An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act

This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.

Sponsor

John McCallum  Liberal

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to, among other things,
(a) remove the grounds for the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security;
(b) remove the requirement that an applicant intend, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada;
(c) reduce the number of days during which a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship and provide that, in the calculation of the length of physical presence, the number of days during which the person was physically present in Canada before becoming a permanent resident may be taken into account;
(d) limit the requirement to demonstrate knowledge of Canada and of one of its official languages to applicants between the ages of 18 and 54;
(e) authorize the Minister to seize any document that he or she has reasonable grounds to believe was fraudulently or improperly obtained or used or could be fraudulently or improperly used;
(f) change the process for the revocation of Canadian citizenship on the grounds of false representation, fraud or knowingly concealing material circumstances; and
(g) remove the requirement that an applicant be 18 years of age or over for citizenship to be granted under subsection 5(1) of that Act.
It also makes consequential amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

June 13, 2017 Passed Motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act
May 17, 2016 Passed That Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, {as amended}, be concurred in at report stage [with a further amendment/with further amendments] .
March 21, 2016 Passed That the Bill be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4 p.m.
See context

Markham—Thornhill Ontario

Liberal

John McCallum LiberalMinister 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.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:15 p.m.
See context

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, certainly some of the proposals in the bill may lead to changes, or increases in the workload for visa officers and immigration officers who are processing other lines of business outside of the refugee stream.

I noticed in question 19, which was tabled by the parliamentary secretary earlier today, that 220 employees, if I read this correctly, have been temporarily assigned to processing Syrian refugee applications from the central processing region. If I am correct, the types of business lines that are impacted there include the processing of spousal sponsorship applications. I wonder if my colleague could tell the House how the transferring of 220 employees affected other business lines during the processing of the Syrian refugee initiative. This was up until December 15 of last year.

I note that in the response to the question, it also says that other employees were transferred around. If they are transferring employees from other business lines, given they might not be trained on certain activities or whatnot, might that impact the processing times for things like spousal sponsorship? Could the minister explain how the department has been impacted in that regard?

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:20 p.m.
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Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON

Mr. Speaker, I can say that I certainly make no apology for some employees being transferred around to expedite the Syrian refugee operation. It was a big commitment that we made and a big priority, and I think Canadians have come to support this initiative. Indeed, even the official opposition has supported our Syrian refugee initiative. It was a high priority.

The way in which we will address processing times for families, as we said during the election, is to, one, commit more resources and hire more individuals to interview people, and two, learn from the experience of Syrian refugees.

One definition of real change is to do something one has never done before. The public servants in my department have never processed refugees as quickly and efficiently as they did. Therefore, we will learn from the lessons they learned in expediting refugee processing. We will also learn from that how to move much faster on the processing of spouses and other family members.

We will achieve our objectives on processing times, first by providing more resources, but at least as important, by learning from our experience on the Syrian refugees and importing that experience to make processes for families way more efficient and rapid than they have been in the past.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:20 p.m.
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NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, the minister talked about the language issue. There is no question in my mind that speaking some English and French is an important component to this process. With that being said, when many immigrants come here, the question becomes the level of proficiency in the language that would need to be examined.

Under the current system, they people send in results of an accepted third-party test at the equivalent of a 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 those documents to prove they have met this requirement, their application for citizenship will not be accepted.

I know of many people who are not at that level, but they contribute greatly economically. They pay their taxes, they raise their families, and they participate in their community. If we do not remove these barriers, I am afraid it will prevent them from becoming citizens and, ultimately, engaging fully in a democratic society, which is having the right to vote.

Further, the other piece related to barriers to citizenship is the application fees and the high costs of those.

Under the Conservative government, the fees went up, from $100 to $530, for an adult, with an additional $100 for a child. Therefore, that also poses financial barriers for people to access the pathway to citizenship.

Would the minister agree with me that both of those items need to be addressed and will he take action in that regard?

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:20 p.m.
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Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON

Mr. Speaker, I do agree that both of those are very legitimate questions.

On the point about the fees, we made no commitment to reduce the fees. It is something we will examine going forward, but this is not in this legislation.

On the question of the language, there are two issues. There is the age at which the test is applied and the level of the test.

