, we never got very much notice on the whole issue of the moratorium and the potential that was in the Beaufort Sea. There were millions and millions, if not billions, of dollars in bid deposits and land leases up there. That took away any hope we had of developing the Beaufort Sea.

The mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, Merven Gruben, said:

I agree the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us. They never said a word to us.

The Hon. Jackie Jacobson stated:

It's so easy to sit down here and make judgments on people and lives that are 3,500 klicks away, and make decisions on our behalf, especially with that moratorium on the Beaufort. That should be taken away, lifted, please and thank you. That is going to open up and give jobs to our people—training and all the stuff we're wishing for.

Merven Gruben further said, “We're proud people who like to work for a living.” He spoke of the increasing reliance on social assistance.

Here again we see that the people who are living there are looking for that economic development they so badly need, but the current government, without any consultation whatsoever, shut it down and put a moratorium in place. Clearly, that is not acceptable.

The pattern of reversing what Conservatives have proposed or put in place is not new to this House. I would say that it has been done on a number of bills. I will pick a small sampling to back up the point.

We had a housing first program that was lifting people out of homelessness. Of the people on that program, 73% ended up going into stable housing. When the Liberal government came in, it decided it was going to have its national housing strategy, but instead of keeping something that was working, it tossed the baby out with the bathwater on that one.

I would say the same was true regarding a bill in the previous government, Bill C-24, which suggested that if people had become a Canadian citizen and gone off to fight against Canada, their citizenship would be revoked. We see that we are in a situation now with people who have been involved in terrorism trying to come back and the government is struggling to get the evidentiary proof to file charges. That would be another example.

One of the first bills the Liberals passed in this Parliament was to remove the financial transparency and accountability for the first nations people on the funding they receive.

Therefore, there is a previous pattern of behaviour of the Liberal government reversing things the Conservatives did when those things were not necessarily bad things.

With respect to the themes we are talking about today, I have expressed some concerns about the bill, but I want to talk about how this bill aligns to indigenous reconciliation, because there has been a lot of rhetoric in the current government about lining up to indigenous reconciliation and consulting with indigenous people. I would say that it is forever consulting but never listening.

If we think about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations, early in the mandate of the government it unanimously adopted all 94, and where has the action on those gone? Crickets.

We have seen the mess of the inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women has been, with the number of people who have resigned en route and the fact that many indigenous people feel they were not allowed to participate. Here we are four years down the road, with $98 million or something like that having been spent, and no action.

Many indigenous people felt the tanker ban, Bill C-48, would be bad for them, especially those who were trying to get the Eagle Spirit pipeline built. They were saying this was going to deprive them of an opportunity to have the kind of economic development they need, the same kind of economic opportunity that we see in Bill C-88, which the people there are looking for. Now we have this moratorium on the Beaufort Sea.

Another issue we need to consider when looking at Bill C-88 is how it fits into our northern strategy. If we think about the needs of people who are living in the north, we know there are a number of issues. We know that there is a food insecurity issue in the north. Will this help with that issue? When the government is depriving people of economic development, I am not sure that it is helping that situation.

In terms of the broadband problem, the government has had four years to address the issue. I know I have an inventor in my riding, and I put ideas forward to the innovation minister that for less than $20 million, I have somebody who knows how to put that kind of broadband Internet access across the north, with satellite balloons that are solar powered, incidentally, but to no avail.

The health care in the north has huge issues, from dental hygiene to tuberculosis and just even access to care. There are those things and the sovereignty issues. We have sovereignty in the north, but we have Russia and China really starting to pay a lot of attention to that area. We need to have a plan for how we are going to defend that area, along with the natural resources that are there and what we need to do to protect those. I do not see any plan or any discussion about how this fits into that northern strategy. I think that is something that needs to be looked at.

Another thing that is really affecting the northern area is climate change. We are seeing a thawing of the permafrost. As an engineer who used to work in construction, I am paying close attention to some of the horrendous things that are happening, in terms of roads that are developing huge crevices as the permafrost shifts and buildings that are collapsing after months of construction because the foundations are no longer solid. There really does not seem to be a strategy for how we are going to make sure that, in the north, we are setting them up for success, that we are protecting the assets that are in place. These are places where, if people cannot get to them, any hope of economic development would be lost. There is something to be done there.

Many times this week we have heard that the government has a tax plan, not a climate plan. This is just one more thing that I would add to what needs to be part of a comprehensive climate plan, how we are going to address the results that we see as the climate shifts.

As we look to this bill, in the dying days of the 42nd Parliament, it looks to me, again, like something that may not even make it through in the remaining days that we have, and it may not have a good chance of being implemented. Certainly, with all of the things the government promised to do but never did, I reflect on the 42nd Parliament and I think, “What did the government really do?” The Canada child benefit and the legalization of marijuana, I will give it those two. Other than that, I am not really sure what has been accomplished.

As we look to the summary of Bill C-88, we have talked about what the bill does, some of the concerns of the political interference that exists and how people are not being listened to in the north. People want this economic development, and the government now has the power to shut them down and is using that power.

I do not think the actions being taken by the government align well with the overall theme of indigenous reconciliation. I feel this will be more fanning of the flame, when people in the north want this economic development and the government is standing in the way or is interfering in the ability of the people to support themselves. That will not go over well.

I also think it is part of a bigger rhetoric on the natural resources sector. We know that the carbon tax has been a huge problem for small businesses. In my riding I have a lot of refineries. Now the government has exempted all the large emitters, 90%, from the carbon tax, but it has also put on a clean fuel tax, which is costing billions of dollars. One refinery in my riding has just gone up for sale, and another one has said that if it does not get an exemption from those clean fuel taxes, it may be unsustainable as well.

The government has a clean pattern of undermining the natural resources sector. We know that it has killed all kinds of natural resource projects: energy east, the northern gateway, the Petronas LNG and, of course, the Trans Mountain pipeline has gone absolutely nowhere.

Until the government can come with a clear message about the natural resources plan and support for that plan, and support for people in the north who want that economic development and are looking for the government to support them and not interfere, then I think that Bill C-88 is not going to go a long way in achieving what is hoped.

Citizenship Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the member for Willowdale says the government is open to certain additional changes, but I agree with my friend from Vancouver East. We had every reason to hope that there would be more in Bill C-6 to undo the damage of Bill C-24.

I certainly will support the bill. I am grateful the amendments were made by the Senate. It improved the bill over what left this place to go to the other place.

As we continue to try to repair the damage done by the previous government, can we do more to address the issue for refugees, particularly those who are facing deportation? I asked the hon. minister this question and he said that there were adequate means for people to protest and to appeal. I have not found them adequate. People who pose no threat to Canada are being deported and do not have an adequate opportunity to defend themselves or stay in our country.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would advise the House that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam.

It brings me great joy to rise again before the House to discuss Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act. Bill C-6 represents not only the realization of a fundamental Liberal campaign promise and a signature achievement of our government, but also serves as a powerful articulation of Canadian identity and a reaffirmation of the various benefits of diversity.

Before I continue, I would be remiss if I did not thank both the former minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship, the Hon. and, I might add, tireless John McCallum, for his hard work on this file, as well as the steady leadership of his successor as minister, my hon. friend and colleague from York South—Weston.

I would also like to commence by thanking my former colleagues on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for their work on the legislation, as well as the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology for providing sober second thought to the bill. Having had the honour of being involved in the committee study of the bill as it was originally conceived in the House before it was sent to the Senate in June last year, I am deeply aware of how important the bill is to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

In fact, since being elected in October of 2015, few, if any, issues have resonated with my constituents in Willowdale as powerfully as the need to modernize our immigration system and to repeal and repudiate the most odious changes to our immigration system brought in by the previous government. Whether knocking on doors or in ongoing conversations with constituents, my staff and I have consistently heard the same refrain. Bill C-6 represents a welcome change in policy and tone for Canadians and their families. If any concerns have been expressed, it is the delay that people have experienced in seeing the enactment of Bill C-6.

As an immigrant to this country, I am profoundly sympathetic to this inclination. I understand what Canadian citizenship means, both here and abroad, to generations of families who have come to this great country seeking a better future. As someone who had the great privilege to arrive in this country in my teens, I certainly fully appreciate and would never take for granted the significance of immigration as a lifeline to our future well-being and prosperity.

I can also confidently say that the love of country one has for a place where we were not born but which has nonetheless given us all the opportunities in the world is very different than the affinity one feels for the nation of one's birth. Naturalization occupies a cherished place in one's heart that is neither blinded by history nor blood, but instead by one of deep gratitude. I have both admired Canada from afar and also lived to enjoy its greatest blessings: its educational system, its esteemed place in the world, its deep respect for all persons, its quiet dignity, and of course our spirited people. I recognize the noble value in Canadian citizenship and I am proud of our government's assiduous efforts to restore and reaffirm the bedrock values upon which Canadian citizenship is based.

In its original form, Bill C-6 aimed to accomplish four key objectives: first, to remove the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security; second, to remove the requirement that an applicant intend, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada; third, to reduce the number of days during which a person must be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship; and fourth, to return the requirement to demonstrate knowledge of Canada and of one of its official languages to applicants between the ages of 18 and 54.

In doing so, Bill C-6 repeals or amends the most misguided elements of the Conservative Party's Bill C-24 and establishes a more effective, robust, modern, and just pathway to citizenship. This is not, in other words, a radical departure from established laws and customs, but rather a return to sensible policies following the excesses of Bill C-24.

I would like to briefly examine these four key objectives before examining the amendments before us. First is that it removes the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security.

The most crucial element of Bill C-6, I believe, is that it revokes the unprecedented ability, granted through Bill C-24, of the Canadian government to strip its own citizens of fundamental rights, namely the rights to inalienable citizenship and equal protection under the law.

In rejecting a two-tiered approach to Canadian citizenship, Bill C-6 would bring government policy in line with the recommendations of a litany of stakeholders who condemned the arbitrary, unconstitutional, and undue nature of Bill C-24. This includes the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Layers, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, and many leading academics, journalists, and civic leaders.

The second question relates to removing the requirement that an applicant intend, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada.

Further among its many ill-conceived statutes, Bill C-24 also stated that adult applicants had to declare on their citizenship applications that they intended to continue to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. The provisions created concern among new Canadians, who feared their citizenship could be revoked in the future if they moved outside of Canada.

By way of example, Canadians whose work required them to live abroad for extended periods felt that their declaration of an intent to reside could negatively affect their international mobility and, by extension, their ability to work abroad.

Within the current context of our open and global economy, this would place Canada at a serious competitive disadvantage. Rather than disincentivizing engaged global citizens from seeking Canadian citizenship, Bill C-6 instead supports the government's goal of making it easier for immigrants to build successful lives within Canada, reunite with their families, and contribute to the economic success and well-being of our country.

I will now move to the various amendments that were suggested. The legislation before us today has, of course, been further modified by several amendments put forth at the Senate committee stage. I would like to use my remaining time to briefly address these amendments.

There are three proposed amendments before us today. One is an amendment to change the citizenship revocation model. The second is an amendment allowing minors to obtain citizenship without a Canadian parent. The third would change the upper age for citizenship language and knowledge requirements to 59 years.

After careful assessment and consideration, our government agrees with two of the three amendments adopted in the Senate, as they support our commitment to remove unnecessary barriers to citizenship, make citizenship more accessible to the more vulnerable, and enhance procedural fairness in the citizenship revocation process.

With respect to the proposed model to have the Federal Court act as a decision-maker on most citizenship revocation cases in which citizenship was acquired fraudulently, allow me to reiterate that ever since the current decision-making model came into effect in 2015, the minister has been the decision-maker on most cases involving fraud and misrepresentation, while the Federal Court has been the decision-maker on more serious cases involving fraud related to security, human or international rights violations, and organized criminality.

Under the Senate's proposed model, all individuals facing revocation of citizenship would have the right to request that their case be referred to the Federal Court for a decision regarding revocation on grounds of fraud or misrepresentation.

In cases in which an individual refers their case to the court, the minister's role would be to bring an action in the court to seek a declaration that the person obtained citizenship by false representation, by fraud, or by knowingly concealing material circumstances. It would then be up to the court to make the final decision.

The government has considered this amendment carefully and is supporting this new decision-making model, but with some key changes. The government believes that the minister's authority should be limited to revocation cases that the individual does not wish to have referred to the Federal Court.

Our government also supports, with modifications, the Senate amendment allowing minors to apply for citizenship without a Canadian parent.

Our government must respectfully disagree with the proposed Senate amendment to change the upper limit for language and knowledge requirements.

As mentioned previously, the language and knowledge requirements brought about via Bill C-24 were seemingly imposed at random, and this side has yet to see a compelling argument for this amendment.

The government has considered these proposed amendments very seriously and has accepted some key proposals regarding a new decision-making process for the revocation of citizenship.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, these amendments should have been in Bill C-6 to begin with. They were not.

These amendments were amendments that I brought to committee. Then they failed at committee. Then I had to go and lobby the senators to make these changes. I am glad that worked, and that they brought these changes back. I am glad that the government is going to accept what the senators are bringing forward.

I support Senator Omidvar and her work, because I met with her about it and urged her to take action. She did, and I am delighted to know that. I am delighted that Senator Oh took up my amendment on the issue around minors.

I wish there were senators who would have taken up more of the amendments I tabled at committee that failed. I know they did not, but given that this is where it is, I will accept what is here before us and will support the bill. This has been our position right from the beginning, that we needed to repeal Bill C-24. I wish the government had done that. If the government had done that, we would not even be here having this debate right now.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak in this important debate.

It has been almost a year and half since Bill C-6 was introduced in the House of Commons. The bill was sent to the Senate on June 17, 2016, and it has now finally made its way back to the House from the Senate, where it was held up for more than a year. Many people in our communities have been waiting anxiously for this legislation to be passed and to come into effect.

Members may recall that when he was on the campaign trail, the Prime Minister promised Canadians, particularly those in the ethnic community, that he would repeal the Conservatives' Bill C-24. Like so many Liberal promises, that did not happen. Instead, the government introduced Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act.

On February 25, 2016, Bill C-6 was first introduced in the House. About a month later, on March 21, 2016, it passed second reading and was referred to committee. Bill C-6 was then sent back to the House for third reading. It passed third reading and was sent to the Senate on June 17, 2016.

I should note that no amendments were made during second reading or at committee stage at the Senate, but three amendments were made during third reading.

The first amendment included providing a pathway to citizenship for minors. This was similar to the amendment that I proposed at committee, and I am glad to hear that the Conservative member and the government members now support it. At committee, though, government members certainly did not support it.

Another amendment proposed providing judicial appeal for citizenship revocation for fraud and misrepresentation. This amendment is similar in principle to my amendment to provide due process for these cases, but differs in the procedure. I support this amendment. Due process being restored has been a long time coming for those who face citizenship revocation.

The third amendment has to do with increasing the age of individuals who must pass a language test to 60. This Senate amendment I do not support.

In reviewing the process that we have embarked on with Bill C-6 to arrive at where we are today, let me point out that at committee I tabled 24 amendments on a range of topics. Two out of those 24 amendments were passed at committee. They included changes in two areas.

First, a statelessness provision would provide the minister with the authority to intervene in cases that would cause a person to become stateless and provide him or her with status based on humanitarian and compassionate factors. I was pleased that amendment passed.

The second amendment that also passed was with respect to disability rights. My amendment would ensure that the Citizenship Act adhered to Canadian human rights laws and regulations around reasonable accommodation for those with disabilities. I am pleased that this amendment also passed.

While I am happy that these amendments were supported at committee, there were many that were not. One set of amendments that I had hoped would be adopted at committee would have ensured that there would be judicial fairness and due process again for those faced with citizenship revocation. As members may be aware, the Conservatives' Bill C-24 fundamentally altered the process for revoking citizenship.

The process in place before Bill C-24 involved three steps. The first was a report under Section 10 of the Citizenship Act that the minister was satisfied a person obtained citizenship fraudulently. Second, once notified of the report, the person could request that the matter be referred to the Federal Court for a hearing. Third, if the Federal Court made the finding requested by the minister, citizenship could be revoked by the Governor in Council, which could consider equitable factors.

The Conservatives' Bill C-24 eliminated the Federal Court hearing process. The minister now decides on revocation with no requirement for a hearing, and this is wrong.

As pointed out by the Canadian Bar Association:

Bill C-24 also eliminated consideration of equitable factors that could prevent a legal, but unjust, outcome. Before then, the Governor in Council could consider equitable factors when deciding whether to revoke citizenship. This is no longer possible.

The BC Civil Liberties Association also challenged this, and stated:

In our submission, the government should repeal the procedural changes made to the Citizenship Act by Bill C-24 and restore individuals’ right to a fair hearing before an independent judicial decision-maker who can take humanitarian and compassionate considerations into account in making their decision.

There is no question that this needs to be rectified.

Perhaps the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers put it best when it said:

A permanent resident subject to deportation for misrepresentation has a right to both a hearing and an equitable appeal. Yet a Canadian citizen whose citizenship is to be revoked has no such rights. These provisions are currently being subject to a legal challenge—

I will diverge from the quote to say that a decision has been made by the courts, and the BC Civil Liberties Association, which took this matter to court, won.

These provisions are currently being subject to a legal challenge in the Federal Court as being inconsistent with the Charter of Rights. There is no reason why the new government should support these reforms which deny citizens a fair hearing. Indeed, while in opposition Liberal Members of Parliament opposed these very provisions.

The amendments that I proposed at committee were based on a system put forward by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, known as the CARL system, supported by experts and stakeholders that use the IRB. Prior to Bill C-24, individuals could appeal to the Federal Court. Because of the cost, duration, and lack of availability of the courts, this has been called an inefficient system by some experts.

The Immigration Appeal Division currently undertakes similar appeals and reviews of decisions for statuses such as permanent residence. For that reason, this board is adequately situated to handle citizenship cases as well, and can handle them more efficiently than the Federal Court system. My amendments would have instituted this policy as well, which is what I proposed. The aim was to restore the consideration of humanitarian and compassionate grounds as well as put forward a system of appeal that is more efficient and cheaper for taxpayers. Sadly, these amendments were not supported at committee, as they were deemed to be out of scope.

Former minister of immigration John McCallum acknowledged that this needed to be fixed. Many of us in the community were led to believe that this would be done. However, no action was taken. When the government failed to address the issue, the BC Civil Liberties Association challenged the government in court on this fundamental violation of people's right to due process and won. There is no question that this needs to be fixed, and finally, here we are.

The matter was then pushed over to the Senate. That is exactly what happened. The government did not introduce a bill in the House to fix the problem, so it was pushed over to the Senate for the Senate to deal with. I lobbied a number of different senators on the need to address this issue and I am glad to see that Senator Omidvar agreed to champion the cause. Now, after more than a year, I am happy to see that the Senate has attempted to rectify this huge gap in our Citizenship Act with its amendment, and today the government motion before us indicates that this amendment will essentially be accepted.

With this Senate amendment, individuals will have the right to a judicial hearing, and humanitarian and compassionate considerations related to the person, particularly in situations where the best interests of a child are directly affected, will be considered, although the government's motion uses different terminology. Instead of humanitarian and compassionate considerations, the government's motion uses “any consideration respecting his or her personal circumstances”. At the end, the effect, I believe, is the same. Therefore, the NDP supports this amendment.

I would like to point out that there seems to be some suggestion from my friends on the Conservative side that having an appeal process in place would incite people to somehow defraud the system and misrepresent their applications. I will take a moment to respond to that, because that is simply absurd. People do not think that because there is an appeal process, they will think about how to defraud the system or misrepresent their cases. That is absolutely not how people operate.

We need to have due process in place to ensure we do not presume people are guilty before they make a final decision. By the way, there are situations where a case could well have gone awry from the officials, that they might have received misinformation about a particular application. It is absolutely essential in a democratic society for an individual to be able to challenge the alleged misrepresentation against them. Allowing the appeal process to be restored will do exactly that.

In addition, the government motion also added the provision whereby an individual could request that his or her case be heard by the minister. That is to say that an individual would have the option of having the matter referred to Federal Court or be heard by the minister.

As the government motion allows for this to be a choice, the NDP will support this change as well. If it said that it would be up to the minister to make that decision, we would not have supported it. People should have the right to choose an independent judiciary to make that decision. However, since this is not what the government has proposed, I will support the option to allow for the individual to make that choice.

The truth is that the Harper government should never have taken away someone's rights to a judicial hearing in cases of citizenship revocation.

Tied to the process of citizenship revocation, another issue I hope the government will rectify is the notion of indefinite suspension. As it stands right now, the minister has the right to suspend the citizenship process indefinitely. Instead of putting in a system of accountable and extendable deadlines, the government is continuing the indefinite suspension provisions. This is wrong.

Under this system, a person could be under investigation indefinitely without ever knowing when it might come to an end. Imagine what that would be like. In criminal cases there is a statutory limitation, but not in immigration. Does the government not think it is wrong to indefinitely investigate someone? Do the Liberals really think it is an appropriate thing to do in the case of citizenship and immigration? While I moved an amendment on this during committee, unfortunately the committee did not accept it, and that is too bad.

Let me turn to another amendment before us today. The Senate proposed an amendment to provide unaccompanied youth or those under state care pathways to citizenship. I called for this at committee. At issue, as explained by justice for children and youth, is:

Section 5(3)(b)(i) allows for an applicant to make a request to the minister on humanitarian grounds for a waiver of the age requirement...this humanitarian exemption poses a generally insurmountable barrier for children wishing to access citizenship and is not a reasonable limitation or a satisfactory solution to issues raised by the age requirement provision.

The provision in effect restricts access to Canadian citizenship for children—solely on the basis of age—who otherwise meet all the requirements.

It restricts access to citizenship for the most marginalized children, i.e. unaccompanied minors, children without parents or lawful guardians, and children with parents who do not have the capacity to meet the citizenship requirements or do not wish to apply.

Unfortunately, my amendment was rejected by the committee. I am so glad now that the Senate, particularly Senator Oh, picked up this amendment, advanced it and has now referred it back to the House.

The NDP will wholeheartedly support this amendment. I had wanted to see this adopted at the committee stage.

Let me turn to the last amendment before us.

The Senate saw fit to bring forward an amendment to increase the upper age requirement for passing a language test from 54 to 60. This is where I diverge from the Senate. The NDP does not support this change and I am pleased to see the government also disagrees with it. The government motion has changed the upper age requirement for passing a language test from 60 back to 55.

It is my view that we should go further than this. I moved an amendment at committee to reinstate the allowance for an interpreter to be used during the knowledge test in the citizenship process. The current system amounts to a second language test, which is harder than the actual language test, due to non-standard terms and events contained in the knowledge test for those who do not speak English or French as their first language. I was saddened that my amendment did not pass at committee.

I learned English as a second language. I immigrated here when I was young, and I did not speak a word of English. I spoke Cantonese. I have my Cantonese language. I speak the Cantonese language fairly fluently. I can understand, communicate, and I can do interviews in that language without any trouble. However, when technical terms come up, it is very difficult to know what the technical term is and how to articulate it well. This is the same thing for those who are subject to this citizenship test. The issue around technical terms is that they differ in the first language, and often it is difficult for the person to pass the knowledge test if they do not have the technical language. That does not mean that they do not speak English well enough—they speak it very well—but some technical terms are very difficult to master.

There was a time, prior to Bill C-24, that the interpreters would be allowed to attend these tests so that those technical terms could be explained in the person's first language. However, that has now been done away with, and I am saddened by that.

There are other amendments that I wish were before us. At committee I called for the expansion of the definition of “statelessness”, to better capture how people can fall through the cracks. In particular, I called for the provision to prevent any official from being able to engage in a decision that would contravene any international or human rights agreements that Canada is a signatory to, especially those on statelessness. Unfortunately, those amendments were not supported, as they were deemed to be out of scope.

On a related matter, I would like to see changes made to address the issue of lost Canadians. For decades, Canadians have found themselves to be stateless due to a number of arcane laws. We heard from a number of people who lost their citizenship out of the blue one day because of these arcane laws. There are situations of second-generation Canadians who had been born abroad not being recognized as Canadians.

This year we are heading into the 150th anniversary of this country. When we celebrate this nation's 150th birthday, would it not be something to know that there are Canadians who have been Canadians all their lives, have somehow become lost in the system, and we have done nothing to fix that? That was something I wanted to advance at committee, yet once again the committee did not accept my amendments. I am concerned that the government did not bring legislation to address this issue before July 1 of this year. That should have been done.

The other issue I want to raise is with respect to cessation provisions. We talked about this issue with respect to refugees. These are people who, unbeknownst to them, find their status affected for no other reason than that they travelled back to their country of origin at a time when the cessation provisions were not in place and when the threat that had forced them to flee their country no longer existed. Even then, the status of these people had been affected by cessation provisions. In most cases, cessation proceedings are brought against them when they apply for their citizenship. That is outrageous. I hope that all members of this House would agree with me that those provisions need to be done away with. We need to bring in legislation to repeal the cessation provisions that were brought forward by the Harper government.

With that, I know my time is running out. I am glad to see that this bill is finally before us. I hope to see a speedy passage of it, so Canadians can ensure that their rights are protected. I hope that those who have been waiting for this bill to pass will finally see it go through all stages of the House and come into force and effect.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I went through the steps we took at length, including the measures in Bill C-24, which are effectively being revoked by the current government, to prevent citizenship fraud. One of the measures we put in place was the streamlining of the process for revocation in cases of fraud, as a way to make sure that people are not incenting that. I read quote after quote, actually a quote from a news article, that said we were taking steps in the right direction.

Here is the thing for my colleague. The Liberals have been in government for nearly two years. The Auditor General's report came out under their government. They are the ones who are saying welcome to Canada. They are the ones who are moving this amendment. I have made a very compelling business argument tonight, but it is their responsibility to act. In 2019, the current government cannot come forward and conjure up the ghost of Stephen Harper. The Liberals have to take responsibility for their own actions. If they are not doing that tonight, and if they are simply supporting this amendment because they do not have the wherewithal or the plan to address some of these issues, they are failing Canadians in their mandate.

I cannot stand here and accept the politicized argument my colleague just made that somehow this is Stephen Harper's fault. Our former minister, Jason Kenney, spent a great majority of his career trying to correct the mistakes that had compiled over decades of Liberal governments. At some point, the current government has to take responsibility for the fact that it has materially changed the immigration process, our levels in Canada, and it is now setting the tone for how these processes work.

My colleague could have asked me any number of questions about how we could study this or what our party is willing to do in terms of further study or support, but he instead chose to make a partisan dig at the former prime minister. I would answer his question with one to him: When is he going to take responsibility for the failures of the Liberal government?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. I also want to take this opportunity to thank him for his service as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I have greatly benefited from his long experience as chair of that committee in previous Parliaments, and I have learned a lot from him.

Continuing on the issue of the legislation's silence on how Canada is supporting LGBTQ refugees, I firmly believe that many positive recommendations were put forward by members of civil society who appeared in front of our committee that could have been adopted into some sort of program. It is shame that this omnibus legislation that the government has tabled does not address the needs of that particular group. It is something that I hope the government will address. We will continue to put pressure on the government to see the pilot program that was established under our government become a regular program, and that it be done with the help and advice of members of the community in Canada who have been doing excellent work.

Another good point is that we have not addressed the issue of how best to support private sponsorship groups. Some of the testimony that we heard during the study on Syrian refugees earlier this year, or late last year, indicated that many improvements could be made to harness the generosity of Canadian philanthropists and people who choose to bring refugees into their homes through private sponsorship.

One frustration facing many of my colleagues across political lines is the wait times for applications to be processed to bring these refugees to Canada. There are many reports of people losing their deposits on apartments that they secured, or not being able to connect the refugee family they have identified with the support here in Canada because of processing times. This continues to be an issue.

It always behooves us to be thankful, as well, in this place. On behalf of all parliamentarians, I want to thank the many Canadian private sponsorship groups who have worked not only through the Syrian refugee initiative, but who have helped to bring persecuted ethnic and religious minorities to Canada as well. I am speaking of groups such as Rainbow Railroad, and groups related to and working within the LGBTQ community. They have assisted in bringing persecuted people from those communities into Canada through the private sponsorship program. Again, the recommendations relating to those improvements are nowhere in these amendments.

I do not understand what priorities are in the bill, as opposed to some of the most urgent issues we have seen come before our country with regard to immigration.

I would be remiss if I did not talk about the bill's silence on one particular issue of great interest to all parliamentarians and many Canadians, and that is the issue of those coming across our land borders illegally, irregularly, whatever words one wants to use. A great tragedy that has not been acknowledged in this place adequately was the recent news that we received last week of a woman who tried to cross into Canada from the United States to presumably seek asylum, which is my understanding from media reports, and perished in her journey. That is deeply tragic, and yet the government has been silent on it. This is a problem.

The government has been silent on the problem of border crossers. We have seen a sharp rise in the number of people who are making the journey across the border to seek asylum. Community resources are strained. The resources of CBSA, the RCMP, and local municipal governments have all been greatly strained, and yet the Liberal government has not come out and said anything. It took the government months to even allude to the fact that this is not a safe activity.

I grew up in southern Manitoba, and I know what a -30° winter evening looks like. It is not a safe activity to cross the border in this regard. When the Prime Minister tweeted a welcome to Canada in that context, I was just so dismayed. I was not dismayed to share the sentiment that Canada is an open and welcoming place. That is not in political dispute. The dispute is that the manner in which people enter our country should be done through proper procedures. Where there are gaps that enable the activity that is happening here, that is why we have the opportunity to debate legislation such as Bill C-6. Bill C-6 has been completely silent, in the amendment process and everything, given that it is an omnibus bill, on the issue of the safe third country agreement and the process by which people can seek asylum in Canada if they have already entered the United States.

For those who are listening who might not be aware of this issue, Canada has an agreement with the United States. It essentially functions such that if somebody makes an asylum claim, we acknowledge that our asylum systems are both very robust, arm's length, operate on principles of generosity and compassion and due process. If someone makes an asylum claim in the United States, they cannot automatically also claim asylum in Canada. The safe third country agreement essentially was designed, among other things, to ensure that our asylum system is open and transparent and fluid for the most vulnerable people in the world, and that it is not being gummed up by people making claims in both of our countries. The safe third country agreement speaks very specifically that if individuals cross the border through proper border channels, they are not allowed to make asylum claims. However, it is silent on the issue of individuals who cross a land border or a border that is not controlled. This allows people to cross the border illegally into the country and then make an asylum claim.

I do not think that this is sustainable. My colleague from the NDP, whose riding name I cannot think of, has been very eloquent in raising the concerns of the legal community, in saying that maybe the safe third country agreement should not exist and we should abandon it. I feel that this is a loophole that we perhaps should close. That is my position. There are other people saying well, what about those positions in the context of treaties that Canada has signed onto with regard to refugees? The point is that we have not had a debate on this issue at all. The government has not even acknowledged that this has been an issue. It is absolutely absent from this bill, and that is a huge problem.

As we go into the summer season, experts are anticipating a very high number of people who will be coming to Canada in this fashion. I visited communities in my former province of Manitoba which have been experiencing this. There have been some members of the Canadian community who have been trying to paint the raising of concerns such as this as a xenophobic activity. I remember having a conversation with three women on the street in Gretna, in front of a facility that was designed to house senior citizens and had been used to house and process people who were crossing the border illegally. Members of this community are saying that their community is very small, and they are now seeing the equivalent of roughly a third of their population being processed through the centre on a daily basis. That is not sustainable, not only for the community, but for the people who are crossing into this country. I have had conversations with the provincial government in Manitoba, and it is saying that the province needs more financial support from the federal government. My question and my push-back to them is on whether we need more financial support, or does the government need to make a call on how it is managing these asylum seekers writ large?

I have great concern that without the government providing some direction or some notice to the international community on where it stands on this issue, we are never going to come to a resolution on either a process fix or a legislative fix, or even on an awareness or education campaign, that is going to prevent trafficking groups from ramping up activities. These are all legitimate policy concerns the government has been entirely silent on in the context of Bill C-6.

The problems along the Manitoba border show a failure of our ability as parliamentarians to address a critical issue. We had a tragic and insightful moment during the federal election campaign of 2015 when we saw the body of a small child washed up on a beach because his family was trying to migrate away from an area of crisis. We should be equally outraged about the fact that a woman died under the processes we have in place for trying to seek asylum in Canada. We need to have a hard conversation about how many refugees we allow into the country and under what circumstances. That includes the components I raised earlier in my speech with respect to long-term support.

There is a cost. We need to have a plan. The government needs to be transparent to Canadians about that and not just say it is the responsibility of the provincial governments. My colleagues in the Manitoba legislature have a point in saying that we are abdicating responsibility to the provincial government in not addressing this issue.

The Minister of Public Safety has said in the House that they are monitoring the situation, etc., etc. However, monitoring the situation is not cutting it, because someone has died, and we cannot continue to allow that to happen. The bill is silent on this issue, and the Minister of Immigration has also been silent on this issue.

My colleague from Vancouver who sits on the immigration committee with me has raised a salient motion at the committee to study this issue, yet every time she has brought it forward and made impassioned arguments to have the study completed, she has had the issue curtailed and debate cut off. We have not even voted on the motion.

We are here today looking at Bill C-6, one of the most pertinent public policy issues of our time, and the bill is completely silent on the topic of the safe third country agreement or long-term support for refugees. I find that atrocious.

How can government members continue to get up and say that Canada is a place where we welcome refugees, or go to international forums and say that Canada is the best model for how to deal with refugees, and realize that we are not exceptional? Canada is exceptional in our naïveté and our arrogance to think that our process cannot be fixed.

I look at the failures of our country when the going got tough in dealing with the question of refugee admissions, such as the MS St. Louis, when the federal government had a policy of none is too many. When we say never again, we have to mean it, but we also need to ensure that there are adequate processes in place to ensure that never again does not happen and that we have long-term support and social licence for Canada to continue to be a welcoming country.

Where are we in this? We are at talking points. That is all the government has offered. I have colleagues in the Liberal caucus who feel strongly about this and want to be compassionate, but we cannot be compassionate without having a conversation about how. I might not have all the answers, and they might not have all the answers, but surely we can use our time for debate and our time for bill study for issues like this. The government has tabled a piece of legislation, and the Senate has sent back amendments, that are silent on these most pertinent issues. That is an abdication of responsibility.

I would like to know how the government plans to deal with fixing the issue of the long-term prioritization of refugees. I would like to know how it plans to support them, but there is nothing in the bill.

I will transition to the bill's requirement for language proficiency. I do not even know where to start, because we have seen so many iterations of this. To become a citizen, there is a language proficiency requirement. At present, I believe the age is 65. Someone under the age of 65 has to be proficient in one of our official languages, either French or English. I remember in the first debate I gave a lot of evidence and testimony that language proficiency is a unifier. People coming to our country need to have proficiency in one of our official languages to obtain employment and participate in the economic fabric of our country but also to ensure that they are not isolated.

I worry, especially in the context of a Syrian refugee study done by the parliamentary committee, that many women come to Canada and do not have the opportunity to obtain language-training services and then become isolated in ghettoized communities because they have not been able to learn English. The whole rationale behind the age requirement of 65 is that many people are expected to work, and do work, well into their sixties. People in this place are in their sixties and work very hard, but to participate in Canadian society and in the workplace, they need to be proficient in one of our languages. The bill originally purported to reduce the age at which refugees needed to demonstrate proficiency in one of our official languages before they could obtain citizenship.

Some of the points I have been emphasizing is that language proficiency binds us together in Canadian pluralism for the long term and that rather than reducing the age limit we should talk about how to ensure that new Canadians integrate into Canada. If age is a barrier to learning the language, how do we overcome the barrier? These were the questions I asked the minister at committee. I asked what evidence the minister had to show that this was somehow going to be beneficial, rather than talking about access to language training services. This is material to the Senate amendments, because the Senate amendments are directly pertinent to the age by which language proficiency training happens.

Mr. Paul Attia, a spokesperson for Immigrants for Canada, stated:

...we at Immigrants for Canada view citizenship like being a member of a team. Everyone has the opportunity and the chance to try out for that team, but you have to meet certain requirements. You have to show up to practice—that's residency. You have to be able to communicate with your teammates—that's the language issue.

Former Minister McCallum stated:

I think it's a question of balance. I accept totally the evidence suggesting that mastery of one of the two official languages is a good thing, that it promotes and enhances an individual's ability to do well in Canada, to get good jobs, to integrate. On the one hand, we do favour language requirements. On the other hand, I think for older newcomers it's less important.

I think one has to take into account cultural issues....

I don't regard 55 to 64 as super-old, but those above the average age will not necessarily be required to do this, even though as a general principle we believe that the mastery of English or French is important for the success of newcomers.

In his statement, the minister did not provide any evidence or rationale as to why the reduction of the language proficiency requirement at a certain age was a good thing.

I remember asking both the IRCC officials and the minister about whether there was an economic analysis of the impact on the Canadian economy this language proficiency requirement would have. Ms. Catrina Tapley, an IRCC official, said, “to continue on with the previous questions, a full economic analysis of changes on language is not something the department has undertaken”. That is important. She pointed to other countries in terms of the language proficiency age for citizenship, but there was no justification for why this was happening in the Canadian context, especially given that Canada is a pluralistic country.

We welcome people from around the world under different streams of immigration processing. If we are going to lower the age of language proficiency to obtain citizenship, what will that mean for the Canadian economy? We are going to have people who likely self-deselect from the economy, because they are not able to communicate in one of our official languages in the employment sector. That would have been an opportunity to prove me wrong.

A witness from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Sheryl Saperia, said,

I would just add, though, that language is the key to success in a new country, so I would never want to impose unduly high standards, but you do want to encourage new citizens to learn so they can succeed and make the best possible life here.

I introduced on the front end of my speech evidence and commentary on the Syrian refugee initiative. One of the things we heard over and over again in witness testimony was that to see success for people who entered Canada through the Syrian refugee initiative, language training and language proficiency would have to be top of mind in government planning. This is a quote from Sandy Berman, from the Or Shalom Syrian Refugee Initiative, said:

We are very frustrated. We are ready to support, but we are also trying to be innovative. We have approached people who would donate apartments in the interim as a way of addressing the housing issue. All our refugees who are privately sponsored, even the family of six, are not going to get their housing needs met, because we cannot afford to support them in the apartments they need to be living in, which are three- or four-bedroom apartments. We recognize that they are going to have to make a compromise about where they live.

In terms of English language training access, I really support your concern. Getting access to English or French is of critical importance in getting employment. There are refugees, for example, who are working for Arabic-speaking construction companies here, but many people do not and cannot rely on Arabic-speaking people within an employment situation to help them through the process. Access to English and French is of critical importance.

It is very clear that at the heart of any policy or legislative change we make, we need to ensure that language training is an issue. When the former minister, Minister McCallum, was in front of committee, I remember asking him point blank about this. Why are we focusing on lowering the age of proficiency when we are not focusing on having a stronger, more robust national framework for language-training services for newcomers to Canada and also seeking a mandate from Canadians to spend money on it? Again, going back to the campaign platform, the government said the Syrian refugee initiative would cost $250 million. We all know that this is very low. I want to make sure that the government acknowledges that by waving its magic wand with this bill, it cannot erase the need to have language-training services.

Ms. Leslie Emory, the board director for the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, said:

The Syrian refugee resettlement initiative highlighted the need for affordable and appropriate child care, more language classes for different levels of learners, and different service times outside of the usual daytime classes in many more locations.

Ms. Leslie Emory also said:

I can't speak to the costing that is happening on the government side.

None of us can. That is very clear. She continued:

I can certainly say that, with the large number of refugees in the community needing language instruction, child care, and all those things, there isn't the full capacity to support them at this point in time.

She also said:

I think that in the case of Syrian refugees, women without the language and often with large families, with those factors together, tend to be isolated. What we need to do is introduce programs that work for them and work with their lifestyle to bring them into the community, and offer, for example, alternative language instruction models with child care.

That is really at the heart of why we need to oppose this particular component of Bill C-6. The point that Ms. Emory makes here is that without talking about that other side of the coin, the long-term support for integration, we actually are not getting the question of how we integrate right. Again, I do not understand why the government has provided no compelling arguments, no evidence, and no research to show that the reduction in age of language proficiency to obtain citizenship is something that is positive.

This is a very blunt quote, and it was from a Syrian refugee. This is taken from interpretation in Arabic. He said:

No, I am not working. How can I work if I don't know the English to communicate?

Again, I am trying to build an argument on the front end of my speech talking about how the government's position on Bill C-6 on the reduction of age of proficiency for language for citizenship, because it has not addressed the issue of language training, is the wrong policy approach. We should be keeping that high, and then looking at and examining the systemic barriers that people encounter to learning a language to ensure that they have long-term employment prospects. To me, that is how we continue to build the case for immigration in Canada.

Here is another quote from a refugee:

In my case, I went to a different centre, and again they told me that it was full, that I had to wait. When I told them that I am a newcomer and that I wanted to register for ESL classes, they told me: “That's good, but again, we don't have any vacancy now. We don't have any seat for you. Can you go and come back?”

Why? It's because, they tell me, there is a very big number of Syrians, the newcomers, and that's why all the classes are full. Apart from that, there are some immigrants who had been living there before the coming of the Syrian refugees, and now these immigrants also have started going back to ESL classes. This has created a different situation to ours.

To me, there is a complete lack of evidence. To all of my colleagues in this place, this is very serious. I know I am going on at length, but there is a lack of evidence to show that the reduction in the age of proficiency is the correct policy vehicle. Rather, the evidence that has been before us in committee testimony, as well as writ large, is that we should instead be looking at the systemic barriers to integration when it comes to language and addressing those.

On that, my understanding is that Senator Griffin, in the other place, proposed an amendment to Bill C-6 that would come up with, for lack of a better term, a happy medium. Rather than having, as Bill C-6 originally prescribed, the age of language proficiency for citizenship be 55, that it be 60. She has provided some excellent rationale for that.

This is my summary of it. The previous Conservative government was the first to define the age cut-off in statute at 65. Prior to that, in the early 1980s, the criteria for a routine waiver, this is the proficiency requirement, was set at 65 and over. By 1994, the waiver was lowered to 60. At some point between 1994 and 2014, the waiver was again lowered, this time to 55. My colleague in the other place argues that these were never political decisions but rather mid-level management decisions that stem from the bureaucracy.

Taking from her speech in the Senate:

According to the Library of Parliament, the age of 55 for an exemption from the requirements is a more recent trend that was not decided at either the political or the senior departmental levels.

Therefore, age 55 seems to be an arbitrary number without any evidence for this decision. Senator Griffin continued:

As well, the Library of Parliament analyst cannot find any record of age 55 being transmitted through ministerial instruction. The age of 55 appears to have been decided at a middle management level via an instrument of delegation.

She has based her argument on a June 1994 committee report and this was under the majority Liberal government of the time. The report was entitled “Canadian Citizenship: A Sense of Belonging”. To paraphrase the findings of that committee report, it argued that lowering the voting age would arbitrarily lead to misplaced compassion that could isolate new Canadians and hinder participation in Canadian society. Lowering the age for routine waivers from 65 to 60 led to a 10% to 15% drop off in attendance at language and citizenship classes, according to a judge who testified at committee. The witnesses all stressed in that report the importance of language to the integration process and to the sense of belonging that is the essence of citizenship.

I know that people might say that 1994 was a long time ago. It does not feel like a long time ago to me. It has gone quite quickly, but that said, what I find interesting is that whenever the government is talking about justification or examples of integration of previous refugee cohorts into the country, it references refugee cohorts who have come to this country in a much different context than we see today.

The reality is that language proficiency is even more important today than it was in 1994, given the fact that our modes of communication have greatly changed. We are expected to be able to use a wide variety of electronic communication devices in order to be proficient or work in many jobs. If people do not have that language proficiency, that precludes them from being able to fully participate in the workforce or to have any sense of being able to move upward in their career progression.

The report is an interesting read and I encourage my colleagues to look at the report. There were two recommendations that I want to highlight. First, it says:

The Minister should retain the discretion to waive on compassionate grounds the requirements of knowledge...and/or an official language; this discretion should, however, be exercised on a case-by-case basis and only following a genuine effort on the part of the applicant to comply.

It continues:

The power of the Governor in Council to enable citizenship to be granted to alleviate cases of special and unusual hardship or to reward services of an exception value to Canada should be continued.

The point is that even back in 1994 the case that was being made was that language is a unifier and helps people participate in the Canadian economy; ergo, we should not be lowering the age of the proficiency requirement. I do not understand why the government is doing this here today. I would rather have my colleagues support the amendment that has come from the other place, from Senator Griffin, because it acknowledges the need to encourage people and to provide the services to have people become proficient in the language.

I understand the government is not supporting this. I took that from the minister's speech. I would urge my colleagues to think about that. It is not in our best interests. I will address some of the pushback and rationale that could be used. There were some witnesses who talked about people who did not have access to becoming citizens because they had circumstances in their lives that precluded them from learning the language. We heard many witnesses at committee talking about circumstances in which people cannot learn the language, but again, the recommendation that I just read from the 1994 report shows the minister already has discretion to be able to waive the requirement. He can do that on a case-by-case basis under situations of compassion.

To reiterate my point, we should be undertaking a study to look at why people experience barriers to learning language in Canada. Instead of seeking to change the age, we should be seeking to overcome the barriers to programming, and then relying on civil society and the communication of expectations to people coming to Canada that this is very important.

By lowering the age, we are sending a value statement to the world that at 55 years old we no longer expect people to be productive and employed members of society, and that somehow we are passing people by. Perhaps that is not the intent of the government. However, that is how it feels to me without that justification, that case the minister could have convened a committee but did not, from the quote that I read. Therefore, I really feel strongly that this particular Senate amendment should be supported.

The large amendment is with respect to the appeals process for people who are about to have their citizenship revoked because of fraud or misrepresentation. It was an amendment that was put forward by the Senate and it came up at the committee stage. Therefore, I will provide some context as well as a position on it. We have not even touched on this issue at committee or in the House at all.

All of us here maintain constituency services. We have immigration processing and casework as part of our responsibilities. This has a huge impact on the immigration system in Canada, both in terms of the integrity and the capacity of our immigration system to manage this change.

Bill C-6, in its original form, removes the requirement from Bill C-24 for people convicted of terrorism to have their citizenship revoked. As I mentioned at the outset of my speech, this would affect somebody like Zakaria Amara. However, throughout the debate on Bill C-6, in its original format, and at committee, my understanding was that the government would always retain the ability to remove citizenship from people who had obtained their citizenship through fraud.

I would argue, and I hope no one would disagree with me, that if people lie on their citizenship application or provided fraudulent information they should not be entitled to keep their citizenship because they lied to get it and were not entitled to it in the first place. It is a different argument than revocation of citizenship for terrorism or other acts. We could have an entire other debate on that, and we have had debates on that. However, in this instance, the revocation of citizenship for fraud or misrepresentation is right and just because people were never entitled to it in the first place. The decision by the government to grant them citizenship was predicated on the provision of false information. Nobody wants that to happen, yet we know that it does happen.

Citizenship fraud is a very serious issue. We started to look at citizenship fraud in the previous government. It was early in the last Parliament. I believe it was in Toronto, in 2013, that there were thousands of instances where people had been found to have cheated the system.

Citizenship fraud is a matter of great concern. This was highlighted in the Auditor General's report of 2016, in which the Auditor General found signicant instances of citizenship fraud.

This was an article written by Stephanie Levitz in early 2016, which stated:

People with serious criminal records and others using potentially phoney addresses are among those who managed to secure Canadian citizenship, thanks to a system that doesn't do enough to root out fraud, the auditor general has found.

Michael Ferguson's audit of citizenship applications between July 2014 and last fall found the Immigration Department has granted citizenships based on incomplete information or without all the necessary checks because it's not applying its own methods to combat fraud.

The issue isn't the department's alone--the auditor general found they weren't getting timely or enough information from border officials or the RCMP either to help flag suspect cases.

“This finding matters because ineligible individuals may obtain Canadian citizenship and receive benefits to which they are not entitled,” Ferguson wrote in his spring report, tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons.

“Revoking citizenship that should not have been granted takes significant time and money.”

The problems range from immigration officials not routinely checking travel documents against a database of known fake papers to a failure by officers or their computers to flag problematic addresses that could point to residency fraud.

This blew my mind when I read this.

In one instance, it took seven years for an official to realize that a single address had been used by at least 50 different applicants during overlapping time periods. Of the 50, seven became Canadian citizens.

A review of 49 cases where an individual's address had been flagged as problematic concluded that in 18 instances, citizenship officials didn't follow up to see if the applicant actually met residency requirements.

