Bill C-71

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024)

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to, among other things,
(a) ensure that citizenship by descent is conferred on all persons who were born outside Canada before the coming into force of this enactment to a parent who was a citizen;
(b) confer citizenship by descent on persons born outside Canada after the first generation, on or after the coming into force of this enactment, to a parent who is a citizen and who had a substantial connection to Canada before the person’s birth;
(c) allow citizenship to be granted under section 5.1 of that Act to all persons born outside Canada who were adopted before the coming into force of this enactment by a parent who was a citizen;
(d) allow citizenship to be granted under section 5.1 of that Act to persons born outside Canada who are adopted on or after the coming into force of this enactment by a parent who is a citizen and who had a substantial connection to Canada before the person’s adoption;
(e) restore citizenship to persons who lost their citizenship because they did not make an application to retain it under the former section 8 of that Act or because they made an application under that section that was not approved; and
(f) allow certain persons who become citizens as a result of the coming into force of this enactment to access a simplified process to renounce their citizenship.

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to be here today to speak on behalf of the people who sent me to represent them in the House of Commons, the people of London West.

This morning, the leader of the official opposition said that if the Conservatives formed government, they would run things the way they did before, specifically referring to when Harper's Conservatives were in power. That is a big shame. After all, this Conservative Party has promised to create barbaric cultural practices such as hotlines that encourage Canadians to spy on one another. It was this Conservative Party that kept families apart through limited family reunification targets, only because it did not want to let many seniors into this country.

Yesterday, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn spent time filibustering a bill that was first moved by the member for Brandon—Souris, who was the sponsor of the bill. He said the Conservatives would make sure they did not oppose the motion, yet they spent three hours filibustering it, misleading Canadians and not following the promises they made.

It was this Conservative Party that introduced significant cuts to the interim federal health program in 2012, which provided health care to refugees and asylum seekers. These cuts led to limited access to central health services for many refugees, including children and pregnant women. The Federal Court eventually ruled that these cuts were cruel and unusual.

It was this Conservative Party that voted against funding the interim housing assistance program ahead of the cold winter months, playing political games, as they have done since we came back to Parliament, with the lives of vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, again misleading Canadians that they are here to serve. They are here to cut programs that are vital and essential to Canadians.

It was this Conservative Party that shut down the family reunification program for two years, separating families. In fact, a statement made by the former immigration minister under the Harper Conservatives said, “If you think your parents may need to go on welfare in Canada, please don't sponsor them.” This was from a minister in Harper's government. It was the same Conservative Party that accused vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees of abusing Canada's generosity.

The Conservatives are doing what they know best, and that is dividing and misleading Canadians. Shame on them. We will not stand for it, nor will we dignify their shameful tactics to divide Canadians.

Let us talk about what the Conservative Party is doing right now at the citizenship and immigration committee. I want to remind the House what the Conservatives said about Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, during second reading debate. There has been a six-hour filibuster on a motion at the immigration committee regarding Bill C-71.

I will take this opportunity to share that I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport. I got carried away.

I would like to share some of the context on Bill C-71. Given the recent legal changes to the first-generation limit that Harper's Conservatives introduced, it was clear that changes were needed to the Citizenship Act to address cohorts of excluded citizens. This is especially relevant for those born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent.

In 2009, several amendments to the Citizenship Act remedied the majority of the older lost Canadian cases by providing and restoring citizenship and removing the need for anyone to file to retain their citizenship by their 28th birthday. However, the Harper Conservatives introduced the first-generation limit, which the Supreme Court of Ontario has now deemed unconstitutional based on equality and mobility rights.

The leader of the official opposition has suggested that he would use the notwithstanding clause if given the chance, and that the Conservatives are considering taking away people's rights when it suits them. What the Conservatives did here is a concrete example of taking away the rights of Canadians, and I think they will do it again if given the opportunity. When Conservatives say that Canadians have nothing to fear, Canadians need to take note of what they have done in the past, as they have repeatedly said they would run the system exactly how they did before.

Bill S-245, a Senate public bill on the lost Canadians issue, was sponsored by a Conservative senator. However, during the study on this bill, the Conservative Party filibustered for over 30 hours. During that time, the member of Parliament for Calgary Forest Lawn, who is the sponsor for Bill S-245 and the former Conservative immigration critic, recommended the introduction of a private member's bill or government bill to address the remaining cohort of lost Canadians. I want to point out that the Conservative Party continues to trade down this bill, even though it corresponds with its leader, who has assured us that the Conservatives will continue to support and advocate for this legislation.

