This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
John McCallum Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
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.
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.
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for bringing this up and appreciating our new legislation that is being proposed.
I agree that we should relieve and reduce any barriers that are preventing citizenship, if we can.
I again thank the member and his colleague, the member for Vancouver East, who is on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, for raising this before. I hope we will be able to address the affordability of citizenship in due course.
Citizenship ActGovernment Orders
March 10th, 2016 / 1:20 p.m.
See
context
Brampton West Ontario
Liberal
Kamal Khera LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health
Madam Speaker, first I would like to thank my friend, the member for Surrey Centre, for his excellent speech.
Bill C-6 is an extremely important bill to me, as a proud immigrant, a first-generation Canadian, and to my diverse riding of Brampton West. Family reunification is vital to my constituents.
As we know, this legislation would reduce the age to 18 to 54 for applicants for citizenship to demonstrate knowledge and language proficiency, which would help many senior immigrants in my riding of Brampton West.
I would like my colleague to tell the House why asking my constituent, who is 68 years of age and trying to reunite with his family, to pass an English test is completely unfair and a huge barrier to becoming a Canadian citizen, and how this legislation would help constituents and help reunite families.
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Madam Speaker, this legislation would alleviate a lot of pressures. As members of Parliament, we know very well that, when we try to learn a second language—whether English is our first language and we are attempting to learn French, or vice versa, those who speak French in this House wanting to learn English—it is challenging at best, even for those who are within the ages of 18 to 55.
As we know, children and those who are younger have a much easier capacity through the due course of work, language training, and even interacting with their children, and they are able to learn and adapt to new languages much more easily than those who are over 55, especially those who are in their 60s or 65-plus ages. Those people have a difficult time adapting and sometimes learning languages. Even though they attempt and would like to speak the language, to get to the proficiency levels that our government requires for tests is a very difficult task, and we think this new bill will alleviate that stress on them.
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who has spent a great deal of time on this debate already. I welcome his words as well.
I will start off with my 10 minutes to talk a little about my background. Hearing the remarks of the hon. member for Surrey Centre and the hon. member for Brampton West, with her intervention, they are seeming to make the bill about a general immigration bill, which is of course absolutely incorrect.
We will not take our lessons from the hon. members opposite when they get on their high horse and talk about their valid backgrounds. There is nothing wrong with that, but I was born elsewhere. My mother's mother was born in Aleppo, Syria. My father was born in Cyprus. I welcome the comments of the hon. members about their backgrounds and their histories, but on the Conservative side of the House, we have proud backgrounds and histories as well.
We have a different perspective on the bill. Just as we respect their perspective, they should respect our perspective. I do not want to hear the insinuation that somehow if members vote against this bill, they are anti-immigrant, or they do not believe that the future of our country will in great part be built on people who were born elsewhere. Those are the facts of the situation. That is my personal history. I take a bit of umbrage when I hear the other side try to corner the market on that point of view.
Therefore, I am speaking as a first generation Canadian. I am speaking about the importance of successfully integrating into Canadian society to take advantage of all that our great country has to offer. However, it does concern me that it appears that one of the first priorities of the Minister of Immigration and of the Liberal government is somehow to return the citizenship to convicted terrorists. There is no refuting the fact that the person who has the most to gain from the bill is the heinous ringleader of the Toronto 18, Zakaria Amara. Those are the facts.
We believe that there is only one class of Canadian citizens and that all citizens deserve to be protected from terrorist acts.
Therefore, it is particularly alarming to me that Bill C-6 would create an unacceptable and, frankly, ridiculous double standard. Under the proposed legislation, a convicted terrorist's citizenship rights are protected, whereas someone who commits fraud is eligible to have their citizenship revoked.
The fact remains that while the Liberals are focused on ensuring convicted terrorists can have their citizenship back, we Conservatives are instead choosing to focus on maintaining Canada's strong global reputation as one of the best places to live, a bastion of freedom with jobs, hope, and security.
Let me talk about section B of the bill. It would remove the requirement that if granted citizenship, an applicant would intend to continue to reside in Canada. I repeat this for the record. We believe new immigrants and new Canadians enrich our country. They make our Canadian experience more wholesome and more successful. The experiences and perspectives they can bring within our borders are integral to the Canadian experience.
We want newcomers, just as when I arrived on these shores as a four year old, not knowing anything about this country at that young age, relying on my parents' wisdom. Thank goodness they chose Canada as a place where they wanted to get ahead in their lives.