In four cases, the RCMP failed to tell the Immigration Department about criminal charges laid against people who'd already passed the criminal records check step of the citizenship process. Two eventually became citizens; a third failed the knowledge test while the fourth abandoned their application.

The auditor general also found four people who should have been ineligible because of their criminal records, but were granted citizenship even though the officers had access to the information.

It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether any of the red flags raised by the auditor general's office have resulted in new fraud investigations.

In response to the audit, the Immigration Department, Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP all say they are working to improve their efforts and a better system should be in place by the end of this year.

Tuesday's collection of audits also flagged problems at the start of many people's path to citizenship -- the Immigration and Refugee Board, which handles asylum claims

As part of a review of appointments to government tribunals, the auditor general found ongoing and lengthy vacancies at the IRB, as well as at the so-called specific claims tribunal, which handles decisions on First Nations claims against the Crown.

In both cases, the vacancies are contributing to delays in tribunal decisions--at the IRB, 21 positions are vacant, leading to wait times of an average of 18 months, up from the last study of the appointments process in 2009

When it comes to filling vacancies, the auditor general flagged the fact that for part-time positions, there was no evidence of a selection process or an assessment of candidates against required qualifications.

In 2016, early last year, the Auditor General, and I would love to read the whole report, but I am not quite sure if there is the appetite for that, found significant failures within departments. I do not want to make this political. There is a huge bureaucracy here. Where it becomes political is what political oversight will do to rectify the problem.

I have had some colleagues ask me if citizenship fraud really is that much of a problem. This was an article which I wanted to find. It is what precipitate us to make some changes in the citizenship, the revocation appeals process.

It is a CBC News article written September 10, 2012. It states that 3,100 citizenships were ordered revoked for immigration fraud. Then the lead was that 19 individuals were stripped so far as Jason Kenney's department investigated some 11,000 cases. The federal government had started the process of revoking the citizenship of 3,100 people suspected of lying to become Canadians. It said:

Speaking at a news conference on Ottawa Monday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the federal government is "applying the full strength of Canadian law" to crack down on individuals suspected of obtaining citizenship fraudulently or falsifying information required for permanent residency.

Canadian citizenship is not for sale," Kenney told reporters. "We are taking action to strip citizenship and permanent residence status from people who don't play by the rules and who lie or cheat to become a Canadian citizen."

There are a few other quotes in this article I want to highlight, which state:

This crackdown on fraudulent citizenships is part of an investigation into some 11,000 people who may be lying to apply for citizenship or maintain permanent resident status....Of these, nearly 5,000 people with permanent resident status have been flagged for additional scrutiny should they attempt to enter Canada or obtain citizenship, a departmental release said Monday. The majority of these individuals suspected of residence fraud are believed to be outside the country.

Clearly, fraudulent applications and misrepresentation are not an anomaly in Canada.

There is also a famous case that theNational Post wrote about in 2014. The article is titled, “Blatant lying loses family its citizenship—but earns them a $63K bill from Canadian government” details how a Lebanese family was stripped of its Canadian citizenship, “after they were caught blatantly lying about living in Canada, part of a government crackdown on bogus citizens that could extend to thousands of cases.”

In this case, the family, a father, mother, and their two daughters, signed citizenship forms, claiming they had lived in Canada for almost all of the previous four years when they really lived in United Emirates, a fact posted online in the daughters' public resumés on LinkedIn.

The point I am trying to make is that the amendment brought forward by the Senate, which was debated in the House committee, has significant implications because both the incidence of fraud is high and the Auditor General has found serious deficiencies in the government's ability to detect citizenship fraud.

We have these two issues. We know citizenship fraud happens. We know there are deficiencies in the government's ability to detect it. The government has been silent on what it is doing to address this to date. Why is this important? The amendment would ensure that a court hearing would given to people facing citizenship revocation on the grounds of false representation or fraud. That is from a Globe and Mail article on May 3, 2017.

The next is from a Nation Post article on March 9, 2017, which states, “the amendment requires the immigration minister to inform them of their right to appeal that decision in Federal Court.”

After the government's Bill C-24, revocation processes were streamlined such that people were not automatically granted a right to defend themselves if their citizenship was about to be taken away. That content is from a senate motion aims to restore due process to Liberal citizenship bill.

I will start laying out my argument on why I believe we have a problem here.

Our priority should not be to increase appeal mechanisms for those who have cheated the system to obtain citizenship. This will lead to further backlogs to the already inundated Federal Court and will cost Canadian taxpayers significantly in order of magnitude to both process and to maintain the benefits of people who are here under fraudulent circumstances.

Already applicants have the right to appeal an IRCC decision in Federal Court if the immigration department erred in the interpretation and application of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The process of stripping citizenship should be left to officials, not to an arbitrary appeal board.

This is the problem I have, and for all of us who do casework in our office. This could incent someone to lie on his or her application when the focus should be on educating people about the consequences of fraud and how to properly obtain citizenship.

All of us, regardless of party affiliation, have had casework in our offices where people have come and said that their citizenships are being revoked because they lied on their applications. Usually it is a variation on these stories, such as they have received bad information from an immigration consultant to put fraudulent information on the application. In that situation, it is very difficult for members of Parliament to intervene because they lied on their citizenship applications.

The second thing we sometimes hear is that there are extenuating circumstances. For example, people felt they were convicted of crimes in countries where they were fleeing persecution and they felt the courts were corrupt or they were unduly found guilty of crimes that they chose to hide those convictions on their application. After they have been found out about this and their citizenships are at risk of being taken away, they say that their citizenships should not be taken away because of the circumstances in their previous country. In those situations, many of us would say there is a generous and fair process to evaluate their situations, including criminal records if they are truthful on their applications to begin with.

The original amendment from the Senate and the reason why it was not brought forward by the government as an amendment during the House of Commons review at parliamentary committee was that if we put the emphasis on the appeals process and gave people who were cheating the system an additional layer of complexity around appeal, not only were we potentially gumming up our Federal Court system, but we were telling people not to worry, that if they lied, they had a second chance.

That should not be the message. Many people are coming to Canada. They play by the rules and will be amazing contributors to the Canadian fabric, either our economy or our social fabric. However, the finite resources we have to review applications or the finite resources we have for benefit provisions will be provided to people who have made a conscious choice to provide false information on their citizenship applications.

I understand there are going to be circumstances by which people might hesitate to put something on their applications, but the consequences of lying on their applications are their citizenships could be revoked. That is where we should be spending our time. That is where the government should be focusing its resources, in educating, promoting and saying that if people lie, there are serious consequences and citizenship will be taken away. Not that we are going to have a long appeals process. I think there is cross-party agreement on this.

It was a harrowing committee study on the issue of immigration consultants and some of the fraudulent activity. Some of the testimony was mind-blowing. Many members who listened to it were convinced they had to do something to fix this. While there are many positive, strong immigration consultants, people who give advice for a fee to navigate Canada's immigration system and citizenship process, there are also people who abuse the system. I do not want to send any sort of message to those people that it is somehow okay to provide false information on a citizenship application.

We should think about this. We now have started to say that with this amendment, we will put the focus on the appeals process on the back-end. We know there is a high degree of immigration fraud. We also know the government does not have the capacity or the processes in place to detect fraud. This is a material change to the integrity of our immigration process and the government has been completely silent. To a large extent, the media has also been silent on this. This is a fundamental change to how we operate and what values we place on the process by which we obtain citizenship in Canada.

This amendment and the government's response have unfortunately made further complex and that is because there was a Federal Court ruling that came out about a month ago related to this situation.

There was a Federal Court ruling that states there is a need for an appeals process in instances of citizenship revocation. However, there are a variety of problems that this ruling could pose, which includes that it could increase backlogs, as I have said, incentivize lying on one's application, and bringing into question whether fraudulent recipients have a right to Canadian citizenship.

In regard to the Federal Court ruling and what it does, the government has now allowed the period of appeal on this Federal Court ruling to expire. The ruling itself essentially said that what was in Bill C-24 was not applicable. It argued that everyone has the right to appeal citizenship revocation. In its 62-page ruling, Justice Jocelyne Gagné found that new provisions, I believe in Bill C-24, violated the Canadian Bill of Rights.

This is interesting. It is violating the Canadian Bill of Rights, not the charter, which is a quasi-constitutional document. The decision affects more than 200 individuals who have lost their Canadian citizenship since May 2015 under this shortened administrative process. Many will now be entitled to full hearings and may be able to get back their revoked citizenship.

The decision addresses eight test cases that challenged the constitutionality of the changes made in May 2015...over alleged lies on their residency or citizenship applications. The changes also barred them from reapplying for Canadian citizenship for 10 years after revocation.

The government had 30 days to appeal this ruling, and the clock ran out late last week. To date, the minister has not appeared before committee or answered in the House as to why the government let the clock run out on this. I believe there is a very strong argument that could be made to appeal this decision. Again, and I have talked to a couple of constitutional lawyers on this, it is really the definition of citizenship. I believe this ruling, and I would love to have a debate with someone on it, is predicated on the notion of the right of Canadian citizenship.

If this decision is predicated upon that understanding, an argument could be made that a citizenship that has been obtained fraudulently was not someone's right to begin with because they obtained it under false circumstances. To apply the logic and notion to making a court ruling that somehow we should be extending rights of a citizen to someone who has obtained their citizenship fraudulently and therefore is having it revoked, I think is grounds for appeal. However, the government has not actually talked about this.

Some people have said that we need to talk about this on compassionate grounds. I think there is a myth out there that there is not already a form of appeal. I am going to quote the current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. He was at the Senate committee on March 1 of this year. He said, “In fact, the whole point of sending the revocation notice—

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, I disagree strongly with the hon. member's contention that the bill would make dramatic changes to the immigration system. In fact, what made dramatic changes to the immigration system was Bill C-24. Bill C-24 introduced barriers to citizenship when the barriers did not exist. Bill C-24 made two-tier citizenship possible in our country, something that is completely unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians. They feel that two-tier citizenship is the wrong thing to do. Bill C-24 created a system in which people would have to wait longer and jump through so many hoops to become citizens.

Bill C-6 would address those issues and contribute to more integrity within the citizenship system. For the first time, it would empower immigration officers to seize fraudulent documents. I encourage the member opposite to support our amendments.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for her question.

As the member is aware, our government is already moving forward with its commitments to repeal certain provisions of Bill C-24, including provisions relating to the revocation of citizenship on national interest grounds.

That said, while we want to ensure that citizenship requirements are fair and flexible, Canadians also want to protect the program from abuse. I understand the member's comments related to both citizenship revocation and cessation provisions, and I will address both of those.

On the citizenship revocation, that is available under four grounds: misrepresentation, fraud, knowingly concealing material circumstances, or where national interest grounds are at stake. As part of Bill C-6, which has been voted on and passed third reading in this House, provisions relating to citizenship revocation under national interest grounds are being repealed, which is a step in the right direction I think we would all agree.

With respect to the other grounds related to misrepresentation, fraud, and knowingly concealing material circumstances, the most serious cases are prioritized, such as those involving serious criminality or organized fraud. There have been several large-scale fraud investigations across Canada, which have led to the increase in citizenship revocations.

Canadians are proud of their citizenship, and our government is committed to upholding the integrity of that citizenship. The ability to revoke based on fraud has been in place since the inception of the act in 1947, and will continue to do so.

This tool is very important in ensuring that the program remains effective, as the Auditor General indicated in his report.

As things stand now, the minister has the authority to revoke citizenship in basic fraud cases, such as residence fraud, identity fraud, and criminality. The Federal Court has the authority to decide on more complex cases where the misrepresentation is in relation to concealing facts relating to inadmissibility for security violations, human or international rights violations, or organized crime.

With respect to the revocation process, which has been underlined here by the member opposite, under the authority of the minister, once individuals receive a notice of intent advising them that their citizenship may be revoked, along with the evidence that the notice is based on, they are given the opportunity to provide submissions and evidence relating to the case to the decision-maker, which can be taken into consideration.

These are some of the due process components that have to be emphasized to the member opposite. While we are open to suggestions on how to improve the due process protections, certain protections exist at present. In certain circumstances, for example, an oral hearing may be held. Personal circumstances of the individual, including any hardship that may be caused, can be taken into account by a decision-maker.

With respect to the cessation provisions, I know the member opposite has spoken about this. She is an advocate for this provision. We are looking at the cessation provisions, because certain aspects of those cessation provisions, including the retroactivity component and including the ability to revoke not just the refugee status but also the permanent residency of an individual, are aspects that are concerning to this government. We will, indeed, be analyzing those very provisions that have been raised by the member opposite.

I want to underscore, once again, there are due process protections in place for revocation of citizenship, including what I have outlined, but also the fact that a judicial review can be sought with leave to the Federal Court of Canada.

The minister has said publicly many times in this House, and in the Senate where Bill C-6 is currently, that we are open to considering enhancements to the current process for revocation for citizenship fraud, and that is exactly what we will do should those suggestions be made.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for raising the point about the litigation. However, I believe she would be aware and members of the House should be informed that the litigation was actually placed on hold pending our government's commitment to reform Bill C-24 by Bill C-6, and we have done exactly that. In its most glaring constitutional violation, Bill C-24 jeopardized people's citizenship based on their places of origin in terms of the ability to revoke, based on national security grounds, the citizenship only of people who were not born here. That change has been made and the litigation has been put into abeyance.

The submissions made by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and other members who attended at committee have been heard. We have received those documents, we are reviewing them, and we look forward to enabling better and more constructive due process provisions going forward in respect of citizenship revocation when it arises in the case of misrepresentation.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, the issue is about revocation of citizenship without providing due process.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers have been fighting the blatant violation of the constitutional rights of Canadians since the Harper Conservatives brought in Bill C-24. It has been almost a year since the Liberals were elected and they have failed to deliver in making the changes. There is no question that immediate action is needed, and what is more, it is possible. It is not too late to act.

As reported on CBC:

If [the Minister of Democratic Reform]'s birthplace was misrepresented on her citizenship application as well, that would be grounds for revocation of citizenship, regardless of whether it was an innocent mistake or the fault of her mother, said immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman.

And if the misrepresentation was on her permanent residence and refugee applications, she could even be deported....

This has to change for everyone and I would urge the government to take action now.

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

Madam Speaker, the question on the Order Paper of the member for Vancouver East actually dealt with a substantially different issue, so I will address both in my comments.

The question on the Order Paper related to a matter that relates to funding for language instruction classes for newcomers and settlement services. She received a response from the minister at the time, which I can reiterate and add to. The government takes very seriously the issue of the settlement of all newcomers, particularly in the case of Syrian refugees. On top of the $600 million in funding that was provided in 2016-17 to settlement agencies, an additional pocket of $37 million has been dedicated just for Syrian refugees and their resettlement. We take very seriously the issue of people not only being housed but also being linguistically trained so that they can access the workforce.

In respect of the comments of the member for Vancouver East regarding Bill C-24, I obviously have a very different description of what has transpired with respect to our tabling of legislation, Bill C-6, the significance of that tabling, what it has done, and what it will continue to do for Canadians.

The member made extensive submissions at committee with respect to one particular issue, and I will get to that issue in a moment, but by tabling Bill C-6, we have shortened the time frame for which people are eligible for citizenship. It has been reduced from four years to three years. We have rendered citizenship more accessible by restricting the citizenship testing requirements only to persons aged 18 to 55. It used to be required for anyone as young as 14 and anyone as old as 65. We have also given credit to individuals, such that time spent here prior to becoming a permanent resident can be attributed to one's citizenship eligibility on a factor of 50%, such as temporary foreign workers and international students.

Most importantly, we have also emphasized something that affects me and many members of the House, which I spoke about already in respect of Bill C-6, and that is that we have eliminated the part of the legislation brought in by the previous government which implemented a system whereby one's citizenship could be revoked based on grounds of national security, only for those people who were not born in this country. That is the point about making sure a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. I am very proud of that legislation, and the minister and the department stand behind it.

With respect to issues about revocation of citizenship based on fraud or misrepresentation, it is an important point highlighted by the member for Vancouver East. The issue of revoking citizenship for fraud has existed since 1947, since the Citizenship Act was created. Revoking for fraud maintains an important aspect of what we must do as a government. We revoke for fraud in certain instances, for example, if somebody hides the fact that they participated as a war criminal in some foreign conflict. If that is not presented to officials and is later discovered, we will intervene and revoke that citizenship. It is something Canadians expect us to do and something that this government will continue to do.

The important point raised by the member for Vancouver East, however, is the procedural protections and due process that are or are not available in such revocation contexts. I was at those committee meetings with the member opposite and we heard the submissions. They were important submissions and those changes are not taking place in this form of the bill at this juncture because of the structural and regulatory changes that would be required in terms of the overall apparatus and machinery of government.

Does that mean that they are off the table? It certainly does not. The minister answered a question on this just today in question period in respect of the possibility of looking at such changes going forward.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to further debate the issues related to our immigration policies. At different junctures, different administrations have adopted different approaches and values to Canada's immigration policies. Irrespective of the actions of different administrations, Canada is a democratic country based on some very fundamental principles. Canadians value our constitutional rights.

Under the Harper Conservatives, in June 2015, Bill C-24, Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act passed and became law. The law created two classes of citizens, those who could have their citizenship revoked and those who could not. Under Bill C-24, some Canadians are more Canadian than others, because some Canadians are afforded more rights than others simply because of where they were born.

On June 9, 2014, the Minister of Immigration while in opposition stated:

We object in principle to the arbitrary removal of citizenship from individuals for reasons that are highly questionable and to the very limited opportunity for the individual to appeal to the courts against that removal of citizenship.

When the Liberal government was elected, the Prime Minister stated very clearly that there would be real change. Real change should have meant that the government kept its promise to repeal Bill C-24. That did not happen. Real change should have meant that at minimum Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, introduced by the minister on February 25, 2016, fixed the major problems under Bill C-24, especially the sections that violated our constitutional rights. That did not happen either.

There is a gaping hole in Bill C-6. It failed to fix the lack of procedural fairness and safeguards for individuals facing citizenship revocation due to misrepresentation or fraud, whether or not the misrepresentation was the result of an honest mistake. Even if a child's parent presented misinformation on the application for whatever reason, the child's citizenship could still be revoked and the case could not be argued based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Simply put, they have no right to a hearing. This is because the Harper government, under Bill C-24, eliminated the right for an independent and impartial hearing. It also eliminated consideration of equitable factors, or compassionate and humanitarian factors, that could prevent a legal but unjust outcome.

At committee, I tabled substantive amendments to ensure that individuals who face citizenship revocation have the right to a fair and independent hearing and an appeal process. These had broad support, included from the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Legal Aid Ontario, and many others. As long as the rules established under Bill C-24 remain, the Prime Minister's declaration that a Canadian is a Canadian remains elusive. The unfortunate reality is that individuals currently in the citizenship system facing revocation due to misrepresentation still lack the fundamental right to judicial process. It is not a joke that people fighting a jaywalking ticket have more rights than those at risk of losing their citizenship.

Even though the Minister of Immigration acknowledges this is wrong, the Liberal government is aggressively pursuing citizenship revocation of up to 60 Canadians each month under the unfair and unconstitutional process established by Bill C-24. This needs to change.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to strip someone of their Canadian citizenship is a very serious matter.

Stephen Harper's Bill C-24 took away due process for Canadians, even in the case of an honest mistake. The Liberals promised a full repeal of Bill C-24, but so far they have failed to deliver. In fact, the government is aggressively pursuing citizenship revocation for up to 60 Canadians every month.

When will the minister fix Bill C-24? Will he halt citizenship revocation until fairness has been restored?

Citizenship Act

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, it seems, from past experience, that the Liberals are always on the aggressor's side but never on the victim's side. This is what our party and Conservative MPs bring, they are more for the victims rather than the aggressors.

Going back to Denmark, and many other countries, that sort of punishment makes a difference. That sort of thing puts fear in their minds that if they do certain things, they will no longer be living in this country of Denmark or wherever.

This is exactly why the Conservative Party of Canada brought in Bill C-24. It was to put the fear in those people who want to commit crimes against humanity, against Canada, against all those things. We want to make sure the fear is there so they do not commit those crimes.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Madam Speaker, everyone in the House would agree that the main argument the Conservatives are giving is that they want to keep Canadians safe, and I understand that argument. Do they not feel that all Canadians who commit crimes should face the consequences of their actions through the Canadian judicial system? That would keep Canadians safe. If someone commits a crime, that individual should be subject to our judicial system and should be put in prison. That would keep everyone safe.

My colleague mentioned the Toronto 18. I want to give him an example. A family comes to Canada. One child was born overseas and another child was born in Canada. Say both of those children committed a crime here. Under our Canadian judicial system would they both not be considered equal under our laws? Under Bill C-24, one of those children would have citizenship revoked but the other would not. That would not be considered equal justice under the law.

I wonder if the member could comment on that.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am also puzzled by the same situation. I had a call two weeks back from somebody in Scarborough. The person claimed that somebody had made a minor mistake on an application for citizenship 25 years ago. That individual has kids and grandkids and has been told that he has to leave the country.

The member talked about balance. Bill C-6 has no balance. Is committing fraud worse than committing a crime against humanity or a crime against the country?

I talked to another colleague who said that nothing has changed in Bill C-6 compared to Bill C-24. Before the Conservatives took office, the citizenship application fee was $1,500. We brought that down by $500. The Liberal government has not brought anything down.

There are many other issues—

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that those who have committed treason or terrorism and are convicted of doing so face tough punishment and should be punished. There is, however, a problem under Bill C-24. That is why Bill C-6 seeks to revoke the two-tier citizenship.

Does the member opposite subscribe to equality before the law? Does he believe that in the eyes of the law each and every person should be treated the same way, should be put through due process, and should have fairness and justice under the law?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my serious concerns about Bill C-6.

Canada is the greatest and the most generous nation in the world. Our diversity is our competitive advantage, and having strong evidence-based immigration policies is vital as we continue that tradition.

We must have the right policies in place to ensure that Canadians and new Canadians can take pride in their citizenship for generations to come. However, the Liberals have literally ignored this fact, despite their commitment to transparent evidence-based policies. The Liberal government has consistently demonstrated the exact opposite since coming to power. They are recklessly politicizing Canada's immigration policy, despite the important role it plays in safeguarding the future security and prosperity of all Canadians.

The bill before us would reverse changes to the Citizenship Act enacted by our previous government, with the most notable changes being the ability of the government to revoke the citizenship of a dual national convicted of a terrorist act and the requirement that new Canadians sign an oath declaring that they intend to reside in Canada.

We believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives make us stronger. Immigration is an important part of who we are as a nation and of the strength of our nation's future. We want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed, with opportunities for economic success, the experience of our many freedoms, and the experience of safe communities.

However, I am concerned that the Liberals' first priority, when it comes to tabling immigration and public safety legislation, is to effectively give back citizenship and protect the rights of a convicted member of the Toronto 18, Zakaria Amara. Bill C-6 would overturn the previous rule of stripping Canadians of their citizenship if they are charged with plotting against their adopted country. These charges include treason, acts of terrorism, and armed conflict against Canadians. As members can see, these are very specific instances.

It is baffling to me that the Liberal government would prioritize restoring Canadian citizenship to Zakaria Amara. Mr. Amara has so far been the only individual whose Canadian citizenship has been revoked under the changes made by the previous Conservative government.

To provide some context as to why this is important to me and to Ontarians, Mr. Amara had been previously sentenced to life in prison for his role in a bomb plot against a number of high-profile targets in Toronto and southern Ontario. This included a plan to rent U-Haul trucks, pack them with explosives, and detonate them via remote control in the Toronto area. Police thwarted the plot when they arrested Amara and 17 other people in the summer of 2006.

For many families, including mine, the news of the plot was very unsettling. Why would the Liberal government make these changes and not consider the opinions of Canadians in the GTA and how it would impact them, given what happened a decade ago? Other experts in the field have similar views.

Ms. Sheryl Saperia, director of policy for Canada for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies does not believe the provision should be repealed. In committee testimony, she stated that in cases where the crime is not just a crime under the Canadian Criminal Code but a crime against Canada as a national entity, by virtue of a person's actions, this might forfeit the right to Canadian citizenship. She said:

This has nothing to do with discrimination. This has nothing to do with putting up roadblocks, certainly not for any particular community. This is about people's actions. What they choose to do has certain consequences, which may include the revocation of citizenship.

She continues to claim, “I believe that, when people commit a crime against the country itself, then they are potentially forfeiting their right to that citizenship.” She also believes that it is not unreasonable to revoke citizenship for someone who is convicted for crimes of treason, espionage, armed conflict, and terrorism against Canada.

Finally, she states:

I don't believe that Canadian citizenship should just be so easy to receive. I believe it is truly a privilege and a gift. Canada is the most wonderful country in the world to live in. I don't believe it is unreasonable to create minimal standards for what it takes to retain that citizenship. I stand by my defence of the ability to revoke citizenship for those crimes against Canada....

Furthermore, when Mr. Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, last appeared before the committee to testify regarding the previous Conservative government's Bill C-24, he articulated a position in support of the revocation of citizenship from dual national Canadians who have committed certain offences including terrorism offences. This position was a reflection of his belief that in the case of certain particularly heinous political crimes, the perpetrator is actually guilty of two distinct offences. First, they are guilty of the particular crime they have committed. Second, they are guilty of the fundamental betrayal of the core values on which Canadian citizenship is based.

To quote Mr. Fogel:

Our support for this provision [to revoke citizenship] reflects the desire to address not just the crime but also the grievous insult to Canada and Canadian identity that has taken place.

There is only one class of Canadian citizen and all Canadians deserve to be protected from acts of terror. It is also extremely worrying that under the bill a dual national's citizenship cannot be revoked for committing a terrorist act, but can be for simple fraud.

Bill C-6 also removes the requirement that an applicant intends, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada. Applicants for Canadian citizenship will no longer need to intend to remain in Canada upon gaining citizenship.

I believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives make us stronger. Immigration is an important part of who we are as a nation and the strength of our nation's future. We want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed: opportunities for economic success, the experience of our many freedoms, and the experience of safe communities.

The “intent to reside” provision likely does not restrict mobility rights guaranteed under the charter and instead reinforces the expectation that citizenship is for those who intend to make Canada their permanent home. We hope that those seeking Canadian citizenship intend to bring their personal experiences and contributions to our country and enrich it by residing here.

In addition, Bill C-6 seeks to reduce the number of days during which a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship. Under the existing Citizenship Act, the physical presence requirement was fulfilled if an applicant resided in Canada for 183 days in the four out of six years prior to making a citizenship application. The Liberal government proposed changes to reduce the physical presence requirement to three out of five years before the date of application.

We want newcomers to Canada to be successful and experience all that Canada has to offer. The longer an individual lives, works, or studies in Canada, the better connection that person will have to our beautiful and special country. I believe that strong residency requirements promote integration and a greater attachment to Canada. Participation in Canadian life for a significant period of time before they become citizens helps enrich both their experience and our country's future.

Finally, Bill C-6 limits the requirement to demonstrate a knowledge of Canada and of one of its official languages to applicants between the ages of 18 and 54 from the current ages of 14 to 64.

I cannot emphasize enough my belief that an adequate knowledge of either French or English is a key factor in successful integration into our communities and the labour force.

When I arrived in Canada, I began working in a factory. At the time, I was shy and spoke limited English. I have said this before and I will say it again. As a result, I had to rely on those around me to help me communicate with both my co-workers and supervisors. One day I needed help to ask my supervisor for some nails to complete the project I was working on. The young man I asked for help responded by demanding that I buy him lunch first. In this way, I was made to purchase lunch for this young man every day just to keep my job.

This is a situation that I hope other new Canadians never have to find themselves in. For myself and many others, learning the language allowed me to move past this difficult situation, further my own career opportunities, build a number of successful businesses, provide for my family, and support my own children as they pursue their hopes and dreams.

It is because of this experience that I support the immigration language requirements as they currently exist within the Canadian Citizenship Act. To change these provisions without thoughtful evidence-based research is both reckless and irresponsible. As I have repeatedly said, we want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed, opportunities for economic success, and the experience of safe communities. Adequate knowledge of either English or French is a key factor in successful integration into our communities and labour force. Language proficiency promotes integration and a greater attachment to Canada. Proficiency in our official languages helps enrich both their experience and our country's future.

Does the Liberal government not value immigration and new Canadians enough to prioritize their successful integration? Are new Canadians simply a number in a politicized immigration levels plan, tabled without thought to what their lives will look like once they receive Canadian citizenship?

Part of successful integration is the opportunity to pursue meaningful employment. When questioned by committee members if any quantifiable consultation had been done into the economic implications of reducing language requirements, the Minister of Immigration answered that his government had not done so. My caucus colleagues and I demand the government implement sound, well-researched policies. The changes to the Citizenship Act as outlined in Bill C-6 fail on all fronts.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from across, but from the same party, for his question and also for the tremendous work he has done over the years in the Middle East.

Often this term is not used correctly, but the GTA is unique in the fact that half of our population was born outside our country. Half of the citizenry of this megalopolis of the GTA, 6.5 million people, were born outside of Canada. They feel it. They understand this. When Bill C-24 was enacted, all of a sudden they felt somehow they did not have the same equal rights to citizenship as their children, for instance, would have.

Therefore, people were extremely happy that under a Liberal government we delivered on our commitment. It will be a proud moment this Canada Day when in Etobicoke Centre we once again swear in new Canadian citizens and we can say, “Welcome. In Canada a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Willowdale.

I rise to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. Bill C-6 would make specific and targeted changes to legislation passed by the previous government in Bill C-24. The objectives of those targeted changes are twofold.

Before I expand on those two objectives, I wish to state the following. We live in the best country on the planet: Canada, which we share with our first nations and on whose shores generation after generation landed. We are a Canada of first nations, immigrants and refugees, and their progeny. These were and are freedom's shores and the land of opportunity. It is a great privilege and good fortune to be a citizen of our country.

I state this as the son and grandson of refugees. Both of my parents and all four of my grandparents were refugees who arrived from displaced persons camps. My paternal grandmother called Canada freedom's shores, where everyone was equal before the law and where for the first time in her life she had the vote. She had a voice as an equal citizen. It is with this very personal legacy in mind that I speak to Bill C-6.

One of the two objectives of Bill C-6 is to make the journey toward citizenship less onerous and to bring it back to the standards and requirements of a system that worked well previously. There are changes such as reducing the length of time required to be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It would be reverted back to three of five years as opposed to four of six. It would also allow time in Canada before permanent residency to count as half-days toward the physical presence requirement. This would allow people who came here to study or work, or are under protected persons status the comfort of knowing that they are welcome to begin the process toward citizenship. As well, it would amend the age range for language and knowledge requirements from age 14 to 64 back to the previous 18 to 54 age requirement. These are important changes.

However, the most important objective of Bill C-6 is to address the dangerous precedent set by Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizen: first-class citizenship for those who obtained citizenship through birthright; and second-class, revokable citizenship for those became citizens by choice, often by difficult choice and through hard work.

During the last election campaign, our Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada made clear to the millions of Canadians whose citizenship had been denigrated to second-class status and done so retroactively by the previous government's Bill C-24 that we would rescind the offending clauses of that legislation. Simply put, under a Liberal government a Canadian would be a Canadian would be a Canadian once again.

A foundational principle of western liberal democracies is the concept of égalité: that every citizen is equal before the law and is to be treated equally by the law. No citizen has an inherent birthright privilege. This runs counter to historical feudal notions of hierarchical rights granted to different groups based upon birth: caste born into; ethnicity born into; wealth born into; or, in the extreme, the birthright of royalty and the absolute, the divine right of kings. In the liberal democratic west, we are beneficiaries of a system built upon the sacrifices of those who revolted against the injustice of feudal birthright inequality.

The concept of equality was at the core of the French and American revolutions and succinctly put into the American Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, “all men are created equal”. I would with humility paraphrase today that all humans are created equal.

In Canada, the principle is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We live under a system of rule of law. However, all laws must subscribe to the fundamental principles of the Charter of Rights.

When expert witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration during our review of Bill C-6, I asked the panellists, those who both criticized and supported the Conservative Bill C-24, a simple question: “One of the fundamental principles of our justice system is that every citizen is treated equally before the law... Do you subscribe to this principle?” I asked for a simple yes or no.

Surprisingly, both critics and proponents of Bill C-24 responded yes. Only one did not state yes, prevaricating that “For me, it really reflects...the force of that argument, of the position the government has staked out. I still think there are circumstances in which the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy...”.

Even within this prevarication, the only “no” among the witnesses to “should every citizen be treated equally before the law”, one finds an embedded logical disconnect. If the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy, as was stated, should this other remedy, assuming it is a more arduous legal penalty for a fundamental breach, not apply to a Canadian-born terrorist or person engaged in treason, as well?

However, there are other rational disconnects and legal, ethical pitfalls to this section of Bill C-24; for instance, the penalty for a terrorist or treasonous individual who is a dual citizen of a country that is a state sponsor of terror. What would deportation to such a country result in? Would it be a hero's welcome?

On the other end of the spectrum, would we strip Canadian citizenship and deport to a country that subscribes to torture or a country in whose prisons individuals “disappear”?

The question then becomes this. Why did the Conservative government, in the year leading up to an election year, enact a law so deeply flawed; a law that not only offends the fundamental principle of equality before the law; a law that would not stand up to a charter challenge; a law whose penalty in practice could create moral jeopardy or lack of consequence?

Perhaps the answer lies in the observation that it was the same governing group that established a snitch line for barbaric cultural practices during the last federal election campaign—a slightly more camouflaged attempt at the dangerous politics of division and demagoguery that we are currently seeing in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.

However, would a Canadian government knowingly resort to undermining the fundamental principle of equality before the law for electoral gain?

As our Prime Minister pointed out not long ago in this House, it was the same Conservative Party that took away the fundamental right to vote from Canadians in the 2011 election.

During the election campaign, I was proud to be part of a team that pledged to do politics differently; whose leader would not succumb to the temptation of dividing Canadians against themselves; who spoke to our better angels.

As I speak today, I think back to the principles my grandmother imbued me with. She was a hard-working refugee who loved her Canada, who loved our Canada, a country that, for the first time in her life, had given her a voice and the same equal rights of every other citizen. She never missed a vote, and she taught her grandchildren to stand against the injustice of inequality, which had been her lot in life prior to landing on freedom's shores.

Our government, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration worked hard and diligently on this legislation.

It is with pride that, this upcoming Canada Day, we will be able to declare that our Prime Minister and our government have fulfilled their commitment and under the current government, once again, in Canada, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank my hon. colleague for all of her hard work and dedication. It is a wonderful thing to work with people who are so dedicated to making a difference and looking after these issues that are so important to the people we serve.

I am glad to rise in the House and speak on Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

As a former executive director of an immigrant-serving agency in my riding, I want to convey to members here the sense of betrayal that the former Bill C-24 had on our sector and on the people we served.

In my role as executive director, I spoke at many citizenship ceremonies and worked with people as they prepared for their citizenship here in Canada. I was constantly overwhelmed by the immense sense of pride and dedication people felt as they prepared and finally became Canadian. It was events like this that really made me the proudest to be a Canadian citizen.

However, Bill C-24 created a second class of citizen. In fact, it institutionalized systemic discrimination. It was a bill that was so unconstitutional that it had no place in our democratic foundation.

Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all Canadians are equal. It will be good to see this idea begin to be reflected in our legislation again. As our leader said in the 2015 campaign, “...a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”.

During the last election, the NDP promised to repeal Bill C-24, and I thank so much again my colleague from Vancouver East who worked so hard to really make that happen. I was very sad when all of those amendments were not heard.

Bill C-6 in its current form aims to rectify these missteps, but the bill does not do it entirely. After reflection, I am mindful that the bill is not ideal but it will repeal some of the harmful and unconstitutional changes to citizenship made by the previous government. Therefore, I will support its passing in the third reading.

While this is a step in the right direction, there are also many challenges that remain for immigrants. We call on the government to take urgent action on lengthy wait times and huge backlogs, on family reunification, and on the barriers to citizenship that still remain in place.

In the last session of Parliament, the NDP firmly opposed Bill C-24. We called on the Conservatives to withdraw it from the very beginning, but the Conservatives refused to listen.

While some of the changes implemented by the former bill were, in some cases, overdue and addressed some of the deficiencies in the system, others were so draconian that Bill C-24 was widely opposed by respected academics and experts in the field of law, including the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and UNICEF.

During the time of canvassing across my riding, and in the work I did previously, I met many members of the communities I served. I heard stories of people who were choosing to not venture toward becoming citizens, because they were very hurt about this second class of citizenship, and many parents were very concerned for their children.

One parent told me that his children had dual citizenship. He was choosing not to get Canadian citizenship, but he had married a Canadian woman and they had children who had both the citizenship of his first country and hers. Now he is worried about how much their Canadian citizenship actually means. He said to me that his children live here, that they will be raised here, and that this will be the only country they will ever know as home. What if they do something and Canada decides to take away their citizenship? Where will they go?

Other people said to me that it felt as if the government did not want them to become a citizen. They felt that they were a potential risk simply because they were born in another country.

These stories illustrate the real fear that people are feeling and the total disregard for their dedication to this country of Canada.

Bill C-6 begins to make some of those changes, but it still leaves that hesitancy. It still has so many barriers to citizenship. It still provides too many things that create fear for members.

I hope the government will listen and make the amendments in the fall that my hon. colleague suggested. Let us move forward in a positive way in this country.

I am glad that these provisions will no longer be law. Nevertheless, I am disappointed that Bill C-6 does not go far enough. It would still allow the minister to revoke someone's citizenship without the right to a judicial hearing. No matter how good their intentions, ministers simply should not have secret discretionary powers.

Prior to Bill C-24, individuals who were accused of fraud and risked having their citizenship revoked could request a hearing before a Federal Court judge. A final decision would be made by the Governor in Council. Bill C-24 allowed the minister to make a decision based on a review of paperwork, with no right to a judicial hearing. The Liberals' failure to address this feature in Bill C-6 means that there may still be a constitutional challenge to the Citizenship Act.

The NDP believe that a citizen facing revocation should always have the right to a hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker as part of a process that considers humanitarian and compassionate factors.

I remember that the Prime Minister, during the campaign, talked about decentralizing the powers purposely accumulated in the PM's Office. The last government concentrated power in its different omnibus legislation. What happened to the right to a hearing and to due process?

In my last job, I served many newcomers to Canada. Some of the stories I heard were sad, and the commitment to becoming Canadian, in a country seen as free and inclusive, was tangible. The fact that the minister had the power to give or take away citizenship was a level of power that many people came to Canada to escape. Having a fair, transparent process is absolutely imperative.

When the bill was studied at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, New Democrats proposed a total of 25 amendments. Only two of them were eventually passed, and I am so grateful that they were: the duty to accommodate for individuals with disabilities, and adding statelessness as a factor to be considered when granting citizenship based on exceptional circumstances. The remaining amendments were voted down and the Liberals did not give a reasonable rationale for opposing them.

The Liberals need to do more. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has repeatedly acknowledged the considerable shortcomings of his ministry. He promised to take action on the long wait times, but we have still not seen a concrete plan.

Now that this legislation is at third reading, let us start to have this discussion in terms of how to reform it correctly.

The minister should disclose the reasoning for and the frequency of discretionary grants of citizenship. There must be action on cleaning up the mess at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, including speeding up family reunification, putting an end to lengthy backlogs, removing the cap on parent and grandparent sponsorship, and speeding up processing times for immigration and citizen applications, especially in light of the high fees paid by applicants who receive very poor service in return. The challenges I faced in my last job would have tested the patience of any normal human being.

The narrow scope of Bill C-6 prevented many amendments recommended by expert witnesses, including the Canadian Bar Association, from being admissible at committee stage. The minister has acknowledged this and suggests that the Liberals will need to introduce another immigration bill in the fall to address these shortcomings. I certainly hope to see it.

I would like to conclude today by urging the minister to work with us to table a truly comprehensive bill that will improve the Canadian citizenship process. It needs to happen, and it needs to happen soon.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague for those very kind comments. That is very encouraging.

Indeed, Bill C-6 failed to bring forward proper due process for those who face losing their citizenship. In a normal set of circumstances, people who are given a parking ticket or a speeding ticket could appeal that process by going to court. Under this system, with the Bill C-24 changes by the Conservative government and the failure of Bill C-6 to rectify them, those who lose their citizenship would not have the opportunity to appeal this process. That is simply wrong. The Canadian Bar Association and many organizations came forward at committee to say that this needed to be changed. In fact, when Bill C-24 was debated in this House, the current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship also said that was wrong.

Therefore, it is a mystery to me how the government neglected to include that important change in Bill C-6. However, that is exactly what happened. I tried to advance a series of amendments related to that. Unfortunately, they were deemed to be out of the scope of Bill C-6, and therefore not before us. However, I did get a commitment from the minister that the government would rectify this, and I look forward to it bringing forward a government bill in the fall to adopt those amendments I tabled at committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I still intend to support the bill, although it could have been made a lot better had the government been thoughtful about it and incorporated some of those essential amendments that I had tabled at committee.

The other amendment that the government did adopt at committee was the recommendation to address, in part, the issue of statelessness. Therefore, those who are found to be stateless would actually have some means for a pathway to citizenship on a case-by-case basis. Much work still needs to be done in that area. For example, those who are born second generation to Canadians in some instances will still be deemed to be stateless. That needs to be rectified. Therefore, I am really hoping that the minister, in his oversight in bringing forward those important amendments in Bill C-6, will actually bring forward a new bill in the fall so that we can rectify the many problems that were created under Bill C-24.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East for her contribution at committee and to this debate on Bill C-6, which I think is an incredibly important part of the commitment we made in the last election to roll back what we thought were many of the oppressive elements of Bill C-24 that had been passed in the 41st Parliament.

I would like to ask, given the contributions that my friend from Vancouver East made at the immigration committee with respect to some of those amendments—and I noted that some of her amendments were not accepted by the government—whether the member will still be supporting the overall intent of Bill C-6, including some of the amendments she had proposed that were carried at committee.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for North Island—Powell River.

At the Standing Committee for Citizenship and Immigration, I had the opportunity to hear witnesses from across Canada and they offered their expertise on how we could make Canada's immigration laws better.

As a result of those important testimonies, I tabled 25 amendments to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. Significant amendments were required because Bill C-6 failed to remedy many of the problems created by the Conservatives' Bill C-24.

One gaping hole in Bill C-6 is that it failed to address the lack of procedural fairness and safeguards for individuals facing citizenship revocation. This is because Bill C-24 eliminated the right for an independent and impartial hearing. Furthermore, Bill C-24 also eliminated consideration of equitable factors or compassionate and humanitarian factors that could prevent a legal but unjust outcome.

The system we have defies common sense. How could it be that individuals fighting a parking ticket are afforded more procedural fairness than the person having their citizenship revoked? Yet this is the case.

On June 9, 2014, the minister, while in opposition, stated, “We object in principle to the arbitrary removal of citizenship from individuals for reasons that are highly questionable and to the very limited opportunity for the individual to appeal to the courts against that removal of citizenship.”

Fast-forward to today, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has further reconfirmed that the lack of judicial appeal and review rights for those in the citizenship process still needs to be addressed, yet this concern was not corrected by the government in Bill C-6. Because Bill C-6 failed to address this, I tabled substantive amendments to ensure individuals who face citizenship revocation have the right to a fair and independent hearing and an appeal process.

If passed, the amendments would have created a system modelled after the current process being applied to permanent residents who are subject to deportation on the grounds of misrepresentation. This system, which uses the immigration appeal division, would not only have provided the rights to an independent appeal process, but is also considered more cost effective and efficient than the old system.

Despite broad support to achieve this goal from experts that appeared at the committee such as the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Legal Aid Ontario, and others, the narrow scope of Bill C-6 resulted in these important amendments being ruled inadmissible.

I have asked the minister to adopt my amendments in a government bill in the fall and I hope that happens.

In the meantime, however, the unfortunate reality is that some individuals currently in the citizenship system faced with revocation will still lack the judicial fairness provided to people in Canada fighting a parking ticket.

On the issue of procedural fairness, Bill C-6 also failed to address the minister's ability to indefinitely suspend citizenship proceedings. The former Conservative government under Bill C-24 added section 13.1 to the Citizenship Act, which permits the minister to suspend citizenship applications and other proceedings indefinitely while additional information or evidence is gathered.

Under this process, someone could literary die before a decision is made about their citizenship application. I know that recent Federal Court decisions demonstrate the need for a statutory time frame for making decisions to avoid inordinate and unexplained delays. Again, I had attempted to resolve this issue through amendment at committee, and again, the narrow scope of Bill C-6 prevented me from doing so, and the amendment was deemed inadmissible.

Another misstep of Bill C-24 was to place all justice systems around the world on equal footing. This was done by barring individuals from citizenship if they have been charged with or convicted with offences equivalent to indictable offences in Canada.

While this might sound reasonable, it is incredibly important to remember that not all justice systems in the world are equal. Most importantly, some countries deal with corruption at various or even multiple levels of the justice and political system, from local police to lawyers and judges to national leaders. This can, and does lead to unjust charges and convictions. In my view, these situations should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

In its submission to the committee, the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic wrote:

Implementing additional immigration and citizenship penalties for individuals being charged or with convictions is inherently dangerous in that it leads effectively to situations of double jeopardy—that the individual will be punished once by the criminal justice system and then a second time through the immigration and citizenship system.

There are many countries around the world where rule of law is underdeveloped or completely inadequate, or where individuals are charged and convicted for purely political reasons.

While those appearing at committee used the example of Canadian citizen Mohamed Fahmy as an example of how not all justice systems reach the same verdicts as ours, I would also like to draw to the attention of this House that, in 2001, the House voted almost unanimously in favour of awarding Nelson Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship. Under the current laws, if someone like Mr. Mandela immigrated to Canada, he would have been automatically barred from applying for citizenship to Canada through the regular channels.

At the committee, the issue of minors coming to Canada without parents or legal guardians was highlighted to members as an area of significant concern. Unless applying for citizenship as part of the application with parents or guardians, individuals must be 18 years of age or older to become Canadian citizens. While the government argued that there is already a remedy in place to address this, at issue, as explained by Justice for Children and Youth, is as follows:

Section 5...allows for an applicant to make a request to the Minister on humanitarian grounds for a waiver of the age requirement. ...this humanitarian exemption poses a generally insurmountable barrier for children wishing to access citizenship and is not a reasonable limitation or a satisfactory solution to issues raised by the age requirement provision.... The provision in effect restricts access to Canadian citizenship for children—solely on the basis of age—who otherwise meet all the requirements. It restricts access to citizenship for the most marginalized children, i.e. unaccompanied minors, children without parents or lawful guardians, and children with parents who do not have the capacity to meet the citizenship requirements or do not wish to apply.

My proposed amendment would have provided a pathway to citizenship for youth under 18 years of age without a parent or guardian who is, or is in the process of becoming, a Canadian citizen. Addressing this issue was supported by organizations such as Justice for Children and Youth, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and UNICEF Canada, among others. Unfortunately, the amendment was not adopted by the Liberal members on the committee.

While we are on the subject of minors in the citizenship process, in a brief submitted by Justice for Children and Youth, it was noted that the citizenship process fails to adhere to the principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It states:

Youth criminal justice records and ongoing proceedings before the youth criminal justice court cannot and should not be considered for the purpose of citizenship applications because to do so is contrary to the Youth Criminal Justice Act..., specifically violates the privacy protections afforded to minors by the YCJA, and is inconsistent with the fundamental purpose of the YCJA.

Once again, the narrow scope of Bill C-6 deemed this amendment inadmissible.

On the theme of pathways to citizenship, another issue that was brought in when Bill C-24 was tabled and was not rectified by Bill C-6 is the issue of double-testing in language. There is no doubt that acquiring skills in one of Canada's official languages is an important aspect of building a successful life here. However, under changes made by the Conservatives, the knowledge test of Canada required to obtain citizenship now amounts to a double-testing of language skills.

Prior to the Conservatives' changes, individuals had the ability to take the knowledge test with the aid of an interpreter. Due to the changes, the interpreter is no longer provided, and this amounts not only to second language testing, but to a language test that, as we heard from experts who appeared at committee, is arguably more difficult than the actual level of English or French someone must have to pass the actual language test.

My amendment to address this problem and go back to the old system, which would have been the case had the Liberals followed through on their election promise to repeal Bill C-24, was rejected by the committee. I do think this is most unfortunate, as the current rules only serve to maintain the barriers for the pathway to citizenship.