As I said earlier, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn was quoted as saying that they will make sure there is no opposition to it, yet yesterday, the Conservatives spent hours filibustering, with different colleagues in rotation coming to filibuster. It was very misleading that they told Canadians there would be no opposition and it would be passed quickly. These Canadians came to our committee. The Conservatives listened to witnesses and heard them, yet they still misled them and moved into a filibuster.

We have a government bill in front of us that we want to pass. It is wrong that the Harper Conservatives created this division in the first place. However, once again, the Conservative Party is playing political games with the lives of Canadians. Nothing about that is new. They have done it before and are doing it again. I hope Canadians are watching.

The Conservatives are delaying Bill C-71 from going to committee so it can be debated. They are also filibustering at the immigration committee regarding the motion on Bill C-71. I am so disappointed that the Conservatives have been sharing misinformation and attempting to stoke division and drive fear into the hearts of Canadians, but I cannot say that I am surprised.

The Conservatives constantly talk about people's pensions. They talk about the NDP leader's pension, yet they do not talk about the fact that their own leader has a pension of $230,000. The Conservatives also do not want to address why their leader does not have a security clearance right now. These are all questions that Canadians need answers to, and Conservatives should be asking them themselves.

On this side of the House, we remain committed to righting the wrongs of the unconstitutional first-generation limit on families. We continue to support newcomers. We will continue to provide a safe haven for vulnerable asylum seekers, all the while ensuring that our growth is sustainable and that we continue to build more homes and grow our economy. We have prioritized family reunification by expanding the spousal, parents and grandparents sponsorship program, increasing our annual levels and lowering financial requirements.

We are taking action to restore the integrity of the international student program, protecting students from instances of abuse and exploitation. We have made it easier for foreign national physicians with job opportunities to remain here in Canada and seek permanent residency. We have also launched a health-specific category under express entry to help address labour shortages in the health care sector so that Canadians can receive the quality health care they deserve.

We introduced the home child care provider pilot and home support worker pilot to provide pathways to PR for caregivers. We are also the first country to introduce a special humanitarian stream for women leaders, human rights defenders, LGBTQI+ individuals, persecuted minorities and journalists.

On this side of the House, we will always support newcomers, asylum seekers, refugees and citizens, and we will always stand shoulder to shoulder with them every step of the way.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

He's talking about finance and Brookfield, and those things should be in the finance committee, not in a committee where we're discussing the motion on Bill C-71 here.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am just wondering whether Mr. Kmiec is discussing the motion on Bill C-71. The point he's bringing should be in a different committee, not in this committee.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

—quite shameful that....

Since Ms. Kwan wants to speak up, I guess we'll start with the original motion on Bill C-71. I'll just say it's quite shameful that we had a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill S-245—

National Framework for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a great privilege to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the residents of Calgary Shepard. Over the past two years, constituents have written to me on multiple occasions, both for and against a universal basic income, and specifically on the legislation before us as well as what I will call its partner legislation, which is in the Senate.

It is very confusing when the bills have almost the same number, and sometimes people get them confused. It is very difficult to understand when we are sent a bill number in the subject line but it is not explained whether it is S or C and I am left trying to figure out which legislation it is. I am always looking to respond, but sometimes I get it wrong, and then there is a conversation back and forth.

I have taken the time to read the legislation over, and I want to give the member who sponsored it the benefit of going through each section on the merits of the content. I will be voting against the bill, so I want to explain section by section why that is.

Clause 3 is on the national framework. This is the part that a lot of constituents have told me they have concerns about. There are those people who support it as well, but on the balance, my constituents want me to vote against it. It would create a national framework for the implementation of a guaranteed livable basic income program throughout Canada for any person over the age of 17, and then it goes on to include temporary workers, permanent residents and refugee claimants.

It does not say “successful claimants”. It does not have the classification of protected persons. It does not refer to international students. It uses the wording “temporary workers”, which, when one reads it over, could mean a series of different things.

The bill also does not have a royal recommendation. It does not seek to spend any money. Therefore when I was responding to constituents, I noted for them that the bill does not have a budget, an amount, assigned to it, which is one of the reasons I would vote against it right away, because it would create a framework legislation. I generally do not support framework legislation. I have on a few occasions when I thought it would not be an imposition of huge new costs.