I know other members of our caucus and indeed of all caucuses may have shared experiences of the New World as a youngster, coming here not knowing anyone and many times not knowing the language. However, we want people to succeed. We want people to experience our freedoms, experience our safe communities across the country. It is not just about the freedom to succeed. In many cases newcomers are fleeing countries where they do not have the freedom to experience a safe community. That is, by and large, what Canada offers.
We want that safety as well as that freedom. That is the critical part about Bill C-6 that we find objectionable. Let me state for the record that this intention to reside provision does not restrict a citizen's mobility rights as guaranteed under the charter. Rather it reinforces the expectation that citizenship is a privilege given to those with the intention of making Canada their permanent home. That is the whole purpose of it.
The Conservative Party would support an amendment that removes this provision from the bill.
Paragraph (c) of the bill would reduce the amount of time a person must have been physically present in Canada before applying for citizenship from four out of six years to three out of five.
Newcomers to Canada should receive every opportunity to succeed in every way possible. The longer an individual lives, works or studies in Canada, the greater the connection that person will have to our country.
On this side of the House, we believe that stronger residency requirements do promote integration, a greater attachment to Canada, and ultimately success in our great country. Make no mistake. Canadian citizenship is a very special thing, not easily emulated around the world. It bestows rights, freedoms, and protections to which many foreign nationals are not privy. As Canadians, they can vote and seek elected office. As such, we believe it is very important to be an active participant in Canadian life for a significant period of time prior to being granted citizenship in order to enrich both their personal experiences within Canada as well as our country's future. Therefore, we would support an amendment that would strike this component of the bill.
What it comes down to is a conception of an open, free, democratic, welcoming society, but one that enjoys the protections under the law, one that protects current citizens, permanent residents, and newcomers as well as bestowing those freedoms.
On this side of the House, we offer a balanced approach to these kinds of issues, balancing freedoms with responsibilities and protections. That is why we have the position we do on Bill C-6.
James Maloney Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Madam Speaker, I agree with a number of the comments my colleague made, such as the value we all place on Canadian citizenship and the importance of immigration. I do not think anyone is here as part of this debate to lessen either one of those things. We are talking about a specific issue, and the member mentioned it himself, and that is terrorism.
Canadian citizenship comes with certain obligations. It does not come with conditions. One of those obligations is to conduct oneself in accordance with Canadian values. It also means conducting oneself according to the values of the rest of the world. One of Canada's values is to support its allies, friends, and colleagues. Exporting people who have been convicted of a crime as serious as terrorism and putting them in a place where they can offend again is not acting in accordance with Canadian values.
Would my friend across the floor agree with that?
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Madam Speaker, all of these would be done on a case-by-case basis. No one wants to increase the possibility of terrorism by a particular act. I am sure that would be challenged in our courts if it were to be the case.
In my time as president of Treasury Board, we dealt with many cases where citizenship was revoked. Typically the cases involved people lying on their application for citizenship, that lie being found out, and therefore their citizenship being revoked. Those were most of the cases with which I dealt.
If we can kick people out of our country for lying on their citizenship form, surely we can kick out dual nationals, those with another citizenship, who have committed a terrorist act in our country. That is our point of view.
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Liberals for introducing this bill, which corrects these bad Conservative policies and puts us back on the right track.
Furthermore, as we know, numerous experts testified that the previous bill completely violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that it was even unconstitutional. That was the opinion of the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the Barreau du Québec, to name a few.
Why, then, are the Conservatives so determined to defend the harmful aspects of this bill when they are likely to be inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and unconstitutional?
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Madam Speaker, I am also a lawyer and I can say that it is important to have provisions to protect citizens in our charters of rights. That is also part of our bill. It is the responsibility of this Parliament to come up with a decision to better protect Canadians.
Our first priority is to protect our citizenry within the framework of reasonable laws, and this does answer that reasonable framework.
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
Madam Speaker, this morning I talked about this being a policy choice, equating the moral blameworthiness of taking away citizenship for fraud, for immoral acts committed abroad, but now removing it for committing such acts at home for three narrow provisions.
Could the hon. member, as a lawyer talk, about this as a public policy choice? Treason was a ground for revocation under three Liberal prime ministers. That policy choice has not been explained. Could the member comment?