I am pleased that I was successful in advancing and passing two amendments to Bill C-6, which will now enshrine in the law the duty for reasonable accommodation, ensuring that the citizenship process adheres to the principles of the Canadian Human Rights Act for those with disabilities. This will make disability accommodation a right, not something provided out of mercy or on the basis of compassion, as it formerly was.

My amendment clarifies the requirement of the duty to accommodate those with disabilities as they navigate through the citizenship process. Currently, vague words of required “proof” and discretion around accommodation can lead to individuals, who would otherwise be able to become Canadian citizens, being denied due to a lack of disability accommodation.

There is much more to—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand and speak on behalf of the New Democratic Party to this important piece of legislation.

During the 41st Parliament, the previous Conservative government brought in Bill C-24 that made a number of changes to the Citizenship Act. The most controversial of those changes, Canadians are well aware, was the change that effectively created two classes of citizens. There was one in which naturalized Canadians, or Canadians who were born abroad but became a Canadian citizen here, were treated differently than a Canadian citizen who is born in Canada. The Prime Minister expressed it quite eloquently when during the campaign he talked about a Canadian being a Canadian being a Canadian. That resonated with Canadians as well. However there are many other parts of that bill that also were seriously flawed and problematic. Many experts pointed out that the bill was in a number of ways unconstitutional and/or did not respect international law.

From a political point of view, the bill was ill-conceived. It was conducted in haste, and in many ways proposed changes to the law where there had been no demonstrated problem. It was a repeated attribute of the previous Conservative government to make decisions not based on evidence but based on ideology. Bill C-24 was a classic example of that. The bill turned out to be very unfair, divisive, was ideologically driven, and most important it was unfair.

The NDP opposed Bill C-24 from the very beginning, and we called for it to be withdrawn and amended. We proposed dozens of amendments, all of which were rejected by the previous Conservative government. The bill before us today, Bill C-6, would amend that flawed and very damaging piece of legislation, so the New Democrats are very happy to support this bill at third reading.

Bill C-6 will amend Bill C-24 in a number of ways, but not in all of the ways that we think it ought to be amended. I will cover both of those.

I will start with where it would amend Bill C-24 in a positive fashion.

Bill C-6 will remove the ability to revoke citizenship based on certain specified grounds. It will remove the obligation for a new citizen to declare the intent to reside in Canada. It will restore the length of time that a permanent resident must actually be present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It will restore it back to the three-year period over five years, from the desire of the previous government, which wanted to expand that to be permanent residents of Canada for four years out of six years. This bill will restore the right to count up to two years of temporary residence before one becomes a permanent resident toward the amount of days that someone has to be resident in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It will eliminate the requirement that an applicant must have been present in Canada for 183 days in four of the last six years. It will remove the requirement for the language and knowledge examinations, which the Conservatives broadened to apply to young people aged 14 to 17, and seniors aged 55 to 64. I will expand on that.

Bill C-6 would also add to Bill C-24 by preventing offenders from counting time served for conditional sentences—that is a sentence served in the community with conditions—toward the calculation of required presence in Canada. That was a very large gap in the bill that the Conservatives missed. Bill C-6 will also give citizenship officials the power to seize fraudulent documents, which is another important provision that would allow our administrators of citizenship to be able to do their job.

This bill, as I said, is not perfect, and we would like to see additional changes. Bill C-6 does not address certain provisions of Bill C-24 regarding the following: the power that Bill C-24 granted to the minister to revoke citizenship based on a paper review with no judicial hearing; and it does not address provisions in Bill C-24 that provided a prohibition on citizenship for people charged with or serving a sentence for a criminal offence abroad, which also has to be an indictable offence in Canada. This bill also would leave in the minister's discretion to privately grant citizenship to individuals, which is another power that the New Democrats do not believe ought to be exercised in such an executive and non-transparent manner.

The New Democrats are pleased to support the bill because it repeals many of the harmful and unconstitutional changes to citizenship made by the previous government. We are disappointed that the bill does not go quite far enough in the ways that I just mentioned and we also point out that the narrow scope of the bill did prevent many amendments recommended by expert witnesses, including the Canadian Bar Association, from being admissible at the committee stage.

The Minister of Citizenship has explicitly acknowledged this and suggested that the Liberal government will need to introduce another immigration bill in the fall to address those shortcomings. We want to encourage the minister to keep his word on that and we look forward to working with the minister as he tables a truly comprehensive bill that will improve the Canadian citizenship process and comprehensively restore proper, sound, and fair law to this very vital part of Canadian political life: citizenship.

I am going to talk about the background to the bill. It was introduced by the Conservative government in February 2014, so essentially within a year or year and a half of the last election. The reason I point that out is that the previous Conservative government tended to act on ideological and political wedge reasons, not on sound evidentiary-based reasoning. We think that the bill was motivated politically as Conservatives tried to speak to a base and intolerance in Canadians by creating wedges between people. I will talk about that in a few moments because we think it is always a very unsound way to create legislation in this place.

At second reading in the last Parliament, the NDP tabled a broad amendment calling on the government to withdraw that bill and we also asked the government to send that bill to committee before completing second reading to allow that bill's obvious flaws to be addressed before continuing debate.

Not surprisingly, the Conservatives refused and despite our opposition, they adopted Bill C-24 without amendment. Bill C-24 received royal assent in June of 2014. Since then, the New Democrats have been asking for the bill to be revoked, especially regarding the provisions that increase the powers in the hands of the minister, including the authority to grant or revoke citizenship in executive fashion without a judicial process, the provisions to eliminate the recognition of time spent in Canada as a non-permanent resident, the parts of the bill that prohibit the granting of citizenship to persons who have been charged outside Canada with an offence, and the provisions that increased the residency requirements and the knowledge and language requirements in the bill.

Once again, the Liberals have addressed most but not all of those issues in this new bill. I am going to drill into some of these important issues. First, let us examine the provision that we support in the bill about repealing the national interest grounds for citizenship revocation. Legislative changes of that former bill that came into effect created a new ground of citizenship revocation that allowed citizenship to be taken away from dual citizens for certain acts against what was described as the national interests of Canada. These grounds included convictions for terrorism, treason, spying offences, and for membership in an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada.

The bill repealed those grounds. I want to say at the outset that the New Democrats and I think every member in the House acknowledge the seriousness and unacceptability of those crimes. There is no question about that. Treason, terrorism, spying, acting in a foreign army engaged in conflict with Canada, these are all crimes that I think every Canadian would condemn in the most strenuous way possible.

However, the issue becomes what the proper remedy for that is. What the New Democrats, many members, and obviously the new Liberal government have now acknowledged in the bill is that the proper response to anyone who commits those acts is to be dealt with harshly and appropriately by the Canadian legal system. That is the proper way to deal with citizens, not to strip a citizen of their citizenship rights, which hearkens back to the old medieval concept of a king in the 12th century banishing a citizen from the kingdom as punishment.

That is the kind of spirit that infused the Conservative government with this law. Instead, any person who believes in modern democracy and modern concepts of statecraft, would agree that once people become citizens, they are citizens. Citizens should be dealt with together.

Here is the rub. I have heard the Conservatives say the word “equality” in the House before. They have never been able to satisfactorily explain this to anybody. If a Canadian citizen born in Canada committed a terrorist act, or a Canadian citizen born in Canada spied against Canada or a Canadian citizen born in Canada fought for an armed forces against the Canadian Armed Forces, why he or she would not be stripped of his or her citizenship, but a naturalized Canadian who committed exactly the same act could be stripped of his or her citizenship.

This was the essence of the objection to that provision. It created two tiers of Canadian citizenship. I will stand in the House, and all MPs will stand here, and condemn each one of those heinous crimes, but we will equally stand in this place and say that it is a Canadian value to treat Canadian citizens equally before the law.

I am very happy to see the Liberal government enforce that very important concept.

I want to talk about repealing the intent to reside provision. Since June 2015, adult applicants must declare on their citizenship application, because of the Conservative law, that they intend to continue to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. This provision created concern among some new Canadians who feared that their citizenship could be revoked in the future if they moved outside of Canada. The Liberal government is proposing to repeal this provision, and I congratulate them on that because it is absolutely the right move.

All Canadians are free to move outside of this country and live where they wish. Again, we have another example of discrimination in law by the Conservative government where I, who was born in this country, could move to France if I wanted to and never have to worry about my citizenship being revoked. However, someone who was born in a different country and was naturalized here would have to worry. That is discriminatory. I am glad to see the government repeal that discriminatory provision.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and address this important debate; and certainly an honour for me to follow my friend, the parliamentary secretary from Parkdale—High Park. I did not agree with much of what he said in his speech, but I appreciate his work in this place, and particularly the opportunity we have to work together on Parliamentary Friends of Tibet.

Before I get into the specific provisions of this bill, I want to spend a bit of time setting the philosophical groundwork, at least in terms of how I see it and many on this side of the House see it, on the substance of this debate, underneath these provisions, in terms of what Canadian citizenship is all about.

I will say at the outset that I believe that we live in the best country in the world. I do not say that lightly. I have lived abroad and I have travelled quite a bit. For many reasons, we live in the best country in the world. One of the proof points of that is the fact that we have so many people who want to come here. Over the last 10 years, we have had the highest sustained immigration levels in this country's history. However, comparatively as well, many more people want to come to Canada relative to our population than want to go to many other countries.

As we think about what our citizenship is and what it means, perhaps it is important to start by asking why Canada is such a great country, and what we can do to ensure that in the context of our ongoing definition and redefinition of citizenship we preserve what is essential about our country. We are all very proud of Canadian diversity. The parliamentary secretary spoke eloquently about the diversity that we have in this country. However, many countries around the world have diversity and perhaps have a different experience of that diversity. I was thinking as I prepared for this about the visit of the Chinese foreign minister. China is a very diverse country, but a country in which religious and ethnic minorities face significant difficulties. Russia is a very diverse country. Syria, in fact, is a very diverse country. So we have many countries around the world that are diverse where perhaps the experience of that diversity is not positive for those in the minority.

It is clear, if we look at this comparison, that it is not diversity alone that makes us great and it is not diversity alone that makes us who we are; but it is in fact what we do with that diversity, how we work together in the context of that diversity, and in particular our ability as a nation to build together around shared values. If we have diversity without any kind of shared values, there is always a risk of conflict. I am very proud of our history as a country that has both great diversity and has managed to maintain a strong sense of shared values. That is particularly important for our success.

It is worth underlining what some of these shared values are. We have a belief in this country in freedom. We have a belief in democracy, in basic principles of human rights and, to some extent, in universal concepts of human dignity that underline those ideas of human rights. We have a belief in the rule of law; in universal human equality and value regardless of race, religion, caste, ethnicity, linguistic background, et cetera. We have a belief as well in gender equality, which is very important to who we are in this country. We have unity around these common values in the context of our own diversity. Our experience of not just political unity, not just sort of general accommodation of one another, but of practical community and common purpose, is quite unique in this country.

I will just share this anecdote because it is important. I was in a European capital a number of years ago, meeting with a Canadian friend of mine who was working there. We were in a very diverse part of this city. There were people from all different parts of the world. We noticed around us all of a sudden that we did not see any mixed-race social groups. We saw a group of people from one racial group together, and then a group of people from another. We looked around us in the crowded centre of this European capital and it was a bit jarring to realize that in spite of the fact that this was a very diverse place there were no obvious signs of community, of at least people sitting together within that place.

The advantage we have in Canada is in building substantive community between different people of different backgrounds.

I thought about that experience later when, at the time I think it was the British prime minister, similar comments were made by French and German leaders, talking about the alleged failure of multiculturalism in the European context. As much as I would regard that as not correct, even in the context of Europe, it is worth understanding that there is a different experience of multiculturalism in Europe compared to the Canadian experience.

Canada, from the moment of its founding, was a country founded on shared values and on ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity. We can compare that to many European states, which obviously emphasized elements of shared values, but also have measures of ethnic nationalism built into their founding as well.

We have to welcome newcomers in a way that understands that background without compromising what George Cartier called our concept of one political nation. I will read from a book called Straight Talk, which is a book on federalism that captures this well.

That dual quest for the universal and for cultural diversity has been with us since the birth of our Confederation. We have often strayed from it since then, and committed grave mistakes and injustices, but the result is this admirable human achievement that is Canada.

We have had this history from the beginning of combining the universal values in the context of diversity. The same book continues with:

Finally, Cartier wanted Canada to be a “political nation”, a nation of solidarity which transcends race, religion, history and geography to ensure that the French in Quebec would never want to break their solidarity with other Canadians. If we seek a contract at the birth of our federal union, it is certainly the one expressed by Cartier, which has inspired all of Peter Russell's work. Quebecers of all origins have helped other Canadians a great deal to achieve that ideal; they must not renounce it.

Straight Talk was written by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I think he has had some very good things to say in the past about the importance of common values in the context of this diversity.

Where are we going from here then? What is the philosophy which underlines this legislation advanced by the government?

Early in the new government's term, the Prime Minister was talking to The New York Times about aspects of Canadian identity. Here is what he said, which is something very different than the words I just quoted from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He said, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada...Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.”

Therefore, we have in the House, at least between our side and the Prime Minister, very different visions of what the Canadian nation is supposed to be.

Ours is one of unity around shared values in the context of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and other forms of diversity. However, the Prime Minister's concept is one that goes beyond or outside of this idea of shared values and emphasizes the diversity, but at the same time wants to perceive Canada as a postnational state, not as a political nation.

It is with that in mind that we come to legislation put forward by the government, which would allow convicted terrorists to retain their Canadian citizenship. I think we can understand what the Liberals' thinking is on this bill in light of the Prime Minister's comments to The New York Times and in light of that underlying philosophy.

It is clearly a problem to our historic concepts of Canada as a political nation to say that convicted terrorists should be able to retain their citizenship. A terrorist is not just someone who wants to do violence and mayhem. Terrorists are people, in our current conception of it, who disconnect themselves from our Canadian values, who embrace a wholly distinct set of values than the ones I have outlined, gender quality, universal human dignity, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and instead commit themselves to fighting for the destruction of those very values. A terrorist is not someone who is pushed outside of the fold of Canadian values. A terrorist is someone who chooses to leave the fold of Canadian values, and that is very clear.

Our concept of diversity that emphasizes shared values says that diversity does not extend to those who wish to destroy us. There have to be parameters or limits ensuring that we remain the country we have always been, a country of unity in the context of our diversity.

The Liberals' view of diversity in many ways bends over on itself. It permits those who are deeply at odds with things in which the Liberals themselves clearly believe, gender equality, human rights, the rule of law, democracy. Yet it allows people who reject those things, who want to fight against those things, to remain in the Canadian family and to use the advantages of their membership in the Canadian family, of their Canadian passport, for example, to then wreak havoc against the very values that we espouse.

I think all of us in all corners of the House deeply believe in the idea of diversity, but we also believe the diversity is necessarily bounded as a practical matter, as a matter of our own survival. There are certain things we must agree are simply not welcome here and they include the desire to destroy our way of life.

I ask Canadians who are watching this to reflect on these differences of vision, the one espoused by the Prime Minister and the one espoused by George Cartier, the question of Canada as a postnational state or of Canada as being part of a common political nation.

It is important to specifically counter some of the arguments that were made by my friends across the way. Members of the government have said many things on this that are substantially true but do not really apply to this legislation. My friend, the parliamentary secretary, praised the importance of having a path to citizenship. We have always had a path to citizenship in our country. Nobody is proposing, or has seriously ever proposed, the creation of a sort of UAE style of citizenship where an individual would have to be born here. We believe very much in a path to citizenship, and we can disagree over the difference of one year here or there in terms of being in a country without disagreeing on that fundamental point.

For those who have a commitment to Canada, there is no substantial problem with saying let us wait another year. Those who do not have a commitment to Canada will perhaps have a different perspective. All of those who have a commitment to Canada, whether it is an additional year, it is not clear to me what the breaking point is about those changes.

There is an important issue alleged by the government, and we hear this talking point many times, of two-tiered citizenship. There are two things that need to be said about this. First, the government has been clear that its intention is to retain the ability to revoke citizenship that was acquired on the basis of fraud. This means that people who acquired their citizenship could have it stripped from them on the basis of fraud.

Fraud is in my mind a much lesser crime than terrorism. For the government to say that on the one hand citizenship is irrevocable for someone who clearly parts ways with Canadian values and then say on the other hand, citizenship can be lost if someone cheated on a form is just not consistent.

If the government really takes this idea that citizenship is irrevocable to its logical extreme, it is hard to understand why it would be dealing with a more extreme issue, yet leaving in place the revocation possibility for a relatively less extreme offence.

I want to say this as well about the regime the government put in place. The government's bill would institute a system of two-tiered citizenship that did not exist before. Under its system, people who acquired their Canadian citizenship could have it stripped on the basis of fraud. Under our system, anybody could have their citizenship stripped on the basis of fraud or involvement in terrorism.

Under the Liberals' citizenship process, nobody who was born in our country or who was born with Canadian citizenship could ever lose their citizenship. Our system treats equally those who were born abroad and those who were born here. Therefore, I am perplexed by the Liberals continuing use of their talking point, in spite of their total unwillingness to actually implement the fullness of this supposed principle that they are espousing.

The fact is that where an individual was born does not matter for our original legislation. People could lose their citizenship if they were involved in terrorism, and it did not matter if they were born here or somewhere else. The value of Canadian citizenship is dependent on their commitment to our shared values, not on where they were born. That is an important principle and a principle for which we have stood.

Of course, as a practical matter, we cannot strip the citizenship of someone who only has one citizenship, and that is true whether individuals obtained their citizenship by a fraud or whether they obtained their citizenship in spite of then going on to commit or be involved in some form of terrorism.

That is a practical matter, and obviously we are limited in the House by certain features of the practical world in what we can do and cannot do. However, as much as possible, we should hold fast to that principle, that Canadian citizenship has value. It expresses the substance of who we are as a country, a country that has unity around shared values in the context of our diversity, and this, unfortunately, is simply not appreciated by the arguments made on behalf of the bill.

Some more clarifications need to be made about the original system we had in place. It is a bit perverse, frankly, that members of the government talk about new Canadians being worried about the provisions of the bill because of misinformation about them, and then go on to continually imply things about the bill that are incorrect. If some Canadians were worried about the provisions of the bill and did not have a proper understanding of what the original bill would do, I would hope the members of the government, who were maybe talking to these Canadians in the context of a campaign, would have provided correct information about the bill.

They might have clarified that actually there is no restriction whatsoever in the original Bill C-24 on mobility rights. There is no possibility whatsoever that people could lose their citizenships for a minor crime. In fact, people who commit a major crime, a violent crime, still could not have their citizenships revoked, regardless of where they were born, regardless of whether they were dual citizens. It is only in the case of terrorism.

The crucial point with respect to terrorism is that this is where individuals have stepped fully outside the parameters of Canadian values. They have said that they have no interest in being part of the Canadian family. They have acted in a way that put themselves fundamentally at odds with it in terms of their values.

One of the arguments we have heard as well from my friends across the way is the assertion that putting them in jail is enough, that someone should not face both imprisonment and then the loss of citizenship. However, these are two completely different kinds of sanctions to deal with different kinds of issues. Of course, somebody who is involved in violent crime or terrorism should be punished through incarceration, but there is also the issue of whether this person has retained his or her commitment to be part of the Canadian family or not. These are different issues that should be both dealt with and certainly both considered.

However, there is another practical matter that I think the government ignores in its reasoning. It is the fact that individuals could well be outside of the country and become very involved in terrorism, be fighting for Daesh, perhaps, or another terrorist group, and clearly, in the process of their actions and their involvement in that, take themselves outside the Canadian family. Those people, as long as they retain their Canadian citizenship, have the benefits of Canadian citizenship, can ask for assistance by diplomatic staff and Canadians would be on the hook to bail that sort of an active terrorist out.

Of course, we do not have the ability to incarcerate people if they are abroad fighting on behalf of another terrorist organization. This is perhaps a context in which this would have to be considered, and I do not think it is properly considered by the government's arguments.

It is important to underline in that context at the same time that it is not the conviction in a foreign court that would lead to these considerations. It would only be a decision of the Canadian courts or an adjudication on the basis of equivalency, an evaluation that was done based on Canadian law with respect to terrorism. It still would not require someone to be in the country.

In terms of the underlying philosophy, Canadians should go with George Cartier, not the postnational anti-identity fantasies of the Prime Minister. It is also important to dig into the substantive provisions of the bill and realize that it does not fix problems that were real, that we were addressing significant problems. Terrorists should not—

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I applaud the diversity of this chamber that is represented by all parties in this House. It is a testament to the kind of electoral system and the kind of Parliament we have created here.

In response to some of the comments raised by the hon. member, I would reiterate a couple of things because sometimes the nuance gets lost in the discussion. If one is applying for citizenship and commits a Criminal Code offence, including a terrorist offence, one is prevented from accessing citizenship in this country.

That is the law in Canada. That has always been the law in Canada. The Liberals believe in that law. The Conservatives believe in that law.

The difference is that once one has already obtained citizenship, what was added by the Conservative government, which we fundamentally and ideologically disagree with, is that once one is here and is a citizen here, if one had naturalized, one was given an extra penalty after the commission of crimes against the national interest.

We believe that the Criminal Code and the criminal justice system can address terrorism and crimes against the national interest, and that is the vehicle for addressing those crimes. That is a fundamental difference which we do not agree on, and that is what this bill represents.

Also, importantly, there is a very fundamental distinction between the 1947 Citizenship Act and what was enacted under Bill C-24 by the Conservatives. That difference is that until Bill C-24, there was only one means of revoking citizenship, and that was based on fraud. Sometimes the fraud was less dramatic, and sometimes it included people who pretended they were not war criminals in World War II. We believe that is the only basis for revoking citizenship, and that is what this bill restores.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, congratulations to the member opposite. I am glad he mentioned that he is among the 41 members of Parliament who are immigrants and I am one of them too. One thing I like to highlight is that we succeed in this place and in Canada and are able to come to the Canadian Parliament and become parliamentarians because we consider Canada our home. Just because of that we have succeeded.

Someone who is considering Canada a target of terrorism does not deserve Canadian citizenship, does not deserve to be Canadian. Our Canadian citizenship has the highest value of integrity and of honour. If someone wants to use it to go across the world to have access to all the other places in the world just because he is a Canadian citizen, he does not deserve to be a Canadian citizen. If someone does not want to commit to live in Canada, he does not deserve to be a Canadian.

I would like to remind the hon. member of the 1947 immigration act, which at that time was presented, implemented, and adopted by a Liberal government. Bill C-24 is a similar act to the 1947 act that was introduced.

Whether it is three to five years, or four to six years, members opposite agree that Canadian citizenship deserves to be worthwhile for those who decide to take it or not.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

I would like to begin with a list.

This list includes Afghanistan, Argentina, China, Germany, Grenada, Haiti, India, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, Trinidad, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

What do these countries have in common? They are all nations from which members of the House hail. Forty-one members of the chamber, spanning four different parties, are citizens of Canada who were born outside of this country. I am one of that group of 41 members. I was born in Uganda and arrived here as a young refugee in 1972.

Bill C-6 says to me and 40 of my fellow MPs that our citizenship is no different than that of our Canadian-born colleagues. In fact, Bill C-6 says to millions of Canadians who naturalized here after arriving from overseas that their citizenship has the same value and is accorded the same respect as the citizenship of those born in this country. It tells them that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. Allow me to explain.

Bill C-6 would reverse the divisive legacy of legislation enacted by the previous government. Under what was then Bill C-24, the previous government enacted legislation that allowed persons born abroad to be stripped of their citizenship on the basis of acts against the national interest—treason, spying, terrorism—but this applied only to those born abroad. Therefore, if someone was born in Canada and committed the exact same criminal act against the national interest, their citizenship could not be stripped. Canadian-born individuals would be dealt with by the criminal justice system alone, whereas foreign-born Canadians were subject to a double penalty: punishment under the criminal justice system, together with revocation of their citizenship under the Citizenship Act.

The old legislation, enacted by the previous government, was wrong for two reasons. The first is that it was unfair and unequal. We heard about the unfairness of the old Conservative legislation from strong immigration advocates, such as Legal Aid Ontario's refugee law office and Romero House in my riding of Parkdale—High Park. The inequality of the old legislation was laid bare by the litigation it caused. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers brought a charter challenge to Bill C-24 contending it created two tiers of citizenship.

The second and more important reason is that the old Bill C-24 was flawed because it sent the wrong message to newcomers. People like me, who fled their homelands to make a fresh start in Canada, are thankful for the opportunity to be here, but ultimately, we all seek the same thing: full and final integration. The previous government's Bill C-24 failed such Canadians, precisely because it rendered them more vulnerable. It told them that they are citizens, but citizens with an asterisk. By retracting the odious legislation the previous government passed, I and millions of Canadians who came here from other countries are being told that the politics of division are over and that they do, indeed, belong.

That is enough talk about the old legislation. I now want to talk about the merits of Bill C-6.

Bill C-6 meets what we like to call the triple-E test. It is evidence-based, it makes economic sense, and the bill is ethically sound. Allow me to address each of these points in turn.

The first point is that Bill C-6 is evidence-based. Our government campaigned on a commitment to return to evidence-based policy, and that is precisely what Bill C-6 represents. Studies demonstrate that facilitating a path to not only obtaining but maintaining citizenship promotes a better integration of newcomers and their sense of belonging. This point has been reinforced to me time and time again by settlement and community groups doing important work in Parkdale—High Park, such as Ukrainian Canadian Social Services, the Four Villages Community Health Centre, the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Society, and the Canadian Polish Congress.

The second point is that Bill C-6 is good economics. These very same studies show that the bill would have clear economic benefits for Canada. Immigrants who are given a path to permanence through citizenship have higher educational and economic outcomes. This point has also been communicated to me in my riding by terrific organizations on the front lines of settling newcomers in Toronto, like the Parkdale Intercultural Association, the Parkdale Community Recreation Centre, CultureLink, the Parkdale Community Health Centre, and Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services.

Bill C-6 is also ethically sound. Until the previous government's decision to enact the old Bill C-24, we never had two tiers of citizenship in this country. It is not morally justifiable to divide citizens among those fortunate enough to be born here versus those who naturalize after arriving from overseas.

Our new bill does a lot more than just eliminate the two classes of citizenship created by the Conservatives. As I said, Bill C-6 also makes it easier to obtain citizenship in several important ways, which I will now address.

The barriers to citizenship that would be removed by this bill are many. I propose to address four.

The first relates to the length of time required to qualify for citizenship. Our legislation will require an applicant to be present in Canada for three years over a five-year time span, rather than the current four-year requirement over a six-year time span. Therefore, the bill would expand the pool of potential citizens and allow them to apply earlier.

More specifically, Bill C-6 is more flexible. It does not require a person to be in Canada for at least 183 days per year over each eligible year. Instead, one needs simply to be here for 1,095 days over a five-year period. What does that mean? It means flexibility. If one's job takes one overseas for an extended period, this would not make one automatically ineligible for citizenship.

Second, Bill C-6 would restore the knowledge and language testing requirement to the previous age range. The previous government passed legislation indicating that testing would be required for any applicant aged 14 to 64. We are restoring that age range back to the previous norm, which is age 18 to 54. This change would improve access to citizenship for the very young and for those 55 and over, thereby helping to speed up their formal integration.

Third, the intent to reside provision is being removed. Bill C-6 would no longer make it a requirement to declare one's intent to reside in Canada before becoming a citizen. That requirement was unmerited. All Canadians have mobility rights. More importantly, the old requirement created a great deal of confusion. Over 200 applications were returned to individuals who failed to complete the intent to reside portion of the application, because they did not understand it. They feared their citizenship could be revoked if they moved abroad. It cannot.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, Bill C-6 would allow time spent in Canada prior to becoming a permanent resident to count towards one's three-year requirement to become a citizen. This provision allows for a 50% credit for time spent in Canada prior to becoming a permanent resident, up to a maximum credit of one year.

Who will this help? It would help temporary foreign workers, international students, and protected persons by speeding all of these groups on their path towards citizenship. This makes sense. These people have already spent time here. They have already worked and studied here. They have already built an attachment to Canada.

I turn now to one of the criticisms we have heard about the bill, which is safety.

Allow me to be crystal clear. Bill C-6 would not imperil the safety of Canadians. Our government's commitment to safety is unwavering. We have a place for terrorists and it is called “jail”. We have a place to prosecute terrorists and that is called the “criminal justice system”. When one commits a crime in Canada, one is prosecuted by the criminal justice system. We do not need a Citizenship Act tool to address a Criminal Code problem.

However, there is also a broader more philosophical underpinning to Bill C-6. When we boost integration and put in place mechanisms for success, we strengthen ties and loyalty to this country. This does not threaten our safety. It is part of a host of initiatives, such as our response to the Syrian refugee crisis, which demonstrates Canada's openness, our inclusivity, and our compassion. These efforts counter radicalization and reduce threats to our safety. In fact, I would say we do this better than any country in the world, and I am proud to be part of a government that is restoring this reputation both here and abroad.

It is also important to understand that Bill C-6 is not an outright rejection of all aspects of its predecessor, Bill C-24, passed by the previous government.

What, from Bill C-24, have we decided to keep? There are provisions we have kept, but there are also provisions we have actually improved.

For instance, we have kept the physical presence requirement rather than the term “residence” because physical presence is easier to verify.

Revoking citizenship based on fraud and misrepresentation has existed since 1947, and this power remains in Bill C-6. Bill C-24, passed by the previous government, facilitated fraud detection, which is very important, and we have kept provisions that make this possible, as well as provisions that permit government to strip people of citizenship quickly when they have committed fraud. More importantly, we have also enhanced some of these provisions. For example, we have added a section that allows us to seize documents used in the commission of fraud. Finally, we have also committed to implementing all of the Auditor General's recommendations regarding preventing citizenship fraud.

Another improvement relates to conditional sentence orders. If convicted, time served in the community on a conditional sentence order can no longer count toward the three-year residence requirement and if one is on a conditional sentence order, one cannot take the oath of citizenship. Again, these are improvements on the predecessor legislation.

Let us talk about the committee. The bill has just returned from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We are also a government that believes in working across the aisle. At committee when amendments were proposed that made sense, that conformed with the policy direction we are pursuing with this legislation, that improved the bill, we did not hesitate to accept those amendments. Those amendments help us create a more diverse and inclusive Canada.

One of the amendments by the NDP added the term “statelessness” as a ground on which citizenship may be granted at the discretion of the minister. Another NDP amendment requires the minister to consider reasonable measures to accommodate the needs of citizenship applicants with disabilities. Those are amendments proposed by the opposition that we accepted on their merit and we welcome them as part of this new bill.

In conclusion, I want to return in my remarks to where I began.

When I provided a list of the 22 different nations that make up the homelands of members of the House, it was simply to provide a snapshot of the diversity of this chamber. This chamber serves as a proxy for this country, a country that is made up of literally millions of individuals whose provenance extends to every corner of the globe. To that diverse group, Bill C-6 says, “Your citizenship is no less valuable, no less respected, than that of a citizen born in this country”.

I believe one of the lasting attributes of the bill is one that has been rarely discussed. In facilitating pathways to citizenship, Bill C-6 also facilitates pathways to participation. Only citizens can cast votes in this country. Only citizens can stand for election to this chamber. By breaking down barriers to citizenship and putting in their place opportunities to obtain and retain citizenship, Bill C-6 promotes the highest level of engagement possible, engagement in our democratic process.

The ultimate job of any government, regardless of its political stripe, is to promote an engaged citizenry. That is precisely what Bill C-6 would do. I am proud to endorse the bill as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for raising this important issue in the House and for her continued advocacy on the part of immigration issues as the opposition critic.

This is an important debate on cessation issues in the former Bill C-31 enacted by the previous government, and the impact it has on permanent residents.

The hon. member for Vancouver East has asked a very important question, and has raised this previously with our government. In fact, the government is in absolute agreement with the hon. member for Vancouver East on the need to review this very important piece of legislation and its impact since it was enacted under the former Bill C-31.

We have, in this country, a long and proud tradition of providing protection to those in need. We have one of the fairest and most generous immigration and asylum systems in the world. Our immigration laws are applied impartially, they are based on facts, and they are meant to accord with due process.

The authority of the independent and quasi-judicial IRB, the Immigration and Refugee Board, to determine whether an individual's refugee protection has ceased is not itself a new provision. It actually predates the 2012 asylum system reforms. As well, it is important to specify that the authority to revoke permanent resident status, including the permanent resident status of a refugee, also existed before Bill C-31.

However, what is very troubling about Bill C-31 is that under the 2012 reforms enacted by the previous government, cessation of protected person status was added as grounds for losing one's permanent resident status. That effectively meant it was double-barrelled. That meant that both protected person status and permanent resident status now end simultaneously once a refugee in Canada has demonstrated that they are no longer in need of protection.

The minister, himself, has said in the House that he agrees that the legislation, which has been identified by the member for Vancouver East, is part of a long legacy of matters inherited from the previous government that our government desperately wants to review, and will review.

As members know, we are not at liberty to discuss particulars of a specific case due to privacy considerations, but the minister has expressed public sympathy with the point the hon. member is raising. I can assure the House that the government is reviewing policies and legislation introduced in recent years with a view to developing proposals to improve them.

In a relatively short time, and I will demonstrate to the House a number of measures we have taken in short order to address the legislative initiatives of the previous government that were very problematic.

For example, in terms of the government's respect for the rulings of the Federal Court, the Federal Court had found in December 2011 that the policy requiring the removal of face coverings to take the oath of citizenship was unlawful. We agree with that decision; the previous government did not. We dropped the appeal of that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. That is the case of Ishaq v. Canada.

Another example of us being more than willing retract and retrench on legislation by the previous government is rescinding the legislation that came in under Bill C-24. We have introduced amendments to the Citizenship Act that members of the House will be familiar with. Bill C-6 makes it easier for applicants to meet citizenship requirements and helps encourage their sense of belonging and connection to Canada. It also eliminates the two classes of citizenship that were perpetuated by the previous government, which we stood fundamentally against and campaigned against.

Another example of our government's review of existing procedures that help to promote greater openness and better processing is our response regarding Haitian and Zimbabwean nationals. On February 4 of this year, the Government of Canada announced that Haitian and Zimbabwean nationals in this country would be provided another six months to apply for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds—

Citizenship Act

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what his experiences in the election campaign were like and what he thinks about the hundreds of thousands of Canadians with dual citizenship who will be affected by Bill C-24.

I talked to Americans, people from Europe, and a lot of people from the Middle East in my riding who felt, to be honest, let down by the government. They wonder why they are a different class of citizen than Canadians born here. They think this bill only affects one person, but it does not. It affects millions of Canadians who have dual citizenship, and they feel slighted by this act.

When I knocked on doors during the election campaign, I heard many people say that they could not believe a government would do this to its own citizens. I wonder if his experiences were similar in his riding during the election campaign.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today in support of Bill C-6. The bill will restore the fundamental principle of equality of citizenship, and also restore common sense to the process of becoming a Canadian citizen.

There are few privileges on earth greater than being a citizen of Canada. In our country, we cherish our freedom, our democracy, and our inalienable rights that attach to our citizenship. Canada has long been a beacon of hope and opportunity to many around the world. Our country is blessed to have been enriched by people who have become Canadians by choice.

In my riding of West Nova, we have an incredible history which started the foundation of the country, with rich contributions from Acadian, Mi’kmaq, Métis, British, and African Canadians. Also, we know that through many generations at Pier 21 in Halifax, many more immigrants began their lives as Canadians and together helped build this great country.

The most fundamental principle of the rule of law is that all citizens are equal before the law. We cannot have two classes of Canadians. Once someone is a citizen of our country, certain rights and privileges attach to that. They cannot be taken away. Bill C-6 restores the fundamental principle of our system of citizenship. It rightly seeks to reinstate this principle, which was taken away under the Conservatives' Bill C-24 in the last Parliament.

I have heard all kinds of claims by the opposition members in the debate so far on Bill C-6. However, the most intellectually frustrating argument I have heard is their claim that Bill C-6 leaves in the law the ability for revocation of citizenship in some cases. Therefore, the argument we are making on this side of the House, that it is fundamental that we cannot revoke citizenship, is somehow inconsistent with leaving that provision in the law. I have heard this from the other side. The argument has been made that Bill C-6 in fact creates two tiers of citizens. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the opposite is true. The bill remedies the fact that in Bill C-24 there are two classes of citizenship.

Does the opposition not see the obvious difference between taking away citizenship from someone who never would have or should have obtained citizenship but for fraud or misrepresentation, and revoking the citizenship of an otherwise valid citizen for egregious behaviour done after they have been conferred with all rights and privileges that come with citizenship? To my mind, there is a clear distinction between something being void ab initio, that meaning from the beginning. They were never citizens. That is the difference between something void ab initio and something voidable in the future for future behaviour.

Furthermore, do they not see that maintaining the integrity of our citizenship application process requires a mechanism to prevent those who would lie in order to become a citizen? What kind of system is reliable if there is no mechanism to withdraw from it people who have lied, committed fraud, or misrepresented the statements made in order to obtain the thing conferred upon them? Of course, to have a proper system of citizenship requires a mechanism for those people who have misrepresented themselves to the government to obtain the citizenship to take that away.

That is vastly different from saying that someone should have their citizenship revoked for something done after they have become a citizen. There is no causal link. There is nothing between their bad behaviour afterwards and their citizenship. Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to suggest that because there are provisions that remain in the law to revoke citizenship for someone who should never and would never have been conferred citizenship, versus someone revoking their citizenship for egregious behaviour after the fact, that the law is flawed

Let me be clear about this. There is no question that the behaviour associated with revoking citizenship in Bill C-24 is egregious behaviour. It is intolerable. It is criminal. It is repugnant. That is exactly why the criminal law in this country, to the fullest extent, should make sure that those people go to jail. That is where they belong. It should not be used as a punishment to revoke their citizenship because it does in fact create two tiers of citizens. It creates citizens who have dual citizenship who could be subjected to having their citizenship revoked on future behaviour, versus those who are Canadian and only Canadian citizens.

There is a big fundamental difference. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. I know that line has been used on both sides of the House, but it is true. It is true that if we go down the road of having more than one class of citizenship, it will render less valuable the fact that someone is a Canadian citizen.

Being a dual citizen means that an individual is a Canadian citizen. However, a Canadian citizen is the same, whether or not they have more than one passport.

I submit that most Canadians understand this obvious difference. It is unfortunate that it is being advanced as a proper argument to maintain these elements from the previous Bill C-24. I note that these elements were part of the election campaign, and Canadians rejected those ideas in the last election.

Bill C-6 also reduces the length of time that someone must be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. This would help immigrants achieve citizenship more quickly and change the requirements to three years within five years total. It will mean that applicants can apply one year sooner in order to join the citizenship of this country. This offers greater flexibility for immigrants who travel outside of Canada but maintain the timelines. It does ensure that a new Canadian has significant ties and links with our country to be a full and proud Canadian.

Another element of Bill C-6 that I find very good is the part of the bill that restores the 50% credit, for international students in particular, who spend time at one of our amazing schools in this country. It does not make any sense to take away the credit for those individuals whom we hope to attract, for whom we are competing with other countries around the world to have them live in Canada, to participate in our country. It does not make any sense at all to make it harder for them. We are competing with other countries around the world to attract the best and brightest, and we must do what we can to ensure that they stay here.

They have links with Canada. They obviously have a linguistic connection, either English or French, or perhaps both, in order to attend one of our universities or post-secondary schools. Therefore, it makes sense with those links, those connections, their intelligence and innovation, that we should be attracting and doing everything we can to encourage these students to become part of the Canadian family.

We know that Bill C-6 also amends the age range for the language requirement. Bill C-6 proposes to amend the age range for those required to meet language and knowledge requirements from 14 to 64, to those aged 18 to 54, removing a potential barrier to citizenship for applicants in both the younger and older age groups.

All Canadians are free to move outside of Canada, of course, and this is a right guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many Canadians enjoy that privilege and maintain their strong ties and connections and pride in Canada. It is right and correct that Bill C-6 repeals the June 2015 change that required adult applicants to declare that they intend to continue to reside in Canada. This is a prime example of previous modifications to our law that treat certain citizens differently.

Bill C-6 attempts to remedy changes that were made that are against the rule of law, against the best traditions of this country, and that is why I will proudly support Bill C-6.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion with which my colleague speaks. It adds greatly to this debate.

My colleague has been vigorously defending Bill C-24, and I get a sense from the questions and the speeches that perhaps it did not go far enough for him.

Can he envision a bill that is stronger than Bill C-24 that he would perhaps like to see replace Bill C-6?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated in the past, it is always a pleasure to address the House on what I believe are important issues. Bill C-6 is a very important issue.

I spoke against Bill C-24, which was passed not long ago under the Conservative government. I felt fairly passionate about the fact that the government was taking the issue of citizenship in the wrong direction. Today we have a bill before us that would rectify a number of wrongs that the previous government put in place.

I want to pick up on the point of my colleague from the NDP. I appreciate his comments and support of this bill, recognizing the importance of citizenship and that we get it right. Citizenship is very important. It is something in which we have a vested interest. In the Liberal caucus, it is an issue about which we are all very passionate. We look to the current Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to be progressive in making the changes that are so badly needed to fix the system, and it goes beyond the legislation before us today.

A few weeks ago, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship addressed the House and made reference to the processing times for citizenship. It is a serious issue. It was not that long ago, a number of months, when the Conservatives allowed the processing of a citizenship to go far beyond two years. We should keep in perspective that this is after someone technically qualifies to get citizenship. He or she has to then put in an application requesting it. People are putting in their applications today and having to wait a minimum of two years. The actual percentage is a guesstimate, but it was closer to two and half or three years, and 15% plus were waiting four to six years, depending on whether they required their residency calculator to kick in while spot checks were being done. Those are unbelievable processing times.

The minister has been very straightforward and transparent in saying that the government wants to deal with this processing time. We recognize the desire of people who call Canada their home. They have taken interest in our great country, are productive while they are here, and contribute to our lifestyle in a very real and tangible way. We want them to take on the responsibility of being citizens, and they have a desire to become citizens. I was pleased when the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said that we would be reducing the processing time.

Now we are debating a bill that is yet another step in the right direction to deal with citizenship. For example, the legislation would change what the Conservatives put in place, which was that in order to qualify to be citizens, people had to have lived in Canada for at least four years out of the most recent six. It used to be three out of five years. This legislation would bring it back to the way it was.

There was no demand to change it in the first place. I was the critic for immigration a number of years ago. I sat in committee and no one talked about it. Why the Conservative government made that decision is beyond me. In fact, a Conservative MP introduced a private member's bill to reduce the amount of time required for citizenship for individuals who chose to join the Canadian Forces. That member received a great deal of sympathy from members on all sides of the House. Therefore, I was somewhat taken aback when the government made this decision.

Another very smart move in the legislation is the recognition of the valuable contributions of people who come to Canada to work and to study. I believe Canadians are quite passionate about this. We recognize those valuable contributions made by individuals who make those sacrifices, often leaving family abroad to come to Canada, to get money, to get that job, to fill a void in the Canadian economy. We are talking about significant numbers of people.

As the immigration critic a few years back, I used to argue that if people were good enough to work in Canada, they were good enough to stay in Canada. There was overwhelming support for statements of that nature. There needs to be criteria, and the criteria will be there. I believe we will see more on that front.

However, the legislation recognizes those students and those workers. For example, someone who has been working in Canada for two years will be able to take one of those years and apply it to the three of five years. That is a progressive move recognizes the valuable contributions these workers have made.

When we look at the student component, these incredible young people have made a commitment to further their education in Canada. Why should we not allow them the opportunity to get their citizenship a little earlier? I would challenge the Conservatives to answer some of those questions about why they made those changes.

There was no demand. No one was coming to the table saying that we needed to make those changes. We have heard a great deal about the whole issue around terrorists, and why we would accept the two-tier system as proposed by the Conservatives proposed when in government.

Let there be no doubt. Under Bill C-24, the Conservatives created a two-tiered citizenship system. They said that if people had dual citizenships, they could lose their Canadian citizenship. If they did not have dual citizenship, then they could not.

I do not care what the official opposition benches say. The Conservatives created a two-tier system.

This legislation recognizes that a Canadian citizen is a Canadian citizen. All we need to do is look at the election results, because this issue was often referred to at the door. This bill would right a number of wrongs, as members of the Liberal Party and other parties have said.

This legislation is yet another step in what I believe is a move for real change, which the Prime Minister committed to during the last federal election. We are seeing those commitments materialized.

We believe that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, strengths we have in Canada is our diversity. If we capitalize on that diversity, Canada will continue to grow and prosper well into the future. There is so much potential here. We cannot underestimate the importance of immigration.

I was especially pleased when I heard the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship earlier today in question period. He made very positive statements about improving processing times for families and improving the number of immigrants. I believe I even heard him say that in 2016 Canada might receive the highest number of immigrants in its history.

We recognize that good, sound immigration policy that leads to citizenship and good citizens is the direction in which to take our country. We are a country of immigrants. Immigrants built our country. We need to have immigration to continue to prosper in the future. We in the Liberal Party recognize that and, as a government, we will put in sound policies to feed that growth. By feeding that growth, we will be building a healthier, stronger economy, and a better society for all of us.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very clear that the changes in Bill C-24 passed by the Conservative government in 2014 turned millions of Canadians into second-class citizens with fewer rights than other Canadians. The changes were discriminatory, anti-immigrant, and un-Canadian. Bill C-6 would simply undo these changes.

No government should have the right to revoke citizenship, whether one is born in Canada or abroad.

Does the member opposite not agree that Bill C-6 simply restores equal citizenship in Canada to Canadians?

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a lawyer, I am of course supportive of the charter and agree that it is an important facet of our life and our legislative process in Canada, and it needs always to be taken into consideration when we deliberate legislation in this chamber. I agree.

If members recall, the CBA spoke out and was highly critical of BillC-24, for many reasons. Part of it was that it got rid of the Federal Court of Appeal being able to hear appeals under the revocation of citizenship.

So, our new bill, our new act, would be in line with charter values, would be constitutionally sound, and has been vetted. I appreciate the member raising this question because it is important, as we deliberate, that we ensure that all legislation in this House is aligned with charter values. I am a proponent of that. I thank the member for that question.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Newmarket—Aurora, for his fine speech, and I would like to congratulate the Liberal government for bringing forward this bill. There are a lot of provisions that we, in the NDP, can support.

However, there is one thing I would draw to my colleague's attention. I want to reference the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because I think that is a very important document when we deliberate in this chamber, specifically section 11, under legal rights, which states that anyone charged with an offence has a right to a trial before a court that is unbiased and independent of political or any other influence.

I realize that an offence is different from revocation of citizenship, but I think in this chamber we have to look at all of our laws with the spirit of the charter in mind.

Bill C-24 eliminated the right to a judicial hearing for people who are about to have their citizenship revoked. Civil liberty groups, including the Canadian Bar Association, were against this. I would ask my colleague if he agrees with organizations like the Canadian Bar Association that people who are about to lose their citizenship should always have the right to a fair hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker, keeping in line with the spirit of the charter, specifically section 11.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the Liberal Party promised to repeal the unfair and reprehensible parts of the previous Conservative bill, Bill C-24, and that is exactly what we are doing with Bill C-6.

The two-tier citizenship provisions that were contrary to the Canadian values of equality and inclusiveness will be gone. We are allowing hard-working permanent residents who are contributing to Canadian society to become citizens more quickly, and we are making it easier for grandmothers and grandfathers to join their children and grandchildren without language testing.

To repeal the bill entirely would be irresponsible and rash. The legislation did several things that I agree with, and I hope that the hon. member would as well. For example, the act restored the citizenship of so-called lost Canadians, such as the descendants of Canadian citizens, who were born abroad and were shocked to discover they were not Canadian citizens. The legislation also allowed for a faster path to citizenship for those who were serving or had served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Surely, the hon. member would agree that these are measures worth keeping.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, oftentimes today, as we have sat through this debate, we have heard references to the effect that what Bill C-24 did was effectively designate people as second-class citizens.

This morning my colleague from Durham talked quite eloquently about the privileges of having citizenship. The expectation is that those who become citizens of our country would live by the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

Why should those who wish to do harm to Canada, to their fellow citizens, be able to keep their citizenship?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a pleasure to rise in the House today in support of Bill C-6, for this is very much a bill that speaks to the heart of why I am so proud to be Canadian and what makes our country the envy of the world.