Subclause 3(2) has a consultation provision. Generally I like these types of consultation requirements with provincial, territorial and indigenous governments. I think they are more than reasonable. I come from the province of Alberta, where there is a requirement for the provincial government to consult, especially, for example, with Métis Settlements General Councils, or MSGCs. So far, I think Alberta is the only provincial government where it is a requirement; legislation affecting MSGCs cannot be changed without their consent. I think it is one of the first, if I am not wrong, among provincial governments, and I think it is a good idea generally.

Now I will move on to the content, which is subclause 3(3). It says that the framework must include four different types of provisions in it. For example, “guaranteed livable basic income program does not result in a decrease in services or benefits meant to meet an individual’s exceptional needs related to health or disability.” Of course this would not be universal, which in my view would be equal treatment for all, exactly the same.

I have read economics magazines and journals on the subject, which I will refer to in a moment, and they specifically state that a UBI or a negative income tax, which famously is kind of where the idea comes from, has to be completely equal to every single person regardless of their starting point.

There is also information in paragraph 3(3)(c) that would ensure that “participation in education, training or the labour market is not required in order to qualify for a guaranteed livable basic income”, and I have questions about temporary workers being made eligible for something like this. As I said, international students are not mentioned, but international students, as of September 1 of this year, can continue to work 24 hours per week in our labour market. However, as non-participation would allow them to participate in this benefit, they are specifically excluded in subclause 3(1). I do not know whether that was intentional or not.

Paragraph 3(3)(b) would “create national standards for health and social supports that complement a guaranteed basic income program and guide the implementation of such a program in every province”. I have two major concerns with this. One is that it would be an encroachment into provincial jurisdiction. My province gets to set what programs it wants. It does not have to in any way submit to the federal government when it is purely within its own provincial jurisdiction.

Second, setting national standards would encroach on provincial health care and social supports. My province has an age for PDD programs, as do many others, and it would be an encroachment to set a national standard, even if we consult with them. Consultation does not always lead to agreements, and our Constitution is very clear that there are areas of exclusive jurisdiction.

I know that is a comment often made by Quebec members of Parliament from different political parties, but it is one I think a lot of us Albertans make as well, that we have exclusive jurisdiction in many areas and we want the federal government to stay out of them.

Paragraph 3(a) talks about what would constitute a livable basic income in “each region of Canada” without spelling out what “region” would mean. In the Constitution, Canada is separated into four regions, if we use the Senate rules: western Canada, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Hopefully that is not what “region” means in this sense, because I think our state has evolved quite significantly and the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia combined now have a bigger population than the province of Quebec.

If I go on, there is a framework that is required to be tabled. There is more information on when it must be tabled and when the report must be provided to the House.

I have a Yiddish proverb, as I always do. I did forget to give one when I started speaking on Bill C-71, and I will always admonish myself for doing so. It says: He who is aware of his folly is wise.

In this instance, let us look at what is going on so we do not do something rash with our finances. We are facing a $40-billion deficit, and I wonder how we will pay for this. Jim Seeley, in my riding, wrote this great email asking a lot of questions about cost, percentages, who would be eligible, how would CPP and old age security work, just questions he was wondering about. I had to tell him I was not quite sure.

I did go and look, though, at the government's projections for future years. When does it expect to have a surplus? From a surplus, presumably, we would then look at whether we could do a universal basic income or a negative income tax. There is a $20-billion deficit in the last financial year that is forecast. The Government of Canada expects to accumulate a deficit of $157 billion by fiscal year 2028-29, and that is without any new spending announcements. That means no new public infrastructure dollars added, on top of what has already been announced, and no new procurement. There would be nothing new, nothing extra above and beyond that, and the government would still run a $20-billion deficit, so I wonder how all this would be paid for.

Finally, as I mentioned, a negative income tax has been talked about for at least the last 50 to 60 years. It was first proposed in a journal by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman. He is often tagged as an economist of the right, which I do not think is entirely fair to him. Now, UBI and NIT, whichever acronym we want to use, work in slightly different ways but their goal is sort of the same. He recognized that a lot of public advocates on the left were generally very enthusiastic about the ideas he explained, especially the mechanisms his concept would work on and its end goal.

Public advocates on the right were much less enthusiastic and heavily criticized him when he wrote the journal. He recollected this quite often. There is a great YouTube video I often send to constituents, for them to hear from him, the expert, on the logic of how it would work. One of the things he said about UBI, or NIT, is that there would be no other welfare programs competing at the same time. There would be fewer civil servants, who he called nannies, who would look over the spending of citizens, of how they were living their lives and what they were doing.