What we have amended in the bill is the age. While I think the hon. member and I both agree that language is important, traditionally in Canada some older people would arrive without the best English in the world and it would improve over time. However, their children, and for sure their grandchildren, would have perfect, or virtually perfect, English or French. In our view, to put the age back to 54 rather than 64 was in deference in part to older people, although I am now 65, so I never thought 64 years old was that old, but older compared with many others. We thought that was an appropriate move.

On the question of level, that point has been raised by my provincial counterparts from British Columbia and Ontario. We will meet next week and we will talk about that. I do not think the level would be in the legislation because it would be a matter for regulation, but at what level those tests should be is a legitimate item for discussion.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
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Liberal

Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, it has been noted that this legislation will reduce the age where applicants for citizenship need to demonstrate knowledge and language proficiency to ages 18 to 54. This seems to be a fair range.

Would the hon. minister perhaps discuss with the House why asking a 64-year-old grandmother, who is reuniting with her family, to pass an English test is somewhat unfair?

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
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Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON

Mr. Speaker, there always has to be a balance here. I would not deny that it is always a good thing for newcomers to Canada to have a good knowledge of English or a good knowledge of French, or even both. However, the balance has to be made between the situation of the newcomers and the situation they are coming to.

If people are 60 years old and they are coming with perhaps children and a spouse, it is normal to think that their English language skills would not necessarily be so great as if they were younger. If they are older people, their children will probably be fluent, or near fluent, and certainly their grandchildren will be.

The way we have always done it in our country is that often people on the initial entry had far from perfect English, but then they improved, and their children and grandchildren were perfectly fluent. We are trying to seek that balance between needing the language and being reasonable in the face of people of varying ages and varying backgrounds. I hope that what we have come up with in the bill might strike the right balance.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, according to the IRCC's website, most applications for citizenship will be processed within 12 months if a person has applied after April 1, 2015, or will be processed by the end of this month if the application is received before that date. However, some cases are taking up to three years to be processed for the simple reason that a residence questionnaire was issued.

Could the minister explain how it can possibly be fair to delay an application for three years simply because of a residence questionnaire?

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
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Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Thornhill, ON

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we have found is that we have inherited a lot of situations that are not at all fair. There are many egregious issues we inherited that I find myself having to address, so I would be the last person to say that everything that has happened in the last 10 years or even the last 6 months is necessarily 100% correct.

However, I believe it is true that for the applications for citizenship, there has been progress made and that people applying today or applying recently will have their application processed within one year. I believe by the end of this year, the backlog will have been reduced very substantially so that overall processing times will be down.

Processing times in general are extremely high, and we have to address them on all fronts.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
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Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker Liberal Anthony Rota

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît, Justice; the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Health.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:25 p.m.
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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, so much of Canada's history and our history through immigration is a collection of stories. I would like to start with a very brief one.

On August 29, 1900, in the village of Zavar in Slovakia, a woman named Maria Krajcovic was born. The town was a very small farming town, primarily agricultural. She grew up there. She married a man named Frank Oravec. They had two young daughters, named Helen and Stefania.

In the early 1930s, when both of their girls were still quite young, I believe under the age of seven, Frank decided to travel to Canada to work with the CPR. That was a very difficult decision at the time. One can imagine leaving a wife and two young daughters at a time when Europe was becoming increasingly more uncertain. It was a quite difficult decision.

Maria had to sell some of her property and move in with her mom in order to take care of her daughters while Frank was overseas working to save enough money to send back to the family. Thankfully Maria was quite a talented seamstress. She did needlework and made beautiful lace, and was able to support and provide a living for her daughters.

However, in the late 1930s, things became very unstable in Slovakia. I believe it was in March 1939 when things got really serious. I should have my dates correct when I tell a story, but I believe it was November 1940 when Hitler's Nazis took over the country. It was a very bleak time indeed for the citizens of Zavar.

In July 1938, Maria did all of the paperwork, and it was very difficult at this time, to get her two daughters to a point where they could travel overseas and join her husband in Canada. That took place in July 1938, right before all of this happened. They travelled to Winnipeg to start a home.