In my first speech in the House as the member of Parliament for Scarborough Centre, I spoke about how my husband and I came to Canada from Pakistan about 16 years ago to provide better opportunities for our children. Before we moved here, there was one big thing we knew about the country, which is why we came here, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

People around the world know two things about Canada. We love hockey and we are the country of the charter. This is a document that says every Canadian and everyone within our borders have certain inalienable rights: the right to associate with whom we wish, communicate what we wish, and worship how we wish. The charter speaks to choice and equality, that whether we are Canadian by birth or by choice, we all are Canadian.

I live in Scarborough, one of the most diverse communities in Canada, where many people have chosen to settle and build better lives for their families. During the election campaign, I heard from many families who were deeply concerned by some of the provisions in the previous Conservative government's Bill C-24. Of particular concern were the so-called two-tier citizenship provisions, which allow government ministers to strip dual citizens or those eligible to obtain one of their Canadian citizenship.

Let me be clear that terrorism is abhorrent and should be punished to the full extent of the law. However, let me be equally clear that terrorists belong in jails, not on a plane overseas. This is a matter of principle. We cannot create two different tiers of Canadian citizenship and we cannot ship our problems overseas for other people to deal with. That has never been the Canadian way.

My husband Salman and I have two sons. Umaid is 17 years old and Usman is 15. They are like many Canadian children. They love basketball and the Toronto Raptors, and were two of my best door knockers during the campaign. Usman was born in Canada, while Umaid was born just before we left Pakistan and came here as a baby. They have much in common with their classmates, but there is one difference. While Usman was born here and Umaid was not, both are still dual citizens and both could be stripped of their citizenship under Bill C-24.

How can I tell my two sons that they are different from their classmates? They both feel Canadian to their core and deeply love this country and all it stands for. Should Umaid and Usman really be treated as second-class citizens? This is wrong, and it goes against the fundamental values of the country they both grew up in, which shaped them into the fine young men they have become.

That is why I was so proud, not just as a candidate but as a mother, when the Prime Minister came to my campaign office for a rally during the first week of the election campaign and promised to repeal this provision of Bill C-24. My sons and many more sons and daughters heard the Prime Minister reassert those core Canadian values when he told us, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. With Bill C-6, none of our children will ever again have to feel like second-class citizens in the country they love.

Our diversity is our strength and we are stronger, not in spite of our diversity but because of its diversity.

There are a number of other worthy elements of Bill C-6 that I would like to draw to the attention of the House. Of particular interest to my constituents in Scarborough Centre are the changes to the language testing requirements, returning the age range required to pass the language testing to the age group 18 to 54.

Encouraging family reunification is an important goal of this government, including parents and grandparents, and these provisions will make a major difference in this regard.

I know many Filipino and Gujarati families in Scarborough where the grandparents have come to Canada to join their children and grandchildren, and are making vitally important contributions to both our society and our economy.

With one Filipino family in my neighbourhood, the grandmother comes to take the kids to school first thing in the morning, and then takes them home afterwards and looks after them into the evening. In the summer, she takes the children to summer camp and on activities and outings around the city. By taking care of her grandchildren during the day, she allows her son and her daughter-in-law to both work full time, contributing to our economy and allowing them to provide more opportunities for their children.

I know one Gujarati families in Scarborough grandmother who looks after six grandchildren. I do not know how she does it, but these grandmothers and grandfathers and the child care they provide, as well as the emotional support they provide to their children, are invaluable to our economy.

I agree that new Canadian citizens should be required to meet a certain level of English or French proficiency. However, do we really want to force the 64-year-old Filipino grandmother to pass a demanding language test? I would rather have her grandchildren teach her while they are at the park.

Finally, I would like to touch on the various changes to residency requirements to applying for Canadian citizenship that would be made by Bill C-6. The proposed bill will help permanent residents become Canadian citizens sooner by reducing the time they must be physically present in Canada before being able to apply, from four years to three years. Applicants will also receive credit for time they were present in Canada without being a permanent resident, for example, if they were studying on a student visa or a skilled worker.

My feeling is this. If individuals are hard-working contributing members of society, if they love our great country as much as we do and want to take that next step and join us as a citizen, then I see no reason to make them wait so long. They are exactly the kind of person we want to join our Canadian family.

With Bill C-6, this government delivers on its promise to restore the integrity of Canadian citizenship and reaffirms our Canadian values of openness, fairness, and equality. Today, we can proudly say once again, with our heads held high, that we live in the greatest country in the world, and that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

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

Madam Speaker, the bill before the House will create two-tier citizenship. The current law, law as amended by Bill C-24, levelled the playing field of citizenship. It meant that whether or not an individual was native born or an immigrant who became naturalized, both of those types of citizens could have their citizenship revoked if they had another nationality, or held dual citizenship, and had committed certain acts.

The bill will create two-tier citizenship because it will remove the right of the government to revoke citizenship for native-born Canadians, but keep it in place for those immigrants who come here and become naturalized Canadian citizens. That is two-tier citizenship.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

The NDP is obviously very pleased to be able to help fix mistakes made by the Conservatives with Bill C-24, which attacked fundamental rights and created two classes of Canadians.

I would like to ask my colleague a question about citizenship. Since February 2014, processing fees for citizenship applications increased from $100 per person to $530 per person, which can result in very significant costs. For example, a family that would like to apply for Canadian citizenship could well pay more than $1,500.

I would like to know what the member thinks of this fee increase. Would he consider reducing the fees to what they were two years ago, that is, $100 per person?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is hard to speak after listening to my colleague from Brampton East with his passionate speech, but I will do my very best and attempt to emulate him.

Diversity, inclusion, immigration: these are pillars of this great country and should always inform any debate in this chamber. I am rising today to speak in support of this bill with these fundamentals in mind.

When this House considers a subject as important and as fundamental as citizenship, we should treat these debates with the importance they deserve. Today I am rising to support this bill. My constituents will be thrilled to hear that our government is addressing serious errors that Bill C-24 created, whether they were purposeful or not. I thank the minister for swiftly reversing these errors and addressing these concerns.

One of our nation's many pillars is the successful integration of immigrants into new Canadians. Our country is stronger because of our diversity, and our government encourages all immigrants to take the path to full and permanent membership in this country and Canadian society.

Bill C-6 achieves just that. These changes would provide newcomers to Canada more flexibility to help meet their requirements for citizenship. I know I am not alone in this House when I say that, day in and day out, as members of Parliament, we hear about the unique paths that newcomers have taken to end up here in Canada. A number of these paths have been filled with hardship, challenges, and roadblocks.

As a government, we have a responsibility to ease immigration to our country, especially when it comes to reuniting families with their loved ones. For the past number of years, we have seen processing times for applications balloon. Now, as a result, I hear about constituents in my riding who have waited not months but years for decisions on their applications.

My family's immigration story is similar to that of millions of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It is a story I share with many of constituents in my riding of Surrey Centre. My father, Mohan Singh Sarai, emigrated here from India in 1959, 57 years ago, and my mother, Amrik Kaur Sarai, emigrated in 1969. They came to this country to participate fully in Canadian society. My brothers are transportation workers, sawmill workers, and truck drivers, and one is a postman, all active in their communities, coaching, volunteering, or working in community kitchens around the great province of British Columbia.

I look around this chamber, and I know that many have similar stories to tell, and that is exactly what makes this place and country so great. The government recognizes that newcomers often begin building an attachment to this country long before they become permanent residents. This includes students who study in our great institutions, such as Simon Fraser University and Kwantlen Polytechnic University in my riding.

They would now receive credit for their time while they study in schools in our great land. This bill proposes allowing applicants to receive credit for the time they were legally in Canada before actually becoming status permanent residents.

Let us be clear about what this legislation would accomplish. This bill removes the unnecessary barriers to becoming full members of Canadian society. Our government has taken action by narrowing the age range of those required to meet language and knowledge requirements, so more newcomers have the chance of being granted Canadian citizenship.

Our government has demonstrated leadership by repealing the intent-to-reside provision of citizenship applications. I know there was a period of time during the previous Parliament when the government of the day conveniently forgot about a pesky little document called the charter. However, our government recognizes that all Canadians are free to move wherever they choose, and this right is guaranteed in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I want to talk about something I find to be deeply troubling. Let us imagine a country where people who were born and raised in this country could have their citizenship taken away. That country does exist, and its name is Canada.

Now this might come as a shock to my colleagues from across the aisle, but I agree with them. I will go slowly here so my colleagues can follow.

When terrorists commit a crime against our country, we should lock them up and let them pay for their crime, because when people commit a crime in this country, we lock them up, we prosecute them, and we sentence them to jail. This is the Canada my parents immigrated to, the place I am proud to call my home, and in this country we have a justice system designed to do exactly that: provide justice to Canadians.

I have had this debate with many during and after the election: citizenship is akin to adoption. When parents adopt a child, they take the child not knowing what he or she will become. Some may become doctors, lawyers, nurses, electricians, or maybe even members of Parliament, but some may also end up becoming criminals. However, the adoptive parents cannot, all of a sudden, tell the biological parents from whom they adopted their children that the kid is now a criminal and they want to return the child, as he or she is not their child anymore. Their child is their child is their child.

The same goes for citizenship. When people come to Canada, we assess their medical histories, perform deep and extensive criminal histories and security assessments, including criminal record checks, histories, backgrounds, and we watch them for at least five years. For the first five years they live in Canada, we monitor them and are able to see their actions. Only after completing that long assessment and a written test, and in some cases an interview with a judge, do we decide that they are worthy of our citizenship. After that point, they are ours, period.

Subsequently, if people get radicalized or become terrorists or criminals of any kind in Canada, they are our problem, not the country from which they came. Why should another country take our criminals? Why? They become a problem in Canada, so why should the countries of their birth or their parents' birth take them back? Their act of terrorism or criminality happened or was conceived on Canada's soil, while being Canadian.

Therefore, we cannot just do a brain drain from countries by taking their best and brightest and then deport those who become rotten apples here in Canada. If this were the case, then we should deport the hundreds of mass murderers, serial rapists, pedophiles, and other criminals who are in Canada, in Canadian jails, back to the countries from which their parents came.

With that in mind, do we wish to have people of Canadian descent, who have migrated and become citizens elsewhere, such as the United States or European countries, be deported back here when they do heinous crimes in their new country of choice? No, they should pay for their crimes there.

Let us recap. Should Bill C-6 become law, it would give more flexibility for newcomers to Canada to apply, more newcomers would become full and permanent residents of this great country, and they would become citizens faster. Finally, it would remove and end a shameful second class of citizenship that should never exist in a country such as ours.

I hope my colleagues in the House will support our government's initiatives because our country is stronger not because we have no diversity but because of it.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is obviously very passionate about the topic.

I am pleased to hear the hon. member raise the concern about lack of due process and rule of law. This is something that we stand for proudly in Canada. When I worked overseas in other countries, we tried to encourage them to move in that direction.

I am sad to say, though, that apparently this law still leaves some unilateral powers vested in the minister without a judicial hearing, and perhaps they will revisit that provision.

One thing I would like to raise is that it is one thing to improve the law, and as my colleague previously said, many of my constituents were also very concerned about Bill C-24 and will be pleased that I am standing here supporting changes in that law.

We are deeply concerned about the delays in bringing on immigration staff to expedite applications for family reunification and so forth. In my jurisdiction, we are now facing, for the second time, having no citizenship judge. We went through this a year ago. We had to wait a year for a citizenship judge, and now we are without one again.

What is the hon. member willing to do to get his party to employ people and get people appointed so that we can move on making people citizens of Canada?

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the context of the statement that was made, it was the arbitrary notion of Bill C-24 that went to the core of what was wrong with that bill. It could unilaterally take away citizenship from any Canadian who held dual citizenship and was not born in this country. It was arbitrary. It was not fair.

I want to say to the member opposite that it was not a reference to the previous government. I apologize if he may have construed it in a way that I did not mean. I want to focus on the fact that Bill C-24 was arbitrary, not fair, and that it could unequivocally take away citizenship from people who did not deserve to fall under that law.

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the hon. member for Surrey Centre. It is a pleasure to be able to speak in support of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act .

As the member of Parliament from a riding where immigration is the number one concern for many of my constituents, I am proud to support this bill. During my 11-week campaign and the two years leading up to it, I heard time and again of the issues that people were facing concerning bringing their loved ones to Canada, or their struggles in gaining citizenship while they were completing their residency requirements.

Since the good people of Brampton East sent me to this chamber, my constituency office has received over 400 cases, and 99% of them deal with immigration. They are families who have waited seven years to be reunited. There are thousands who have waited 18 months since they were married to begin their life together. There are genuine visitor visa cases that are being denied time and again. There are also PR holders who have filled out the application, met the residency requirements, and suffered under the unnecessary changes to the Citizenship Act made by the previous government.

I am the proud son of immigrants. My family's story is similar to that of many families across this great nation. My parents immigrated to Canada in the late 1970s in search of social and economic opportunities. They worked hard. My dad was a taxi cab driver, and my mom lifted boxes in a factory. My parents realized that in Canada anything was possible with a bit of hope and a lot of hard work. At the core of their story is the day that they became Canadian citizens. It was not just a document to them. For my parents, it was security and a sense of pride that they were finally part of the Canadian family. At the ceremony, they proudly sang O Canada, and called their relatives for a party to celebrate the occasion.

Time and again, my father tells me that I won the lottery by being born in Canada, that I am a Canadian citizen by birthright, and that being a Canadian citizen is the envy of the world. I could not agree with him more. When asked on the campaign trail how I enjoyed the process, I responded that I am living the Canadian dream.

Brampton East is the second-most diverse riding in the entire country. The strength of our country has always been our diversity and building upon one another's experiences. Yet, at the same time, no matter where we come from or what we believe, we are all united by our Canadian values.

A few weeks ago, I had the honour and privilege of welcoming our new Syrian brothers and sisters at Pearson International Airport. I had the opportunity to chat with some of them, and the hope and joy in their voices was priceless. They knew how special it was to come to Canada as permanent residents. One parent spoke about how her children would now have the opportunity to live out their dreams. One day, a young Syrian refugee will study hard, become a professional, gain citizenship, and become a member of Parliament and sit in this very House. His or her life story will be a story of the Canadian dream.

Day in and day out, my team in Brampton East helps our constituents understand the immigration process, helps them determine their eligibility, and supports them through any challenges they face. Gaining citizenship is a cherished goal for many of my constituents, as well as the associated objectives such as family unification, which our government is also improving upon.

When the previous government announced the changes to the Citizenship Act, it redefined the narratives of citizenship and what it meant to be a Canadian. As a result, it pitted Canadians against one another in the ugliest of ways in order to serve political purposes. This greatly affected the citizens of my riding, many of whom are first-generation and second-generation Canadians. Their families moved here with the hopes and dreams of building a secure and prosperous life in Canada and providing the best foundation for their children to contribute to Canadian society.

Bill C-24, introduced by the previous government, tore into these hopes and dreams, as well as the hard work my constituents had put into building successful lives for their families. It created a fear and discomfort that is not the norm for Canadian society, and it certainly should not be.

Former citizenship and immigration minister Chris Alexander defended this bill by arguing that citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Simply put, he is wrong. It may come with responsibilities, but citizenship is a right. Once legitimately acquired by birth or naturalization, it cannot be taken away.

Bill C-24 gave the government the kind of sweeping power that is common in dictatorships, not in a democracy built upon the rule of law where all citizens are equal. The previous government used national security as a justification for the bill, but Bill C-24 could easily have been used against Canadians who were innocent under the laws. That was the danger in the lack of clarity and overreaching scope of that bill. That is the slippery slope that we must avoid at all costs.

Under that bill, the only Canadians who could not lose their citizenship arbitrarily were those born in Canada who did not have another nationality. The double standard and inequality that the law inflicted was immediately obvious to most Canadians. Revoking citizenship is one of the most serious consequences that a society may impose and should remain an exceptional process. It should be conducted with the highest degree of procedural fairness, as rightly noted by the Canadian Bar Association and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. We must trust our justice system to ensure that all criminals of Canadian nationality face the consequences of their actions, but that should not come at the expenses of their civil liberties.

I cannot say strongly enough how proud I am of the government for introducing Bill C-6, which aims to right the wrongs of Bill C-24 committed against dual citizens, potential dual citizens, and those looking to become citizens. Canada is, and always has been, and always will be, a country that opens its arms to others, whether it be immigrant families or our new Syrian refugee brothers and sisters. It is also in our nature to support these individuals to become integrated members of our society until they are settled and contributing to their community.

I would now like to focus on the importance of other parts of Bill C-6 that may not get as much attention.

I applaud the government for eliminating unjustified barriers to achieving citizenship. Allowing applicants to receive credit for the time they are legally in Canada before becoming permanent residents is a huge step in the right direction, if we value the talent and work ethic of the people who come to work or study in Canada. I am sure we have all met a bright, young international student with a promising career whom we would like to call Canada home, as we do. This improvement to the immigration system would create economic growth in communities, as we have the best and brightest of the world's population joining our workforce.

Allowing applicants to apply for citizenship one year sooner by reducing the number of days of physical presence has already been very well received in ridings like Brampton East.

Bill C-6 would correct a wrong. I am proud of the government for making this commitment during the campaign and now fulfilling its promise.

We can never forget that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member on his speech. He spoke with sincerity.

During the election campaign I too heard about Bill C-24. Obviously I was hearing different things. Members of my riding were supportive of the revocation of citizenship for acts of terrorism, treason, or espionage.

While I will congratulate the Liberals and the NDP on one thing, which is changing the narrative on the bill and making it seem to be more than it was, I was interested in the member's comments with respect to not supporting the revocation on the basis of treason, espionage, or terrorism.

Bill C-6, as it currently stands, does allow for the revocation of citizenship that has been gained through fraud. Could I ask the member why it is any less important to revoke citizenship for treason, terrorism, and espionage than it is for fraud?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak in support of Bill C-6 today, although I do feel that it falls short in a number of areas.

As has been said by several speakers here today and yesterday, most Canadians come from immigrant families, and many of us have stories of parents and grandparents who came to this country to ensure a better life for their children. My mother's family, the Munns, came from Scotland to Newfoundland in 1837, and I was very happy and honoured to hear the member for Avalon read a statement on Tuesday regarding my great-great-uncle John Munn, who came here in 1837 as a young entrepreneur and started Munn and Co., one of the greatest merchant companies in the storied history of Newfoundland, a company that was taken over by my great-grandfather, Robert Stewart Munn, in 1878.

My father's father, on the other hand, came from more humble beginnings, the slums of Bristol. He went to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia in 1907, and I am proud to use the leather case that he was given by his colleagues when he left England. I use it in recognition of the courage that he showed in giving up his life in England and moving to the wild west over a century ago.

To my way of thinking, Bill C-6 and its attempt to fix some of the serious shortcomings in citizenship law in Canada is a very welcome step. I would like to talk about the provisions in this bill that repeal the parts of Bill C-24 that relate to people who hold dual citizenship in Canada.

During a very long election campaign, like everyone in the chamber, I talked to thousands of people across my riding. As we found out on election day, most of them were desperate for a change in government. When I spoke with citizens on their doorsteps or answered questions at forums, they had a long list of concerns with the former government, but what really surprised me about the depth of these concerns was the fact that many people actually knew the names and numbers of a couple of the bills that bothered them.

I was not so much surprised that they knew about Bill C-51, as there had been a number of local rallies in my area and the bill had been well covered in the news, but I was really surprised to find out how many people immediately named Bill C-24 as their biggest concern. It is not often people know the names and numbers of bills. They were particularly vehement in their discussions around its provisions for stripping people with dual citizenship of their Canadian citizenship. It did not matter that this bill supposedly targeted only terrorists and spies; when taken in context with Bill C-51, there was a lot of concern at the time over who might be considered a terrorist, a spy, or a traitor.

A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting of environmental activists in a church basement in the Okanagan Valley. Most of the people there were elderly folks who were worried about the impacts of oil tankers along the Pacific coast. They were learning the basics of door-to-door canvassing. We found out some years later that a federal agent had attended the meeting and that some of the volunteers were followed and photographed as they canvassed neighbourhoods.

The previous government clearly treated anti-pipeline activists as traitors, and Bill C-51 came close to legalizing that view. Who is to say what future governments may decide about the definition of these serious charges? That is why I am very happy to see that Bill C-6 will repeal those parts of Bill C-24 that created two kinds of Canadian citizens: those who were safely Canadian and those who could lose their citizenship at the whim of some future minister.

This section of Bill C-24 has been denounced by the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and many respected academics. Many of these experts feel that Bill C-24 does not comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or international law. Like many other bills from the previous government, it was given a rather Orwellian doublespeak name. In this case it was called the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, when it clearly did the opposite.

When we welcome immigrants to Canada and grant them citizenship, they become Canadians, citizens like every one of us here in this chamber. They deserve to be given the same rights of citizenship as all of us, whether or not they choose to retain the citizenship of another country.

On top of that, one has to wonder why we would want to strip people of their citizenship and deport them, even if they have been convicted of treasonous or terrorist acts. Would we want them plotting against Canada from some foreign country, where they could easily be drawn into terrorist groups to harm Canadians and other citizens, or do we want them to be safely behind bars in prisons here in Canada?

I would like to turn now to talking about welcoming new immigrants. We all know the great benefits that immigrants bring to our country. Their hard work helps build this country, and we should remove unnecessary barriers to citizenship. I am happy to see that Bill C-6 begins to address some of these issues.

One of those barriers is the requirement that most new citizens be proficient in one of our two official languages. My daughter works in an immigrant support centre teaching English to refugees and new immigrants. Lately her classes have included refugees who have come to our region from Syria. I have met her students and can attest to their enthusiasm for learning English so that they can become fully integrated into the local community, get jobs, and become productive members of our society.

That said, I do support the provision in Bill C-6 that returns the age restriction to this requirement to 54 years of age, since older immigrants have strong family support and in turn are supporting their children's family at home. Many of these older immigrants have difficulty learning a new language and can contribute to Canadian society through their relationships with their children and other community members.

On that note, I would like to bring up the extreme difficulties just mentioned by my colleague that face young families of new Canadians who are trying to reunify their families and bring their parents to Canada.

I have had numerous representations, as I am sure many here have, from constituents who have been trying for years to bring parents to live with them in Canada. I have one family that has been trying for almost 10 years to bring their parents to join them in Canada. It breaks my heart to tell them that they have another six and a half years to wait. In the meantime, their parents are getting older and older. They do not think it is useful to continue the process because it is just so frustrating, so I hope the government acts on its promises to quickly clear up this backlog by replacing the present system with one that is fair and really works.

I would also like to note that many immigrant support centres across this country have had their federal funds cut over the past two years, making it difficult for these centres to help refugees and new immigrants get the language lessons and the other help they need to integrate into our communities.

To conclude, I urge the government to continue to remove unnecessary barriers to new immigrants in Canada, both through legislative action and through proper funding for immigrant support.

I would like to reiterate that Canada is a country of immigrants that should continue to welcome new Canadians from around the world. Bill C-24 was a giant step in the wrong direction, and Bill C-6 is a good step back toward making Canada a welcoming country, a country that we can all be proud of.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comment. I disagree with a few of his comments on Bill C-24. The bill really has not been around long enough to measure any of its impacts, positive or negative. I know he mentioned those in his speech.

The path to citizenship remains the same. It was just a little longer in our past bill compared to the bill proposed today. Why does he feel that the requirement is reasonable? Is it so unreasonable to live and work in this country 183 days a year in four out of six years? In addition to that, why are they taking out the clause to compel immigrants to live in the country? Part of being a citizen here is to live and work here, not to get citizenship and then go somewhere else. What would he like to say to that specific point in Bill C-6?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

I am pleased that Bill C-6 is moving through the House of Commons. As New Democrats, it is not exactly all that we want, but at least it will result in some movement on a number of different initiatives that have not only hurt this country economically, socially, and culturally, but also hurt the individuals we need to be a successful country.

I come from a riding that has over 100 organized ethnic cultures that have been part of the foundation of our border town, which basically has a third of the nation's trade go through it a day. It also has some of the most diverse areas. It is where the War of 1812 took place and was the end of the Underground Railroad, where people came to Canada to escape slavery in the United States. A number of times we contested bounty hunters coming into Canada to remove individuals back to the United States to collect a bounty and return them to slave owners. In many respects we had become a refuge against the acts and activities that we, as a part of the British empire at that time, clearly viewed as needing to change, such as the slave trade. That opposition of ours is very much a part of our cultural element. Although we were geographically large, at that time we were a small colonial country in terms of population. We were standing in the wings of the United States and offering something called freedom against its very controversial republic of union and the southern states, which eventually led to the Civil War. It was quite a stand for the people, communities, and so forth, of our country to take at that time.

Therefore, when we talk today about the changes called for in Bill C-6, we must keep in mind that if we were to continue with the policy brought in under the Conservatives in Bill C-24, we would be harming our ability to be successful in the world.

I will point to a couple of local examples that are also somewhat national in nature because they happen in many other border town facilities.

We have not only had many immigrants and refugees come to our region and contribute in recent years, as we have discussed over the last two years with respect to Syrian refugees, but we have also had a steady stream of immigrants come into our region who have helped to build the national footprint of this country and make significant local progress on many different issues.

Bill C-24 was basically more than just a fly in the ointment with respect to the Canadian dream of being a multicultural country; it became adverse to our economy and to the families that we need because we do not have a growing population ourselves. It is the reality of our future.

It is interesting when I hear some pushback about this from certain members of the public who ask the honest and interesting questions they feel the need to ask, such as who will pay for their pensions in the future if we do not have skilled labour and other types of labour coming to contribute back to the Canadian economy.

Interestingly enough, in a border town like mine we have seen the harmful effects of the extension of days and time required to be spent in Canada before a residency gets completed. In my riding alone, the issue was so bad that we received a budget for a single position in my constituency to hire someone four days a week to deal with immigration itself. We are not funded for that position in the overall budgeting of the House of Commons, which is sad because we had a new Walker Road immigration facility open up in Windsor eight or nine years ago. It also had a room for ceremonies. People could go and get their file looked after and could get updates. That office was not only subject to staffing reductions by the past regime, but we have also seen it close to the public.

A number of people have English as a second language. Let us be clear on this. They may be doctors, engineers, or teachers. They come from all walks of life. Some are skilled workers, some are not. These people are trying to get information about their cases. They may have a spouse, children, or parents who do not know what the h-e-double hockey sticks is happening. That is unfortunate, because they are trying to move on with their lives. The process takes far too long. This has been a habitual problem since I have been here in Parliament. Hopefully the changes proposed in this legislation will improve this to some degree. I hope staffing levels will get augmented. Hopefully, the office will be opened up so that people can get processed quickly.

How would this affect people in Windsor West, Toronto, Montreal, northern Ontario, or any other place in Canada? Employment will be delayed for these people. Their contributions back into our tax system will be delayed. Ironically, over 10,000 workers cross over to the Detroit region every day because that city is short of skilled labour. Some of these people are doctors, nurses, accountants, and marketing consultants. A lot of them have value-added skills, but their skills are not recognized in Canada. Some of these people have degrees but they cannot practise here. They cannot use their experience here. They can do so in the United States.

Thousands of people in the health care industry go over to the United States. These are doctors and nurses and other types of health care professionals. If Canadians need urgent hospital care, they are sent to Detroit to get help. We will pay a premium here in Canada for them to be treated by Canadians working in Detroit who are not allowed to practise their skills in our country. We pay a premium to send individuals over there, where they quite likely will receive treatment from people who have been denied a licence to practise here in Canada.

These delays in our immigration policy over the last number of years and the issue with Bill C-24 have created a shroud around families that makes it difficult for them to contribute.

I listened with interest to the previous speaker who said that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. I was at the U.S. embassy with Raymond Chrétien, who was the ambassador at that time. It was the first time an announcement was made that five countries would be put on a watch list. People who were granted Canadian citizenship but came from a third country might be exposed to fingerprinting and having their picture taken and other security checks done. I argued about this at the time, but to this day nothing has ever been done about it. That was the first step that took place. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian was not the case. We now have two-tier citizenship. We need to change that policy as well, and we can work toward that in the future.

Bill C-6 provides us with an opportunity to work on different things. We want to work on a few points contained in the legislation. It is not appropriate for the minister to unilaterally act with regard to someone's citizenship without judicial oversight. That is not appropriate in terms of an individual's rights. No minister of any political party should have that type of influence over a process that should be carried out in the courts. There should be accountability for the person, because he or she is a Canadian citizen. They should be entitled to their rights. We need to make sure that those rights are thoroughly reviewed, not only for them but for the rest of Canadian society.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that my NDP colleagues and I are very pleased that the Liberals introduced this bill because, from the beginning, we were strongly opposed to the Conservatives' Bill C-24, which created two classes of Canadians among immigrants. It contained many harmful and probably unconstitutional measures.

However, there are still many things that need to be improved. Do the Liberals plan to reduce fees for families in their next budget? For a family of four, for example, the fees are now almost $1,500. That decreases opportunities and makes it more difficult for immigrant families to become Canadian citizens.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour and pleasure to rise in the House today to speak about the government's plan to repeal provisions in the Citizenship Act. As this is a concern relating to citizenship, which is so central to Canadian identity, and matters of immigration, which are essential to the Canadian story, it is especially an honour for me, as the son of immigrants, to be here today.

Mr. Speaker, I want to also mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Davenport.

As the provisions only apply to Canadians with dual or multiple citizenships, they contribute to the creation of a two-tiered system. It is unacceptable in a democratic society that dual or multiple nationals are vulnerable to losing their citizenship.

This is a point that was raised time and again by stakeholders and private individuals when the previous legislation, Bill C-24, was first introduced.

Groups were as varied as the Canadian Bar Association, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, and Amnesty International. I would like to quote a few of these concerns.

David Matas of B'nai Brith, who testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration stated that:

We should not be revoking the citizenship of Canadians for crimes committed after the acquisition of citizenship, no matter what the crime.

I want to emphasize that point that Mr. Matas made.

I will continue with his quote:

Once a person becomes a Canadian citizen and commits a crime, then he is our criminal. We should not pretend otherwise.

Barbara Jackman, speaking on behalf of the Canadian Bar Association, stated before the same committee that:

For people who are born here and who have grown up here, it can result in banishment or exile.

She went on to observe that we punish people through the criminal justice system.

In its submission to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on Bill C-24, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants stated that, in its view:

Treating dual citizens differently is discriminatory and violates the fundamental principle that all citizens are equal. Citizens should not face different consequences for committing the same crimes. Creating separate rules for dual citizens creates a two-tiered citizenship, with lesser rights for some citizens.

These are just a few of the many examples of organizations and individuals publicly expressing their view that the revocation measures created two different kinds of citizenship.

Many of my constituents in London North Centre have told me that this is unacceptable. I heard it throughout the election campaign, and I have heard it since. There is great support for this bill in London North Centre. My constituents want all Canadians to be treated fairly and with a high level of respect. London, Ontario, was built on immigration, and many Londoners hold dual or multiple citizenship. These are extremely proud Canadians who value and respect this beautiful country. We have an obligation to be fair and respectful to them, as well.

Our government has listened to these concerns and Bill C-6 clearly addresses them.

No government should ever have the ability to take away an individual's Canadian citizenship. Any Canadian who commits a crime ought to be punished. There is no debate on that point, at all, on this side of the House and, I am happy to say, with my hon. colleagues in the NDP.

However, the revocation of citizenship crosses a line that we must never accept. Without citizenship, the rights and equality we all enjoy become meaningless. Canada is a country that prides itself on solid democratic principles and foundations and is an example for other nations. However, playing fast and loose with the definition of citizenship is a very slippery slope and inevitably calls into question our leadership in this area.

I again point to the importance of my constituents. I am here to represent them and I want to reference what I have heard on the ground, as their MP.

I have heard loud and clear from my constituents in London North Centre that fair treatment of all Canadians and dedication to the principles of democracy, tolerance, and equality are what they expect in their elected officials and, more than this, in the Government of Canada.

I would also like to add that, while this position reflects my stand and that of our government, it was a former Conservative prime minister, John Diefenbaker, who held this view, and I am glad to continue that point in the debate that will follow, I assume.

By introducing this bill, we are taking concrete steps to return to a system where all citizens are treated equal, regardless of whether they are dual or multiple nationals. This is a commitment my party made before forming government, and we are following through now. This is a matter of principle and fundamental values for us. There should be one tier, only one tier, of Canadian citizenship.

I have no doubt that members in the House are concerned about security, and I want to turn to that point now for a moment. I can assure all of them that we remain unwavering in our commitment to protect the safety and security of Canadians. Canadians convicted of treason and terrorism will be dealt with through our justice system. As the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has stated, we have courts and prisons in Canada, and offenders will not go unpunished.

As well, there are measures in place before someone becomes a citizen. A person may be denied a visa or other travel document, refused entry to, or removed from Canada for security reasons or criminal activity, preventing him or her from becoming a citizen. Furthermore, prohibition grounds in the Citizenship Act remain in effect, barring individuals convicted of certain offences or engaged in activities against the national interest from acquiring citizenship in the first place.

Moreover, repealing the national interest grounds would not affect the ability to revoke citizenship where it was obtained fraudulently. The minister would continue to have authority to revoke citizenship in basic fraud cases. Furthermore, the Federal Court would continue to have authority to decide on cases where the fraud is in relation to a fact regarding security, human or international rights violations, or organized criminality. The ability to revoke citizenship where it was obtained fraudulently has been in place since the first Canadian Citizenship Act came into force in 1947, and it will continue to be in place.

Three additional proposed amendments included in this bill would further enhance the integrity of the citizenship program. The first is to include conditional sentence orders in the prohibitions provisions. The second is to ensure that the need for applicants to meet citizenship requirements, from the time their grant of citizenship is approved to the time they take the oath, applies to all applicants. The third would provide authority for the minister to seize documents that are fraudulent or are being used fraudulently when provided for the administration of the Citizenship Act.

As we have emphasized, Canada's commitment to diversity and inclusion is an essential, powerful, and ambitious approach to make Canada and the world a better and safer place. A Canadian is a Canadian, and that must never change.

Bill C-6 would bring us closer to putting this principle into action and to remaining the open, tolerant, and diverse country that we have been throughout our history and, I hope, we will continue to be.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like to know whether he is concerned about the fact that the Conservatives' bill created two classes of citizens: those who could lose their Canadian citizenship and those who, like me, have only Canadian citizenship and could not be subject to the type of punishment found in Bill C-24.

Does the member think it is right that there should be two classes of citizens?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by outlining my family history to some degree. My grandparents both immigrated from the Netherlands separately and were married in Canada. They went on to produce a large family of 10 children. I have over 80 cousins from that set of grandparents. They have been a very productive Canadian family.

I would like to thank and recognize in particular two of my aunts who worked tirelessly on my campaign. I would not be standing here today without their help, that is for sure.

I rise today to discuss the integrity of some of the proposed changes to our Citizenship Act. The previous Conservative government brought in Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. The measures enacted in Bill C-24 reinforced the value of Canadian citizenship and gave us a means to protect our country and citizens by revoking citizenship of dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason, and certain spying offences, or who have taken up arms against Canada.

A NRG poll of over 1,000 Canadians showed that 83% of Canadians and 85% of immigrants to Canada supported revoking citizenship from convicted terrorists. Many groups representing new Canadians endorsed the bill as well.

We believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives as immigrants strengthen an important part of who we are as a nation. They are the strength of our nation's future. We want newcomers to Canada to have every opportunity to succeed and to have opportunities for economic success.

A constituent of mine, Ray Galas, a hay farmer from northern Alberta, called me yesterday. He wants the government to focus on the economy so that newcomers arriving in Canada have every opportunity to contribute to our great country. A strong Alberta makes a strong Canada, a place for all to succeed.

We also want newcomers to experience many of our freedoms. All the new Canadians agree that we want to experience safe communities. Dual nationals convicted of terrorism erode the public safety we all cherish.

There are choices when it comes to penalizing dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism. One of them is jail. Revoking the right of citizenship is a penalty that fits the crime. The legislation that the Liberals seek to repeal allowed Canada to revoke the citizenship of the convicted terrorist Zakaria Amara, a member of the Toronto 18 . Members may remember that Mr. Amara was sentenced to life in prison after admitting to his role in the plan to attack sites in Toronto. He was convicted of knowingly contributing to a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the group to carry out an act of terror.

In 2007, Canada revoked the citizenship of two Nazi war criminals, enforcing the principle that Canada will not be a safe haven for anyone convicted of war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity.

The Liberals want to strike down this law. Canadian citizens have a responsibility to embrace Canadian values. A part of this responsibility that we all share as citizens is the special responsibility for the preservation of the principles of democracy and human freedom. These are cornerstones of our nation.

We are a law-abiding, generous, and compassionate country. The measures in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act were enacted to better protect our country and better combat the ongoing threat that countries worldwide are grappling with. Most of our peer countries have similar legislation in place.

I would point out that Bill C-6 is the Liberals' first bill dealing with immigration and public safety. It is extremely worrying that under this legislation, dual national citizenship cannot be revoked for the commission of an act of terrorism, but can be revoked for fraud. We are concerned about the Liberals' lack of focus. The ability to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism and similar offences is a sound, good, and commonsense law. It is law that helps to maintain the integrity of Canadian citizenship. We do not support the Liberals' attempt to weaken our country. We will continue to push to keep our country one of the best countries in the world.

Another component that concerns me is the removal of the requirement for an applicant to continue to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. The intention-to-reside provision likely does not restrict the mobility rights guaranteed under the charter. What it does do is reinforce the expectation that citizenship is for those who intend to make Canada their permanent home. This is not an unreasonable expectation. We want to ensure that citizenship applicants maintain strong ties to Canada.

There is a reason that Canadian citizenship is the most sought after citizenship in the world. We have a reputation as one of the best places to live, a place where jobs, security, hope, and freedom are available to all. Every year we receive thousands of applications from people who want to live here. We hope that those seeking Canadian citizenship intend to bring their personal experiences and contributions to our nation, just as many of the preceding immigrants did during the course of our nation's history.

The sum of our experiences has made us a better country. We hope that future immigrants will also contribute to our nation and enrich our country by residing here. It is disappointing that the Liberals have chosen to focus on the intent-to-reside provision when there are more pressing issues facing us in immigration, such as the shortage of applications from skilled labour immigrants.

There is another component of Bill C-6 that gives us cause for concern. That is the provision that reduces the number of days during which a person must be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship. Currently, the physical presence requirement is fulfilled if an applicant resides in Canada for only 183 days in four out of six years prior to making a citizenship application. The Liberal government proposes to change the physical presence requirement to three out of five years before the date of application.

The Conservative Party believes that stringent residency requirements promote integration and a greater attachment to Canada. We are opposed to any provision that weakens the integrity of Canadian citizenship, and we recommend that this component be struck from the bill.

Another component of Bill C-6 seeks to prevent applicants from being granted citizenship while serving conditional sentences, or allowing such time to count towards meeting the physical presence requirements for citizenship. We agree that these measures are reasonable and we support this component of the bill.

We also support the provision that all applicants must continue to meet the requirements of citizenship until they take the oath, regardless of when their application was received.

The Conservative Party believes that the strength of our nation lies in the strength of our citizens. Gaining citizenship by means of fraud undermines our nation and leaves us vulnerable. We support the component that gives citizenship officers the authority to seize fraudulent documents provided during the administration of the act, including during in-person interviews and hearings. The integrity of our Citizenship Act is not something we can take for granted.

If we allow dual nationals who are convicted of terrorism to remain Canadian citizens, we weaken our public safety. If we reduce the number of days during which a person must be physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship, we weaken integration within Canada.

In closing, we will examine the bill in detail, but we are extremely concerned about these changes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree. People who want to become Canadian want to contribute to the country. In my riding, we enjoy welcoming people and love having them move to our area. There are not very many immigrants in my riding of Mégantic—L'Érable because the town is not very big. However, the immigrants who do move there have talents and skills that we want to make the most of. People who want to come to Canada want to stay here. The requirements were completely reasonable, and I do not see why anyone would want to come here only to leave again. It is therefore legitimate to have some kind of minimum. In that regard, there was nothing wrong with Bill C-24.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and for his appreciation of the debates and discussions we have been having so far in this 42nd Parliament. However, I do want to ask him a question.

Most rights and freedoms advocacy groups and civil liberties organizations, such as the Barreau du Québec, the Canadian Bar Association, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council for Refugees, questioned the validity of the Conservatives' Bill C-24 in terms of complying with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law. I find that troubling.

How does my colleague explain the fact that the Conservative bill created two classes of citizens? People with dual citizenship risked losing their Canadian citizenship, although people with only Canadian citizenship could not lose theirs.

How can he support such a discriminatory principle that creates two classes of citizens?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that I will share my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock. I look forward to hearing him speak to this bill.

Not a single day goes by that I do not think about what a huge privilege I have to sit in the House and represent the people of my riding, Mégantic—L'Érable.

As a new member of Parliament from a small region of Quebec, I must say that this place is rather impressive. This is where elected officials contemplated the laws that have defined the Canada we know today. This is where they discussed and debated. Each government, each Parliament, and each parliamentarian had the opportunity to contribute to making our country, which is still a young one, one of the most admired democracies in the world. We are admired for our values of equality, compassion, justice, hospitality, and openness.

I am also impressed by the quality of the parliamentarians in this 42nd Parliament of Canada and by the diversity of its members. Just take a look around during question period and listen to those talking, and it becomes clear that Canada is a unique place in which everyone, regardless of where they come from, can help contribute to our country's future.

I would like to quote the Minister of Democratic Institutions, who spoke to the House yesterday about Bill C-6:

Whether an international student, or someone who works at GE, or a new Syrian to our community, we should acknowledge, encourage, and reward the choice that individuals make to come to Canada and to call this place home. They are experiencing Canada, especially before citizenship matters. Their choice to be here matters.

This will not always be the case, but the minister is absolutely right. I agree with her thoughts on this. Many people from around the world have chosen to live in Canada. Out of all the countries in the world, they chose Canada. This is the first country they chose to come to, as a new host country. I completely agree with the minister that we must acknowledge, encourage, and reward the choice that individuals make to come live in Canada.

What we must ask ourselves is why did these people choose Canada as their country? Why did they make that choice? The answer is obvious. They did so because Canada has always been a welcoming country, not just for the past 10 years or 100 years, but from the beginning.

It may not seem like it, but I am a very distant descendant of a German immigrant, a mercenary who came here to fight in a war and who chose to stay.

That is the nature of our Canadian citizenship. It is recognized around the world. When we travel, being Canadian is a little bonus wherever we go. Therefore, in my humble opinion, we must do everything we can to protect our values and this identity.

As I said earlier, as parliamentarians it is our role to make good decisions for future generations, just as parliamentarians in the previous 41 parliaments did before us. We have a responsibility towards Canadians. I would like to quote the member for Calgary Midnapore, the former minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, who said in his speech yesterday:

Canadian citizenship should be the gold standard; it should not be the bargain basement of citizenship in the world.

That brings me to Bill C-6. I am sure that the government's intentions are very honourable. Every single one of us is here to try to make things better, but we have to admit that sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes it is because we want to do too much a little too fast. We rush into things that we will regret sooner or later.

Unfortunately, the consequences of such precipitous actions cannot be undone. When a government makes a promise, such as a slight $10-billion deficit, and then realizes that it did not look at the books properly and that its promises will cost Canadians a fortune, it cannot break its promise. It has to live with that and try to explain to Canadians why a slight deficit is now a huge one. Actions and words cannot be undone. There is no going back. It is a broken promise.

Fortunately, there is still time for the government to avoid making a mistake with Bill C-6. I would like to take the Minister of Immigration up on his offer. Yesterday, he said, “We do not claim perfection.” We suspected as much. Then he said, “If some members on the committee, of any party, have ideas for how to improve it, we would be open to such suggestions.”

Here is my idea. I urge the government not to rush this, to take its time and listen to the official opposition's point of view on this bill.

For example, yesterday, the member for Calgary Nose Hill gave the minister some excellent suggestions based on her personal experience as the daughter of immigrants who chose Canada. I invite all of my colleagues to read her story and her reasons for opposing many aspects of Bill C-6.

My hon. colleague was quite eloquent, and there was a great deal of wisdom in her comments. She said:

My concern with the bill is that it puts the cart before the horse in a lot of ways. It looks at issues that perhaps are not of the utmost concern with regard to immigration policy in Canada. I hope we can come to some sort of consensus because this is something that is going to affect our country over the next 10 years.

Those are wise words of openness and collaboration that our critic said here in the House yesterday. The government still has a chance to show wisdom by taking the necessary time to introduce a bill on citizenship that will help maintain the high standards of Canadian citizenship.

What are we to make of a bill that allows an individual to keep his citizenship after he has been found guilty of terrorism and wanting to kill and spread fear in his adopted country? Is that the type of bill that should be hastily passed without consultation? Since the beginning of the session, every time there is talk about reform, we have heard, “We will consult Canadians on electoral reform, we will consult Canadians on the budget, we will consult Canadians, we made promises, and we will consult Canadians on those promises as well.”

It is good to want to consult Canadians, but sometimes, in other cases, the government says, “This is how it is. We are not holding consultations, we made a promise and we are taking immediate action to forget the bad years of the Conservatives”.

In this case, the government members would do well to consult people and listen. As the minister suggested in his speech yesterday, they should take the time to listen to the official opposition and understand the issues behind this decision to abolish Bill C-24 in the way that they have done.

Canada continues to be one of the safest countries in the world. That is why thousands of people from around the world choose us as a safe haven. However, Canada will not be a safe haven to anyone who wants to destroy it through violence and hatred. We need to send this very clear, straightforward message to anyone who wants to become a Canadian citizen.

To be Canadian means to want success for all one's fellow Canadians, regardless of race, gender, religion, beliefs, or culture. That is what it means to be Canadian. There is only one type of Canadians: those who share these values, as every one of us here in the House does.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague if she thinks that one of the greatest concerns with respect to Bill C-24 is that bureaucrats could revoke the citizenship of ordinary Canadians and not the courts, as it should be.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.

Before going any further, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.

I am proud to speak in support of the bill. I am proud to do so as the son and grandson of first-generation Canadians, as a former public servant who fought against organized crime and terrorism, and now as a member of Parliament in the House, at the very heart of our democracy.

Make no mistake, Bill C-6 is very much about protecting our democracy. It is about showing respect for the generations of immigrants who helped build our country up from its very foundations. It is about protecting the pathways to citizenship for future new Canadians. It is very much about ensuring that equality of citizenship remains a right enshrined by the charter.

On this side of the House, we believe, as the Prime Minister has said, that Canada is strong not in spite of its diversity but because of it. The new policy measures introduced by our proposed legislation will safeguard this value through and through. This was a key promise during the election, and Canadians are right to expect that we would deliver on it.

Nevertheless, there are some on the side of the official opposition who object to the bill. In brief, they say that our proposed legislation will make Canadians less safe and it diminishes the value of Canadian citizenship. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the law passed by the party opposite drastically overreaches, introduces hierarchical classes of citizenship, does nothing to keep us safe, and does nothing to enhance the value of citizenship.

Let me highlight the flaws under the old Bill C-24.

Under the law as it stands, Canadians who are convicted of certain serious crimes, and yes, including terrorism, may be stripped of their citizenship, but only if they hold citizenship in another country or could hold citizenship in another country. Therefore, it is not just Canadians who are dual citizens, but also Canadians who could be dual citizens, whom the opposition considers less equal than others.

It is not just terrorism, either. In the latter stages of the last election, a number of leading voices from the opposition were calling to expand the list of offences which could trigger revocation. Therefore, when the member opposite asks for evidence and facts about the slippery slope, there it is. It is part of the public record. It is not hard to see why some on the other side of the aisle say these things. Who does not want to punish a murderer, let alone a terrorist, and who does not want to denounce those who denounce Canada by their violent actions, motivated by a twisted ideological purpose?

As we reflect on these questions, I think of my own experience in prosecuting terrorists. I worked on the Toronto 18, along with some of the finest public servants I have ever known. This case involved a plot to detonate bombs in Toronto and to wage an attack on Parliament Hill. It was a serious and complex case and alarming to the public.

One of the ringleaders of this conspiracy was Zakaria Amara. He was convicted. Some of my hon. colleagues across the way have referred to Mr. Amara frequently of late. This is because Mr. Amara was born in Jordan and was, thus, caught under the dual citizenship provisions of Bill C-24. Just weeks before election day, he received a letter from the then government by the then minister of citizenship and immigration that he would be moving to revoke his citizenship.