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Madam Speaker, the hon. member has alluded to this very well. This is a policy choice that is counter to other provisions that revoke citizenship or have done so historically, including for things that are similar to or even less important than this. Therefore, let us make sure the law is on all four squares and on the best ground. I think that is a better road to go.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I usually start by saying it is an honour to participate in this important debate. However, I have to say that this is a particularly important debate, one of the most important we have had thus far in the House, because we are talking about what Canadian citizenship means and the core aspects of Canadian identity.
I want to start by articulating what I see as three central principles of Canadian citizenship. I believe that Canadian citizenship should be accessible, should be valued, and should express collective values.
The first principle is that citizenship should be accessible. We take for granted that we are a country where citizenship is not only something people can be born into, but also that people can receive by coming here and becoming citizens. They can be from elsewhere originally, but then buy into our collective values and become part of Canada. Our citizenship is accessible, which is part of our strength—being able to draw on the knowledge and experience that come from other parts of the world.
I was recently in the United Arab Emirates, and that is not the way things work there and in some other countries. People can live there for decades and never have an opportunity to acquire citizenship. Therefore, the way we do it in Canada is special, is important, and provides us with a unique value. I believe there is consensus on this principle of accessibility.
The second principle is that citizenship ought to be valued. It ought to be the sort of thing that we understand means something. To paraphrase Kant, it should never be treated as merely a means, but be valued as a good in and of itself.
For many of the new Canadians I have talked to in my riding and elsewhere, they have a particularly sharp sense of the value of Canadian citizenship. If it is something they did not start out with, if they had to come here and then acquire it, they have a particular appreciation for the value of that citizenship. New Canadians and all Canadians want us to ensure that citizenship is not just a tool to achieve some other end, but is regarded as a thing of value by those who hold it.
The third principle is that citizenship ought to express collective values in some sense. Of course, that does not mean that we have to agree on everything, or even on most things, but it does mean that there is some set of values that we can identify as being centrally Canadian.
Not everyone who breaks the law in any sense steps out of this essential values compact, but there are cases, and we have seen them, of people who clearly voluntarily make a very strong clean break with anything we would understand to resemble Canadian values.
I would argue that if we allow people who are involved in treason, terrorism, or fighting for foreign genocidal powers against Canada, people who clearly do not buy into any semblance of our collective values, to keep our citizenship, then we devalue that citizenship. All members here understand the importance of Canadian citizenship, but it ought to be valued as an end, not merely as a means, and it ought to express something about our collective values, not just express the fact that someone went through a particular process. That is what citizenship is about. That is what it should be about.
Here in Canada we have put these two critical ideas together. On the one hand, we have sought and effectively built a very diverse country ethnically, culturally, religiously, and linguistically. However, in the context of that, we have also sought generally to insist on the importance of common values, on the meaning of our citizenship, and on expressing some kind of collective values. At first blush, this might seem like a difficult combination, diversity on the one hand and common values on the other. Indeed, in most of the world's history, these things were not seen as going together. Most of the world's history has been populated either by small republics or big empires: on the one hand, possibly societies that are relatively small and homogenous and are held together by collective values, and, on the other hand, societies that are larger, more diverse, and controlled centrally.
However, the Canadian ideal was a unique political experiment in world history, and it is one that has worked. It was the idea that we could build a society that was both diverse but also expressed common values, and did so democratically.
We have all heard the expression, “having your cake and eating it too”. This was really our attempt to have our cake and eat it with ice cream and a glass of wine. We have done it and we have built a great society.
However, to have a cohesive democratic society that is diverse, we always need to have and maintain that idea of common values. There is a point at which someone goes too far and steps outside of those common values. This is what we are fighting for, and this is something that we on this side of the House believe is worth fighting for, the idea that citizenship must at some point entail common values. As we have seen, this is an idea contested by members opposite.
The Prime Minister recently told The New York Times that “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.... Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.” It is deeply troubling that the Prime Minister of Canada would spout, respectfully, such nonsense. This is a bastardization of a great Canadian political experiment, a troubling wrong turn in thinking, and it comes at a time when, frankly, Canada is at a high point in terms of its diversity and collective values. We have to maintain them. People come here because of our diversity, but not just because of our diversity, but also because they want to buy into a set of shared democratic values in that context. The vast majority of people who come here have no interest in our allowing terrorists to retain their citizenship.