At this time, Helen was 15 years old. They came to Canada with nothing. Helen had to work, cleaning homes. While she worked close to 15-hours days, she put herself through school in the evenings to learn English. She worked really hard. She ended up marrying a man who was 25 years her senior. She had five girls and they farmed in Starbuck.

She has been known to say that people are lucky if they get one good year out of five. When her daughters were all very young, she was widowed, and she had to make the decision to move into Winnipeg with her five young girls. She worked two jobs to put food on the table.

One of her five girls, Kim recounts not seeing her mom very often. Kim put herself through school as well. She got married very young. She had two daughters named Cherie and Michelle. Kim went back to school when she was in her 30s. Helen decided that she would spend her retirement years raising Sherry and Michelle. She imparted many values of Slovak heritage, hard work, and ethic into those girls.

I have my family's original voyage of passage here today. I remember when I found this document in my grandmother's house as we were packing up to put her into an assisted living facility. I remember asking her why she would make the decision to do this, and why great-gramma would bring the family overseas. She said that they did it to be safe, to be free, to build their future and mine, and to build a better country. With that in my heart, I find myself here today in Canada's Parliament speaking to the bill before us.

Canada is a country of immigrants who stand on the traditional lands of, and shoulder-to-shoulder with, first nations and aboriginal peoples who bring their wealth of experience, their thoughts, their hopes, their desires, and their dreams together under a banner of pluralism, freedom, and language.

This makes us unique. Our diversity is our competitive advantage. It keeps our economy growing. It keeps our public policy discourse vibrant. It enriches our civil society and keeps us hopeful and optimistic. Because of this, in my view, immigration policy in Canada should never be about why but about how. In this I believe that my Liberal colleagues and I are united. The bill contains a lot of how. It contains fundamental changes to how and under what circumstances we grant citizenship in our country, and for that it should be scrutinized carefully and objectively, which I will try to do now.

First of all, the bill has several components. The first component the minister has already spoken to, and removes the grounds of the revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security. The minister spoke at length on this.

I am really enjoying this critic portfolio because I believe that immigration will be at the core of many of the public policy challenges we will be facing in the next 10 to 20 years in Canada, especially since we have an aging workforce.

I believe that new Canadians enrich and strengthen our country. Their experiences and perspectives, as much as my experience is grounded in the experience of immigrants, make us stronger. As I said, it leads to more vibrant public policy.

My concern with this element of the bill is that it is the government's first priority. It does revoke the citizenship of a convicted terrorist and I do not think we can be glib or flippant about that. I will be the first one to admit that issues pertaining to this were highly contentious during the election campaign, but because they are contentious, it does not absolve us in this place of the ability and the duty to speak to these issues.

I find it shocking that this is the government's first priority in the bill, and I do not accept the argument that the former government's act somehow created two classes of citizens. It did not, and there are other grounds by which citizenship can be revoked, which the minister did not really speak to.

I read an article about two Nazi war criminals in 2007 who had their citizenship revoked. Citizenship can still be revoked on the grounds of fraudulent methods, so there are other provisions in Canadian law that the bill does not change. It allows for citizenship revocation.

The discussion around this provision really boils down to what we value about Canadian citizenship. The Liberal government has put forward the following argument. If someone is a convicted terrorist and has dual national citizenship, the government believes that the person can serve his or her term out in jail and that this would be an appropriate penalty for that. The alternative to that is that if someone is a dual national citizen and has committed a terrorist act against Canada, which does affect all Canadians, as we saw here in October 2014, their citizenship should be revoked.

I am trying to be very respectful here and would ask the Liberals that as we go forward in the debate here, we do not debase this conversation to a fallacy, that the existing act created two classes of Canadian citizenship. This is a choice on punishment for a very serious act against our nation. The bill makes a choice in that regard. For that reason, I oppose this particular section of the bill.

The second section of the bill removes the requirement that an applicant intends, if granted citizenship, to continue to reside in Canada.

As I was cleaning out a trunk in my grandmother's basement, it was incredible to find newspaper clippings from the 1940s from the Winnipeg Free Press, which talked about the role of the Slovak community during wartime and its nascent roots in Winnipeg. When people moved to Winnipeg—my family, my ancestors—it was not all about tough times but joy. My great grandma wrote a play. She was an actor. I guess there was something inherited there. She contributed to the community. I also found records of my great grandfather who fundraised for the Slovak Catholic parish in Winnipeg.