The opposition says that Mr. Amara is the only one who stands to win when we pass Bill C-6, as it will have the effect of reversing the revocation process and allow him to maintain his Canadian citizenship. Mr. Amara is no winner. Mr. Amara is a convicted terrorist and he is serving a life sentence. I helped put him and his co-conspirators behind bars, which is where he remains to this day. The only winner is the Canadian public that saw an individual convicted following a fair trial and due process.

Let us put aside the winners and losers rhetoric. The opposition goes on to argue that revoking Mr. Amara's citizenship and deporting him to Jordan or some other place will make Canada safer. They are wrong. Where is the logic in deporting a convicted terrorist from our soil to some other place, where Canada has a diminished capacity to prevent future terrorist activity and where the deportee would only have an increased capacity to continue to recruit, to radicalize, and potentially to return to do more harm to us should he choose to resume his agenda?

I challenge my friends across the way to come up with a credible answer to that question. I think they will find it difficult to do so.

Even looking at their own policies, one finds inconsistencies. For example, the Conservatives also sought to make it a crime for Canadians to travel to some of the very same regions to which they would banish domestic terrorists. How can they reconcile that for the average Canadian? They cannot. Indeed, not only would deporting convicted terrorists not keep Canadians safer, I fail to see how it would keep any of our friends or allies safer.

I want to spend my remaining time talking about one of the central focuses of Bill C-6, which is to uphold the equitable principle of Canadian citizenship.

Taken at its highest, the opposition argues that if we do not strip away citizenship from convicted dual citizens and those eligible to be dual citizens, we are somehow tainting citizenship for those citizens of the “old stock”, to quote one expression coined by the opposition party. The thrust of its position is that it undermines citizenship to allow a convicted terrorist to remain in our midst.

Let me be clear. We in the House are united in our resolve against terrorism. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that terrorists belong behind bars. No one should ever doubt his resolve, nor that of the government, to confront any individual or any organization that would bring harm to our country and to see them brought to justice.

The previous government may not have liked to admit it, but all members, on all sides, take seriously our responsibility to keep our country safe. Bill C-6 would do just that. It would subject all criminals to the full force of Canadian law and the Canadian justice system. It would eliminate the former government's exception for those who hold, or could hold, citizenship in another country. It would mean that every Canadian, whether born here or naturalized, must obey the same laws or face the same consequences. It says that if people are convicted of terrorism in our country, they will go to prison in this country and they will stay there.

The opposition says that we should compromise the equality of our citizenship, but all it offers in return is a false promise of security.

Canadians have rejected the politics of division and fear. They have said, clearly, that there is no place in our laws for discrimination between those of us who were born here and those of us who were not. It now falls to us in the House, with this bill, to say the same.

My support of the bill is based upon the rule of law. My support of the bill is a vote of confidence for all the professionals who work in the law enforcement, intelligence, and corrections communities. My support of the bill is based upon the fundamental principle that it is the bedrock of who we are and the basic measure of what we share. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

To be clear, I do not begrudge the members opposite for being angry, or even afraid in the face of terrorism. Those are the basic human responses to seeing our laws broken and our freedoms abused. However, we must not allow our fears to erode the principles and values on which our country was founded: equality, fairness, and compassion.

We are better than the law that is now on our books. It does not make us safer, but it does make us less equal. That is why Bill C-6 must pass.

[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?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has gone to great lengths to tell us why Bill C-24 was a terrible bill, and I appreciate her support on this issue. The Conservative government went to great lengths to devalue Canadian citizenship, to make Canadians unequal, and to separate Canadians by the age of their stock. The minister warned that revocation of citizenship on the basis of a particular crime is a slippery slope, a sentiment with which I could not agree more.

I have citizenship in two countries and eligibility for citizenship in two more. I have never been to any of those other three countries where I either have or am eligible to have citizenship. My two-year-old daughter has multiple citizenships as well. Among my wife, me, and my daughter, we are either citizens of or are eligible to be citizens of Canada, Ireland, the Philippines, Spain, and Israel. This is the result from being from families of immigrants from all over the world. It does not even list the numerous countries like France, Turkey, Poland, and Australia where I have ancestry but not citizenship.

I am the result of that very Canadian story of immigrants coming from everywhere, getting together, and creating new generations of Canadians. Why should my daughter be subject to a slippery slope whereby she could be stripped of her Canadian citizenship and sent to another country in which she has theoretical eligibility for citizenship, but has never been and may not even have the intention to explore because of breaking that law the particular government has passed? I will ask her in a few years.

What value has Canadian citizenship if we give the government the right to revoke it at will? What is a Canadian if not a Canadian? The member's comments on Bill C-24 are essentially correct, and I want to thank her for helping us on the road to fixing a decade of mistakes by the last government on this file. It is not the only error it made and is not the only one on which we will be seeking help to rectify.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-6 is an act that would amend the Conservatives' Bill C-24, the so-called strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. To put Bill C-6 in context, we must first examine the content of Bill C-24.

During the 41st Parliament, the Conservatives made significant changes to the Citizenship Act under Bill C-24. Effectively, the Conservatives' Bill C-24 created two classes of citizens in which Canadians with dual citizenship were treated as second-class citizens. Many experts repeatedly pointed out that the bill was likely unconstitutional and did not respect international law.

The NDP opposed Bill C-24 from the beginning and at second reading, the NDP called on the Conservatives to withdraw the bill. The Conservatives refused and, despite our opposition, rammed Bill C-24 through without amendment. Then, in June 2014, Bill C-24 received royal assent. Since then, the NDP has been asking for the bill to be repealed.

As it happens, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister made the promise, particularly in the Chinese media, that he would repeal Bill C-24 if he formed government. Well, as members may have guessed, Bill C-6 does not repeal Bill C-24 in its entirety.

The NDP is disappointed that the Prime Minister is failing to deliver on his promise to repeal Bill C-24, but we welcome the provisions of Bill C-6.

Worth mentioning are the following amendments: removing the ability to revoke citizenship on national interest grounds; removing the obligation for a new citizen to declare intent to reside in Canada; restoring the length of time a permanent resident must actually be present in Canada to qualify for citizenship to three years, which is 1,095 days over the last five years; restoring the right to count two years of temporary residence toward the required presence in Canada; eliminating the requirement that an applicant must have been present in Canada for 183 days in four out of the six years; and removing the requirement for the language and knowledge examinations to permanent residents aged 14 to 17 and 55 to 64.

The NDP supports these provisions. First and foremost, we fundamentally believe that all Canadians should be treated equally under the law.

The Conservatives' Bill C-24 created two classes of citizens, some with more rights than others. Disproportionately, immigrants to Canada, their children and grandchildren, and those with dual or multiple citizenships are deemed to have less rights than those who were born in Canada.

If a Canadian is charged with a criminal offence, let him or her be brought in front of the Canadian judicial system and be tried fairly, independently, and equally under the Canadian judicial system. If found guilty, let him or her be sentenced under the same principles of fairness, independence, and equality.

The Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and many respected academics all said that the former Bill C-24 was likely unconstitutional and did not respect international law. In fact, there was already a court challenge on Bill C-24. Josh Paterson, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said:

All Canadian citizens used to have the same citizenship rights, no matter what their origins. We were all equal under the law. Now this new law has divided us into classes of citizens—those who can lose their citizenship, and those who can’t. Bill C-24 is anti-immigrant, anti-Canadian, and anti-democratic. It undermines – quite literally – what it means to be Canadian.

I am glad that Bill C-6 addresses this concern and this concern will be no more after the passage of Bill C-6.

Building from that basic fundamental principle, repealing the intent to reside provision of Bill C-24 is also a step in the right direction. The freedom of mobility, including the ability to leave the country, is very clearly enshrined in section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The intent to reside provision in Bill C-24 was vague, difficult to prove, confusing for citizenship applicants, and ignored the changing realities of people. Someone can intend to reside, but life circumstances, such as a relative in another country becoming severely ill, could interrupt that intention.

Work obligations could also alter that intention. In fact, during the campaign, I came across someone who has dual citizenship in the United States. As it happens, she is in the film industry. She travels a lot with her work. Sometimes she is away for a week. Other times, she may be away for a year or more. There is no telling. It is all subject to her work.

With Bill C-24, she was concerned that her intent to reside in Canada could be challenged and that she might lose her citizenship. This is just plain wrong. I am glad that Bill C-6 addresses this concern.

The Conservative Bill C-24 also made the pathway to citizenship for immigrants harder, longer, and frankly with other measures, more expensive to obtain. Accessibility to citizenship is the ultimate pathway to a person's right to fully participate in a democratic society. The cornerstone of a democracy is imbedded in having the right to vote. Creating additional barriers to access this citizenship only serves to undermine our democratic institution.

To that end, the NDP also supports the measure in Bill C-6 that returns physical presence requirements to what they were prior to Bill C-24, allowing time in Canada prior to obtaining permanent residence to partially count toward the physical presence requirement.

As I previously mentioned, there is a countless number of legitimate situations that would require a permanent resident or citizen to leave the country for an extended period of time. Restoring the old physical presence requirements is a step in the right direction, as is giving at least partial credit for the time spent in this country before obtaining permanent residence.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, IRCC, officials take their work seriously and work judiciously to ensure that every permanent resident meets the requirements to become a new Canadian.

The Conservative former Bill C-24 was brought in under the pretext that the provisions within the bill strengthened the meaning of being a Canadian, when in fact I would argue it served to undermine many of our strongly held Canadian values and principles.

As stated by Mitch Goldberg, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, “Instead of welcoming new Canadians, the new Citizenship Act discriminates against them”.

Bill C-6 would rectify this, and the NDP welcomes the amendments proposed under Bill C-6.

With that being said, I would be remiss if I did not turn my attention to what is missing in Bill C-6 as well. First, on the right to judicial review before losing citizenship, I was glad to hear the minister reference this, and his willingness to entertain amendments.

Prior to Bill C-24, individuals who were accused of fraud and risked having their citizenship revoked could request a hearing before a Federal Court judge who would review the minister's evidence. A final decision would then be made by the Governor in Council.

Bill C-24 allowed the minister to make a decision based on a review of paperwork with no right to a judicial hearing. The NDP believes that a citizen facing revocation should always have the right to a hearing before an independent and impartial decision-maker.

Under Bill C-6, which was tabled, we believe that the Liberals agree with that as well. In fact, the Liberals tabled an amendment to Bill C-24, which would provide the right to a full appeal to the Federal Court in the case of citizenship revocation proceedings. In support of the amendment, a Liberal member stated quite clearly that Canadians deserve the right to appeal with regard to citizenship.

However, today the Liberal Bill C-6 does not deliver on that sentiment. The Liberals' failure to address this feature of Bill C-24 means, I am afraid, that there may still be a constitutional challenge of the Citizenship Act, which would be viable.

Second, on the issue regarding people charged with a criminal offence abroad, Bill C-6 does not amend the provision that prohibits granting citizenship to anyone charged with or serving a sentence for a criminal offence abroad. This broad measure fails to account for countries dealing with corruption within government and the judicial system, as well as governments engaging in political prosecution.

The Canadian Bar Association and others have further argued that this prohibition was far too broad and created significant inequalities between applicants, depending on their country of origin.

Additionally, the Canadian Bar Association has suggested that these cases are best dealt with by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Immigration and Refugee Board, where cases can be determined upon their individual merits, and the NDP agrees with the recommendation of the Canadian Bar Association.

Third is discretionary citizenships granted by the minister. Bill C-6 would not require the minister to disclose cases where citizenship is granted for discretionary reasons, the frequency of citizenships granted, or the reasons for granting citizenship at all.

We want to ensure that privacy rights are respected, and we should work within those boundaries. However, it is problematic to not make information available, because it speaks to the lack of transparency. Given the recent example we have seen of, I think, the hyperpartisan former minister of citizenship and immigration, under the Conservatives, I think we need more transparency and accountability.

Fourth is the issue of language. While Bill C-6 would revoke the changes made by Bill C-24 by bringing back the language knowledge requirements for applicants aged 18 to 54 instead of 14 to 64, the threshold for language proficiency under Bill C-24 remains.

Under the current system, they must send in results of an accepted third party test at the equivalent of Canadian language benchmark level 4 or higher in speaking or listening, or provide proof of completion of a secondary or post-secondary program conducted in French or English. If they do not send in documents to prove that they have met this requirement, their application for citizenship will not be accepted.

The higher language requirement does not demonstrate that they are somehow more Canadian.

As well, Bill C-6 would maintain the requirement for citizenship applicants to pass a knowledge test about Canada in one of the two official languages.

Effectively, this would amount to double testing and would not really represent an individual's ability to function and succeed in Canada.

Many immigrants have come to Canada who have not been able to read and write in French or English at the proficiency level that is currently required, but they have worked hard, paid taxes, raised their families, contributed to our society, and become an integral part of our communities.

I can share with members the story of my own family. We all came, and none of us spoke English. To this day, I would say that, if my mother were put to a test such as the one that exists right now, she would likely fail that test. Yet, all of her life since she immigrated here, she worked, first as a farm worker, making $10 a day to support a family of eight. Then she got a minimum-wage job at a restaurant, which she retired from at 65, and she supported her family every single day with those efforts. She spoke minimum English—enough to get by, enough to support her family, enough to vote and understand what voting means and what democracy means.

With that being said, I would argue that the proficiency test is way too high for far too many immigrants, and that must change.

Fifth is the issue of financial barriers. Bill C-6 does not address how much permanent residents should pay for their citizenship applications to be processed by the ministry.

Citizenship processing fees have increased from $100 to $530 since February 2014, under the Conservatives. This is on top of the additional $100 right of citizenship fee. A family of four would have to pay $1,460. That is more than a month's rent for many. A family's bank account should not be the deciding factor on whether or not they can become Canadian citizens.

I really hope that the Liberal government will change this. Access to the pathway to citizenship is critical for all immigrants. Let us make it easier, not harder, to attain.

Bill C-6 would not make access to citizenship financially accessible for many permanent residents and their families. I do hope that the Liberal government acts to reduce the financial barriers along the path to citizenship.

Sixth is ensuring fair processing delays. Under the Conservatives, the processing delays for citizenship applications exploded to 24 months for regular cases and 36 months for non-routine cases.

The Liberals have committed to processing all applications received before April 1, 2015, by March 31, 2016, and to processing new applications within a 12-month period.

However, this one-year delay does not apply to non-routine cases, which are often only called this because a residence questionnaire was issued. This creates an enormous gap of 24 months, perpetrating a two-tier system, and we believe this should be changed as well.

The NDP will continue to push the Liberal government to take these measures and to act urgently on lengthy wait times, huge backlogs, the issue around family reunification for parents and grandparents, and the barriers to citizenship that still remain in place.

New Canadians provide countless benefits to this country every single day. We see many of those Canadians in this very chamber, some elected for the first time. Others are returning members. That is the testimony of who we are, and it speaks about the strength of Canada to harness that. Those rules that create barriers for access to citizenship must be changed.

This deserves a system that recognizes all immigrants for their contributions in making Canada the wonderful country it is. We are built on a multicultural community basis. Let us harness those strengths, eliminate the barriers, and make sure Canada in its process, in its policies, and in its approach is truly Canadian and reflects our multicultural values.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

moved that Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a pleasure for me to rise to speak to Bill C-6, which is an act to make major amendments to the previous government's Citizenship Act, better known in some circles as the noxious Bill C-24.

We are making these major changes for two general reasons: one, we promised to do that in our election platform and in my mandate letter; and two, the acts that we are carrying out in this new law are consistent with what we promised to do.

From the government's point of view and my point of view, we are doing what we said we would do. What is more important is why we want to do this. On this side, I would say there are two basic principles at stake.

That is unacceptable to us. There should be only one class of Canadians, not two. That is the first principle.

As far as the second principle is concerned, we want to welcome new citizens to Canada. The Conservative legislation put up a number of roadblocks that we believe made it unreasonably harder for permanent residents to become Canadian.

Therefore, there are two points of principle. First, there must be one class of Canadian, not two. Second, we want to welcome new citizens. We believe the Conservatives erected a number of barriers that were unreasonable to the welcoming of new people to become citizens of our country.

Let me go through each of these general areas one at a time.

In the previous Conservative bill, the minister of citizenship and immigration had the authority to revoke an individual citizenship if that person was convicted of a terrorist crime or some other crime. However, and this is a crucial point, the minister only had the power to revoke citizenship if the person involved was a dual citizen, not if the person was a citizen only of Canada. Similarly, the Federal Court had the right to revoke citizenship in other cases, but again only for dual citizens.

This is the nub of the point because once we say we can revoke one type of Canadian citizenship but cannot revoke another, then we have two classes of Canadians. We believe very strongly, and we fought long and hard during the election on this issue, that there is only one class of Canadian, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. All Canadians are equal and there cannot be two classes of Canadians, which is why we found this law unacceptable and why the new law would revoke that right to revoke citizenship.

We have said it for many months with the conviction of our beliefs, and once the law passes, we can also say it in the spirit of the law. It will say there is only one class of Canadian, not two.

In fact, we believe this so strongly that we are going to reinstate the citizenship of the one individual who had his citizenship revoked for reasons of terrorism. That individual, according to the new law, will have his citizenship reinstated.

It is a point of principle. When we say a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, that includes good and bad Canadians.

The bad Canadians who are convicted for terrorism should go to prison. If there are bad terrorists, they should go to prison for a long time, although it is the judges, not the politicians, who determine the sentences. The place for a terrorist is in prison, not at the airport. It is our strong belief that if a person is sent to prison for terrorism, there should not be two classes of terrorists: those who go to prison and have their citizenship revoked and those who only go to prison. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, for a terrorist and for others, and therefore in our view we will not have any citizenship revoked for this reason.

I would also make the supplementary argument that to revoke citizenship in this way is to launch oneself on a slippery slope, because the rules might be clear today about for what crime we have citizenship revoked and for what crime do we not, but those laws can change over time. I remember the former prime minister in the election campaign speculating about additional crimes that might be added. Who knows? It might be terrorism one year, and something else—whatever catches the attention of the government of the day—could be added the next year. It is a slippery slope, and one does not know where on that slope one will end up.

The definition of what constitutes dual citizenship is also a slippery slope. I am not a lawyer, but I know legal minds have debated the issue of who is a dual citizen and who is not. Some individuals might be born in Canada, have never been to some second country, but are nevertheless dual citizens of that country because of the laws of that country. Some people have claimed that Jews are dual citizens in a sense, because they have the right to live in Israel. Does that make them dual citizens of Canada and Israel? Under the previous law, that might have been a question that went before the courts.

Our view is that we should just terminate this slippery slope. We should abolish 100% the practice of revoking citizenship for any kind of terrorism or other crime. The debate would therefore be moot. It would not matter who is a dual citizen and who is not, or which crimes are included, because under no circumstances would a person have his or her citizenship revoked for these reasons. These other secondary, slippery-slope arguments would simply not arise.

The last point I would make on this issue is that there is one reason that is still the case for individuals to have their citizenship revoked, and that has always been on the books, and that is if individuals misrepresent who they are when they become citizens. In that situation that would imply that the individuals do not deserve to be citizens because they gave false information in order to become citizens. If that is the case, then their citizenship can be revoked. That has been the case in Canada since 1947, and that will remain the case.

There is one thing I might mention that the parliamentary committee may wish to consider. After we came out with our law, certain legal individuals said that, when a person has his or her citizenship revoked for this one remaining reason that is allowed, that person may or may not have sufficient right to appeal. If after listening to witnesses, the committee agrees that there is insufficient right to appeal such a decision, then the government and I would certainly be prepared to contemplate such an amendment to our bill.

This makes a more general point, unlike the previous government; but allow me to just talk for this government. We are certainly open to amendments, if there are amendments from either the Liberal side or the opposition side that would improve the bill. We do not claim perfection. If some members on the committee, of any party, have ideas for how to improve it, we would be open to such suggestions.

I just mentioned this one as a case in point: I heard in the debate following the introduction of the bill that there may not be an adequate right to appeal in the case of citizenship revocation flowing from providing false information.

That covers my first general point about citizenship revocation. The second area concerns barriers that we think in some cases are unnecessary or inappropriate barriers to citizenship, and there are four areas where we will change the previous bill, in some cases, substantially.

I can read the four items that we are going to change.

First, the 2015 measures required anyone applying to become a Canadian citizen to declare their intent to live in Canada once citizenship was obtained. We are going to get rid of that.

The measures also prolonged the residency requirement for applicants, requiring them to stay in Canada for a much longer period before being able to apply for citizenship. We are also going to change that, as I will explain.

They also eliminated the possibility of applying half of the time applicants spent in Canada before becoming permanent residents in the calculation of the duration of their physical presence here. This affects international students.

Finally, as for the fourth item, the measures required applicants 14 to 64 to meet language and knowledge criteria. Previously, only applicants 18 to 54 had to meet those criteria. We are going to reinstate the previous age requirement, 18 to 54.

Let me quickly go through each of these in turn. The first point concerns the intention to reside, that people have to declare before they become a citizen that they intend to reside in Canada. Some people in the legal profession were concerned that it could then become a reason to revoke citizenship. Let us say people stated an intent to reside in Canada, and let us say they were telling the truth, then their company shifted them to New York or whatever and the circumstances changed. It was feared that, having invoked this intent to reside, they could subsequently be challenged if their plans changed. The simplest way to deal with that is to get rid of that provision, which is what we are doing. We are repealing it. We think that was a legitimate concern, and we do not think there is merit to retaining that element of the bill.

The second part is the physical presence requirement. We believe that people should be required to be physically present in Canada for a certain length of time. We believe there is significant citizenship fraud or citizens of convenience, so we do want to continue to attack that. We do not dispute the principle of having a certain length of time in which people have to be physically present in Canada, but we are bringing it back to where it was, or at least changing it from what the Conservatives had, that they have to be physically present in Canada for four out of the past six years. We are moving to three out of the past five years, which is somewhat more flexible and also allows citizenship applicants to become citizens one year earlier than was the case under the previous bill.

The third item is one where I feel there is a particular lack of intelligence in the previous bill. If we look at international students, we see they are one of the most fertile grounds for new Canadians. We have an aging population. We really need more immigrants, and who better than international students, in the sense that by definition they are educated, by definition they know something about Canada, and almost by definition they can speak English or French? What better group to solicit to become Canadians than international students?

Why then do we sort of punch them in the nose, instead of courting them, by taking away the entitlement they previously had that 50% of the time they had spent in Canada as international students would count toward becoming citizens? I think they have clearly earned that entitlement by being here, learning about Canada, and so on. Therefore, I do not see why that entitlement should be removed, and indeed, in this bill, we are restoring it.

Someone asked me why not 100%, and we can have that debate. I think 50% might be a good number, but certainly not zero. I think we should go back to where it was, 50%.

Finally, this is a simple point on language. Again, we agree in principle that knowing English or French is really important, and we are not abolishing that requirement at all. Research has shown that knowledge of one or more of the official languages helps to predict an individual's success in this country, economically and job-wise. Therefore, we are not eliminating that, but we are restoring the age range to where it was, which is the age of 18 to 54, rather than 14 to 64.

In sum, we disagree with the Conservative government's legislation based on two general principles. First, a Canadian is a Canadian. All Canadians are equal. We must not have two classes of citizens. Second, we want to welcome newcomers as Canadians, and we do not want the conditions for becoming Canadian to be too rigid or too difficult.

In summary, it is for those reasons that I am pleased to present to the House our proposals in Bill C-6.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

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

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to inform the House that we are meeting this important campaign commitment.

Bill C-24, enacted by the previous Conservative government, set a very dangerous precedent. It created two tiers of citizenship in this country. Regardless of whether one is born here or whether abroad, like myself and many members of the House, we deserve a government that values and respects our citizenship.

A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. The Liberal Party believes this. Canadians recognize this. With Bill C-6, we will be implementing this important fundamental principle and putting it back into our immigration system.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my riding of Scarborough Centre is one of the most diverse communities in Canada. The Prime Minister came to my campaign office during the election and promised to repeal the second class citizenship provision of Bill C-24, telling my constituents that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship update the House on his progress on this promise to restore the integrity of Canadian citizenship?

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that we all, in this House, share the attitude that Canada was built on a principle of equality and equal citizenship. I am sure we will join with her to make sure that this equality is still represented in this country.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his excellent speech and I congratulate him on his election.

Given the member's comments, I believe that he will join with me when we comment on the previous government's policies of division and fear and say that we want something new and different. Canadians are ready for that change, and we want to signal to our communities, sooner rather than later, that it is a new day for Canada.

Part of that old regime of division and fear was Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizenship here in Canada. I would like to ask the hon. member if he would, along with me, advocate as soon as possible the repealing of that bill.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.

As this is my maiden speech in the House of Commons, I would like to thank the people of Vancouver East for giving me a strong mandate to represent them in the House of Commons, in the people's House.

Vancouver East is a wonderfully diverse group of neighbourhoods and communities that come together to form an incredibly diverse part of our city, our province and our country. Whether refugees, immigrants, new Canadians, retirees, young people working to make a start, artists and writers from the creative community who feed our soul, or people who are homeless, grappling with addiction issues or mental health challenges, or grass-roots activists who give strength to the fight for a better tomorrow, in Vancouver East everyone makes a contribution to our community. The activism in Vancouver East is unparalleled. We fight hard for what we believe in. We are so proud to be a pro-democratic movement for social, economic, and environmental justice in an unequal world.

In Vancouver East, we know that addressing the social determinants of health is key to healthy communities. We are never afraid to fight to be the agent of positive social change for the entire nation. The way forward for a better future demands that we address the root causes of past injustices. Canada has a shameful chapter of how indigenous peoples have been treated. The effects of colonialism have had a profound effect for the first peoples of this land. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report to say, “The disappearances and murders of indigenous women in Canada are part of a broader pattern of violence and discrimination against indigenous women in the country.”

It makes my heart sing to see in the throne speech the government's commitment to a national inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. I do hope, with all my heart, that this nation will finally address the root causes that exacerbate the violence against indigenous women and girls. The New Democrats stand ready to work with the government to fulfill this important election promise.

The throne speech stated, “...the Government believes that all Canadians should have a real and fair chance to succeed”. If this statement is to ring true, and I do hope that it does, is it not time to have a national plan with real targets and progress reports to end poverty? After all, it is 2015, and former NDP leader Ed Broadbent's motion to eradicate poverty, supported by every member of the House, was made in 1989. It is startling to me that in Canada 19% of the children live in poverty. That is 1.3 million children. In B.C. alone, that is 170,000 children.

It is a myth to say that people choose to be on welfare. People do not choose to live in poverty. A parent does not choose to send his or her child to bed hungry. The majority of the people on income assistance are people with disabilities, people who are just trying to make ends meet, and people who are working multiple low-income jobs, minimum wage jobs. It does not have to be this way. If we ask the people of Vancouver East, they will tell us that closing stock option loopholes and investing in a plan to eliminate poverty is an easy choice for the government to make.

Though the throne speech did not mention child care, I do hope that the government will recognize that an affordable national universal child care program would ensure that we are taking care of future generations by laying a strong foundation for success.

In East Vancouver, it is a struggle to find accessible, affordable, quality child care, yet we know that early childhood development is good for the child, the family, and the economy. Families and business leaders know that a national child care program equals economic prosperity for the nation. What goes in tandem with that is a national housing program. We do not have to be rocket scientists to know that ending homelessness is not just plausible, but possible. It requires political will.

During the campaign, Liberal candidates promised to renew the co-op housing agreements that were set to expire and to bring back a national housing plan. While housing was not mentioned in the throne speech, I do hope those are not just empty words. It is important for Vancouver East that the federal government gets back to being a committed housing partner and starts building safe, secure, affordable, social housing, and co-ops once again.

From the young to the old, our seniors deserve dignity and support in their golden years. They should not have to worry about not being able to access health care, prescription drugs, home support or having a roof over their heads. Lifting seniors out of poverty by increasing the guaranteed income supplement and returning the retirement age from 67 to 65 is what the government has promised them. In the days ahead, I hope the government will lay out its plan to deliver on that promise. We are worthy of a Canada that honours all those who have sacrificed so much so we can have a better future.

My parents immigrated to Canada because it was a beacon of freedom, hope and opportunity. They dared to dream for a better future for their children, they dared to seek opportunities to make a better life, and they dared to cherish our freedoms and civil liberties.

I am honoured to be the NDP critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship. I look forward to working with the minister and his parliamentary secretary, along with the Conservative critic and deputy critic, on this important portfolio. From honouring the commitment to bring 25,000 government-sponsored Syrian refugees to Canada, to eliminating the backlog for family reunification, to spousal sponsorship applications to getting rid of arbitrary quotas, to addressing concerns with the temporary foreign workers program and removing barriers to citizenship, there is much work to be done.

No Canadian should be made to feel that they are second-class citizens, not immigrants, not those with dual citizenships, no one. The Liberal government promised to repeal Bill C-24. It promised to reverse the invasion of privacy and threat to civil liberties in Bill C-51. Canadians are ready for change. In the days ahead, I hope to see concrete plans and timelines for these election promises, because it is important for the government to deliver on what it promises. The plans that were campaigned on were ambitious, but the expectations need to be met post-election.

We have a collective responsibility to leave our country a better place than what we inherited from the last generation. I look forward to working with all members of the House to do just that.

As the final words in my maiden speech, I want to also thank everyone who worked on my campaign team: the volunteers, the staff, the people who put their trust in me and who toiled in a long election campaign to send me here. I will live by the words of the late Dr. David Lam to “bring honour to the title” that the people have bestowed in me with the work that I do.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to congratulate the member opposite on his election.

Bill C-24 provides the right to revoke citizenship to the minister. The minister is a politician, who does not ally with the Canadian courts or Canadian judges. The provisions of Bill C-24 would allow a politician to revoke citizenship based on the charges faced by a Canadian citizen anywhere in the world. Under Bill C-24, it is possible that the citizenship of Greenpeace activists could be revoked if they were convicted in Russia on trumped-up terrorism charges. We have committed that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and we will revoke the unfair provisions of Bill C-24.

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

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on his election. I understand that he opposes Bill C-24. However, he did not say what it does. To be clear, this bill strips citizenship from convicted terrorists.

Our view on this side of the House is that, if individuals are flying around the world seeking to advance terrorist purposes, they should not be able to use Canadian passports to facilitate their agenda. Therefore, I would ask the hon. member why he wants to give Canadian passports back to convicted terrorists.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.

I would like to congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on your appointment to the position of Assistant Deputy Speaker.

As this is the first time I am speaking in the House, I wish to thank all 34,000 citizens of Nepean who voted for me to represent them in this august House. I pledge to work hard to serve all people of Nepean irrespective of their background and political viewpoints.

I would like to thank my friend, my partner, and my wife, Sangeetha, and our son, Siddanth, without whom I would not be here.

I would also like to thank the team of volunteers who committed so much time and energy to my campaign and who shared my vision for the great riding of Nepean.

I am also honoured to be one of only three Hindu Canadians who are members of the House. I am probably only the second person in the history of the Canadian Parliament to be sworn in by taking the oath on the Hindu holy book of Bhagavad Gita.

Canadians spoke loud and clear on October 19, echoing our call for real change. Of the several things Canadians voted for, I would like to highlight three issues. First, Canadians overwhelmingly voted against the politics of fear and division. Second, Canadians rejected the creation of second-class citizenship in Bill CC-24. Third, Canadians voted for economic development through massive investment in infrastructure.

As I said, Canadians rejected the politics of fear and division. As the right hon. Prime Minister has said:

Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state, there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.

Canadians also rejected the second-class citizenship that was created by Bill C-24. The previous government created two classes of citizenship, with the power to revoke citizenship resting with a politician. As has been said, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. We will repeal the unfair portions of Bill C-24.

Canadians also voted to stimulate the economy through massive investment in infrastructure to create long-term economic growth.

I have several objectives as a member of this esteemed institution. The first is to bring respect back for the public service and allow public service employees to deliver to the best of their ability. We will create policies based on scientific evidence, not ideological dogma. Prudence and pragmatism and not political ideology will influence decision-making. We will not legislate changes to service terms but work through the process of collective bargaining.

My next objective is to work on affordable housing. The wait time for affordable housing in my riding of Nepean is 15 years. There are more than 10,000 people on the wait list for affordable housing in the City of Ottawa. Research has shown that every dollar invested in affordable housing saves several dollars in long-term social costs.

My long-term objective is to work to develop a viable, alternative sector for the creation and sustainment of high-quality jobs in Nepean and Ottawa.

In Ottawa, the federal government is the largest employer, and the City of Ottawa is the second largest. Then we have the technology sector, which has seen the booms and busts of the wireless and telecom segments. Our children are moving out of Ottawa in search of jobs. There is a need to promote the development of a stable technology sector.

I served on the board of Invest Ottawa, with Mayor Jim Watson as the co-chair, and other leading business and institutional leaders as fellow directors. Invest Ottawa is doing great work in making the city the best place for companies across Canada and around the world to come and set up shop. There are about 1,700 knowledge-based companies in the city, a vast majority of which are small entities. Invest Ottawa is also helping these companies grow.

One thing I realized during my stint there is that, for economic development to take place in the city of Ottawa, there is a need for all three levels of government, municipal, provincial, and federal, to work hand in hand.

The City of Ottawa and the provincial government have joined hands and have equally shared the costs of a $30 million innovation centre that is currently being built. Currently, there is zero contribution from the federal government for this much-required institution.

During the last 10 years, the interaction among all three levels of government for the economic development of Ottawa has been quite minimal. I pledge to work hard to rectify this deficit.

There are 12 million working Canadians who do not have a workplace pension plan. Only 35% of Ontario workers have a workplace pension plan. In the private sector, the percentage of workers with a workplace pension plan is just 28%. It is possible that many of them will retire directly into poverty, thus increasing social costs. There is already an increasing number of working families who depend on the local food banks. There is a need for an enhanced pension plan. Our government has pledged to work with the provinces and territories to achieve this goal.

To conclude, I want to bring my experience, dedication, and passion for my country to Parliament. I will work hard for the families in Nepean and work with others to make our country and community stronger. I want to showcase to our children and grandchildren that politics is about public service and about giving back to society.

Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member forEtobicoke Centre for his great work in the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and for his dedication to these files along with many other members on our side, without whom bills like this, Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act and Bill S-7, the zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act, would simply not have seen the light of day.

Let us draw the contrast. Let us take the case of Shafias, multiple murders, tragic case from Kingston, Ontario. The member for Pierrefonds—Dollard asked what would have been the effect on them of this bill if it had been in place say under a Liberal government, say 10 years ago when we came into office. The amendment to IRPA would have deemed Mohammad Shafia and his wife inadmissible in the first place. They might not ever have gotten here. The amendment to the Criminal Code would not even have allowed the defence of provocation to be used at that time. The amendments to the Civil Marriage Act would have protected the children from early and forced marriage. As we recall, there were multiple cases in that tragic chapter.

Finally, the requirement for dissolution of previous marriage would have protected people like Rona Amir who were not protected when a second marriage took place and the previous one had not been annulled or dissolved.

These actions, which, if we had taken them earlier in Parliament, would have saved lives and would certainly have reduced the misery of women and girls. They are not the majority. They are not even a large share of those who come to our country as immigrants or who live in our country, but they are hundreds and indeed thousands who have suffered from these terrible practices that lead to lifetimes of violence.

The Liberal Party did nothing about it in its time in office. The NDP still opposes these measures today. It is very clear who in this Parliament is standing up for the protection of women and girls at home and in our immigration system.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present.

The first petition has been signed by many Canadians who are calling for citizenship legislation that is fair to everyone. This petition expresses people's concerns regarding Bill C-24.

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I assume that the House is continuing the discussion on this bill following question period. My remarks then will certainly be curtailed because for some reason the government has called a briefing on the new combating terrorism act, or whatever it may call it, at 11:30, which is halfway through question period, and that will go through to 12:30 p.m. Because of the actions of the government, I will not be able to conclude my speech. It is startling that the Conservatives would call a briefing during question period when members are supposed to be here.

Instead of taking time to duplicate the discussion, the member for Alfred-Pellan talked about what happened at committee. I agree with her comments. The ability of the committee to do its work was certainly curtailed. I think we had six witnesses, which is just not adequate to do the job, especially with all the pomp and ceremony by the government and its line that it is fighting terrorism and that the bill is so important. We will see what is in the new bill coming forward this afternoon.

This bill really does absolutely nothing to address the national security concerns that resulted from the recent events in Quebec and Ottawa. It simply amends legislation to meet current CSIS practices and expedites amendments to citizenship and immigration from Bill C-24. We raised with the minister in the House and at committee the point that the government must explain why it is not using existing legislation and the relevant provisions of the Criminal Code. Here I refer to preventive arrest and section 83 of the Criminal Code, whereunder someone, if they are planning, attempting to, or leaving the country to operate with a terrorist entity abroad, can face from 10 to 14 years in prison. We have never had an answer from the government why those sections of the law are not being utilized, specifically subsection 83.18(1). Peace bonds have only been used very rarely, but they are another way of taking people off the streets.

The bill contains provisions related to clarifying CSIS' ability to operate internationally, although according to the deputy commissioner of CSIS in testimony to the Senate national security committee, it will not alter its ability to operate internationally, which it has been doing historically. The bill as well does provide protections to sources abroad. These are similar to the protections provided to informants in domestic cases. We are supportive of that. We have to be supportive of those who work with CSIS in carrying out its duties.

I will close by saying that we will be supporting the bill. We have some concerns about the bill in that the Minister of Public Safety is not required to inform the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence on activities abroad. That is a concern we raised and we stand by it, but we will be supporting the bill.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon on a question of privilege related to written Question No. 393, which I submitted to the order paper on March 27, 2014; the government's response to the question on May 14, 2014; and a document containing correspondence among officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada on the preparation of the response to my question, a document that I obtained through the Access to Information Act.

I believe that the government's interference in the preparation of the answer to my written question has impeded me in the performance of my parliamentary functions and is, therefore, a breach of my parliamentary privilege.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to review three pieces of evidence as you consider my request: first, the question that I submitted to the government; second, the government's answer to my question; and third, the documents that I obtained through the Access to Information Act. These documents contain correspondence among officials at Citizenship and Immigration Canada concerning my written Question No. 393.

I will not read my written question, but I will say that it was about average wait times and the budget and human resources that the department allocated from 2005 to 2014 to processing visa, immigration and private sponsorship of refugee applications. It was broken down into several sub-questions, as is typically the case with written questions.

In response to my sub-questions about average wait times for visa, immigration and private sponsorship of refugee applications, I received the following non-answer for all three:

Adequately responding to this question would require extensive, detailed research of CIC records, and this work is not feasible within the prescribed timeline. Although some of the above data are available, many other data points would take longer to extract because of the structure of the department's information systems. After the data extraction process, the report would then have to be reviewed in its entirety to ensure the quality of the data. Given that the question also deals with data covering a period of nine years, a complete and accurate response to this question is not feasible within the prescribed timeline for the reasons outlined above.

After submitting an access to information request, I learned that this was not the response that officials from the department planned to submit to my question. Indeed, the exchange of emails I obtained shows that departmental officials were working on answering my written question.

In an email dated May 1, 2014, an official from the department explained that, given the quantity of information requested, it would take about two weeks to prepare the response. She said that it would take a little longer, but it was entirely doable.

An email dated the next day, May 2, 2014, ordered the officials who were working on the question to stop their work because:

“[the office of the minister] has come back to advise the [office of the assistant deputy minister for operations] that we will use the same response we provided to Q-359.”

The government's response to Question No. 359 was a non-answer.

Questions of privilege concerning written questions have been raised repeatedly in the House. Every time, the Speaker has ruled that it is not the role of the Chair to determine whether the contents of documents tabled in the House are accurate.

I understand the principle. However, it is not the nature of the response here that is problematic, but rather the fact that the minister's office obstructed the work of officials in his own department. The minister's office interfered in the work of government officials in order to prevent them from producing a satisfactory response to my written question.

I believe that such an obstruction constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 517, the purpose of written questions as follows:

...written questions are placed after notice on the Order Paper with the intent of seeking from the Ministry detailed, lengthy or technical information relating to “public affairs”.

In chapter 7 of her November 2004 report, entitled “Process for Responding to Parliamentary Order Paper Questions”, the Auditor General wrote:

The right to seek information from the Ministry of the day and the right to hold that Ministry accountable are recognized as two of the fundamental principles of parliamentary government.

Written questions are one of the tools that elected representatives can use on behalf of Canadians to fulfill their fundamental duty of holding the government to account. The government cannot interfere in the preparation of the responses. It must allow its public officials to do their job.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, at page 109, states that:

In order to find a prima facie breach of privilege, the Speaker must be satisfied that there is evidence to support the Member's claim that he or she has been impeded in the performance of his or her parliamentary functions and that the matter is directly related to a proceeding in Parliament.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs also stated the following in its 2005 report:

The bar to establish a breach of privilege is necessarily a high one, and, in the case of an individual member, it must be closely related to his or her parliamentary activities.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would like to show how the minister's interference in the preparation of the answer to my written question impeded my ability to carry out my parliamentary duties.

Last February and May, the House studied Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, at second reading stage. In June, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, of which I am a member, also carried out a study of the same subject. We can see that there is a direct link between the minister's obstruction and parliamentary proceedings.

In fact, during the study of Bill C-24, the government said several times that it wanted to eliminate the backlog of applications and shorten processing times for immigration applications to less than one year by 2015-16. To that end, the government intended to eliminate certain intermediaries in the citizenship process.

Nevertheless, we know that backlogs of these types of applications have doubled in seven years, while processing times have doubled in four years, going from 15 months in 2009 to 31 months at the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year. It was very important for me, as a member of Parliament, to gain a better understanding of the delays these applicants are facing, and this includes getting a clear picture of the number of applications as well as the budget allocated to processing these applications, in order to thoroughly study Bill C-24 and to better understand it.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the processing delays impose financial and psychological burdens on the families that are waiting for an answer. Bill C-24 imposed additional waiting periods on thousands of permanent residents who wanted to join the Canadian family and who were preparing to submit their application. If I had gotten a proper response to my written question, I would have had a much more accurate picture of the scope of the problem, and I would have been in a better position to make alternative suggestions to cut processing delays and backlogs.

The 21st edition of Erskine May describes contempt as:

...any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.

In light of the points I just made, I think it is clear that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's obstruction in the preparation of the response to my written question, Question No. 393, constitutes contempt and a breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament, which impeded by ability to discharge my parliamentary duties.

To make it easier for you, Mr. Speaker, I am submitting copies of written Question No. 393, the government's response and the document I obtained through the Access to Information Act. Mr. Speaker, if you find that there was a prima facie breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament, I will be prepared to move an appropriate motion at that time.

Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the opportunity to share with members some of my personal thoughts and to express some thoughts and ideas from the Liberal Party.

It goes without saying that Canadians have a burning desire to see security measures in place that will allow them to feel safe in the communities in which they live, whether it is here in the parliamentary precinct or in communities throughout the country.

On that note, it would be a mistake not to pay tribute to all those individuals who put in the effort to make us safe. Whether it is the intelligence officers of CSIS, the RCMP, border patrols, or other policing agencies, there are so many individuals who play a proactive role in ensuring that we have a sense of security. I wanted to express my appreciation for that.

It is not easy to provide a 100% guarantee that Canada will never have to endure a terrorist attack. What we can do is work hard to prevent one, wherever possible, and adequately support the different agencies. In particular, today we are focusing on CSIS.

We can bring in new legislation, but at the end of the day, legislation is only one aspect. We have to challenge the government to ensure that it is putting in other types of resources to support the different agencies that are there to protect us. Whether the government is in fact doing enough can at times be called into question.

This is really the first opportunity I have had to comment on what we all experienced just a couple of weeks ago. In the days that followed, I happened to be on a flight to Ukraine. Whether it was at the airport in Frankfurt or in Ukraine itself, I saw our beautiful Parliament buildings on the news. What took place a couple of weeks ago made international news, as many people around the world were quite concerned about what was taking place in Canada. Constituents, family, and friends at the time also expressed a great deal of interest and concern and offered their prayers and best wishes.

As has been pointed out, from Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers all the way down, people did a phenomenal job, and they should all be applauded for their efforts in ensuring that there was minimal impact because of what took place.

We have heard some amazing speeches. There were political speeches from leaders and others who paid tribute to Corporal Cirillo, who ultimately made a sacrifice that has reached into the hearts and minds of all Canadians. I raise that because I want to put it in the context of Bill C-44.

The bill would do nothing to address the national security concerns related to the events in Quebec and Ottawa a couple of weeks ago. It would simply amend the present legislation to meet current CSIS practices and would expedite the CIC amendments in Bill C-24.

The government needs to explain why the provisions already in place in the Criminal Code have not been utilized in response to those individuals who represent a threat to this country.

The sections of the Criminal Code in question are section 83.181, relating to the laying of charges against an individual attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activities; section 83.3, which could be used to place recognizance with conditions on those suspected of terrorist activities; and section 810, relating to peace bonds and possible detention.

I was intrigued by some of the discussions. One of the most interesting statements I came across was from the Minister of Public Safety on October 8 at the public safety committee. This is in regard to the 80 individuals who returned to Canada after having travelled abroad to take part in terrorism-related activities. This is what the minister stated to parliamentarians and Canadians at committee:

Let me be clear that these individuals posing a threat to our security at home have violated Canadian law.... These dangerous individuals, some skilled and desiring to commit terrorist activity, pose a serious threat to law-abiding Canadians.

This begs a number of questions with respect to whether we are acting on the current legislation that has been passed.

What would Bill C-44 actually do? There are three things I can detect. First, there would be protection for informants. I can appreciate why that would be necessary. Second, it would provide more clarity on the need for warrants. CSIS needs to investigate, and this legislation would provide more clarity with respect to warrants from judges to complete those investigations. Third is the issue of dual citizens. The House voted on this not that long ago, and it is being expedited.

The government needs to be aware of what is missing, and that is oversight. Oversight was mentioned today in questions.

In an hour, we will be voting on Bill C-622, an important piece of legislation. Bill C-622 was introduced by my colleague from Vancouver Quadra. She has done a wonderful job in recognizing the importance of parliamentary oversight. The government has been negligent on this issue, and I do not say that lightly.

What the member from Vancouver Quadra is asking of the government is already being done and is in place for our Five Eyes partners. In Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom, it is already being done. They have recognized the value of having parliamentarians provide oversight.

I do not understand why the government is resisting that idea. This is not necessarily the first time, but it is definitely an opportune time for the government to recognize that the House of Commons and parliamentarians as a whole do have a role to play.

We hope that the Prime Minister will allow for an open vote on this issue. I would encourage the government to reflect, to seriously consider the benefits of accepting what the member for Vancouver Quadra, the Liberal Party defence critic, has put on the table for us today, and to vote for parliamentary oversight.

Oversight would go a long way in providing peace of mind, in many different ways. Oversight is a good way to ensure the protection of the rights of all Canadians. It is in our best interest, I would argue.

Parliamentary oversight is not just a Liberal Party proposal. As has been pointed out, our other partnering nations have already done this. Why would the government not respond in kind and recognize the value of oversight?

We in opposition recognize how important it is to provide protection for informants. It only stands to reason that there would be protection of informants, who provide critical, valuable information when a CSIS agent is doing an investigative report or conducting an investigation into the potential for some form of a terrorist act here in Canada or abroad. We have to depend on informants.

I have no sense of the actual number of informants out there, but I do understand and appreciate the need for us to protect them. In looking at this piece of legislation, we see that protection as a positive thing.

In terms of warrants and the need for warrants, again this concern does not come from any individual political party. Based on the discussions and comments I have heard here this afternoon and even previously, it seems there is virtual unanimity in recognizing how important it is that we provide additional clarity to CSIS as an organization and in terms of the role of warrants in ensuring that investigations are conducted in a proper fashion. There is an understanding that unusual circumstances come into play when terrorist activities and organizations are investigated.

As a whole, Canadians are very much aware of what terrorism is all about. We understand and appreciate that we are living in a very different world. Through the Internet and all forms of media outlets, we know there is a much higher sense of awareness. It is there and it is very real.

That, I believe, is one of the reasons that Canadians expect the Government of Canada to do what it can to ensure that they have a sense of security in the communities where they live, and I suggest many of my colleagues would concur. However, at the same time, there is an expectation that we will demonstrate leadership at the international level.