I want to say as well that this bill is important to me personally. As the son and grandson of immigrants, I was always raised with this particular appreciation of the value of Canadian citizenship and the way it expresses our collective values. My grandmother grew up in a country that did not believe she had basic human dignity because of her race. My mother was born in Venezuela when her father was working on an energy project there. She is, in fact, a dual citizen. My father's parents arrived from Malta just a couple of months after he was born, and he liked to tell us that he had been made in Malta. Since my father is also an obstetrician, we were never in doubt about what that meant. It may be the case that I am the first Canadian MP of Maltese descent and this no doubt marks a major step forward in our social evolution. My wife's family members were immigrants to Canada from Pakistan, where they faced increasing persecution because of their Christian faith. Because of a history of ethnic and religious persecution, both of our families really understand what it means to be in a country like Canada, why our citizenship is valuable, and why we need to fight for those common values against the attempts of the current government to de-emphasize them and to allow convicted terrorists to remain citizens.
I want to conclude my speech today with a few points of refutation to what we have heard in the debate so far. I must say that we have heard some very good speeches from the government side, but we have heard many speeches that just simply repeated the same slogans over and over again about the importance of diversity, as if that were actually a subject for debate. Listening to this debate, I have to say that there is no party with a monopoly on respect for diversity, but there does seem to be one party with a monopoly on sanctimony. Let us put the sanctimonious slogans aside and talk about the issues. Let us talk about the content of the bill, because it is simply too important to get lost in repeated sloganeering.
We have heard a lot of misinformation. We have heard members of the government say that new Canadians are worried that they might lose their citizenship just because they choose to reside outside the country. It is very clear that those people who are citizens are not required to live in Canada, but we do ask and should ask for an affirmation that people intend to reside in Canada. That does not preclude anyone who is a Canadian from living abroad at certain times, but it aligns us with a basic principle that if they just come here to get their citizenship and then plan on leaving right away, it does not really reflect an understanding of the value of Canadian citizenship.
We have heard this strange assertion that this violates the rule of law. Of course it does not. Citizenship is revocable in every country in the world. It would remain revocable in Canada after this bill passes, and these changes have not been required by the courts. Of course, the current elected government has a right to propose these measures, but to suggest that they are required by some principle of the rule of law reflects a misunderstanding of the way the law works. It is the invention of an artificial principle of law.
The Liberals have sought to skew the previous government's record, a record that includes the highest sustained immigration levels in the country's history. This is a critical discussion, so I ask the government members to put aside the slogans, put aside the talking points and misinformation, and let us have this discussion in a serious way. Canadian identity is too important.
James Maloney Liberal Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Madam Speaker, I think my friend opposite has defeated his own argument, proving there is no monopoly on this side on sanctimonious speeches.
I want to thank him for relating his family history. I happen to know his aunt. She is a very good friend of mine and, much to his chagrin, a big supporter of mine. I send her regards.
We are talking about revocation of citizenship. We all agree on the importance of Canadian citizenship. We all agree on the importance of immigration. There is a difference in revoking someone's citizenship on the basis of fraud, because that means they were not entitled to it in the first place.
The hon. member is talking about giving someone Canadian citizenship and when that person is convicted of a crime, then sending him or her somewhere else so they can do it again. That does not represent Canadian values. Does the hon. member agree or disagree with this point?
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I do appreciate the regards from my wife's aunt. My in-laws would tell voters during the election, “Don't worry, we checked him out much more than you ever will.”
When it comes to the issue of sending people to other countries, let us be very clear about the revocation of citizenship. There are many cases that could be involved here, or someone might already be in another country.
There was a case discussed yesterday of someone who set their passport on fire and then shot it. That person was already in a different country. That person should not have the benefits of Canadian citizenship. It should be understood that person like that has clearly established their separation from the principles Canada stands for, from Canadian values, and voluntarily stepped outside of the Canadian family.
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.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the great work of this member on this issue. He is absolutely right on this point.
In addition to the underlying philosophical problems with the approach the government has taken, it is clear that there are a lot of strange contradictions in the bill. The Liberals seem to say on the one hand that citizenship ought to be irrevocable, but the bill maintains the possibility of revoking citizenship. They talk about two-tier citizenship being a bad thing, but then, at the same time, the bill brings in a two-tier citizenship, because under the bill now there is no case in which someone born in Canada could ever lose their citizenship, but someone who moves to this country could.
The government members use slogans in this debate, but need to dig into and actually understand the content of the bill. I encourage all members of the government to do so. Do not just vote for the bill because the title sounds nice, but dig into it and understand its provisions and its implications. They should make their own decision on it.