When we celebrate immigration and diversity, we should be celebrating the fact that we want people to stay here and enjoy the experience of being a Canadian and contributing back to our country. It is what has made us amazing. It is what we should be celebrating as we work towards Canada's 150th anniversary.

It is quite reasonable, given that this is the spirit that binds our pluralism, to say that when people want to become Canadian citizens, they intend to stay here and make this nation stronger, as we commit to do the same for them. Taking this requirement out of the existing act removes the spirit and intent of that legislation.

The third component of this bill seeks to reduce the number of days during which a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship. The same argument applies there. I was reading the committee testimony for the bill that was previously before Parliament and made some of these changes. Some of the quotes from the testimony can be distilled to the following, that the longer an individual lives, works, or studies in Canada, the greater connection that person will have to our beautiful and special country. I do not see this as a punitive measure.

I say that if people become citizens of this country, which I hope they do, and want to run for office, vote, or have any of the privileges that are accorded with Canadian citizenship, the time they have spent here gives them a greater understanding of Canadian pluralism and what unites us, such as gender equality, freedom of speech, freedom of sexual orientation, all the things that allow us to function and coexist as a nation of many nations under the same common banner. They need to experience that to be Canadian citizens, and that is the spirit of what this change was. That is my concern with reducing it.

I also do not think it provides an unnecessary barrier. I am looking forward to hearing witnesses at committee who can argue otherwise, but going into that debate, my sense is that it imparts the value of Canadian citizenship and imparts to people going through the citizenship process the point that Canada wants to invest in them during that process. We want to welcome them into our cultural institutions, we want them to learn what it means to be Canadian citizens, we want them to understand the public policy dialogue.

The fourth section limits the requirement to demonstrate knowledge of Canada in one of its official languages to applicants between the ages of 18 and 54. Previously, that restriction was set at 64 years of age. We often talk about one of the public policy challenges that we will be dealing with in the next 10 years, which is how to continue to knit together Canada's pluralism, which I just spoke about, as we increase and embrace more Canadians.

I will add that the Conservative government welcomed over 1.6 million new Canadians during its time in office, which was a significant number. Moreover, year over year on an annualized basis, that number was significantly higher than under the previous government to ours. I applaud its efforts to look at the citizenship numbers and situations, but I also think, to give credit where credit is due, that Conservatives increased that number significantly.

As we continue to do that and look at pluralism, there are many things that unite us, and language is one of them. Language is a unifier. Language binds us together. It allows us to have shared common experiences that we can communicate. I strongly believe that rather than talking about reducing the age limit, we should be talking about whether it is a barrier for someone over that age. I would argue that 55 is not that old. Fifty-five is probably the new 18. It is not that old. I would argue that someone who is 55 years old, or 54, still has a significant amount of life experience to contribute. If it is a barrier to learning the language, then how do we overcome the barrier?

One of the things that concerns me about the Syrian refugee initiative is the reports that new people coming to Canada through that initiative are waiting months for access to language training services. I am not sure why the government's first reaction in the bill has been to lower the language requirements rather than asking how we can help them learn the language. That is important. It allows them to participate in so many different facets of Canadian society in a way that opens doors to them. It allows them to experience so many different things. That is why language proficiency is so important.

I am really curious why the government would reduce this. It is something I look forward to hearing about at committee as well. My gut reaction to this after I found some of my grandmother's notes is that we should be asking how we can help someone learn English rather than reducing the requirement. She was 15-years-old and worked so hard to learn English. She put herself through that program by herself.

There are other components of the bill, which I believe are more technical amendments, which I do support. Overall, especially in the context of the government's tabling of its immigration levels report yesterday, I feel that it is a separate policy argument for a separate time. The government is proposing a significant change to the ratio of people who come to Canada under economic immigration classes, like the federal skilled worker programs, versus those who come in through streams such as the refugee initiative. However, in the context of the provisions of the bill, those numbers are very important. If we are talking of a 250% increase in refugees coming into Canada and our first response has been to lower the language requirement, I hope we can have more language training services. However, the age that someone can become a Canadian citizen without language proficiency is an issue.