In bringing forward legislation such as we have before us today, it is very important that we consult with the different stakeholders and ensure that the legislation is, in many ways, a bit more inclusive in terms of having the right balance. I am not convinced that we have the right balance here. That is why, in my last 15 or 20 seconds, I would ask the government to recognize the importance that parliamentarians have when it comes to ensuring that Canadians feel much safer in their communities. Parliamentarians need to be, and should be, more engaged in the process. Whether it is oversight or whether it is parliamentary committees, we can make a difference.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-44, which was introduced by the Conservative government.

I would first like to say that I feel honoured to be able to participate in the Remembrance Day ceremonies to be held this weekend in Laval, which are being organized as part of a joint effort by the City of Laval and the Laval cadets and police force. It is extremely important for all parliamentarians to be present in their communities over the coming days for the Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Like every year, I will also be at Résidence Le Patrimoine on November 11 for a ceremony to honour our veterans, which is always very touching. We are lucky because a number of our World War II veterans live in that residence. Their presence makes the ceremony even more moving, and I am honoured to participate in it.

Last week, I participated in the ceremony held in Laval by the Correctional Service of Canada to pay tribute to correctional officers who died in the line of duty. This ceremony is always very emotional because the families are there and the correctional officers in attendance bring honour to the Correctional Service of Canada by extending their sympathy and showing their devotion to their deceased colleagues, whether they knew them or not.

I mentioned the Remembrance Day events because, as a result of the incidents that occurred on October 20 in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and on October 22 here in Parliament, which affected all of my colleagues from every party, we felt a certain sense of co-operation between the various parties.

In this spirit of co-operation, the official opposition decided to support Bill C-44 so that it can be examined more closely in committee. I will come back to the details of Bill C-44 and the reasons why we want to look at it in committee. It is important to hold a debate, not only here in the House, but also in committee to make sure that we come up with the best law possible. That is why it is important that the parties work together.

The events of October 20 and 22 deeply affected Canadians. We, as parliamentarians, witnessed them firsthand but we felt as though all Canadians were behind us. When the incident occurred in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on October 20, we also felt that all Canadians were behind our Canadian Armed Forces.

Words cannot express my appreciation for and my feelings about the incredible work that the constables and the RCMP did.

Top of mind are Kevin Vickers and his team of constables here at the House of Commons who take care of our safety every day.

I am also thinking of Constable Alain Gervais, who single-handedly blocked the NDP caucus room doors to protect us. It was an act of heroism, but he did it just because it is his job. We are lucky that nothing happened to him even though a bullet headed straight for him was blocked by the second door. We cannot thank Alain Gervais enough for leaping up to keep us safe.

My thoughts are also with Constable Son, who was at the front door of the Parliament building and gained precious seconds for his colleagues by grabbing the hunting weapon carried by the individual who entered Parliament. Unfortunately, he was shot in the foot, but he gave RCMP officers and Parliament Hill staff a chance to react, which they did in spades.

We are now studying Bill C-44 against that backdrop. However, it is important to point out that this bill is not a response to the events that took place two weeks ago, even though we cannot help but think about such events when studying this kind of bill. This bill is not a new law; it makes changes to existing laws.

Most of the subjects covered in Bill C-44 have to do with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We were supposed to debate this on October 22, so it had to be put off.

I would like to point out a few things about Bill C-44. Basically, it makes three important changes regarding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and it is important to point them out here. First of all, it clarifies CSIS's legal authority to conduct security intelligence operations outside our borders in order to address threats to Canadian security. Second, it confirms the jurisdiction of the Federal Court to issue warrants that have effect outside Canada. Third, it ensures greater protection during legal proceedings for human sources that provide information to CSIS.

I would like to mention from the outset that we did have a briefing on Bill C-44. I would like to thank the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the parliamentary secretary who attended that briefing. It was very informative, as it was extremely important for us to have more details on this bill. I hope this practice will continue in the future, because in order for us, parliamentarians, to be able to do our jobs, it is absolutely crucial that we have all pertinent information from our colleagues, regardless of party affiliation. We very much appreciated it.

At the briefing, when we talked about the clarification regarding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and its operations abroad, we were told that they would still be subject to current Canadian laws and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I thought it was important to emphasize this point.

I must say that I still have a lot of questions about CSIS and that is why I very much look forward to welcoming public safety experts at committee to discuss this case in particular. However, there are other so-called minor changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. Among other things, they would help protect the identity of CSIS employees who are likely to conduct secret activities in future. For example, there is mention of future undercover agents. Currently, only the identity of employees who are engaged or were engaged in covert activities is protected.

There is an example. There is mention of future undercover agents, but there is also specific mention of employees likely to conduct covert activities in future. I have a lot of questions about that point in particular because the definition is quite broad. What exactly is meant by this? Does this simply mean people who are training to become undercover agents? Are we talking about a person who, in a year or two, depending on senior CSIS officials, might be a candidate for becoming an undercover agent? Is that all that is included? Could this apply to anyone at CSIS? I look forward to getting more clarification on this because I believe this is a rather important point to which we are not paying enough attention.

Nonetheless, it is very important for the people who are engaged in undercover activities to be protected and I would like us to pay attention to that. I do not think that any party in this House is against that idea. It is important to say that.

There is another surprise in this bill. This may be a five- or six-page bill—I hope I have this right—but unfortunately it still is an omnibus bill. It is true that most of the things we are legislating in Bill C-44 have to do with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but there is a small item that amends the Citizenship Act to fast-track the revocation of Canadian citizenship in the case of dual citizens who are linked to terrorist activities and other serious offences, as provided for in Bill C-24, which received royal assent on June 19, 2014.

I really do not understand why that provision is in this bill. We tried to obtain more information at the briefing, but, unfortunately, we were unable to determine exactly what the link is between CSIS and Bill C-24, which was passed. I hope that the government will respond and explain why it wants to include that provision in Bill C-44. I would also like to see the bill go to committee and have experts tell us what the inclusion of this provision in Bill C-44 will bring to CSIS.

I listened to the speech by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. I agree with him on several points, but not on how we should do things. He spoke about radicalization in Canada, and that is a very important point. As parliamentarians, we must ensure not only that we have the appropriate tools in place, but also that we have the people required to counter radicalization in Canada. That is what we have been asking for on this side of the house for several months. Today, the government seems to be more open-minded about that. I am very pleased to hear it.

The minister talked about preventing threats and responding to them. Once again, this is consistent with efforts to combat radicalization within the country. I am eager to see what he will propose here, because he talked about other measures. What are these other measures? There are a lot of questions about this. We have heard a lot about tools to combat radicalization or to combat terrorism, but what exactly does that mean? Do the RCMP and CSIS, for example, or still the Canada Border Services Agency, need more tools and personnel?

This brings me to a topic that may be a sore spot for my colleagues. We do not seem to agree on some aspects of the budget, and I want to mention that in my speech. One aspect concerns the cuts being made to Public Safety Canada, which affect the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We are very worried about this because these cuts will affect many things, including the Correctional Service of Canada and the budgets of our police forces in Quebec, for example for the Eclipse squad, which works to combat street gangs. However, that is a whole other subject and I will focus on the cuts in the first three cases I mentioned.

Why is this important? Because those cuts had an impact on very real jobs. In 2012, the government announced $143 million in cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency alone. Unfortunately, when there are cutbacks of that magnitude, jobs have to be cut somewhere. Of course, personnel can be shuffled, but at some point there is no wiggle room left and something has to give.

Unfortunately, the Canada Border Services Agency had to eliminate about 100 positions. It should be noted that those 100 jobs were part of the agency's intelligence service. Those employees shared important information with our various international allies, and that included information about allegedly radicalized individuals who were travelling abroad. It is crucial work. There is talk of radicalization, and Conservative government ministers are talking about preventing people from fighting overseas and revoking passports. If there are no people to use those tools—as the individuals in those 100 abolished positions would have done—it is a very serious issue. We need to act on this. If there is talk of reinstating those positions, I will be more than happy to hear what the Conservative government has to say.

The RCMP's budget was cut by approximately $200 million, $195.2 million to be exact.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service lost about $25 million, and the inspector general's office, which was so important for overseeing what was going on, was also abolished. There is a lot of talk about security in relation to civil liberties, but they abolished this CSIS office. That is extremely sad.

Unfortunately, at the Border Services Agency, they eliminated 19 teams of detector dogs, sniffer dogs that find weapons and drugs at our borders, for example. Nineteen of those positions were eliminated. That is extremely important.

Canine units came to Parliament Hill during the events of October 22. They were among the first to arrive, right after the RCMP and the constables. The canine unit was mobilized. If the government cuts 19 canine unit positions from our Border Services Agency, that will surely have an impact on the services provided and our public safety and national security. That is an extremely important point.

One other thing really caught my attention, and I really want to talk about it in the House today. The Department of Public Safety released what is called a report on plans and priorities for 2013-14, which announced cuts, particularly in the area of public safety. I would like to read part of it, if I may.

The department itself stated as one of its risks:

That the Government Operations Centre (GOC) infrastructure may be unable to support a coordinated response to large-scale or multiple significant events affecting the national interest

That is extremely serious, and according to the report, it is directly related to the cuts to public safety and national security. I hope that the Conservative government will take the time to read that report. It is rather disturbing that it makes a direct correlation between the cuts to public safety and something that could endanger our national security and the fact that we would not likely be capable of responding to multiple attacks or a large-scale generalized attack on our country. I believe that we need to consider that.

I would also like to mention a few other little things. As I indicated at the beginning of my speech, we are starting from the premise that everyone wants to work together to ensure that we have the best laws possible. What is more, we want to ensure that the committee does the necessary work and does it properly. I understand that these laws need to be implemented and that we cannot wait forever. However, we need to get the advice of experts on this bill because it raises a lot of unanswered questions. Given that the bill amends a few laws, the people who will be using this legislation need to tell us what impact those changes will have on their work.

I also sincerely hope that the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security from different parties will be able to work together in a spirit of co-operation. When it comes to national security, as is the case here, there is no room for partisanship. It is extremely important that we work together and do our job as effectively as possible in committee.

I can assure the House that I will be happy to work with all of the parties represented on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security to make the best laws possible. That has always been the case, but I will take that job even more seriously when it comes to Bill C-44.

In this spirit of co-operation, I sincerely hope that the Conservative government will not move any time allocation motions regarding this bill. I just wanted to mention that.

It is important to point out that we still have many unanswered questions. We want the parties to co-operate in order to make sure that we have the best laws possible. We support this bill at second reading but there are still a lot of grey areas.

In closing, I would like to mention that it is very important to strike a balance between public safety and civil liberties.

That being said, I still have a lot of things I would like to say about this.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to discuss this very important piece of legislation, legislation that is timely, that is consequential, that will help the House and this government uphold its principle duty to Canadians, which is to ensure their safety and to protect them from threats that we know to be all too real.

The protection of Canada from terrorists act gives our security agencies the vital tools they need to keep Canadians safe. So far in the debate, we are pleased to see the emerging recognition from parties opposite that these tools are needed, that they are part of our national response to the threat of terrorism and that it is time we took action to make sure that the agencies on which we rely to carry out that duty on behalf of government, on behalf of our democratic institutions, have these tools available to undertake the reasonable activity required to, once again, keep Canada and Canadians safe.

Before I begin my remarks on the substance of the legislation, let me remind us all once again why these measures, which were contemplated long before the attacks of last month, are doubly warranted and doubly relevant given the events that occurred at the National War Memorial and in our Hall of Honour just steps from where we are today.

Those events are a reminder that ISIL and other terrorist groups are a very real threat to Canadians. That is why we are taking part in air strikes against ISIL this week. That is why we are supporting the security forces of Iraq in their fight against the scourge of terrorism. All of these measures go together to ensure that Canada and Canadians are kept safe, that we work in concert with allies and partners in NATO and in the region to ensure that this threat that is principally victimizing the people of Iraq and Syria does not become an even greater threat to them or to our population further afield.

It is also the reason why we are working with great determination to strengthen the tools, to strengthen the effectiveness of the tools already available to police, to the intelligence community in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest. The legislation before us today is just the first step in our efforts to do that and as the Prime Minister has been clear, so are we all clear on this side of the House that we will not overreact to these events. We will not be intimidated by ISIL or any other group, but at the same time, Canadians want us to stop under-reacting to a threat that is indeed very real.

Section 83 of the Criminal Code of Canada defines terrorist activity as an act committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose with the intention of intimidating the public and that intentionally causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence or disrupts an essential service, facility or system.

Given that definition, I think we can all agree that last week in late October, Canada was a victim of terrorist attacks. This was the view confirmed in the immediate aftermath of those attacks by Bob Paulson, Commissioner of the RCMP. It was shared by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit shortly after the attacks. He said, “...anybody who walks up in a premeditated way with a loaded rifle and attacks someone in uniform then purposely goes to a parliament, is committing, by common sense standards, a terrorist act”.

Unfortunately, we still have the leader of the NDP on record disagreeing with this assessment, despite the fact that it was reinforced yesterday by another important visitor to Canada.

The President of the French Republic had no doubt about the nature of the terrorist attacks two weeks ago. We agree with him and are grateful for the show of solidarity from France, other European allies, the U.S., and dozens of other countries that recognize that the acts committed here in Ottawa two weeks ago were related to terrorism.

I would like to quote a recent Toronto Star editorial on the leader of the NDP's position. It states:

Most people grasp it instinctively—what occurred last week and the ongoing risks in our midst. That NDP Leader Tom Mulcair cannot admit this, even now, drawing an irrational, pedantic distinction between the deadly attack in Ottawa and a terrorist assault, reflects abysmally on his judgment and aspirations of political statesmanship.

That is a strong statement coming from a newspaper that I, for one, do not often quote in this place. I think it speaks for itself.

Ambiguities in the CSIS Act have been impeding the ability of our national security agencies to investigate threats to the security of Canada. The bill would address these problems by confirming that CSIS has the authority to conduct investigations outside of Canada, confirming that the Federal Court can issue warrants for CSIS to investigate targets outside of this country, giving the Federal Court the authority to consider only relevant Canadian laws when issuing warrants for CSIS, and creating automatic protections of the identities of CSIS employees who may engage in clandestine operations.

The bill would also make technical amendments that would allow our government to seek quicker implementation of the new citizenship revocation provisions under the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, the former Bill C-24, which received royal assent earlier this year on June 19. While it is important to ensure that citizenship revocation provisions come into force as soon as possible, the pith and substance, the main motive for the legislation, relates to our national security agencies.

Let me remind the House that there are three challenges being met. The first is to clarify that for greater certainty CSIS may perform its duties and functions within or outside of Canada. It has been doing this since its foundation, but as we all know, there has been an inability, particularly in recent months, for it to fully execute those functions outside of Canada to the degree required by its mandate to counter threats to Canada, above all, the threat of terrorism.

It would also clarify that the courts may issue warrants for certain investigative activities within or outside Canada and for that purpose, warrants may be issued without regard to the law of a foreign state. In other words, these warrants would be in full conformity to Canadian law, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all aspects of our legal system, but not necessarily with regard to the law of a foreign state.

Second, the legislation would create a statutory prohibition on disclosure of identities or information from which identities could be inferred of individuals who provide CSIS with information in return for a promise of confidentiality. In other words, we need to ensure in this day and age that those in a position to provide the most sensitive information, the most time-sensitive information, information of the highest delicacy, can do so safely and have their identities protected under our legal system.

Third, the CSIS Act makes it an offence to disclose the identities of CSIS employees who are or were engaged in covert operational activities. The legislation would expand this protection to also cover CSIS employees who are likely to become engaged in such activities, making it possible for those recruited to do these jobs, being trained to do these jobs, being retasked to do these jobs, to have their identities protected as well.

All of these changes, as I think the House now understands, are vital to the protection of our national security. They would help stop individuals from travelling for terrorist purposes, especially given recent global events. Our government remains seized, like dozens of other governments around the world, with the issue of foreign fighters, individuals from Canada, from our European partners, from the United States, from the Middle East itself, travelling to places such as Iraq, Syria, Somalia or Pakistan, which is still well known, unfortunately, as a training ground for Sunni extremist terrorist groups, to engage in terrorist activities.

These individuals often pose a direct danger to the countries where they are operating. Any country that has experienced terrorist violence on a large scale, as is the case, obviously, for Iraq and Syria, but also for Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, many countries of the Maghreb and even sub-Saharan Africa, fall into this category. They, too, have the threat of terrorist training, recruiting, financing of terrorist activities in their territory and of foreign fighters flowing into their borders to join those training efforts and that fight.

This bill would update the CSIS Act to allow our intelligence community to operate and investigate threats to Canadian national security much better. It would clarify the investigative functions under sections 12 and 15 of the CSIS Act within or outside of Canada.

Keep in mind that section 12 already authorizes CSIS to investigate threats to Canada's security, and terrorism is very high if not continuously at the top of the list in terms of those threats.

Section 15 relates to the security assessments that CSIS performs for departments like mine to allow us to take responsible decisions about visa issuance and to prevent foreign fighters, terrorist kingpins, those who have been involved in terrorist violence or committed atrocities abroad from coming to Canada either as visitors or permanent residents.

The bill would also clarify that the courts may issue warrants for investigative activities, once again, within or outside Canada but without regard to the law of a foreign state.

Indeed, if there is one central advantage to this proposed legislation, strength in this legislation, it is that it will help our government meet its security priority of securing convictions for those who engage in terrorist activity. This is the solution to the global phenomenon of terrorism. These people and groups need to be fought, as we are fighting them in Iraq, but they also need to be brought to justice not only in Canada but in all the states where these crimes are committed.

As members know, in May 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of the security certificate process in a decision on the case of Mohamed Harkat. This helped to show that we could gather evidence in a way that would allow it to be used in court proceedings without compromising operations.

However, as part of this decision, the Supreme Court also found that, unlike police informers, the identity of CSIS sources were not automatically protected from disclosure. CSIS obviously relies heavily on such information from human sources. Without such assurances, human sources may simply stop co-operating with CSIS, stop-co-operating with Canada, and we would operate blind and open ourselves to threats that we would have a duty to combat.

To address this issue, the bill would create a statutory prohibition on disclosure of the identities or information from which the identities could be inferred of individuals who provided CSIS with information in return for a promise of confidentiality.

As with all of our legislation, this act would continue to respect the Canadian values of individual rights and the rule of law. All of the investigative activities of CSIS must take place in accordance with its mandated authorities under the CSIS Act, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ministerial direction and internal policy.

When threats demand more intrusive investigative measures, the service requires judicial authorization for each and every one of those activities. CSIS is also subject to a full review by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which has access to all information held by the service.

We have heard the Liberals and others call for more oversight or review by parliamentary committees. However, the issue at hand today is not whether CSIS is carrying out its mandate in accordance with the law. There is no evidence of CSIS not having done that. Our supervisory process is working well in our view and in the view of independent third parties that assess that performance. The issue is whether CSIS has the mandate, the authority under the law to perform its mandate, which is to keep us safe from threats to our national security, including terrorism.

The bill would also speed up the process of implementing legislation to revoke citizenship of dual nationals engaged in terrorist activities or who would engage in combat against the Canadian Armed Forces.

I am struck, as the Minister of Immigration, by the contrast between the approach of the opposition parties to this issue in April/May of this year, when we debated Bill C-24, and their approach today, which seems to be much more accommodating of the idea that Canadian citizenship be allegiance to our institutions, the willingness to uphold our laws and fulfill one's duties as a Canadian citizen. This is incompatible with taking violent action to murder people or commit bodily harm in the name of an ideology or political agenda that seeks to intimidate the whole population. That is why we brought forward these measures to revoke citizenship in cases of gross acts of disloyalty. We are pleased to see support for this idea growing on the opposition benches.

These proposed provisions will also provide the Federal Court with the authority to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens for membership in an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada. Today, that would include ISIS. It is both a terrorist group and an armed group engaged in conflict with our forces now in combat in Iraq.

These provisions would bring Canada in line with peer countries, such as Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and the vast majority or our allies in NATO and beyond, by providing that citizenship could be revoked under very strict conditions from dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason, spying offences or who take up arms against Canada.

This underscores our commitment to protecting the safety and security of Canadians, but also to promoting Canadian interests and values. They also reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship.

The amendments on the revocation of citizenship are merely technical. There is no cost to pursuing these amendments as a revocation decision-making model is more efficient and less costly to the government.

While we are adding grounds to revoke citizenship upon conviction of dual nations for terrorism, treason or espionage, we have long had the power, and the House has supported it, to prevent terrorists, criminals, those who would do harm to our country and those who embrace violent ideologies from becoming citizens. Indeed, if they acquire citizenship without disclosing a terrorist affiliation and that comes to light, we have had the power to revoke that citizenship on the basis of misrepresentation

Now we are simply adding a power to revoke on the basis of a terrorist conviction, a much more serious and much higher threshold of proof of terrorist activities, all of which hangs together very coherently. All of these provisions will work together to keep Canada safer.

Last, I would like to emphasis the oversight of our national security agencies. The security intelligence review committee provides a robust and comprehensive review of CSIS. The recent annual report shows, once again, the level of access it has to all aspects of CSIS operations. It plays a key role in ensuring our national security agencies are held fully and publicly to account. CSIS is reviewing the latest recommendations and will implement those that will keep Canada safe, while protecting the rights and privacy of Canadians.

I see my time is drawing close, and I would like to leave all members of the House with key points to consider before voting on this important legislation.

First, Canada is a beacon of freedom and opportunity in a turbulent and uncertain world, a world that in recent years has become more violent, especially in the Middle East and especially because of the escalating conflict in Iraq. For that very reason, those who despise freedom and democracy, those who reject modernity, who reject our way of life, who reject the very idea of the prosperity we have so painstakingly built in our country, want to cause harm and wreak havoc on Canada and Canadians.

I can say this first hand, as 40,000 of our fellow Canadians who served in Afghanistan can tell the House and all Canadians, that these threats are real. They were in control of Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban. They remain all too present and dangerous a reality in Iraq and Syria today.

The threat of domestic terrorism is heightened to a point that we have not seen in many years. The bullet holes in the Hall of Honour stand as a sober reminder of this threat. In light of this reality, it is important we take the steps provided for in this bill as quickly as possible.

Second, it is important to remember that in doing so we will respect the Canadian values of individual rights under the rule of law, while ending the practice of under-reacting to the terrorist threat.

Our freedom and our commitment to the rule of law are not an either or choice and are not choices that are mutually exclusive. We choose to be free as Canadians and to work for freedom in the world by having a standard of the rule of law in our country that is second to none. These measures will help to keep it that way.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, we were somewhat surprised and shocked to see this section. It is identical to the section in the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act that was passed, Bill C-24, so we were surprised to see that in here.

We opposed that particular aspect earlier in Bill C-24. We are seeing it appended to this particular bill. The minister explained that it is in here to enact it earlier. I said to the minister, and I said it to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration as well, that we would like to see a legal opinion from the government that shows that this particular section would stand up to the charter, because we certainly do not believe that it will. We are asking for that.

I have no problem at all with the idea of the member splitting that out of the bill. It seems misplaced in a bill that is dealing with CSIS and the authority of CSIS, so we would certainly be open to that option.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Malpeque for his speech.

I unfortunately did not retain everything that he said. Nevertheless, I have a question about Bill C-44. It is a short bill, only five or six pages long. However, I am sad to say that it is an omnibus bill. While the majority of the bill focuses on CSIS reforms, that is not the only thing included in this bill. In fact, there is one part that has nothing to do with the rest of the bill. It proposes moving up the effective date for Bill C-24, which is about revoking dual citizenship.

I have already heard the hon. member talk about this, so I know he is somewhat upset by it. What would he think of splitting this bill in two or removing that part of the bill? In his opinion, what is the best way to deal with this part of the bill?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-44, an act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other acts. It is a bill the government really had to introduce following two adverse court rulings on the activities of CSIS.

In beginning, I want to just spin off a little of that last question and answer. I would speak directly to the minister. I would hope, in this instance, given the concern about the balance between national security and civil liberties, that the minister would push the committee to allow a full list of witnesses, not the kind of stacked list we get sometimes from the Conservatives, and a full hearing, an in-depth hearing, so the committee can do its proper job and come back with the best legislation possible. I support the point raised a moment ago by my colleagues.

There are some serious questions related to the provisions in Bill C-44 that need to be raised when the bill is before committee, and we intend to raise those questions and those concerns at that time.

The Liberal Party will be supporting this bill going to committee. However, I hope that the committee is really allowed to do its job and get in the proper expert witnesses and have the proper balance so that we can come back with the best legislation possible.

We have to look not just at this bill but at CSIS and its connections to the RCMP, CSEC, Canada Border Services Agency, and our allies we work with abroad.

There are three points I would like to raise specifically on this issue and this bill. One is tools. The minister is suggesting that this bill provides more tools, but there are really not many.

The second area is resources, the financial, human, and technological resources, for CSIS to do its job.

The third area is oversight and the need for proper oversight, and not of just CSIS. We have after-the-fact oversight, but there really needs to be parliamentary oversight of all our national security agencies. I will talk about that in a moment.

Before looking at the specific provisions in Bill C-44, it is necessary to place on the record our concern about the government's response to the terrorist threat to Canada and from within Canada. I would begin by asking the government a direct question. Why is it that the legislation currently in place, the provisions in the Criminal Code, some of which were put forward by the government in the Combating Terrorism Act, have not been utilized?

On October 27, in the House, the Minister of Public Safety admitted that the response of his office and his government to the threat represented by homegrown terrorists was not quite what it should be. According to the minister at that time, it is “time we stop under-reacting to the great threats against us.”

Yet the government still fails to act. I submit that it possesses the necessary tools to react. In fact, under section 83.181 of the Criminal Code, there is all kinds of authority for anyone who “leaves or attempts to leave Canada” for the purpose of participating in any activity of a terrorist group outside Canada.

There are four different sections there. The penalties are maximum terms in prison of 10 to 14 years, depending on the severity of the act.

The Minister of Justice stated publicly last week that the laws currently in place to combat a terrorist threat are “robust measures” that provide the police with the tools necessary to take action in response to a terrorist threat. The minister specifically referred to sections 83.3 and 810 of the Criminal Code, either of which would enable authorities to detain individuals under the provisions of a peace bond and could impose specific recognizance on individuals. In other words, action to limit certain individuals from taking action could be imposed. I ask the minister why those provisions have not been utilized.

The Minister of Public Safety has to this day failed to clarify a statement made before the public safety committee on October 8 with respect to the 80 individuals who returned to Canada after travelling abroad to take part in terrorist-related activities. He stated:

Let me be clear that these individuals posing a threat to our security at home have violated Canadian law....These dangerous individuals, some skilled and desiring to commit terrorist activity, pose a serious threat to law-abiding Canadians.

The minister also reconfirmed the following at committee:

...leaving or attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activities is now a criminal offence.

The minister is quite correct on those points. There is authority under the Criminal Code to act. I have to again ask the question: Why has the government not acted with those authorities that are already there? Those authorities would not be changed in this particular legislation, other than confirming in law what CSIS already does.

I ask why section 83.181, which states that “Everyone who leaves or attempts to leave Canada” for terrorist acts abroad, is not being applied. It certainly was not in the case of the individual involved in the murder of the Canadian Forces member in Quebec earlier this month. According to public information, that individual had his passport revoked on the grounds of attempting to travel to Syria or Iraq to join known listed terrorist entities.

According to testimony by the Commissioner of the RCMP to the Senate national security committee on October 27, this individual was known to authorities to have intended to use his passport to leave Canada for Syria or Iraq to participate in “jihad”, yet the commissioner confirmed that the evidence the authorities had of this intent, while enough to have his passport revoked, was not enough to lay a charge. I ask the minister, and maybe he can answer this at committee, whether this bill will correct that shortcoming. I personally do not see it in the legislation, but I would ask the minister and his staff to come prepared to answer that question. Would this legislation correct that shortcoming the RCMP Commissioner seems to have outlined? We really do not know as yet, because the minister has not been specific on that point.

A great deal has been said by members of the government with respect to the provisions of the Combating Terrorism Act, which came into force in 2013. According to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, one individual has been charged under the provisions of the Combating Terrorism Act. The minister confirmed, as well, when he testified before the public safety committee on October 8, that only a single individual has been charged under the Combating Terrorism Act.

However, what neither the minister nor the parliamentary secretary bothered to tell Canadians was that the single individual charged had left Canada six months prior to the charges being laid, and that individual's whereabouts are still unknown.

Could one of the reasons these provisions in the Criminal Code have not been acted upon be the limited resources available to our security and intelligence services? That was mentioned in a previous speech. What good are legal sanctions if our security agencies cannot utilize them? If the reason is that the current government has been starving those agencies' critical resources, who is responsible for the security failure?

I would submit that in many things that the current government has been doing in the last two years, it has been blindly focused. Good government requires it to provide services, security, and financial resources, and yes, it has to establish priorities. However, part of the problem with the current government is it is blindly focused on getting as huge a surplus as possible so it can throw out election goodies. Is part of the cost of doing that starving CSIS and the RCMP of the funds necessary to do their job? I really do not know, but it looks that way. Good government cannot be blindly focused just on achieving a surplus to provide goodies at the next election; it has to be focused on the needs and the services of Canadians. I see that as a problem.

There is another issue beyond this bill that the government must respond to, something that does not require legislation but requires the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness simply to do the job assigned to him. The most recent annual report of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, the only oversight body for CSIS, raised a number of troubling concerns. The Commissioner of the RCMP told the Senate national security committee on October 27 that there were now 93 individuals identified as high-risk travellers. The director of CSIS informed the public safety committee on October 8 that there were 80 individuals who have returned to Canada after having engaged in terrorist activities abroad, and CSIS knows where they are.

The problem there is that in terms of the RCMP doing its job, Commissioner Paulson said before a committee:

...we are reallocating the necessary funds and personnel from other priority areas to combat this threat. In recent months, and over the past week, over 300 additional resources were transferred in to enhance the capacity of INSET [Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams] from other federal policing priority areas such as organized crime and financial crime.

That tells me that the RCMP is indeed short of resources.

The deputy director of CSIS told the same committee on October 20:

...we work within the budget that is assigned to us. We do have to prioritize.

I would be foolhardy to say we have all the bases covered. We do what we can with the budget we have, sir.

There are clearly some concerns over financing.

There is another problem that the minister can deal with as well, and that is the operational mandate within CSIS. The most recent SIRC report, entitled “Lifting the Shroud of Secrecy: Thirty Years of Security Intelligence Accountability”, the annual report for 2013-14, said the following on page 16:

With surveillance teams spread across Canada all sharing identical job functions, SIRC expected to see solid communication among surveillance practitioners. Instead, SIRC found that, for the most part, regional surveillance teams operate in total isolation from one another and communicate only sporadically with their HQ counterparts.

That is worrisome, because if CSIS is not communicating properly within regions and between regions and headquarters, there is a serious problem. That is something that the minister can deal with.

The other point in the report that I just mentioned—and I am pretty sure that the minister knows this—is that at page 19, SIRC also found that with respect to the activities of CSIS:

...the Minister of Public Safety is not always systematically advised of such activities, nor is he informed of them in a consistent manner.

Those are two areas the minister can deal with without needing a bill. The minister just needs to ensure that the job is getting done within his own department.

The government has placed within Bill C-44 the enactment provisions of Bill C-24, which the minister talked about earlier. Bill C-24 would revoke the citizenship of dual nationals. We are concerned about that. The minister said in his remarks that it is included so as to enact that section faster. In an earlier question for the minister I said, and I will say again, that it is not enough to have something in legislation; it has to stand up to the courts. Some of us are concerned that this section just may not do that.

If the government, RCMP, CSIS, and other authorities are spending a lot of time on that particular area of taking away dual citizens' citizenship, it needs to be time well spent. I asked the minister to provide legal opinion to the committee to show that it is, in fact, charter-proof.

In an earlier question to the minister, I also raised the point that there is fairly strong wording in this particular bill. Subclause 8(2) reads:

Without regard to any other law, including that of any foreign state, a judge may, in a warrant...authorize activities outside Canada to enable the Service to investigate a threat to the security of Canada.

This would basically allow for a warrant to be issued to allow agents to break the law in a foreign country. We have checked the wording extensively, and similar wording is not found in the relevant legislation of our Five Eyes counterparts. I ask the minister why we need that specific wording when other countries do not, and I hope he could report the answer to committee,

An important part of the legislation deals with protecting our sources and informants abroad. At committee we would want to have more specific information on that aspect and know how it would be accomplished. I look forward to the government providing that information to the committee.

I will move on to the last point that I would like to make. I said first of all that I would deal with tools, resources, and oversight. One of the major shortcomings of this bill is the fact that the government did not bring accompanying legislation to provide proper parliamentary oversight to all of our national security agencies in Canada, as is done by all of our Five Eyes counterparts.

My colleague, the member for Vancouver Quadra, has a private member's bill, Bill C-622, as one option that the government could consider. I have a private member's bill, Bill C-551, which could be considered.

To find the balance between national security, civil liberties, and individual rights and freedoms in Canada, the government should be bringing in accompanying legislation that provides that parliamentary oversight. On the one hand, it would ensure that the agencies are doing their jobs, and on the other, it would ensure they are not going too far and violating the civil liberties of Canadians.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

moved that Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to begin debate at second reading on Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act. I hope that our government can count on the opposition parties' support to get this bill to committee.

I would like to start by thanking my colleagues from all parties who went to the National War Memorial this morning, especially my colleague here, the member for Vaughan and Minister of Veterans Affairs, to lay wreaths in tribute to the two soldiers who lost their lives in recent weeks.

All of my colleagues remember what happened. On October 22, we all witnessed events that shocked us in some way. I would like to join my voice to those of my colleagues from all parties who went to the National War Memorial this morning and extend our thoughts and our prayers to the families of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo.

On Saturday, I had the privilege of being in Longueuil to attend the funeral for Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. His twin sister gave us a message of hope and peace, but she also asked us to ensure that her brother's death would not be in vain. Today, as parliamentarians, we have the opportunity to begin a debate on a bill that will ensure better protection for our country.

Before I begin the substance of my discussion today on this important legislation, I would like to address the horrific terrorist attack that happened just steps from where we stand today and make sure that we are all starting from the same point when we talk about what happened. It is important that we agree, for the sake of clarity, on what took place recently. That is why I would like to refer members to the Criminal Code, which defines terrorism as a violent and intentional act that aims to intimidate the public for political or religious reasons.

The Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause with the intention of intimidating the public.

The two acts that were committed here—the attack on Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the attack on Corporal Nathan Cirillo—fit within the definition of terrorism.

That is why President François Hollande said yesterday that these acts were terrorist-inspired. That is why the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, said that when someone attacks an unarmed soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then storms Parliament with a loaded weapon, that is also an act of terrorism. That is also how it is defined in the Criminal Code.

I hope all parties will recognize that these acts were terrorist acts. We should call a spade a spade. Then we will be able to come up with solutions together to deal with the challenges we face.

Clearly, the terrorist acts committed here also have international repercussions. The Islamic State poses a threat not only to Canadians, but to populations in other countries that are being brutally suppressed and whose fundamental human rights are being violated.

That is why we are part of the coalition that is currently conducting air strikes against that terrorist group and why we are supporting the security forces in Iraq in their fight against this terrorist scourge.

However, we also need to take action within our borders, in Canada, to protect Canadians from anyone who might try to attack us, our values or innocent victims.

That is also why we are so determined to strengthen the tools available to police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service when it comes to surveillance, detention and arrest. Bill C-44, the protection of Canada from terrorists act, which we are starting to debate today, is a first step in that direction.

We took action a long time ago. We are moving forward strongly, because we are facing a serious terrorist threat, one that we must address with strong measures.

As a government, we have already taken strong action to protect Canadians from the threat caused by terrorists.

Our government's response is based on Canada's counterterrorism strategy, which is a four-pillar approach. The first pillar, which is very important, is prevention. It is important that we promote and share our Canadian values with everyone, with every Canadian. That is why we are investing in numerous prevention measures involving police services, community groups and the government itself. My predecessors and I have engaged with ethnic and cultural communities, including at the cross-cultural roundtable. That is the first pillar. Then, we need to prevent, deny and detect individuals who may pose a threat, prevent them from taking action and, finally, respond to the threat if necessary.

Now we are dealing with another phenomenon: extremists who travel abroad and those who come back to Canada. That is a source of concern for us, which is why we intend to propose other measures in addition to the bill being introduced today.

Whether it is through legislation, policy, or investment, our government has taken strong action to give law enforcement and national security agencies the tools they need to keep us safe.

We have given law enforcement new tools by making it a crime to go overseas to engage in terrorist activities. We have given authorities tools to strip Canadian citizenship from those engaged in terrorist activities.

We have increased funding for our national security agencies, such as the RCMP and CSIS, each by a third.

We brought in the Combating Terrorism Act. We are prepared to revoke the citizenship of individuals who have dual citizenship and are convicted of acts of terrorism. We are also prepared to revoke the passports of individuals who want to incite violence outside our borders. Since 2006, we have increased the budgets of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by more than one-third.

In practical terms, that means an additional $191 million for CSIS over the level that existed under the previous Liberal government.

Canada's counterterrorism legislation has been tried, tested and embraced by the highest courts.

Not only is law enforcement responding to the law we have put in force but the tribunal is as well by giving harsh sentences to those who are convicted of terrorist activities.

For example, Canada successfully prosecuted terrorism-related offences in the cases of Mohammad Momin Khawaja, alias Namouh, and 11 members of the so-called Toronto 18.

In July, Mohamed Hersi became the first Canadian convicted of attempting to travel abroad to join a terrorist group.

We tabled and implemented the Combating Terrorism Act. This act brought in important new criminal offences, including making it illegal to leave or attempt to leave Canada in order to commit certain terrorism offences outside Canada. This past July, the RCMP laid its first charges under the new act against an individual for leaving Canada to take part in terrorist activities. The bill is working. We need to take action to keep Canadians safe from terrorists.

Shockingly and unfortunately, we did not get support from the official opposition at that time for that common sense legislation. Hopefully this time we can count on their support and we can move the bill forward.

The government's terrorist listing also plays a key role in combatting terrorist financing, and under the Criminal Code, being listed has serious consequences, allowing for the seizure, restraint or forfeiture of a listed entity's property.

Again yesterday, we saw that another group was declared a terrorist entity. In other words, it is absolutely illegal in Canada, under the Criminal Code, to support or want to finance or associate with this entity. All the activities of this entity are prohibited in our country.

In April, we added IRFAN-Canada to the list of terrorist entities. IRFAN-Canada is a not-for-profit organization that transferred roughly $14.6 million in resources to Hamas, a terrorist entity that is on the Canadian list.

These measures help interrupt the flow of resources such as funds, weapons and new recruits to these entities. We also employ various mechanisms in order to deprive terrorists of the means and opportunities to carry out their activities. These mechanisms include the High Risk Travel Case Management Group, led by the RCMP, which is especially busy these days, and the revocation and suspension of passports of travellers who want to engage in terrorist activities abroad.

The prevention of violent extremism is a key element of our approach. I would like to share with you the important work accomplished in that regard. Preventing violent extremism is a key component of our strategy. At this time, I would like to commend the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, which has identified radicalism and radicalization as an area of concern, and which plans to examine this issue at its upcoming meetings and next year.

Our approach, “Responding to Violent Extremism”, is outlined in a document entitled 2014 Public Report On The Terrorist Threat To Canada. It is based on three interrelated strategies: building community capacity, which equates to prevention; building law enforcement capacity, which this bill will do by clarifying the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; and developing programs to stop radicalization resulting in violence through proactive early intervention. We must remember that preventing terrorism is our national security priority.

The counter terrorism information officer initiative, which is an RCMP responsibility, provides frontline police officers and other first responders with essential terrorism awareness training. Therefore, there are already resources, budgets and measures in place to deal with this threat of terrorism, but we have to adapt to this evolving threat.

Here we come back to the legislation at hand. The protection of Canada from terrorists act contains distinct elements that work toward a common goal, which is to protect the safety and security of Canadians. The bill also has some provisions regarding the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which received royal assent in June.

There is really nothing new in this part, but let me just say the act made important changes at that time to the Citizenship Act, enabling the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who are convicted of terrorism, treason or spying offences. Such individuals would be permanently barred from acquiring citizenship again. While that act has already received royal assent, as members know, provisions in new legislation can come into force at different times.

Recent events around the world have brought to the forefront the need to address the threats of terrorism now. We are, therefore, proposing amendments to the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act that would allow provisions related to the revocation of Canadian citizenship to come into force earlier than anticipated. It is nothing new but it would ensure that those provisions could be used by law enforcement more rapidly.

The provisions that would come into force include new expanded grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship and the establishment of a streamlined decision-making process. We are clear that Canadian citizenship is sacred. Our Canadian passport, wherever we go around the world, is of high value. It has to mean something. We do not want to share our Canadian passport with anyone who wants to cut off our heads because we disagree.

The Canadian passport is respected around the world. As parliamentarians, we will not accept that individuals with criminal intentions use Canadian passports to commit acts of terrorism.

Let us now examine the main part of the bill, which will make the necessary amendments to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.

Ever since the CSIS Act was introduced more than 30 years ago, threats to Canada's security have become increasingly complex, as evidenced by the global nature of terrorism and the mobility of terrorist travellers.

We are aware of Canadians who have joined terrorist groups abroad. CSIS director Michel Coulombe has stated that more than 140 individuals with Canadian connections are suspected of engaging in terrorism-related activities abroad. It is more critical than ever that CSIS has the proper tools to investigate threats to the security of Canada and that its role and function is clear in terms of our Canadian laws. The bill before us proposes several targeted amendments to support CSIS in its mandate to investigate threats to the security of Canada.

First, the bill would confirm, clarify and strengthen the power of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to conduct investigations abroad, by confirming that CSIS has clear, legislated authority to conduct investigations abroad related to Canada's security and security assessments.

Second, the bill will give the Federal Court the power to consider only the relevant Canadian law when issuing a warrant to authorize CSIS to investigate threats to the security of Canada.

Essentially, this bill clarifies the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and protects witnesses, because information can only be exchanged if there is trust between the human source and the information service.

It is important to protect these sources and provide criteria for this legal protection, in order to make it possible to increase protection in certain situations.

I am pleased to introduce this important bill in Parliament. I look forward to following the debate, because this is an important and balanced bill.

I hope that we will be able to move forward and send this bill to committee, and that we develop a law that will protect Canadian citizens against the threat of terrorism. This threat is evolving and is unfortunately a reality.

Time Allocation Motion

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on this question of privilege about closure.

I am rising at my first opportunity on this question of privilege, given that between the Speech from the Throne in October and when we adjourned June 20, there had been 21 occasions on which closure of debate occurred, and I maintain that the exercise of my rights and the rights of my colleagues in this place have been obstructed, undermined, and impeded by the unprecedented use of time allocations in the second session of the 41st Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, in presenting this fairly legal argument to you, I propose to leave out page numbers and citations because I have prepared a written version of this for your office and I hope that will be acceptable to you that I skip page numbers in this presentation. Hansard may not have the numbers of the debates, but I hope there is enough context so people can find them.

I belive this excessive use of what is often called “guillotine measures” is a violation of the rights of all members of Parliament, but I would like to stress that there is a disproportionate impact on members such as me who are within either smaller parties, that is less than 12 members, or who sit actually as independents, because in the roster of recognizing people in their speaker slot, quite often those of us in the smaller parties or independents simply never get to speak to the bills at all.

My question, Mr. Speaker, bears directly on what your predecessor said in this place on April 27, 2010. He said, “...the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions is an indisputable privilege and in fact an obligation.”

In the autumn of 2011, in a ruling concerning the member for Mount Royal, Mr. Speaker, you yourself said that to constitute a prima facie case in regard to matters of obstruction, interference, molestation or intimidation, you need to “...assess whether or not the member's ability to fulfill his parliamentary [activities] has been undermined.” At that moment in the same Debates, you had the occasion to reflect on “...the Chair's primordial concern for the preservation of the privileges of all members,...” and you added, “As your Speaker, one of my principal responsibilities is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded, and this is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

I now have occasion to turn to other words that will guide us in this matter. From the Supreme Court of Canada in the Vaid decision, in the words of Mr. Justice Binnie, speaking for the court, he outlined the scope of parliamentary responsibility and parliamentary privilege for the management of employees and said, “Parliamentary privilege is defined by the degree of autonomy necessary to perform Parliament’s constitutional function.” He went on to say at paragraph 41 of that Supreme Court of Canada judgment:

Similarly, Maingot defines privilege in part as “the necessary immunity that the law provides for Members of Parliament, and for Members of the legislatures of each of the ten provinces and two territories, in order for these legislators to do their legislative work”.

I would repeat and emphasize that, because although the Vaid decision was on a different fact set, Mr. Justice Binnie spoke to our core responsibility as parliamentarians when he said that we must be able, as legislators, to do our legislative work.

Mr. Justice Binnie continued in the Vaid decision to say:

To the question “necessary in relation to what?”, therefore, the answer is necessary to protect legislators in the discharge of their legislative and deliberative functions, and the legislative assembly’s work in holding the government to account for the conduct of the country’s business. To the same effect, see R. Marleau and C. Montpetit...where privilege is defined as “the rights and immunities that are deemed necessary for the House of Commons, as an institution, and its Members, as representatives of the electorate, to fulfill their functions”.

Mr. Justice Binnie went on to find further references in support of these principles from Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada.

These are fundamental points. The purpose of us being here as parliamentarians is to hold the government to account. It is obvious that no legislative assembly would be able to discharge its duties with efficiency or to assure its independence and dignity unless it had adequate powers to protect itself, its members, and its officials in the exercise of these functions.

Finally, Mr. Justice Binnie—again, for the court—said at paragraph 62, on the subject of parliamentary functions in ruling that some employees would be covered by privilege, that coverage existed only if a connection were established between the category of employees and the exercise by the House of its functions as a legislative and deliberative body, including its role in holding the government to account.

As I said earlier, this approach was supported by your immediate predecessor. In a December 10, 2009 ruling, the Speaker of the House, the Hon. Peter Milliken, said that one of his principal duties was to safeguard the rights and privileges of members, and of the House, including the fundamental right of the House of Commons to hold the government to account for its actions, which is an indisputable privilege, and in fact an obligation.

It is therefore a fundamental principle of Westminster parliamentary democracy that the most important role of members of Parliament, and in fact a constitutional right and responsibility for us as members, is to hold the government to account.

The events in this House that we witnessed before we adjourned on June 20, 2014, clearly demonstrate that the House and its members have been deprived of fulfilling constitutional rights, our privilege, and our obligation to hold the government to account, because of the imposition of intemperate and unrestrained guillotine measures in reference to a number of bills. Over 21 times, closure has been used.

It is only in the interest of time that I am going to read out the numbers of the bills and not their full description. Bill C-2, Bill C-4, Bill C-6, Bill C-7, Bill C-13, Bill C-18, Bill C-20, Bill C-22, Bill C-23, Bill C-24, Bill C-25, Bill C-27, Bill C-31, Bill C-32, Bill C-33, and Bill C-36 were all instances where closure of debate was used.

In many of the instances I just read out, and in the written argument I have presented, closure of debate occurred at second reading, again at report stage, and again at third reading. The limitation of debate was extreme.

A close examination of the guillotine measures imposed by the government demonstrate that the citizens of Canada have been unable to have their elected representatives adequately debate the various and complex issues central to these bills in order to hold the government to account. Members of Parliament have been deprived and prevented from adequately debating these measures, through 21 separate motions for time allocation in this session alone. It undermines our ability to perform our parliamentary duties.

In particular, I want to again highlight the effect that the guillotine motions have on my ability as a representative of a smaller party, the Green Party. We do not have 12 seats in the House as yet, and as a result we are in the last roster to be recognized once all other parties have spoken numerous times. Quite often, there is not an opportunity for members in my position, nor for independent members of Parliament, to be able to properly represent our constituents.

Again, I should not have to repeat this. Certainly you, Mr. Speaker, are aware that in protecting our rights, as you must as Speaker, that in this place we are all equals, regardless of how large our parties are. As voters in Canada are all equal, so too do I, as a member of Parliament, have an equal right and responsibility to represent the concerns of my constituents in this place, which are equal to any other member in this place.

As speaking time that is allotted to members of small parties and independents is placed late in the debates, we quite often are not able to address these measures in the House. This would be fair if we always reached the point in the debate where independents were recognized, but that does not happen with closure of debates. My constituents are deprived of their right to have their concerns adequately voiced in the House.

Political parties are not even referenced in our Constitution, and I regard the excessive power of political parties over processes in this place, in general, to deprive constituents of equal representation in the House of Commons. However, under the circumstances, the additional closure on debate particularly disadvantages those constituents whose members of Parliament are not with one of the larger parties.

Mr. Speaker, in the autumn of 2011, in your ruling considering the member for Mount Royal and his question of privilege, you said that one of your responsibilities that you take very seriously is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded. The principal right of the House and its members, and their privilege, is to hold the government to account. In fact, it is an obligation, according to your immediate predecessor.

In order to hold the government to account, we require the ability and the freedom to speak in the House without being trammelled and without measures that undermine the member's ability to fulfill his or her parliamentary function. As a British joint committee report pointed out, without this protection, members would be handicapped in performing their parliamentary duty, and the authority of Parliament itself in confronting the executive and as a forum for expressing the anxieties of citizens would be correspondingly diminished.

To hold the government to account is the raison d'être of Parliament. It is not only a right and privilege of members and of this House, but a duty of Parliament and its members to hold the government to account for the conduct of the nation's business. Holding the government to account is the essence of why we are here. It is a constitutional function. In the words of the marketers, it is “job one”.

Our constitutional duty requires us to exercise our right and privilege, to study legislation, and to hold the government to account by means of raising a question of privilege. This privilege has been denied to us because of the consistent and immoderate use of the guillotine in regard to 21 instances of time allocation, in this session alone.

This use of time allocation, as you know, Mr. Speaker, is unprecedented in the history of Canada, and infringes on your duty as Speaker to protect our rights and privileges as members. As you have said many times, that is your responsibility and you take it very seriously. However, these closure motions undermine your role and your duty to protect us. Therefore, it diminishes the role of Speaker, as honoured from time immemorial.

In fact, you expressed it, Mr. Speaker, in debates in the autumn of 2011, at page 4396, when you had occasion to reflect on “the Chair's primordial concern for the preservation of the privileges of all members..”, and when you added, “As your Speaker, one of my principal responsibilities is to ensure that the rights and privileges of members are safeguarded, and this is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

Denying the members' rights and privileges to hold the government to account is an unacceptable and unparliamentary diminishment of both the raison d'être of Parliament and of the Speaker's function and role in protecting the privileges of all members of this House.

In conclusion, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the intemperate and unrestrained use of time allocation by this government constitutes a prima facie breach of privilege of all members of this House, especially those who are independents or, such as myself, representatives of one of the parties with fewer than 12 members.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your consideration in this matter. I hope you will find in favour of this question of privilege, that this is a prima facie breach of the privileges and rights of all members.

Public Safety

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, our Conservative government is a proud partner in the global fight against terrorism. That is why we have given security agencies a number of tools to combat terrorism and continue to protect law-abiding Canadian families from those who would seek to do them harm.

I would like to also remind the House that it was this government, the Conservative government, that introduced the first counter-terrorism strategy, passed the Combating Terrorism Act, and most recently, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which actually revokes citizenship from those who commit terrorism in Canada against our allies. I would also like to remind the House that we were the only party that voted in favour of that legislation.

Combating Counterfeit Products Act

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that each time the Conservatives give more power to a minister, they should have to prove that the legal process, for example, is ineffective or inefficient.

Bill C-24, on immigration, is often cited as an example where a minister is being granted more power. The government has not proven that the courts were overrun with terrorism or high treason cases. With respect to Bill C-24, I did not hear that the courts were being flooded with high treason cases because Canadian officers were committing high treason and giving information to foreign powers every five minutes.

They did not prove that the legal system was overrun with cases and that the minister needed to be granted more powers. This is no different. They have not proven that the minister needs this additional power because the courts would be overwhelmed with cases that would not be heard in time.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we proceed with questions and comments, I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

The Secretary to the Governor General and Herald Chancellor

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

June 19, 2014

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 19th day of June, 2014, at 6:07 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Wallace

The schedule indicates the bill assented to on June 19, 2014, was Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, royal assent to the following bills:

Bill C-217, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (mischief relating to war memorials)

Bill C-444, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (personating peace officer or public officer)

Bill C-34, An Act to give effect to the Tla'amin Final Agreement and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts

Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures

Bill C-20, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Honduras, the Agreement on Environmental Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Honduras and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Honduras

Bill C-38, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2015

Bill C-39, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the financial year ending March 31, 2015

Bill C-394, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the National Defence Act (criminal organization recruitment)

Bill C-25, An Act respecting the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Band Order

Bill C-37, An Act to change the names of certain electoral districts and to amend the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act

Bill C-31, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014 and other measures

Bill C-489, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (restrictions on offenders)

Message from the Senate

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I have the honour to inform the House that messages have been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bills: Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts; Bill C-489, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (restrictions on offenders).

I also have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-218, An Act respecting National Fiddling Day.

Respect for Communities Act

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and speak to Bill C-2. It is an example of a trend in the government. I will explain myself throughout my speech.

I am concerned about the way in which we go about making laws in this country. This legislation is an example of the Conservative government's leadership when it comes to drafting legislation and bringing it to the House. How the government acts in public really flies in the face of the Canada that I grew up in and the Canada I am proud to be a part of. Now when I stand in the House I feel very sad for our legislative process.

To begin, I want to talk a bit about what the bill is really about. It is not really about respecting communities, again a trend in some of the bills that we see, for example, safe communities and so on. This legislation is not at all about communities. It is about marginalizing those who are already marginalized. It is about putting further violence in the lives of those who already live with so much violence. It is about putting in danger those who are already in danger.

Essentially, this entire legislation is about InSite. For those who may not be familiar with InSite, it is a place in the Vancouver area where those who are addicted to drugs can go for safe injection. We all understand what addiction is, at least those of us on this side of the House, and that there are ways to make it safer for individuals to break a habit so they can escape the cycle of drug abuse. If they cannot break the cycle, and that can be the case for some, at least they would not be put in a more vulnerable position.

Following an increase in the number of overdose deaths in Vancouver between 1987 and 1993, Vancouver Coastal Health and community partners set up InSite. Since then there has been a huge decrease in diseases such as Hep A, B, C, and HIV/AIDS.

InSite was originally exempt under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. In 2008, the exemption under Section 56 in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act expired. That has caused us to be in the situation we are in now. The minister of health at that time denied its renewal and that resulted in subsequent court cases. It was brought up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the minister's decision to close InSite, to not renew the exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, was a violation of the charter rights of those who were part of the program. The minister's decision was “...arbitrary, undermining the very purposes of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which include public health and safety”.

That is an overview of why we are here. We are here now because the Conservatives are not in agreement ideologically with the Supreme Court's ruling. This legislation would impose extremely stringent conditions on places like InSite and would really dissuade any other communities that have the need for such programs from participating in them.

In a sense this legislation is only about InSite. In a sense the bill exemplifies a trend in the Conservative government.

The Conservatives have such profound disrespect for any Supreme Court ruling that comes forward and that goes against their ideology. They have a complete disrespect for the judicial branch in this country and the fact that when a decision is made by the Supreme Court, if they do not like it, then too bad. They are not the defenders of rights and freedoms in this country, the courts are. That is why we have a separate judicial process. Unfortunately, the Conservatives keep finding ways of going around any of those decisions that are made by bringing forward legislation that flies in the face of it, sort of goes around it so that it fits their ideology.

For instance, the court in this case based its decision on section 7 of the charter, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of a person and the right not be deprived thereof, except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

This is extremely common. We are seeing the Conservatives disagree with fundamentally, ideologically, in Supreme Court rulings things that have to do with people's security, people's health, people's right to life. That is what is so scary about this trend. The Supreme Court did rule that InSite and other supervised injection sites must be granted a section 56 exemption when they decrease the risk of death and disease and there is little or no evidence that they have a negative impact on the community. InSite does not have a negative impact on the community, quite the opposite, it has a very positive impact on the community. The Conservatives now have to go through this bill to try to create stringent conditions for InSite.

This is blatant disrespect and disregard for the InSite ruling. it completely flies in the face of it. This is in the context of a government that has challenged the Supreme Court over and over again through these backward ways of bringing in legislation to the House that flies in the face of a ruling.

For instance, we are thinking of a very close case in my opinion, the same type of situation. Bill C-36 was recently put down. It really flies in the face of the Bedford decision, which was very clear that given the dangerous conditions of sex work, those who are engaged in it need to be able to take the steps to protect themselves. Now we have a bill that is so disempowering. It is not an exaggeration to say that lives would be put at risk due to this legislation.

We also have Bill C-24, which is the immigration bill that creates dual citizenship. Dual citizens are treated as second-class citizens who potentially would be deported and put in danger in countries they may never have even known.

This is also in the context of several crime bills that have been returned due to their unconstitutionality. We see over and over that the Conservatives are marginalizing at-risk Canadians and further marginalizing already marginalized groups.

The many justice bills of the Conservatives, as I mentioned, follow the same model. They ostracize, isolate, and divide people. Instead of trying to address the root issue, the Conservatives tackle symptoms without even looking for the source of the problem. They throw people in jail without helping them reintegrate into society, and that does not solve the problem.

Let us not forget the unelected and unaccountable Senate blocking my colleague's bill on gender identity, creating rights for trans Canadians who are so marginalized and are put in situations of violence. I do not think I have time to get into the difference between an unelected, unaccountable Senate going against the elected thoughts of the House, and the judicial process, which is to protect the rights of Canadians despite the democratic processes that happen in this House.

The Senate works against that process, but over and over, the government is choosing ideology over facts. In these cases, every time the government is going to outrageous lengths, really, to subvert the courts, and these bills. I am not exaggerating, I know am out of time but I really want to get this out. These bills are putting people in danger--

Calgary International Airport

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, Calgary International Airport, located in my riding, is the third busiest airport in Canada, contributing $6 billion to the economy.

Last weekend I joined 12,000 Calgarians to celebrate the opening of the longest commercial runway in Canada. This is the only runway in Canada that has a 100% eco-friendly LED lighting system. It will save 60,000 kilowatt hours per year, which is the equivalent to a saving of 41.3 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Calgary airport is an economic driver for western Canada, and I congratulate the Calgary Airport Authority on this historic milestone.

Before my time is up, I would like to thank all of my colleagues who supported the passage of Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, yesterday, especially our hard-working Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for including provisions from my private member's bill, Bill C-425.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition from residents of Edmonton, who are concerned that Bill C-24 unfairly treats current Canadian permanent residents. I have met with a number of these signators, who are expressing concern with the longer wait times. They have diligently learned to speak English well, in some cases French, have even played hockey, and they think that this bill would treat them unfairly. They would like to have their time served as permanent residents and students put toward becoming citizens.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have another opportunity to respond to the Thursday question from the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

I know how proud he claims to be about showing up to work. In fact, though, the New Democrats seem to have a spotty record on that. Last evening, that very member rose to speak to our government's bill to protect our communities and exploited persons—that is Bill C-36—and after one whole minute he moved to adjourn the House. He said we should all go home. Maybe that is the parliamentary equivalent of taking one's ball and wanting to go home when one is unhappy with how things are going in another meeting.

In any event, we did all dutifully troop into the House to vote on that at 6 p.m. However, what was very revealing was that only 61 of those 98 New Democrats stood in their places to vote. A few of them were missing their shifts, oddly. We did not find that on the Conservative side. In fact, we just had two votes in the House, and the number of New Democrats who were not standing in their places was very similar to that.

Therefore, when I ask myself who is not showing up for work, I can say it is not the Conservatives not showing up; it is, in fact, the New Democrats.

However, following the popular acclaim of last week's Thursday statement, I would like to recap what we have actually accomplished in the House since last week in terms of the legislative agenda.

Bill C-37, the riding name change act, 2014, which was compiled and assembled through the input of all parties, was introduced and adopted at all stages.

Bill C-31, the economic action plan, act no. 1, was adopted at both report stage and, just moments ago, at third reading.

Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, was concurred in at report stage.

Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, was passed at third reading. Of course, the NDP tried to slow down its passage, but Conservatives were able to get around those efforts, as I am sure the 50 New Democrats on vigil in the House last night fondly appreciate, and we were able to extend our hours because there were, again, not even 50 New Democrats here in the House to stand in their places to block that debate as they wanted to, so we did finish the Canada-Honduras bill that night and were able to vote on it.

The government's spending proposals for the year were adopted by the House, and two bills to give these plans effect, Bill C-38 and BillC-39, were each passed at all stages.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, was reported back from committee, and several other reports from committees were also tabled. As I understand, we will see Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, reported back from the health committee in short order.

Finally, this morning we virtually unanimously passed a motion to reappoint Mary Dawson as our Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

Sadly, though, the New Democrats did not heed my call last week to let Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, pass at second reading. We were treated, sadly, to only more words and no deeds from the NDP.

Turning to the business ahead, I am currently anticipating the following debates. This afternoon and tonight, we will finish the debate on Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, at second reading. That will be followed by third reading of Bill C-24 and second reading of Bill C-35, Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law).

Tomorrow morning, we will debate Bill C-24, if necessary, and Bill C-18, Agricultural Growth Act, at second reading. After question period, we will get back to Bill C-32, and give the NDP one more chance to send the victims bill of rights to committee.

The highlight of Monday is going to be the report stage of Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act. Tuesday’s feature debate will be Bill C-2, the Respect for Communities Act, at second reading. Wednesday will see us finish third reading, I hope, of Bill C-6. During the additional time available those days—in addition to Thursday and Friday of next week—I will schedule any unfinished debates on Bill C-18, Bill C-32 and Bill C-35.

I will also try to schedule debates on Bill C-22 and Bill C-17, as well as other bills, such as Bill C-3, Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, at third reading; Bill C-8, Combating Counterfeit Products Act, at third reading; Bill C-12, Drug-Free Prisons Act, at second reading; Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act, at second reading; Bill C-26, Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, at second reading; Bill S-2, Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, at second reading; Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, at second reading; and Bill S-4, Digital Privacy Act—which I understand we will receive shortly from the other place—at second reading.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister went on TV and claimed that Bill C-24 would respect Canada's charter because it is consistent with other NATO countries.

Can the minister please explain how NATO has anything to do with charter protections for Canadian citizens?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister really will say anything to evade taking responsibility for his failures. He goes out into the media daily, where he only succeeds in making himself look even worse. The minister even went on TV and claimed that Bill C-24 would respect Canada's charter because it is consistent with other NATO countries.

Can the minister explain—

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is with respect to Bill C-24, the amendment to the Citizenship Act. These petitioners are concerned that it treats Canadian permanent residents who came to Canada as temporary workers and international students who have spent a considerable amount of time here and wish to have that time counted toward their citizenship unfairly. They are of great economic benefit, and the petitioners want the government to amend the Citizenship Act to recognize the contribution that these citizens make.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, the minister had to apologize to an immigration consultant whose name he unfairly dragged through the mud. The minister also attacked the Canadian Bar Association for its position on Bill C-24, and yesterday, he went after Toronto constitutional expert Rocco Galati, who was another victim of the minister's mood swings.

Why is the minister ignoring or attacking everyone who does not agree with him? Does he not realize that this attitude, which is typical of the Conservatives, is completely ridiculous and inappropriate?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister no longer knows what to say to salvage his credibility.

A number of experts, including the Canadian Bar Association, believe that the citizenship bill is unconstitutional. Yesterday, in a CBC interview, the minister dismissed the criticism, saying that Bill C-24 is similar to what is being done in other NATO countries, but what does NATO have to do with a debate on access to Canadian citizenship? It is completely ridiculous.

Will our fundamental rights in Canada now depend on the mood of our NATO allies?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took evasive action after being asked about the constitutionality of his immigration bill. He refused to answer the question, but he did manage to make an unrelated reference to the “disgraced ideological former lawyer of the Khadr family”.

Could the minister tell us how his latest smear job is even remotely relevant to the constitutionality of Bill C-24?

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

Mr. Speaker, that question speaks to the pitiful quality of opposition criticism and commentary throughout this debate on Bill C-24. We will stand behind a bill if the main opponent to it is the disgraced ideological former lawyer of the Khadr family.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Bar Association, UNICEF, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees and many other experts agree that Bill C-24 does not comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or international law.

They believe that some parts of the bill are unconstitutional. If the Conservatives really want to improve the Citizenship Act, why are they stubbornly ignoring these experts? Why not amend Bill C-24?

Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that question has many elements.

I would have liked my Conservative colleagues to ask me some questions. I would have been pleased to hear what they had to say about this. However, they wanted to continue the debate until the bill is disposed of. However long it takes, I will defend human rights around the world at any hour of the day on behalf of the people of Sherbrooke.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives are not showing up for work. We saw that this evening. Not one Conservative spoke to Bill C-24, which we debated a little earlier. As far as Bill C-20 is concerned, not one Conservative will defend their bill.

It is unfortunate, because I would have liked to have a debate of ideas on Bill C-20, but clearly, when the Conservatives adopted the motion to extend sitting hours until midnight, it was a licence for laziness. We see that today. The Conservatives are barely asking any questions, and they do not have the nerve to defend their bills. Then they will go back to their ridings, claiming that they worked late and hard and saying that they passed many bills. In fact, they did nothing. So far, they have missed almost 70 opportunities to speak and stand up for their constituents.

I would be disappointed if I lived in a Conservative riding and saw my MP unable to speak in the House and defend my interests. I would really be very disappointed for that and many other reasons.

Obviously, the Liberals, who are complacent about this bill—

Bill C-24—Time Allocation Motion

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a fact, and maybe the minister can stand up and apologize for misleading Canadians.

I have been on several committees since I have been here. When a committee is studying a project or a bill, we bring in witnesses. The Conservatives will bring in witnesses who are tilted to their way of thinking. However, they could not bring in any to discuss Bill C-24 because they could not find any Conservative witnesses who shared their way of thinking.

Will the minister now stand up and apologize to Canadians for misleading them and trying to make them believe that there were witnesses at committee when there were not?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, why did the NDP, on February 27, in the person of my colleague, the immigration critic for the NDP, move to end debate on Bill C-24, to discontinue debate at that early stage? Was that a positive co-operative expression of faith in the democratic process? We do not think so, nor did we think so in the three days of debate allocated to second reading. We heard the same speech time and time again from the NDP, citing the same inaccurate information, often from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association or a small section of the Canadian Bar Association. They do not speak for Canadians across the board. They do not even speak for lawyers across the board. That is what we have heard from the much broader feedback that we have had, from a much broader group of people.

I spoke to people last week who signed the petition, which contains thousands of names, as many online petitions do. After a five-minute discussion, they said they would be taking their names off the petition. They had not understood what they were actually expressing their opposition to. They had not understood the benefits of the bill. They had not understood how processing would become faster. They had not understood how the value of Canadian citizenship would be strengthened by a four-year residency requirement. It would ensure that we are not moving in the direction, as Richard Gwyn regretted some years ago, of turning Canadian citizenship into “the unbearable lightness of being Canadian”.

We want people to have a substantial understanding of this country, its laws, its traditions, its system of government. That is what the “Discover Canada” guide does; that is what our reforms today have done; that is what the bill will do, and that is why it is popular with Canadians.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is another sad day in the history of our Parliament. Unfortunately, this is the 71st time the government has used time allocation to shut down debate on an issue.

A few weeks ago, the Conservatives broke the corrupt Liberals' sorry record for the number of time allocations during a single Parliament, a record that the Conservatives always used to condemn. They always used to say that this was no place for time allocation motions. Now, with their 71st, they have left the Liberals' record far behind. The Conservatives are worse than the Liberals, and that is not very impressive.

The headline this weekend in the Vancouver Sun was, “[Prime Minister's] Abuse of Power Comes Daily”. It talked about the culture of secrecy, partisanship, and contempt for due process that runs rampant in the current government. This is particularly the case with Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 is controversial. It has had opposition from across this country. The Conservatives used closure to try to ram it through, but they said in committee that they would actually consider amendments. However, the bill comes back from committee, not only without being amended, but even more appalling, this Conservative majority did not allow any witnesses to consider the bill. That is the real reason they are using closure.

It is an embarrassing bill, one that is not going to stand up in court, and it is igniting a lot of opposition across the country. Instead of having a proper parliamentary debate, instead of allowing witnesses to speak on the bill and have Canadian groups in who are actually concerned about the bill, the Conservatives have shut that process down: no amendments and not a single witness. Is that not the real reason the Conservatives are bringing in closure? Is it because they know that witnesses speaking to the bill will criticize it?

Of course, if there are amendments that could be brought in, all they could do is improve upon a bill that has a bad principle and a bad direction. However, is that not the real reason the Conservatives are bringing in closure today? They want to shut down debate before the public becomes aware of what they have done with the bill.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the bill and five hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

that, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration at report stage and the five hours provided for the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stages of the bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Bill C-24—Notice of Time Allocation

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise not in relation to questions and comments but rather to provide the following notice to the House.

I must advise that an agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2) concerning the proceedings at report stage and third reading of Bill C-24, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting of the House a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak today on Bill C-31. Let me make it very clear right from the beginning that I will be speaking in opposition to this bill for a number of reasons.

One of the most critical reasons is that once again the government is choosing to shut down debate and has moved time allocation on a really critical bill. We have a bill of 350 pages. It addresses over 500 clauses and impacts 60 acts, yet debate is being limited.

It is an example of how budgets have been passed ever since I have been in Parliament. The government introduces a budget bill the size of a phone book in the majority of our municipalities and then wants us to vote on it holus-bolus. It throws in some tempting stuff, but there is also a lot of negative stuff that will force us to vote against it.

I have noticed one key thing that would really impact my community. The groups of people and businesses that grow jobs are the small and medium-sized enterprises across the country. They are the engines of our economy, but in this bill there is no small business job creation tax credit.

It is not there, even though it is a proven way to grow jobs in this country. They grow jobs in our communities. Money is spent in our communities, and we collect taxes that help to feed our health care and education systems and so on.

I also do not see anything significant in this budget that would address the critical area of the huge transaction fees that small businesses are burdened with over and over again, once again eating into their profit margins and their ability to survive, and let us not forget the high cost of interest rates on many credit cards.

We are also talking about a period in our history right now when we actually have more unemployed Canadians. Despite all of the rhetoric from my colleagues across the way, and they can say it as much as they like, it will not change reality. The reality is that we have 300,000 more Canadians unemployed today than we had before the depression. That is just not acceptable.

Today I heard a minister saying that we are doing better than other places in youth unemployment. We are not. We have youth unemployment in the double digits. In B.C., there are areas where the youth unemployment rate is at 15%.

By the way, let me make it clear that we have 300,000 more unemployed people today than in the past. A huge number of people in Canada are underemployed or working two or three jobs at minimum wage in order to make ends meet.

All of this is with a budget that would do nothing to address the huge deficit in manufacturing jobs. I do not see any major stimulus or investment in that area to get that sector moving and get our economy back on the road.

I also heard a minister saying earlier that we are managing to get through a lot of legislation. We have to be careful about how quickly we rush through legislation. I am reminded of Bill C-24. Only one component was the citizenship revocation component. Here is a bill that would fundamentally change what citizenship is, yet when it went to committee stage, not one witness or expert was heard from. We went directly from a very preliminary and time-allocated debate of six and a half hours in the House to then having no witnesses or expert testimony and going straight into clause by clause. That seems to be turning into a bit of a pattern with the Conservative government.

We also have the government rushing to sign agreements. For example, it seems to have lost the concern it had around privacy issues when it was in opposition. Canadians care very deeply about the privacy issue, but once again we are giving away valuable information through the IRS and FATCA. The justification is that because the government may suspect someone could be doing something, it has a right to surveillance without any kind of legal right to do so. The attitude is, “We are the government, and we now have that right”.

We have seen the attacks on the veterans. We have seen the attacks on small and medium-sized businesses. We have seen the attack on the privacy of Canadians. However, we have seen no real measures that would invest in a major way to get the economy going when it comes to manufacturing or addressing high youth unemployment.

Let me get to another disturbing aspect of the bill, the component dealing with the temporary foreign worker program.

Of course we are delighted to hear that the minister will be making some changes. This is the same minister who has been making changes for the last little while. Those changes have not stopped abuse by some employers, nor has it stopped the flood of temporary foreign workers. When we have a high number of temporary foreign workers at the same time that we have high youth unemployment and high labour availability, it really is disturbing.

I had the privilege of listening to the Parliamentary Budget Officer this morning. He said that although there is no overall skills shortage in this country, we do not even have the data. I have known that for a while. What is disturbing is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said on record that we do not have the data to help us make informed decisions, whether it comes to immigration or granting LMOs, which are labour mobility orders. We do not have the data we need to plan for the future when it comes to skills investment and apprenticeships and growing the skill sets that we need. We do not have the data to guide our young generation on where they should be investing their energy as they look to the future.

Let us take a look at the temporary foreign worker program, which has absolutely ballooned. Now we are to believe a minister that the government will increase penalties for the employer. It is in the bill, but that is cold comfort for the two waitresses in Saskatchewan who were laid off from their jobs while temporary foreign workers were brought in. It is little comfort to the young people in Victoria who had their hours reduced, were not hired, or were let go because temporary foreign workers were brought in.

We are also worried about the vulnerability of temporary foreign workers. Our country has a proud history of having immigration policies that build our nation, but in this bill we have veered away from that. These are not my words. A temporary foreign worker, a young man who was here from Belize, said that it was beginning to feel like slavery.

We have heard of all these horrendous abuses. I have talked to many employers and others who have said that they have reported abuse to the CBSA and to CIC, but the only time four names appeared on a list was when CBC broke a story. It made national news, and on a Sunday afternoon, lo and behold, there were four names, but none of the others. There is absolute evidence that there are other people who have reported abuse, but their names were not there.

Clearly, then, there are many things that need to be addressed.

I will finish by saying that this budget fails to invest in growing jobs for the future, fails our youth, and fails working people, because it does not have anything major within it for them.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will start with the concept of the very strange proposition put forward by my friend. He uses this concept of shifts and believes there is some perverse obligation on the part of the government that, if the opposition wishes to filibuster the production of new laws and delay their production, we somehow have an obligation to match them step for step in extending that process. His comparison is with ordinary Canadians. He said that ordinary Canadians should not produce a product at the end of the day at work; they should take two, three, or four days to get the same thing made. That is his idea of getting things done. That is his idea of how ordinary Canadians can work. I think that says something about the culture of the NDP and the hon. member. I will let members guess what culture that is. It is a culture that does say we should take two or three times longer to get something done or to get to our destination than we possibly can.

We on this side are happy to make decisions to get things done for Canadians. In fact, that is exactly what we have been doing. Since I last rose in response to a Thursday question, the House has accomplished a lot, thanks to our government's plan to work a little overtime this spring.

I know the House leader of the official opposition boasts that the New Democrats are happy to work hard, but let us take a look at what his party's deputy leader had to say on CTV last night. The hon. member for Halifax was asked why the NDP agreed to work until midnight. She confessed, “We didn't agree to do it.” She then lamented, “We are going from topic to topic. We are doing votes. We are at committees. They are really intense days. We're sitting until midnight.”

On that part, I could not agree more with the deputy leader of the NDP, believe it or not, but with much more cheer in my voice when I say those words, because we think it is a good thing. These are intense days. We are actually getting things done. We are actually voting on things. We are actually getting things through committee. For once, we are going from topic to topic in the run of the day.

Let me review for the House just how many topics, votes, and committee accomplishments we have addressed since the government asked the House to roll up its sleeves.

Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, was passed at second reading and has even been reported back from the citizenship committee.

Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, was concurred in at report stage and later passed at third reading.

Bill C-31, the economic action plan 2014 act, no. 1, was reported back from the finance committee.

Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, was passed at second reading.

Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, was concurred in at report stage.

On the private members' business front we saw:

Bill C-555, from the hon. members for West Nova in support of the seal hunt, was passed at second reading.

Bill C-483, from my hon. colleague, the member for Oxford, cracking down on prisoners' escorted temporary absences was passed at third reading.

Bill C-479, from the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, on improving the place of victims in our justice system was passed at third reading last night.

Progress is not limited to Conservative initiatives. The Green Party leader's Bill C-442, respecting a Lyme disease strategy, was reported back from committee yesterday.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay saw a motion on palliative care pass.

We have also seen countless reports from committees reviewing the government's spending plans, as well as topics of importance to those committees.

This morning we even ratified the appointment of an officer of Parliament.

Finally, I do want to reflect on the accomplishment of Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act (Vanessa's law), which members may recall me discussing in last week's Thursday statement. It finally passed at second reading. However, this did not happen until the NDP relented and changed its tune to allow the bill to go to committee. It was the first time ever that we had an expression from the New Democrats when we gave notice of intention to allocate time in which they said, “We don't need that time; we're actually prepared to allow a bill to advance to the next stage”. I think, by reflecting on the fact that those dozens of other times the NDP did not take that step, we could understand that they did not want to see a bill advance; they did not want to see progress made. That lets Canadians understand quite clearly why it is we need to use scheduling and time allocation as a device to get things done in the face of a group that thinks the objective is to fill up all possible time available with words rather than actual votes and getting things done.

It is clear that our approach is working. We are getting things done in the House of Commons and delivering results for Canadians.

Perhaps I might be overly inspired by the example of Vanessa’s Law, but I do want to draw the attention of the House to Bill C-32, the Victims Bill of Rights Act.

So far, we have seen three days of debate on second reading of the bill, but “debate” is actually not accurate. What we have witnessed is speech, after speech, after speech—most of them from New Democrats—offering platitudes of support for the idea of getting that bill to a committee where it could be studied. What I want to know is, why will they not just let it happen? Victims of crime want to see meaningful action, not just kind words.

Suffice it to say that I will need to schedule additional time for discussion of this bill. Perhaps the NDP will let it pass after a fourth day of talk.

This afternoon, we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-31, our budget implementation bill. When that concludes, we will turn to Bill C-20, to implement our free trade agreement with Honduras, at third reading. If time permits, we will continue the third reading debate on Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act.

Tomorrow morning, we will start the report stage debate on Bill C-24, which makes the first modernization of the Citizenship Act in 35 years. After question period, I will call Bill C-32, the Victims Bill of Rights Act, to see if the NDP is ready to deliver results, not talk.

Monday morning, we will continue the third reading debate on Bill C-20, if more time is needed, and then resume the second reading debate on Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act. After question period, we will get back to the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.

Tuesday shall be the eighth allotted day when the NDP will have a chance to talk, and talk, about a topic of their own choosing. At the end of the night, we will have a number of important votes on approving the funds required for government programs and services and pass two bills to that end.

On Wednesday, we will debate our budget bill at third reading, and then we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which my seatmate, the Minister of Justice, tabled yesterday.

We will continue the debates on Bill C-36 and Bill C-24, if extra time is needed, on Thursday. After those have finished, and on Friday, we will resume the uncompleted debates on Bill C-3, the Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act, at third reading; Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, at report stage; Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, at third reading; Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act, at second reading; Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, at second reading; Bill C-32, the Victims Bill of Rights Act, at second reading; and Bill C-35, the Justice for Animals in Service Act (Quanto's Law), at second reading.

To make a long story short, we have accomplished much in the House over the last week, but we still have much left to do, which inspires me to note that in the week ahead I have to take my automobile in for maintenance. At that time, when I take it to the dealership, I hope one person will work on it for an hour, get the job done, and then return it to me at a reasonable cost. I do hope I am not told, “There are still many more employees who have not had a chance to have a shift working on your car as well, so we are going to keep it here another three days and give everybody a turn to work on your car.” I hope the dealership will do as Conservatives do: get the job done and then deliver me the product.

Citizenship and Immigration

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House without amendments.

While I am on my feet, I move:

That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.

Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on Bill C-20, the free trade agreement with Honduras.

Despite what members of the government, and perhaps members of their partners, the Liberals, have suggested, we are not opposed to trade. On this side of the House, we are very much in favour of trade, and very much in favour of fairer trade, and where that is possible, then free trade as it goes with fairer trade. However, this is certainly not an agreement we can support, mostly because the partner on the other side of this agreement is not one we should be giving any credence to whatsoever.

The government in Honduras is oppressive, and it was originally formed through a military coup. It is a government that has institutions that are not working. It is the murder capital of Central America, perhaps of the world, and most murders are not investigated even by the police, yet the Conservative government has decided that it is a model deal for us to sign. I just cannot stomach how low we have sunk in search of free trade deals.

We know there is a trade deal coming with Europe, but for some reason it is very badly stalled. It was announced in the throne speech of 2011 along with a trade deal with India, but we have not seen either of them yet. We have seen an apparent signing of an agreement in principle, but we do not even know what those principles are because there have been no details.

Here we are debating, as we did with Panama, a deal with a very poor nation that has a terrible governmental and human rights record, and we are debating it under time allocation, of all things. This is now the most important thing on the Conservative government's agenda, and it has to be done now. However, the agreement in principle was reached in August 2011, which is almost three years ago. The actual deal was signed in November 2013, more than six months ago, but now we have five hours to debate it. That is ridiculous, and 68 time allocation motions are not some kind of scheduling convenience, as the Conservatives would have us believe. They are running roughshod over democracy, and we should not be proud of that record.

Both the Conservatives and Liberals are suggesting that the NDP is opposed to trade, which could not be further from the truth. In fact, we relish the thought that we are going to be able to get at more trade with more partners in this world. However, we need to do it in a way that improves the status of those other countries, and not as a reward for countries that have terrible records and terrible governments, which is in fact what is happening here.

We ask questions when it comes to a trade deal.

Is the proposed partner one that respects democracy, human rights, the environment, labour standards, and Canadian values? If some of those things are not all the way to what a Canadian standard would be, are they working to fix it? If the answer to that question is yes, then that is a partner we can see doing business with on the basis of a free trade agreement.

Is the proposed partner's economy of significant or strategic value to Canada? Apparently it may be of strategic value to some mining industries, but it is a very small player in terms of Canada's overall trade, and we do in fact have a trade deficit with this country.

Are the terms satisfactory? Well, the proposed free trade agreement with Honduras fails this test.

Honduras is a country with undemocratic practices, a corrupt government, weak institutions, low standards, insignificant strategic value, and a record of human rights abuses. When I look at the list of what Honduras is, I cannot help but think that some elements of the Conservative government are heading in those directions.

The fact is that we have had 68 time allocation motions to end debate, which are called “guillotine” motions in other countries because that is what they do. They guillotine debate and democracy. It is an indication that the Conservative government has slipped, we believe, in terms of its democratic practices, like Honduras.

The bill the Conservatives brought forward to change the electoral act disenfranchised some Canadians. That is moving backwards as far as democracy is concerned. The allegations of voter suppression are another example of undemocratic practices.

Regarding corruption in government, we have senators being given money by the Prime Minister's chief of staff in order to keep them quiet, or billing practices whereby senators bill the public for travel when it is a partisan event they are going to or bill for homes they are not living in.

All of these things are corrupt practices of a government. Maybe the Conservatives think they want to be like Honduras, and that is why they want to sign an agreement with it.

We have a Prime Minister who surrounds himself with characters who are of questionable repute. We have a government that is giving more and more power to single individuals within that government, taking that power away from institutions or Parliament and putting it in the hands of a minister. For example, there is Bill C-24, which would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the power to individually strip a person born in Canada of his or her Canadian citizenship. We do not normally find that concentration of power except in governments that are not democratic, and that is part of what we are seeing here.

We have weakened institutions in Canada. The Chief Electoral Officer had his powers reduced in the recent bill on electoral reform. We have a fight with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. We did not have the government kicking four people off the Supreme Court, but there was a pretty public spat with the Supreme Court that had a chilling effect between the government and the Supreme Court.

We have lower standards in Honduras, lower standards in Canada, but what has the government's record been over the past few years? We have lowered our environmental standards. We have weakened our labour laws. We have taken ourselves in the opposite direction of improving environment and labour laws. We have stripped environmental protection from hundreds of thousands of rivers and lakes in this country. This is moving in the direction of a less environmentally conscious state, and perhaps Conservatives are looking at Honduras and seeing themselves in the mirror.

Other speakers have talked at length about the human rights abuses that have been legion in Honduras. Some of the human rights abuses have been perpetrated by the government and some perpetrated by others, but none of those human rights abuses have met with any kind of punishment, because impunity is the rule in Honduras. People can get away with anything because there are weak police forces and so little in the way of judicial oversight that very little is done.

What do we have here in Canada in terms of human rights abuses? It is a pretty good country, except we have a thousand or more murdered or missing aboriginal women and we have a government that is refusing over and over again to actually conduct even an investigation into those murdered and missing aboriginal women. In any other country, that would be seen as a human rights abuse. We have appalling living conditions and appalling educational conditions for indigenous people in this country. That in itself is a human rights abuse, and the government appears to want to do nothing to improve the situation. We have refugees who come to this country expecting to be treated with dignity and respect, and in some cases they are denied some or all of their medical care. They are expected to report back to their home country even if their home country is an unsafe place for them.

This is the direction this country has moved under the Conservative government, and it is looking strangely as though maybe Honduras is a comfortable partner for the government. I hope not.

In Honduras we also have the spectre of the killing of journalists. Now, I will not accuse the Canadian government of killing any journalists; that has not happened, but the government has attacked the CBC and it has attacked the CBC's journalists in the sense that it has now imposed itself in the collective bargaining arrangements with those journalists. The journalists are now having to deal directly with the government.

We on this side of the House support fairer trade. We support trade with equals in terms of environmental law, in terms of labour law, in terms of how people are treated in those countries. We support trade when standards in that other country will be raised and when we can see that happening. We do not support the free trade agreement the government has negotiated with Honduras for the reasons I have cited, and we will be opposing this deal.

Energy Safety and Security Act

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill, which ironically is titled the energy safety and security act. I say ironically because nothing in the bill actually talks about energy security, which is something that residents in my riding and across Canada have been asking the government to protect for many years. Energy security means actually providing that we have a reliable and secure source of energy in our homes, in our businesses, and in our workplaces.

The bill is weaving its way through and has taken forever. There are portions of the bill that are to ratify international obligations. It was introduced by the government on several previous occasions, and each time the government was the cause of the bill actually not proceeding. First, it was the quick call of an election in 2008 before the four years was up, then a prorogation actually eliminated the ability for that bill to go forward, and finally, an election was called before the bill finished wending its way, so it has been on the books for several years.

There is some importance to the speed with which the bill goes through, but obviously the government wants to take its time and discuss it over a long period of time. However, another bill, Bill C-24, was voted on in an absolutely tearing hurry just this afternoon, and yet I was not able to speak on it.

I have had meetings with constituents who have expressed serious concerns and serious reservations about the core of a bill that would give the minister the ability to take away the citizenship of persons born in Canada, which is an unprecedented thing in Canada and should have had a considerable amount of opportunity for members to discuss, yet the government moved time allocation with only about five hours of debate on this subject. It boggles the mind why that is so much more necessary to be hurried along than this bill, on which the government has taken years and years.

I will focus mostly on the nuclear side of this, because I have some personal concerns about the nuclear side of it. There have been a number of serious events on this planet involving nuclear power generation. Those events involving nuclear power generation have brought, I think, into crystal clear relief the fact that we have completely underestimated the costs of an actual disaster in these things. We are treating these nuclear power plants as just a piece of the landscape, but when in fact they go wrong, the cost is absolutely enormous.

Three Mile Island was a relatively small disaster. It was the first of the biggies, but it was a small disaster in terms of what actually happened. Nobody was killed and there were no bodily injuries, but the cleanup took 14 years and $1 billion, starting in 1979. A billion dollars was what was needed in 1979 for a small problem. Now we are in 2014, 35 years further along, and $1 billion is all that the nuclear industry has to put up if there is a liability involving a nuclear problem at a nuclear plant.

Let us fast-forward just seven years to Chernobyl. Chernobyl had $15 billion in direct losses. That is the plant itself, direct losses at the time on the site, a number of deaths, a whole lot of injuries; and over the next 30 years, it is estimated that because of the thousands upon thousands of residents of Ukraine and Belarus who will develop cancer, those costs could be over $500 billion.

We are not suggesting that the nuclear industry in Canada is capable of covering a cost of $500 billion, but to suggest $1 billion is all that is necessary is laughable, particularly when this industry is now quite robust and has been around a long time in relative terms.

The government is suggesting only $1 billion. That is actually a subsidy to this industry. We do not need to be subsidizing the nuclear power industry in this country, particularly when just two years ago the government gave away the CANDU licence to SNC-Lavalin. Now, a private corporation is actually in control of the development of our nuclear reactor system. It is not a corporation that is getting a whole lot of good reviews lately.

Then we come to 2011 and Fukushima. This is by far the worst of the nuclear disasters. It really brings home just how bad things can get when things go wrong in ways that are not expected. That is the essence of what nuclear designers are trying to do: figure out what we can do to protect against the unexpected.

Fukushima will probably cost between $250 billion and $500 billion when it is done. Nobody is absolutely certain. There is an untold human cost of Fukushima. They have had to evacuate and evict 159,000 people from the area around Fukushima. Though those people have not been told this, they can probably never go back to their homes.

Caesium-137, radioactive caesium, has a 30-year half-life. That radioactive material is now all over the ground, in the water, and in the air, in the area around that reactor. Because of a 30-year half-life, that means it will be centuries before those places are safe to inhabit again. Those people are still paying mortgages on their homes, but it will be centuries before they can go back to them.

That is the magnitude of what a nuclear disaster is really all about. I am afraid the government really does not understand just what it is dealing with in terms of tossing out the number $1 billion as if it is somehow an appropriate number to suggest the nuclear industry would have to come up with.

I am of two minds on the whole notion of nuclear energy as being a good thing for Canada. My father-in-law came back from World War II. He was a pilot in the RAF. He went to Chalk River and helped build those first few reactors at Chalk River. He was part of the design team that designed the CANDU system. His name was Roy Tilbe. He has passed on now, but he had a fierce loyalty to the nuclear industry generally and a fierce dedication to trying to make it a safe industry.

He would be appalled to think that the taxpayers have to pick up the ball if the industry is not safe enough. That is essentially what the government is suggesting to the industry, after six or seven years of dithering on what to do, by offering a paltry $1 billion as all that is required. The costs are of such magnitude that $1 billion is dwarfed by what those costs really are in the sense of a nuclear accident.

Let me talk about another cost that nobody here has talked about. Nuclear reactors in Canada and elsewhere have effluent, an output, waste. Nuclear waste is very toxic. It is something that people should not go near.

I was up on a little tour of Chalk River, where they showed us their nuclear waste management site. They did not call it a disposal site, but a management site. We went on a little bus. There was a bunch of Japanese and German tourists on the bus with us. We went around to the management site, and we were told that inside the steel cylinders encased in concrete was the waste. We know that the steel lasts about 150 years and the concrete lasts about 75 years, so every 75 years, the concrete has to be replaced and every 150 years the steel has to be replaced.

I asked the guide how long that would have to be done. I was told 75 years for the concrete and 150 for the steel. No, I said; I asked how long we had to manage the waste. I was told 500,000 years.

Has anybody really recognized what that means? What will $1 billion be worth in 500,000 years? Who will be around? Will SNC-Lavalin still be around? Will I still be around? The safety of Canadians should be paramount, and the industry should be held accountable.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first let me start by acknowledging the support shown on Tuesday night for our motion to have the House work hard for all Canadians to ensure that we have a productive, hard-working, and orderly House of Commons. It was not just this side of the House that voted for this ambitious plan to let MPs reach decisions on many important issues, and I want to thank the Liberal Party for agreeing to join Conservatives in rolling up their sleeves this spring.

I know my hon. friend has a different definition of what our work is here in the House of Commons. He believes that our work here is to filibuster and fill every moment possible with as many speeches as possible to avoid decisions being made. I have encountered one or two Canadians who think the problem with politicians is too much talk and not enough action. Now we know where they get that impression.

On this side of the House, we are committed to action, we are committed to delivering results, and we are committed to decisions being made and to people participating in votes and making decisions on behalf of their constituents at home. That is why we need debates to also come to a conclusion so we can make those decisions and so we can have those votes.

Last night, for example, we had a great debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act. That is our government taking steps to modernize the Citizenship Act for the first time in some 35 years. What is even better, we just had a vote and a decision. Every single member, not just a dozen or so who might have spoken for a few hours but every single member of this House, got to have a say on behalf of his or her constituents and got to make a decision and advance a bill through the legislation process. That is what it is really all about.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday morning—before we adopted the government's ambitious work plan—a number of New Democrats expressed their support for Bill C-17, Vanessa's law. However, they did not walk that talk.

The honourable member for Chambly—Borduas said, “we do recognize the urgency [of this matter]”. Nevertheless, seven other New Democrats then got up after him to block this bill from going to committee. Among them was their deputy leader who said, “I also hope that the bill will go to committee quickly...”.

I wish that the New Democrats listened to their deputy leader. It would be disappointing to think that the NDP might be using Vanessa's law as a political hostage by filibustering it as a means to avoid debating other bills.

I would not want to ascribe such cynical motives to the House leader of the official opposition, and I trust this is not a preview of how he wishes to approach the business of the House for the forthcoming three weeks, when Canadians actually expect us to accomplish things for them.

Looking forward to these three weeks to come, I am pleased to review the business the government will call in the coming days.

This afternoon, we will carry on with the second reading debate on Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act. Once that has concluded, we will take up Bill C-6, the prohibiting cluster munitions act, at report stage. If time permits, we will get back to third reading and passage of Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act.

Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, will be considered tomorrow at report stage and hopefully at third reading as well.

After the weekend, we will consider Bill C-20, which would implement our free trade agreement with the Republic of Honduras, at report stage.

Following Monday's question period, we will consider Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, at second reading. That will be followed by second reading of Bill C-26, the tougher penalties for child predators act.

On Tuesday morning, we will start second reading debate on Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act. The hon. member for Richmond Hill spoke a couple of nights ago about this wonderful bill, Quanto's law, which will have a chance to be considered, thanks to having additional debate time in the House. Since I cannot imagine New Democrats opposing this bill, the only question is how many speeches will they give supporting it, and of course, how will giving more speeches make this bill become law sooner.

Following question period, we will resume debate on Bill C-20, on Canada-Honduras free trade, as well as Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, which I discussed earlier, Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, and Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act.

On Wednesday, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-21, Red Tape Reduction Act. After private members' hour, we will begin report stage of Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, which underwent clause-by-clause study at the Standing Committee on Finance this week.

A week from today, on Thursday next, we will continue debating our budget implementation bill. Ideally, I would also like to see us finish third reading of the bill on the free trade agreement between Canada and the Republic of the Honduras that day.

Finally, any remaining time available to us that evening will be spent on the bills on which the NDP will be able to offer more, remarkably similar speeches confirming, time after time, their support. Although I appreciate their supportive attitude towards many parts of our government's legislative agenda, it would be great if they would let all members of Parliament have their say, in an ultimate expression of democracy and to help us move from mere words to actual deeds, so that all of us can tell our constituents that we have actually accomplished something on their behalf.

Bill C-24—Time Allocation Motion

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the minister that Bill C-24 is not on solid constitutional footing. It could run into challenges regarding section 15, in particular, and section 11 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Does he realize that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the minister. I am sure he knows he was mistaken when he said that we had debated this bill for 36 hours. I would like to remind him that Bill C-24 was debated for just a few hours by just five members: a Liberal, a New Democrat and three Conservatives, if I remember correctly. If I am wrong about that, he can set the record straight.

That means that only five out of 308 MPs, or just 2%, have been able to speak to this bill. That means that 2% of Canadians have been able to express their views on a very important bill about the basic tenets of Canadian citizenship.

I would therefore like to ask the minister a simple question: what percentage of Canadians would have to have an opportunity to speak to this bill for the debate to be democratic?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the second reading stage of the Bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration of the second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-24 opens a Pandora's box. It will give foreign courts the right to put the citizenship of Canadians in jeopardy, with no legislative guarantee that the process is fair. For example, how can the minister justify to members of Canada's Tamil community that their citizenship would be in jeopardy if they were found guilty in a Sri Lankan court?

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague that my intention here tonight is to give a very good explanation, as best as I can, to all colleagues in the chamber as to why I think it is important to put in these extra hours over the next few weeks.

There are a number of pieces of legislation that need to be looked at, and we will have an opportunity to look at them, properly debate them and, hopefully, pass them through the House. This way, we can get back to our constituents with a record of having done something for them, given the opportunity that we can do that by working additional hours.

I am referencing a couple of pieces of legislation today because I would like to impart to my hon. colleague opposite and all colleagues in the House the reasons for which I am convinced of the need to work the additional hours so that we can pass this legislation through. I am quite satisfied to work the additional hours. I appreciate your ruling on that matter.