When we talk about changing the intent to reside in Canada, when we are increasing overall numbers of immigrants to Canada, that is an issue. How are we providing services?

I asked a question of the minister earlier, which is serious. There are so many people who want to come to our country that processing times are an issue. I hear about that every day. How can we fix spousal sponsorship processing times?

If we are changing the system and changing the formula of how many people come to our country, and we do not have a plan to resource that, either through faster processing times or providing long-term housing to refugees, that is of concern. My colleague from the NDP, the member for Vancouver East, talks about 70% of refugees still being in temporary accommodation. Regardless of political stripe, that is something we need to be concerned about.

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. We need people from other countries to ensure that lack of skilled labour is not detrimental to economic growth, that we are meeting our humanitarian obligations overseas, and we are looking at family reunification, but we are doing it in a way that is resourced. It should be done in the context of a budget that is manageable and with an overall plan for the economy that allows that Canadian advantage, that thing that brought my great-grandmother over to this country with two young girls and nothing else.

I hope I have conveyed my thoughts in a very non-partisan manner. I am happy to take any questions.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:45 p.m.
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Liberal

Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Surrey—Newton, BC

Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, whether I refer to the personal example of myself or to my parents.

I came to Canada in January 1984 and received my citizenship on July 17, 1987. From day one in Canada, I felt like a proud Canadian, even though I was not a Canadian citizen at that time.

I went to the University of Calgary. I did not speak any English when I came to this country. I was able to secure a degree in engineering, a post-graduate diploma in R and D management and utilization. Now I hold two professional designations, one as a professional engineer and one as a B.C. land surveyor. Most importantly, the people of Surrey—Newton gave me the privilege of sitting in this House in 2006, 2008, and now.

I do not feel I am any less Canadian because I had only three years of residency in Canada when I applied for citizenship. I do not feel that I would be a better citizen if I had had to wait another year.

In the case of my personal example, does the member feel that I am any less Canadian because I was here only three years and not four?

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:50 p.m.
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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is experiences like my colleague's that enrich our country. When we talk about adding to the intellectual capital of this country, it is experiences like his that we are referring to. When we talk about building the economy in this country, it means experiences like his.

The member asked about being Canadian. We are having a conversation about the value of Canadian citizenship, and we both agree that the value is very high.

The comment that I made in my speech with regard to the residency requirement stands. My colleague and I both value very dearly what our country can give to us and what we can give to it. The spirit of adding the extra year was to ensure that those who came to Canada had a full experience so that Canada could invest in them, and vice versa.

My colleague and I are not offside on this issue at all. When I listened to the member's story, it made me proud to have Canadian citizenship too, because our country is a place where that story can happen. Our country is a place that allows individuals to have the opportunity to stand in the House of Commons and have a policy debate.

I congratulate my colleague. I hope that we can continue this debate going forward.

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:50 p.m.
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NDP

Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank my colleague for her very moving and beautiful speech. I would like to thank her for having the confidence to share with the House such a personal story as that of her family. Her speech was very emotional and I am convinced that her whole family is very proud. She is right when she says that we can be proud of what led her to become a member here and do the good work that she does.

That being said, she is asking us to reach a consensus, but I would like an acknowledgement that there were some abuses when the other government was in power, in the last Parliament. The expertise of members here definitely includes dealing with citizenship applications.

Many people go to their MPs with citizenship issues. I have heard many stories from people, people who have a name and whom I see crying, people who cannot pay the fees that only keep rising, as do the wait times. At one point, the wait times were so long that they could no longer pay the fees, even though they had the money at the beginning of the year.

Is it not true that there were excesses that could be corrected, and can we reach a consensus on that as well?

Citizenship ActGovernment Orders

March 9th, 2016 / 4:50 p.m.
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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and I think it is one that is worthy of study and debate by all parties in the House.

As I mentioned at the start of my speech, Canada's immigration policy will inform many different areas of public policy in the next 10 to 20 years, including the growth of the economy, the provision of skilled labour, enrichment of our culture, and our participation on the global stage.

How we manage and resource our immigration processing system is worthy of study. The cost is worthy of study as well. I would encourage my colleague or one of his colleagues to bring this matter up for study at the immigration committee for the House to consider.