I was speaking about Bill C-24. In fact, once enacted, the changes outlined in that particular act would mean that processing times will be shortened to less than one year. For example, with absolutely no changes and with no economic action plan funding, processing times would escalate to an unacceptable 35 months within two years. I am sure that the hon. member who made the intervention, and all members of the House, do not want to deal with this issue with their constituents, knowing that they could have done something about it and did not in an expeditious manner. It is important that we enact this legislation now, or as soon as possible, so that Canada's citizenship backlog can be eliminated by 2015-16, allowing for just-in-time processing of applications.

It would also provide a way to recognize the important contributions of those who served Canada in uniform. Once passed, Bill C-24 would allow permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces to have quicker access to Canadian citizenship. Many residents in my riding were unaware of the current rules regarding obtaining Canadian citizenship. When I explained it to them, they wanted to know why we had not done it sooner. They want it done very quickly, and I do not want to go back there, knowing that I had an opportunity to stand up in the House and represent them, and say, “We decided that, as parliamentarians, we do not want to work the additional hours from now until the end of the session to provide those things that I had been asked for and continue to be asked for”. That is why I am speaking to the specific advantages of getting this work done as quickly as possible and processed through the House.

Residents in Richmond Hill were surprised to learn that under the current rules, there is no requirement to be physically present in Canada while obtaining citizenship, and that residency alone for three out of four years was enough. They support imposing a minimum requirement of 183 days of physical presence in Canada. They support being here for four out of the last six years. In fact, we heard witnesses testify in committee, without getting into the specifics of the bill, that they believe that four out of six years is actually not enough. Some of them thought that.

Our peer countries have stricter and longer residency requirements in order to be eligible for citizenship. We must strengthen the value of our citizenship in order to compete on the world stage. We have the opportunity to do that within the next couple of weeks if we put in these extra hours. I hope that all members of the House will support it.

Many of my constituents were also surprised to learn that under existing rules, there is no requirement to file an income tax return to be eligible for a grant of citizenship. They agree with the proposed changes in the new act that would require applicants to file Canadian income taxes to be eligible for citizenship. Again, all Canadians have to complete their income tax return on an annual basis. It should be a no-brainer for anyone seeking to have the same privileges as all Canadians to have the requirement to do that as well. Canadians want that passed as soon as possible through the House.

We know that knowledge of one of Canada's official languages is a key determinant in the successful integration of new Canadians. There are changes in the new legislation that would give stronger language tools to prospective new Canadians. We believe that this would help with their integration into the country and provide more potential for successful outcomes.

I see that I have five minutes left. I will move on.

As of October 2013, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was investigating several large-scale cases of residence fraud involving more than 3,000 Canadian citizens and 5,000 permanent residents. There were also reports that nearly 2,000 individuals linked to these investigations have withdrawn their citizenship applications. We can see there is a litany of reasons why we need to put in legislation that will strengthen Canadian citizenship. Then we will be able to go back to our constituents, hopefully after the spring session, and say we did something about all of those things that they talk to us about every single day.

There are many other pieces of important legislation that I can speak about today, but there is one in particular that is of personal interest to me that was recently introduced in the House called the justice for animals in service act, more popularly known as Quanto's law.

This legislation would ensure that those who harm law enforcement, service, and Canadian Armed Forces animals, face serious consequences for their actions. It recognizes the special role that these animals play in protecting our communities and improving the quality of life for Canadians.

This legislation honours Quanto, a police dog who was stabbed to death while helping to apprehend a fleeing suspect in Edmonton, Alberta, in October of last year. It also pays tribute to other animals that have lost their lives in the line of duty such as Toronto Police Service horse Brigadier.

This is legislation the police services across the country have been asking for for many years. That piece of legislation is before the House. The minister has already introduced it. How nice would it be for all of us to go back to our ridings, meet with the police chiefs, meet police officers, meet officers working with horse and canine units and tell them that finally we did something? We worked extra hours to make sure that we were able to deliver to our police services who use police animals as tools to keep our communities safer. We did something about it.

That will go a long way, not only for members of the governing party, but for all members from every party in the House. We are doing something that is correct. It is the right thing to do. It is responding to our first responders. The police services have been asking for this many years.

Mr. Speaker, I am asking that you let me know when I have a minute left so I can conclude my comments—

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I waited five minutes before doing so. It seems to me that, during that five-minute period, the member was talking about Bill C-24 even though the debate is on Motion No. 10. I would like to know if he will get to the topic at hand, which is Motion No. 10, not Bill C-24.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to speak to the motion to extend the sitting hours of the House for the remainder of the spring session.

I would like to begin my remarks by saying that three years ago I was privileged to be elected by the wonderful residents of the great town of Richmond Hill as their member of Parliament. I made a commitment at that time to work hard on their behalf and represent their interests to the best of my ability. I promised to be diligent in my duties, to fulfill my responsibilities as their member of Parliament and to make Canada's laws by debating and voting on bills in an active, hard-working and orderly way. That commitment made three years ago remains my sole purpose each and every day as I enter this place.

I am sure my colleagues on both sides of the House also come here with that most noble of purpose. I have no doubt about that. It is this core responsibility that I will be directing the balance of my remarks toward, our obligation as legislators to make Canada's laws for the betterment of our constituents and, indeed, for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

The job of a member of Parliament is an unusual one. There are no set defined hours. It is, indeed, definitely not a nine to five job, for the business of the country takes place 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. Our obligations do not always wait for a time that is convenient because world events do not pause and families cannot put their most urgent affairs on hold. All of us are sent here by those in our respective ridings who have put their faith in each and every one of us to do the right thing at the right time. Sometimes the right thing is working extra hours, as we have been asked to do here today.

I cannot imagine any of us going back to our constituents and telling them that we are not prepared to put in extra time and that all the improvements to make our communities safer will have to wait, or telling businessmen, businesswomen and businesses in our ridings counting on tax relief so they can invest in innovation or new hires that they will have to put their expansion plans on hold for a while, or telling the handlers of police dogs that give 110% in protecting our homes and neighbourhoods that they will have to wait before we get around to protecting their faithful and most trusted companions.

I cannot imagine telling the residents of my riding, who are waiting to receive their citizenship, that I am sorry, but we just did not get around to making the changes to help them receive their Canadian citizenships faster, or telling Canadians who have been asking the government to better protect the value of Canadian citizenship that they will have to wait a bit longer until we are ready. I am not prepared to have these conversations back in my constituency this summer and I hope all of my colleagues in the chamber feel the same way.

I would like to provide a couple of examples of important legislation that I believe we will have an opportunity to address over the coming weeks before we recess for the summer. I want to elaborate on those a little.

As I mentioned, Canadians, including those with multi-generational roots in our great country and those who are new to our land, have been asking for a comprehensive reform of our Citizenship Act. The act has not changed in almost four decades, and we all know that the dynamic in Canada certainly has over those four decades.

This legislation would protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it. In February of this year, we all heard from Canada's citizenship and immigration minister, who responded to the request for such legislation by introducing the strengthening Canadian citizenship act.

This legislation would create a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it. Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, proposes to streamline Canada's citizenship program by reducing the decision-making process from three steps to one. It is very important that we work extra hours to ensure that we are able to assist those who are in that queue by giving them their citizenship that they deserve, in as expedient manner as possible. If passed, and hopefully we will pass this legislation, it is expected that by 2015 and 2016 this change would bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under one year. It is also projected in the same timeframe to reduce the current backlog by more than 80%. When I see members sitting here every single day, I know that back in their constituencies, in our multicultural mosaic that we call Canada, this is an important issue that they hear about every single day.

Additionally, citizenship application fees would be better aligned with the actual cost of processing, thereby relieving the burden on Canadian taxpayers who currently subsidize the majority of the costs. That is only fair to the taxpayer and fair to all involved in the process.

More importantly, Bill C-24 would reinforce the value of Canadian citizenship. To ensure that citizenship applicants maintain strong ties to Canada, proposed changes to the act would provide a clear indication that the residence period to qualify for citizenship in fact requires a physical presence in Canada. It would also ensure that more applicants meet language requirements and are better prepared to fully participate in Canadian society, in their new country. As we have heard in our pre-study on the topic, language abilities allow for integration and better potential for success in Canadian society.

I am very proud that this legislation would finally act on lost Canadians who were born before 1947 by automatically extending citizenship to these individuals who obviously have strong ties to Canada.

Improving the integrity of Canada's citizenship process is one important element of the strengthening Canadian citizenship act and it is very important that we all work very hard and agree to work these extra hours so that we can provide some of the benefits as fast as possible back to Canadians and new Canadians.

The second important element is that it would shorten processing times. In fact, once enacted—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what an odd debate. I listened with interest to the speech by the hon. member for Burlington. He is the chair of the committee and I am the vice-chair.

I found some of his statements peculiar. The fundamental problem with the motion presently before the House is not the fact of staying until midnight. The NDP team has a reputation for hard work. Anyone who wants to entertain themselves by visiting my Facebook page would see that the people of Gatineau are actually advising me to slow down because they are worried about my health. Perhaps they are right, considering the flu I have at the moment. We in the NDP work very hard. A number of bills, for example, are before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, so that they can be debated in the House or in committee. It is not the work we are afraid of.

The cat is out of the bag. There are issues that our Conservative friends want to talk about, and they want to speak about them at length. Had I been asked, I would have said—before they even rose to speak—that I expected to see a great many Conservatives rise to speak in the House about Bill C-32. Why? Because it is an opportunity for the Conservatives to give Canadians the impression that they have been dealing with this issue—and this issue alone—for weeks, months and even years. They are the ones who stand up for victims. We are all deadbeats and have washed our hands of the problem. That is not true, though. Now, when workers’ rights were at stake, the Conservatives wanted to cut debate short.

The member said that nine bills had been passed and that he is embarrassed to return to Burlington. What I would say to him is that he is absolutely right to be embarrassed; the Conservatives did nothing with their majority aside from getting nine bills passed, and they had to resort to time allocation motions to ram the bills through. There is something not quite right with this government. The Conservatives are averse to debate. They do not like hearing opinions that do not coincide with their own. When the Conservatives too often hear something they disagree with, a red light suddenly goes on. We have had to debate many a time allocation motion. I do not know how many times I have taken part in debates in the House or how many speeches I have made expressing my dissatisfaction with the fact that we have been stripped of our right to speak.

The Conservatives made mention of Bill C-13. I am fortunate to be the NDP justice critic and to have had the opportunity to voice my opinion regarding this omnibus bill, right after the minister spoke. This is no small bill; on the contrary, it is approximately 50 pages long and has an impact on numerous other pieces of legislation. It does address the issue of cyberbullying, as the government likes to point out, but it goes much farther, so far that the committee is being flooded with requests for meetings. We hear all manner of experts warning us to be careful. That is what is missing in the House.

The Senate is referred to as a chamber of sober second thought, but we were not elected to this place in order to abdicate our duty to think. Members have a responsibility to be present in the House to voice and stand up for the opinions of their constituents. Canadians expect us to go about our work in an intelligent and thoughtful manner, to take the time to properly analyze bills. I am in favour of debating this bill in the House and referring it to committee for further consideration. More often than not, bills are analyzed at lightening speed.

The Conservatives will say that the House was given an opportunity to debate Bill C-13, the bill on cyberbullying, and thank God, especially given the time allocation motion that was foisted upon us so as to ram the bill through to committee.

Suddenly, things became urgent. Why urgent after the death of Rehtaeh Parsons, and yet not after the death of Amanda Todd? That was a question a witness asked us. The notion that the government would somehow need to act urgently does not really cut it with me; these things are more politically driven than they are concrete. It is a bit worrisome.

Bill C-13 is large and contains a number of disturbing provisions. When considered alongside the remarks made by the Conservative committee members, it leads me to believe that the Conservatives will not be very receptive to the many amendments proposed by expert witnesses. If past events are any indication, I am not very optimistic. Still, I am an optimistic woman by nature.

In light of this, I have trouble believing it when the government tells us, hand on heart, that its goal is to work harder. Working harder, for a Conservative, does not necessarily mean working more effectively and harder. It simply means that members end up working until midnight in order to discuss all the bills before the House, including those bills that have not been studied for an eternity.

For example, there is Bill C-2 on safe injection sites; Bill C-3 on marine transportation; Bill C-6, which implements the Convention on Cluster Munitions; Bill C-8 on counterfeit products; and Bill C-10 on contraband tobacco, which we finished studying in committee such a long time ago that I will have to reread all my material. Indeed, since then, we have studied so many other topics that I have almost had enough time to forget all about it. We will resume studying this bill at report stage. We could have covered it a long time ago. I have been waiting for some time for this stage to be completed in the House. Everything will have to be done over. It is a colossal waste of time for everyone concerned. There is also Bill C-11 on the hiring of injured veterans. If there is a category of people in our society who have huge needs, it certainly is our veterans.

Suddenly, the Conservatives are going to try and push all this through at once. The member for Burlington has done the math when it comes to the number of hours, and the government is going to try and give us a few hours for each bill. Then the government turns around and calls itself a champion of hard work. Well done, champion.

There is also Bill C-17, Vanessa’s law, about drug safety, an extremely important bill that must be debated; Bill C-18, concerning farm regulations; and Bill C-20, concerning the Canada-Honduras agreement, which is at report stage. I no longer even remember when I gave my last speech on that subject. It has already been a heck of a long time. The Conservatives have been in no rush, but all of a sudden, they are in a rush.

We will examine Bill C-21, concerning red tape for small businesses. The junior Minister of Tourism is travelling all over Canada to talk about the importance of eliminating red tape everywhere, while this bill is stuck in some office or other. It could have been debated a long time ago.

There is Bill C-22, concerning oil, gas and nuclear liability, and Bill C-24, concerning the Citizenship Act. These are bills that are announced to us with great fanfare at big press conferences, but then they stagnate and we do not see them again.

There is Bill C-26, about sexual predators. I expected that one would move quickly, because the Conservatives told us we had to work on this issue quickly. There is also Bill C-27, about hiring veterans in the public service. It is extremely important, I repeat, because it concerns a category of people in our society who have needs that are just as important.

Then there is Bill C-32, about the victims bill of rights. I think it is the reason why this government’s Motion No. 10 has no credibility at all. For a full year, I was treated to one press conference after another. If it was not the Prime Minister, it was the Minister of Justice with his senator from the other side. They told us they were going to work very hard, listen, set up panels and do everything we could wish for, and then they brought forth a charter that was denounced by many people, starting with victims, because they expected a lot more. That may be why the Conservatives kept their charter hidden for some time.

Apart from the minister, one Liberal and myself, no one has yet spoken on this subject. I am going to make a wager with my colleagues in the House. I expect there will be a time allocation motion on this. The Conservatives are going to rend their garments and plead that it is urgent, that it is extremely important and that it must be passed immediately, or the opposite will happen, because they will want to talk to us about it for hours on end. It becomes part of their narrative.

Every Conservative member wants to go back to their riding and have their householder and the excerpt from their speech in the House, which they made to show that they are protecting victims’ rights.

In the NDP, we want to talk about important issues and show that we could do even better than Bill C-32, specifically by amending it. We want to talk about the proposals made by the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. In fact, Bill C-32 does not contain a large percentage of her recommendations. A balance has to be struck. For every Conservative who speaks, the New Democrats will also speak.

When we want to talk about something, it is not important. That is the message we constantly get in the House, and, perhaps because we are approaching the end of the session, it is becoming extremely annoying, to put it mildly and stay within the bounds of parliamentary language.

It is appalling to see that people who are elected to represent the residents of their riding are silenced as often as we are by this government. We get told they are not interested. I have also heard the member for Burlington say—and I am going to talk to him about it again, in fact, at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—that sometimes we just need to go and read because members all read pretty much the same thing.

If the people of Gatineau think the same thing as the people of Laval, I think it is important that this be pointed out. Who has more right than whom to speak in the House on a particular bill? There is something indecent about wanting to constantly silence people.

Sometimes, I tell the members opposite that they should stop imposing time allocation motions and motions to get things done, as they like to say. I very much liked the expression my colleague used yesterday, when he talked about motions that are “a licence for laziness”.

This is unpleasant. If they had taken the time spent on debating those motions and instead used the time to finish the debate on the bill that they were trying to stop from being debated, we would probably have finished. The fact is that not all members in the NDP caucus or the Liberal Party or the Green Party or whatever colour you like necessarily wish to speak.

However, if the government limits the speaking time of a single member who wishes to speak, we cannot claim to be living in a democratic system. That is what is known as the tyranny of the majority. I believe we have to stand up against that, loud and clear. Every time that happens here, we are going to speak out against it, in every way possible.

We are told that we could perhaps go faster. I listened to the Minister of Foreign Affairs say that, and what he said made sense, in some respects. The way that Manitoba and the NDP government operate makes sense. Those consensus-based approaches make sense.

Quebec managed to pass a bill on a very sensitive issue, end-of-life care, with the agreement of all parties. There was an election, and the members all agreed to reinstate the bill once the election was over. That is being discussed.

The problem here is that the people on the Conservative benches are not talking to the opposition parties. All they talk about is strategies. We keep wondering who is going to pull a fast one on us. They use roundabout tactics such as counting how many MPs are in the House, catching them off guard, and forcing a party leader to go testify before a committee. This is unprecedented—and they say they are democratic.

Then the Conservatives get all offended when we say that Motion No. 10 is total nonsense. This is not about giving us more time. This is about taking all of the bills—there are more on the agenda than have already been passed, and that took much longer than the amount of time we have between now and June 20—and making us think they are giving us more time. They are not giving us a thing. I do not believe in Conservative gifts, and nobody in Canada should believe in any Conservative gift whatsoever.

The truth is that the Conservatives are going to shove their agenda down our throats because they could not get through it in a mature, parliamentary, by-the-rules way. They could have said that the House leaders would discuss it and try to see if some of the bills were more palatable or if we could agree to pass some of them more quickly. Then the real committee work could have started.

It is true, for Bill C-13, we had a lot of witnesses. However, I am not yet ready to give a seal of approval to the government in power, indicating that the bill has been studied in depth, because we still have the entire amendment stage. I believe that what the other side wants to accept is under so much remote control that the committee is not really doing the work. Instead, the higher-ups are dictating to our colleagues opposite what they have to do, while at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we are trying to bring out the best in the bill.

I have not even mentioned the upcoming Bill C-35, dealing with service animals. Bill S-2 deals with statutory instruments and may not seem like much. However, it is a very significant bill that is going to change an entire way of doing things in terms of regulations. We know that regulations have an impact on the everyday lives of our fellow Canadians in all kinds of areas: the environment, transportation, health and what have you. This is a real concern. I bet that we will analyze it very quickly. That concerns me.

The fact that we are extending our hours until midnight does not encourage any belief on my part that we will be having constructive debates followed by more productive work in committee. That is why the Conservatives have this problem with credibility. We are not the only ones saying so. When their measures are challenged in court, the Conservatives get slammed.

I will take a deep breath and take a little time to say that perhaps we should review our way of doing things. Our friends in the House may not know this, but the bill on prostitution may well be coming our way next week. We hear whispering in the corridors that the government wants the bill passed. It is huge, though, since it comes as a response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision. Everyone in the House knows that passing the bill will not be easy because there are people on all sides of that issue. I would bet that we are going to have just a few hours of debate before they pitch it—to put it very nicely—to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We can expect a hot and heavy summer on that one.

Extending the sitting hours until midnight just to work harder is one more tactic that is just like their time allocation motions, closure motions and any other kind of motion they can think of. It is part of the Conservatives' bag of undemocratic tricks. They will force these tricks on the House, but not on themselves, as ministers. Based on how the motion is written, I think it will be quite humourous. It will be interesting to see how many of them will be here in the House to happily participate in the debates on all the topics I mentioned, instead of at a cocktail party. That is why it is extremely important that we amend this motion.

Seconded by the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard, I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “place” and substituting the following:

(b) when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply, Private Members’ Business, or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57,

(i) before 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at that day’s sitting,

(ii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, it shall stand deferred until the time immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business at the next day’s sitting,

(iii) after 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until 6:30 p.m. on the following Monday.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the time.

I want to speak about why it is important we do this. I have been here eight years. Every year we get a calendar printed in the fall that indicates with little stars the days we can have extended hours. Extended hours are not new. This year, I will admit, we are doing extended hours about a week prior to when it normally would have happened. It is a normal process, a normal way of doing business in this House that I have experienced eight times.

My understanding is it was the process prior to that. In fact, there were years in the past when extended hours took place in the evenings throughout the year, not just at the end of the session. However, things have changed and this is a normal way of proceeding so we can get some of the work done we need to do.

We have added approximately 20 hours of opportunity for debate per week. That is 20 hours, so 40 members of Parliament could make 20-minute speeches with 10 minutes of questions and comments. Often people split their time. Technically we could get as many as 40 people of the 308, or whatever there is, of us at this particular time. There are by-elections going. That would be 40 more opportunities to get up and say what the constituents we represent feel about a particular issue or about a particular bill.

We often get complaints that there is not enough time and that more members from whatever party in the opposition want to speak. This motion provides that opportunity for them to speak.

I would be the first to agree that likely at 11:30 p.m. there would not be a lot of people in the House. Some people would have said their piece and are not interested in talking about whatever issue is before the House, but there is opportunity for other members of Parliament to say their piece. That is what extended hours do. They provide opportunity for as many as 40 members a week. If we do it for three weeks, that is 120 more spots, so almost half the House would be able to speak in those extended hours.

That does not mean we are not meeting during the day, that we are still not opening at 10 and having debate all day long with a break for question period, routine proceedings, and private members' hour. All that opportunity is still there.

We are not limiting debate. We are increasing debate. It is important, in my view. We need to do this. When I go back to my constituency and tell the folks at the local riding association that we passed nine bills, people say to me, “That's it? What did you do the rest of the time?”

I did research on how many hours we spend on this. I think there is a better way of doing it more efficiently and effectively, and I may speak to that. We need to use our time efficiently and effectively to get changes made. Of the 18 bills that we have standing, a lot of them have not even got to committee yet, so all we need to do is move them on to committee.

Our committee right now is dealing with Bill C-13. We have had excellent panels come before us to talk about that bill. We have two more weeks of analyzing that bill, and I think it is an excellent demonstration of why it is important to get things out of the House. Each party has its say, a number of members put on the record their position and what they would like to see changed or why they support the bill, and then it goes to committee for a real discussion with debate. I think we should be doing that much faster, and maybe even providing more time for that at committee, but that does not work with the process we have here.

We are going to debate a private member's bill later tonight that talks about some changes in how we operate. It was brought forward by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. There is some real opportunity for further change. Many of us spend hours and hours having staff members change our schedules because we have to get coverage for this and we are here and we have to give a speech at committee meetings, so we have to have someone cover us here. I do not know what it is like on the opposition benches, but I know what it is like on our side of the House.

There should be a review of how we operate here. Maybe we should have all our committee meetings in the morning with the House not sitting in the morning. Members would not be missing coverage or House duty because House duty would not start. Maybe we should do that. Maybe we should start debate on different items after question period. Maybe we should have all the votes after question period. I know this motion does that, but if we were a corporation we would not be operating this way. It is not efficient. It is not effective and it does not produce results as the smart people in the chamber could do.

My suggestion is that the House leaders from all sides look at why we need to bring the system of how we operate into the 20th century, maybe even the 21st century. It has been a traditional way of doing things. I think it is time to look at all those issues.

People will ask why we need to extend. As chair of the justice committee I will give one perfect example of why we need this time. The Minister of Justice introduced the victims bill of rights, a very important bill to the House. Tonight we will start debating that issue even further. In this case, there are many members of Parliament who would like to speak to the bill because it would make some fundamental changes to how we treat victims of crime in this country. It is appropriate that it is on the agenda for this evening and it gives us an opportunity for many more members to speak to it because we have extended the hours.

I would like to see the bill go to committee. It is still at second reading. I fully understand why so many members would like to speak to it. Extended hours provide that opportunity to do. Then I hope it will come to a vote before we rise for the summer. That would provide the justice committee with an opportunity to get ready over the summer for this very important bill, to make sure we invite the right number of witnesses. A relatively large list of people would like to come and talk on what could be improved, what they like about the bill. I do not know if people understand there are only nine weeks in the fall session between September until we leave at Christmastime. Nine weeks is not a lot of time. It does not provide much opportunity for members to speak to this fundamental bill.

We also will deal with Bill C-24 this week. Many members in the House would like to speak to strengthening the Citizenship Act. There are some fundamental changes in it. If we do not get it done and sent to committee before we leave, we basically will have to start over again in September. People now are engaged in the topic and understand what is going on. There is debate in the House and then the summer comes. Members go back and work in their ridings all summer and they have to get geared up again when they come back here.

I think it is important that we get that bill through, and there are a number of other bills. The opposition finance critic is at committee tonight dealing with the implementation bill, which is a significant bill. There is a lot of discussion about what is happening with that.

We need to be able to move forward, and there is nothing wrong with working late. I heard from the leader of the Green Party and the previous speaker. I do not think there is a lot of opposition to working late on these particular items because it does provide opportunity.

We have heard a little on who can bring forward certain motions, and the opposition is not happy about that. However, the whole concept of adding hours is to make the place a little more efficient and not bogged down with procedural motions, because that is what slows us down here.

There is a place for procedure. As chair of the justice committee, I understand that there needs to be procedure and it can move efficiently and effectively. Those rules are in place for a purpose, and I believe they have a role to play here, but we need to move forward.

There are nine bills, and to be frank about it, there are 18 bills still on the order paper from the government now. We have nine weeks in the fall and then we come to the last session before we break in 2015, and we know we will not be coming back before an election. We do not have a lot of time left from the government's perspective to get the legislation through the House, through the Senate, to royal assent, and into law. Once it becomes law, it then takes time to implement.

In Ontario, I talk to a grade 5 civics class and a grade 10 civics class. They ask how long it takes to get a law through. I am honest with them. I tell them that the reality is it takes at least a year. Some bills are a little faster than others, but in a normal process, from the start when a minister introduces it in the House to royal assent, it is approximately a year. Then, it depends on what kind of law it is, but let us say it is on the Criminal Code, it takes a while for it to get implemented. Also, there are often regulations in other areas that have to be added before it actually comes into force. It is a slow process to begin with.

With the process we have here, in my view, as a city councillor who advocated for the council to go from 17 to 7 for improved efficiency and effectiveness of the councillors, I think we can do a much better job here in the House of Commons for efficiency and effectiveness. We need to look at that in the future, but in the meantime, extended hours help us get our legislation through this House.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, commencing upon the adoption of this Order and concluding on Friday, June 20, 2014:

(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, except that it shall be 10 p.m. on a day when a debate, pursuant to Standing Order 52 or 53.1, is to take place;

(b) subject to paragraph (d), when a recorded division is demanded in respect of a debatable motion, including any division arising as a consequence of the application of Standing Order 61(2), but not including any division in relation to the Business of Supply or arising as a consequence of an order made pursuant to Standing Order 57, (i) before 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at that day’s sitting, or (ii) after 2 p.m. on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or at any time on a Friday, it shall stand deferred until the conclusion of oral questions at the next sitting day that is not a Friday;

(c) the time provided for Government Orders shall not be extended pursuant to Standing Order 45(7.1);

(d) when a recorded division, which would have ordinarily been deemed deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on a Wednesday governed by this Order, is demanded, the said division is deemed to have been deferred until the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(e) any recorded division which, at the time of the adoption of this Order, stands deferred to immediately before the time provided for Private Members’ Business on the Wednesday immediately following the adoption of this Order shall be deemed to stand deferred to the conclusion of oral questions on the same Wednesday;

(f) a recorded division demanded in respect of a motion to concur in a government bill at the report stage pursuant to Standing Order 76.1(9), where the bill has neither been amended nor debated at the report stage, shall be deferred in the manner prescribed by paragraph (b);

(g) for greater certainty, this Order shall not limit the application of Standing Order 45(7);

(h) no dilatory motion may be proposed, except by a Minister of the Crown, after 6:30 p.m.; and

(i) when debate on a motion for the concurrence in a report from a standing, standing joint or special committee is adjourned or interrupted, the debate shall again be considered on a day designated by the government, after consultation with the House Leaders of the other parties, but in any case not later than the twentieth sitting day after the interruption.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the government's motion proposing that we work a little bit of overtime over the next few weeks in the House.

I have the pleasure of serving in my fourth year as the government House leader during the 41st Parliament. That is, of course, on top of another 22 months during a previous Parliament, though some days it feels like I am just getting started since our government continues to implement an ambitious agenda that focuses on the priorities of Canadians. We still have much to do, and that is the basis for Motion No. 10, which we are debating today. Regardless of what other theories that folks might come up with, our objective is simple: to deliver results for Canadians, results on things Canadians want to see from their government.

As government House leader, I have worked to have the House operate in a productive, orderly, and hard-working fashion. Canadians expect their members of Parliament to work hard and get things done on their behalf. We agree, and that is exactly what has happened here in the House of Commons. However, do not take my word for it. Let us look at the facts.

In the previous session of the 41st Parliament, 61 government bills received royal assent and are now law. In 2013 alone, which was a shorter parliamentary year than normal, the government had a record-breaking year with 40 bills becoming law, more than any other calendar year since we took office, breaking our previous record of 37 new laws in 2007 when I also had the honour to be the leader of the House. That is the record of a hard-working, orderly, and productive Parliament. With more than a year left in this Parliament, the House has accomplished so much already, handing many bills over to the Senate for the final steps in the legislative process.

Just as we had a record year for legislative output, Canadian grain farmers experienced a bumper crop with a record yield in 2013. Understanding the real challenges faced by grain farmers, our government acted quickly on Bill C-30, the fair rail for grain farmers act, moving the bill through three readings and a committee study before handing it over to the Senate. This bill would support economic growth by ensuring that grain is able to get to market quickly and efficiently. The House also passed Bill C-23, the fair elections act, which would ensure that everyday citizens are in charge of democracy, ensuring the integrity of our electoral system and putting rule breakers out of business.

Two supply bills received royal assent, thereby ensuring that the government has the money it needs to continue providing services to the people.

When we passed Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act, we fulfilled our promise to protect the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation's enrolment process, making it fair and equitable while ensuring that only eligible individuals will be granted membership.

Earlier this spring, royal assent was also given to Bill C-16, the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation Governance Act, making the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation the first self-governing nation on the prairies and the 34th aboriginal community in Canada to achieve self-governance.

Next on the agenda is Bill C-34, the Tla'amin Final Agreement Act, which will implement the agreement with the Tla'amin Nation. Bill C-34 will give the Tla'amin increased control over their own affairs. They will have ownership of their land and resources and will be able to create new investment opportunities and make decisions determining their economic future.

We considered and passed through all stages of Bill C-5, the Offshore Health and Safety Act, which will enhance safety standards for workers in Canada’s Atlantic offshore oil and gas industry to protect Canadians and the environment while supporting jobs and growth.

Bill C-14, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, became law just a few weeks ago. This act will ensure that public safety should be the paramount consideration in the decision-making process involving high-risk accused found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

Also, this spring, our government passed Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories Devolution Act, which honoured our government's commitment to giving northerners greater control over their resources and decision-making and completing devolution all before the agreed-upon implementation date of April 1, as well as Bill C-9, the First Nations Elections Act, which supports the Government of Canada's commitment to provide all Canadians with strong, accountable, and transparent government. Bill C-9 provides a robust election framework, improves the capacity of first nations to select leadership, build prosperous communities, and improve economic development in their communities.

However, despite these many accomplishments, there is more work to be done yet before we return to our constituencies for the summer, let alone before we seek the privilege of representing our constituents in the 42nd Parliament.

During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity.

It is worth saying that again. During this mandate, our government's top priority has been jobs, economic growth, and long-term prosperity. That continues. Through three years and four budgets since the 2012 budget, we have passed initiatives that have helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Canadians, as part of the one million net new jobs since the global economic downturn. We have achieved this record while also ensuring that Canada's debt burden is the lowest in the G7 and we are on track to balance the budget in 2015.

As part of our efforts to build on this strong track record, our government has put forward this motion today. Motion No. 10 is simple. It is straightforward. It would extend the hours of the House to sit from Monday through Thursday. Instead of finishing the day around 6:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., the House would, instead, sit until midnight. This would give us an additional 20 hours each week to debate important bills. Of course, the hours on Friday would not change.

Extended sitting hours is something that happens practically every June. Our government just wants to roll up its sleeves and work a little harder a bit earlier this year.

Productivity is not just a function of time invested, but also of efficiency. To that end, our motion would allow most votes to be deferred, automatically, until the end of question period to allow for all hon. members' schedules to be a bit more orderly.

Last year, we saw the New Democrats profess to be willing to work hard. Then, mere hours later, after the sun would go down and people were not watching, what would the NDP do? It would suggest we pack it in early and move adjournment, without any accomplishment to show for it.

In order to keep our focus on delivering results and not gamesmanship, we are suggesting that we use our extra evening hours to get something done, not to play idle, unproductive games. We are interested in working hard and being productive, and doing so in an orderly fashion. That is the extent of what Motion No. 10 would do. Members on this side of the House are willing to work a few extra hours to deliver real results for Canadians. What results are we seeking? Bills on which we want to see progress, that are of great significance to Canadians, are worth spending a little extra time to see them considered and, ideally, passed.

Of course, we have the important matter of passing Bill C-31, Economic Action Plan 2014, No. 1. This bill implements our government’s budget—a low-tax plan for jobs, growth and a stronger Canadian economy. It is also an essential tool in placing the government on track to balanced budgets, starting in 2015.

We have a number of bills that continue to build on the work we have done in support of victims of crime. Bill C-13, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, is another essential piece of legislation that will crack down on cyberbullies and online threats by giving law enforcement officials the tools necessary to investigate and tackle these crimes. We are taking clear action to combat cyberbullying and I ask the opposition to join us in this pursuit.

Every day in Canada, our most vulnerable—our children—are the victims of sexual abuse. This is truly unacceptable and as a society we must do our part to better protect our youth. With Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, we are doing our part.

Our government's comprehensive legislation will better protect children from a range of sexual offences, including child pornography, while making our streets and communities safer by cracking down on the predators who hurt, abuse, and exploit our children.

Therefore, I ask the opposition to work with us, support this important piece of legislation by supporting this motion.

It is also important that we move forward with one of the most recent additions to our roster of other tackling crime legislation. Last month, we introduced Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, which will give victims of crime a more efficient and more effective voice in the criminal justice system. It seeks to create clear statutory rights at the federal level for victims of crime, for the first time in Canada's history. The legislation would establish rights to information, protection, participation, and restitution, and ensure a complaint process is in place for breaches of those rights on the part of victims. It would protect victims, and help to rebalance the justice system to give victims their rightful place. I hope we can debate this bill tomorrow night. By passing Motion No. 10, we will make that possible.

Our efforts to protect families and communities also extend to keeping contraband tobacco off our streets, so that the cheap baggies of illegal cigarettes do not lure children into the dangers of smoking. Bill C-10, the tackling contraband tobacco act, would combat this by establishing mandatory jail time for repeat offenders trafficking in contraband. Aside from protecting Canadian children from the health hazards of smoking, it will also address the more general problems with trafficking and contraband tobacco propelled by organized crime roots. With luck, I hope we can pass this bill on Friday.

Just before the constituency week, the Prime Minister announced Quanto's law. Bill C-35, the justice for animals in service act, would pose stiffer penalties on anyone who kills or injures a law enforcement, military, or service animal. I know that the hon. member for Richmond Hill, having previously introduced a private member's bill on the subject, will be keen to see the extra time used to debate and pass this bill at second reading before we head back to our constituencies.

Bill C-12, the drug-free prisons act, could also have a chance for some debate time if we pass Motion No. 10. This particular bill will tackle drug use and trade in the federal penitentiaries to make the correctional system a safer place, particularly for staff, but also for inmates, while also increasing the potential for success and rehabilitation of those inmates. As a former public safety minister, I can say that this is indeed an important initiative.

Delivering these results for Canadians is worth working a few extra hours each week. Our clear and steady focus on the strength of our Canadian economy does not simply apply to our budgets. We will also work hard next week to bring the Canada-Honduras free trade agreement into law. Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras economic growth and prosperity act, would enhance provisions on cross-border trading services, investment, and government procurement between our two countries. It would also immediately benefit key sectors in the Canadian economy, by providing enhanced market access for beef, pork, potato products, vegetable oils, and grain products.

As a former trade minister, I can say first-hand that this government understands that trade and investment are the twin engines of the global economy that lead to more growth, the creation of good jobs, and greater prosperity. Trade is particularly important for a country like Canada, one that is relatively small yet stands tall in terms of its relationship and ability to export and trade with the rest of the world. If we are to enjoy that prosperity in the future, it is only through expanding free trade and seizing those opportunities that we can look forward to that kind of long-term prosperity.

Through Bill C-18, the agricultural growth act, we are providing further support to Canada's agriculture producers. This bill would modernize nine statues that regulate Canada's agriculture sector to bring them in line with modern science and technology, innovation, and international practices within the agriculture industry. The act will strengthen and safeguard Canada's agriculture sector by providing farmers with greater access to new crop varieties, enhancing both trade opportunities and the safety of agriculture products, and contributing to Canada's overall economic growth.

As the House knows, our government has made the interests of farmers a very important priority. We recognize that since Canada was born, our farmers in our agriculture sector have been key to Canada's economic success. As a result, Bill C-18 will be debated this afternoon. It would be nice to have the bill passed at second reading before the summer, so that the agriculture committee can harvest stakeholder opinion this autumn.

Over the next few weeks, with the co-operation and support of the opposition parties, we will hopefully work to make progress on other important initiatives.

My good friend, the President of the Treasury Board, will be happy to know that these extra hours would mean that I can find some time to debate Bill C-21, the red tape reduction act. This important bill should not be underestimated. It would enshrine into law our government's one-for-one rule, a successful system-wide control on regulatory red tape that affects Canadian employers. Treasury Board already takes seriously the practice of opining that rule, but we want to heighten its importance and ensure that it is binding on governments in the future. We want to ensure that Canadians do not face unreasonable red tape when they are simply trying to make a better living for themselves, and creating jobs and economic growth in their communities.

Another important government initiative sets out to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship. For the first time in more than 35 years, our government is taking action to update the Citizenship Act. Through Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, we are proposing stronger rules around access to Canadian citizenship to underline its true value and ensure that new Canadians are better prepared for full participation in Canadian life. This legislation will be called for debate on Wednesday.

The health and safety of Canadians is something that our government believes is worthy of some extra time and further hard work in the House of Commons.

Tomorrow evening, we will debate Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act. Under Vanessa's law, as we have called it, we are proposing steps to protect Canadian families and children from unsafe medicines. Among other actions, the bill would enable the government to recall unsafe drugs, require stronger surveillance, provide the courts with discretion to impose stronger fines if violations were intentionally caused, and compel drug companies to do further testing on a product. In general, the bill would make sure that the interests of individual Canadians are looked out for and become a major priority when it comes to dealing with new medications and drugs.

Bill C-22, the energy safety and security act, would modernize safety and security for Canada's offshore and nuclear energy industries, thereby ensuring a world-class regulatory system, and strengthening safety and environmental protections. This legislation, at second reading, will be debated on Thursday.

Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act, could pass at third reading under the extended hours, so that we can secure these important updates and improvements to transportation law in Canada.

We could also pass the prohibiting cluster munitions act. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained at committee, the Government of Canada is committed to ridding the world of cluster munitions. Bill C-6 is an important step in that direction, but it is just the beginning of our work. Extending the relevant elements of the Oslo Convention into domestic law would allow Canada to join the growing list of countries that share that same goal. I hope members of all parties will support us in this worthy objective.

By supporting today's motion, the opposition would also be showing support for Canada's veterans. The extra hours would allow us to make progress on Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act. The measures included in this legislation would create new opportunities for men and women who have served their country to continue working for Canadians through the federal public service. As a nation, we have a responsibility to ensure that veterans have access to a broad range of programs and services to help them achieve new success after their time in uniform is complete. This initiative would do exactly that.

Of course, a quick reading of today's order paper would show that there are still more bills before the House of Commons for consideration and passage. I could go on and on, literally, since I have unlimited time to speak this afternoon, but I will not. Suffice it to say that we have a bold, ambitious, and important legislative agenda to implement. All of these measures are important, and they will improve the lives of Canadians. Each merits consideration and hard work on our part. Canadians expect each one of us to come to Ottawa to work hard, to vote on bills, to make decisions, and to get things done on their behalf.

I hope that opposition parties will be willing to support this reasonable plan and let it come to a vote. I am sure that members opposite would not be interested in going back to their constituents to say that they voted against working a little overtime before the House rises for the summer.

I commend this motion to the House and encourage all hon. members to vote for adding a few hours to our day to continue the work of our productive, orderly, and hard-working Parliament, and deliver real results for Canadians.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let me start by sharing a couple of sentiments with my friend.

First, on this side of the House—speaking for myself at least, and many others, including the Prime Minister—we congratulate the Montreal Canadiens on their success and wish them all the best in the next round, where I am optimistic Canadians will have much to look forward to.

Second, I have to agree with the member about the fact that what we saw today was a preview of what we would see if the NDP were ever to win government. We saw a grilling where the highlight was the question of NDP corruption and abuse of taxpayers' dollars. That is what we could expect to see if the NDP were ever to become government, and because Canadians know that, we will never have to fear it happening.

That abuse of taxpayers' funds goes beyond the question of breaking rules and not following rules. It goes to the whole NDP philosophy that taxpayers' money is there for them, they should get more of it, and they should spend it in every way possible. That is what the NDP is all about.

We in the Conservative Party, on the other hand, have an approach that is focused on a productive, hard-working, and orderly Parliament that respects taxpayers' dollars. As a result, we will continue with our agenda.

I will note the highlight today from the NDP. The NDP was defending itself on charges of improper spending and improperly using taxpayers' dollars for partisan activity. The member did not point out that the NDP's positive agenda was what they were proposing today in the House of Commons on one of the rare days when NDP members actually get to put forward their own policy proposals. It is funny how he says, “That is not the highlight”. I agree with him, because when they do get in power, they will have very little to advocate for.

That said, we on this side do follow the rules, and the rules require that we continue with the NDP opposition day motion for the balance of the day.

Tomorrow we will start the second reading debate of Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, before we return to our constituencies for a week.

Upon our return we will roll up our sleeves and work hard for Canadians in the final sittings until the summer.

On Monday, May 26, we will consider Bill C-18, which is the agricultural growth act.

On Tuesday, May 27, we will resume the second reading debate on Vanessa's law, Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act.

That will be followed by Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act at second reading.

The next day will see us continue our productive, hard-working, and orderly agenda by returning to the second reading debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship act. As hon. members might recall, the New Democrats proposed a second reading amendment to block the passage of this important bill.

On Thursday, May 29, we will continue the second reading debate on Bill C-22, the Energy Safety and Security Act. After that debate concludes, we will consider Bill C-6, the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, at report stage. Finally, we will consider Bill C-10, the Tackling Contraband Tobacco Act, at report stage and third reading on Friday, May 30.

As you can see, Mr. Speaker, we still have a lot of work ahead of us this spring.

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this government has introduced Bill C-24, which would strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship by fast-tracking it for the Canadian Armed Forces and revoking it from convicted terrorists. However, the Liberals and the NDP continue to oppose revoking the citizenship of convicted terrorists.

The Liberals and NDP either fail to understand the bill or are intentionally misleading Canadians by saying that there is not enough due process for convicted terrorists before their citizenship is revoked. We all know that anyone charged with terrorism in Canada is innocent until proven guilty and that they have the right to appeal up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

According to a national poll, 80% of NDP voters, 87% of Liberal voters and 83% of those who immigrated to Canada support stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists.

I ask the opposition Liberals and NDP to stop playing dangerous games and support this measure in Bill C-24.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition concerns Bill C-24. Constituents are asking the government to eliminate the portion of the bill that gets rid of the current practice of giving partial credit to time spent living and working in Canada before somebody achieves permanent resident status, to also consider giving full credit to that time, and to consider recognizing up to four years of time spent before achieving permanent resident status.

Bill C-24—Notice of time allocation motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose, at the next sitting, a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage of the bill.

Citizenship

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition with respect to Bill C-24 and the fact that it does unfairly treat current Canadian permanent residents who came to Canada as temporary foreign workers or international students.

The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to consider amending the Canadian Citizenship Act to recognize non-permanent residency time to be counted toward the citizenship residency requirement.

Canadian Citizenship

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to join our hard-working Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Toronto and Calgary a few weeks ago to announce our Conservative government's Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, which will strengthen the immense value of Canadian citizenship and ensure that a Canadian passport remains highly regarded around the world.

I also want to personally thank the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for working with me and transferring the contents of my private member's bill, Bill C-425, into his new act. Once this bill becomes law, Canada will fall into line with virtually every other western democratic nation. It will have the ability to strip the citizenship of convicted terrorists. According to a national poll, this measure has the support of over 85% of Canadians from across Canada, including 80% of NDP supporters, 87% of Liberal supporters, and 83% of those who immigrated to Canada.

I call upon the opposition to represent the will of their constituents and support this bill.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the members of the procedure and House affairs committee are very much looking forward to when the NDP members cease their filibuster and actually allow the committee to get on with the business of hearing from witnesses. It is the NDP, in fact, that for many months called on this government to ensure that legislation was in place by the end of this spring. Oddly, its efforts to prevent any evidence from being heard on this legislation is in contradiction to that. I look forward to that changing, now that the House finally voted on that question conclusively this week.

I would also like to note that something else the House voted on this week is Canada's economic action plan 2014. The House endorsed a plan that sees our government on track to balance the budget next year, all the while keeping taxes low and protecting the programs and services upon which Canadians rely.

Unfortunately, the hon. member for Papineau voted against this sound budget, which received both accolades and praise from all parts of the country and diverse sectors of the economy. Perhaps the member does not appreciate the extraordinary effort that went into such a fiscally sound budget. After all, the Liberal leader does hold the view that budgets balance themselves. We know better. We understand the hard work that fiscal leadership actually requires and the hard work that governing demands, something with which he is apparently unacquainted.

With the budget adopted, the House will work on other legislation. Today, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. Tomorrow, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-25, the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act. That debate will continue next Wednesday, if need be. Monday, we will start the second reading debate on Bill C-18, the Agricultural Growth Act. Tuesday shall be the sixth allotted day. Finally, we will resume the second reading debate on Bill C-20, the Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I think that was the Thursday question and a question about what business we will be undertaking.

This afternoon we will continue the second day of debate on economic action plan 2014.

As we learned in Tuesday's budget, and have been hearing in this House in the debate since, our government is on track to balance the budget while keeping taxes low and protecting the programs and services Canadians count on.

Since the global recession, Canada has achieved the best job creation record in the G7, the strongest income growth and one of the best economic performances in the G7.

Economic action plan 2014 builds on this record of achievement with positive measures to grow the economy and help create jobs.

Under the terms of a motion adopted by the House yesterday, the vote on the Liberal subamendment to the budget will be held on the evening of Monday, February 24. The third and fourth days of debate on this year's budget will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 25 and 26.

Of course, those dates follow the upcoming constituency week. However, before we get there, we will debate Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories devolution act, at third reading tomorrow.

On Thursday, February 27, we will be sitting with a Wednesday schedule because at 11:00 a.m. that morning His Highness the Aga Khan will give an address to both Houses of Parliament, an event that I am sure all hon. members will eagerly anticipate.

That afternoon, we will start second reading debate on Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. This bill represents the first comprehensive overhaul of Canada's citizenship laws in a generation.

That day will also be the day designated, pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), for concluding the debate on concurrence on the third report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Monday, February 24, shall be the fifth allotted day.

Finally, while it is not reflected in Standing Order 28, tomorrow, Friday, is Valentine's Day. To this I say to my wife Cheryl:

Liberals are red,
Conservatives are blue,
this motion is not debatable,
I really love you.

In the spirit of love on Valentine's Day, I wish all the best for everyone, and those who are close to them, here in the House.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday our government unveiled the first comprehensive reform of the Citizenship Act since 1977. Bill C-24, the strengthening Canadian citizenship act, would increase the efficiency of the citizenship program, reinforce the value of citizenship, and combat fraud. It would promote Canada's interests by honouring those who serve Canada, and it would protect Canadians from foreign criminals and those who pose a threat to our national security.

As Canadians, we understand the value and sacredness of citizenship. This bill encourages new Canadians to form a stronger attachment to Canada and to embrace Canadian values and traditions and the Canadian way of life. We have welcomed 1.4 million new Canadian citizens since our Conservative government took office. We have welcomed more families and more permanent residents, and we continue to attract the world's most talented and innovative immigrants to Canada.

I encourage all members of the House to support this very important piece of legislation.