To go back to my Yiddish proverb, I really hope we would be careful with the public's finances. We see it reflected in the polls, but I heard it while I was door-knocking in my riding of Calgary Shepard. My constituents are worried about the public finances. They are worried about a $40-billion deficit and about $150 billion more in debt being accumulated on the credit card of the nation. That is why I will be voting against this piece of legislation.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Yes, Madam Speaker, by popular demand, I am back. I really missed these exchanges. Some of our great moments are on Thursdays, not just for CPAC viewers, but also for you and me personally, I know. Therefore it is wonderful to exchange and wonderful to be back. I want to wish members a good return. I hope everybody had a productive and happy time with their families and their constituents in their ridings.

This afternoon, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-66, the military justice system modernization act.

Tomorrow, we will begin the report stage debate of Bill C-33, the strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act.

On Monday, we will begin second reading debate of Bill C-63, the online harms act.

Madam Speaker, you will be very happy to know that next Wednesday we will also be resuming second reading debate of Bill C-71, which would amend the Citizenship Act.

I would also like to take the opportunity to inform the House that both next Tuesday and next Thursday shall be allotted days.

Furthermore, on Monday, the Minister of Finance will table a ways and means motion on capital gains taxation that incorporates the feedback received during consultations over the summer. The vote will take place on Wednesday of next week during Government Orders.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

If you want to work on this collaboratively, then I invite you to move on from the political games. If you have more of these types of aggressive, partisan motions, then we're going to have more of these types of days where we're debating what I hear at the doors in my riding. When I go to the door, the people are fed up with the government and would like to see an election. They want to have their say, and their say is a carbon tax election. That's what they're saying to me. I'd say that it's the primary issue. Probably now for over 50% of the people I connect with at the door, this is a driving issue connected to the cost of living. They want to see this.

We'll have a non-confidence vote next week on Wednesday, hopefully one of many to come and be repeated. Ours will be simple. It's 12 words. I think we all agree on 12 words as we go forward on it. The carbon tax election will come. If this committee were to accept my subamendment, that might actually expedite it even faster.

It would be great to see it happen even more quickly if we need to use the committee process to move non-confidence in the government in order to submit ourselves as public servants to the people's judgment. They have a right to judge the quality of our work. You don't get votes; you earn votes and you earn them repeatedly. It is difficult, because it's your work. It's your political party's work. It's your political movements. There are provincial parties as well. You have political leadership as well that you have to defend when you want to. You don't have to defend them. I mean that, especially on the other side. You don't have to defend your political leadership. At a certain point, self-preservation should kick in, and you should be listening to the people in your ridings.

With Bjorkquist specifically, this court ruling that is the linchpin of why now we have Bill C-71, and this claim that we need to rush, the government can always return to the court and ask for another delay, if it comes to that. I don't think it will come to that. The government side has a working majority, effectively.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I guess you were given a chance to not let me speak, and I voted to not let myself speak, which is unusual. It's probably the first time in nine years I voted to not let myself speak at committee. It's like I'm at PROC all over again in my first term.

I wanted to address a few of the things I heard from the other side, because I think it's material to everything that we've been talking about on this subamendment, how we got here and the reason for the particular legislation that the main motion is referring to.

Mr. El-Khoury talked about the drops in the interest rate by the Bank of Canada, and then sort of implied—well, not implied, almost said it—that it's going to keep going down. Is the Liberal government going to force the Bank of Canada governor to lower interest rates? That would be most unusual because I thought those interest rate decisions were entirely independent of government. If monetary policy is no longer independent, I think you should put it on the record that it's no longer independent.

On the $10 day care programs, I remember the Conservative side voted for Bill C-35, which these agreements are attached to. It's a disaster in my home province, where there are many day cares, especially private day cares, that are going out of business. Especially in my riding, there are a few of my communities where I have a lot of home care that provide day homes. That's how I grew up in Brossard, on the south shore of Montreal. I grew up in these day homes, basically. They're critical. They're being put out of business by the Liberal government agreement that was forced on my province. You will see a lot of criticism from our Alberta minister at the time, before she was promoted to the environment ministry, on this particular issue.

About the school food program that Mr. El-Khoury loves to promote, it has fed exactly zero children. I'm pretty sure there's letterhead. There's probably some nice writing out there with a beautiful font going around—no children fed, zero. There are a lot of private, not-for-profit organizations that have fed more children than the Liberal government.

I'll give you an example. Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids has probably fed more children in one week than the entire Government of Canada has in the past nine years. If anything, the government that you keep supporting on the other side has probably taken food out of more children's mouths by making it so expensive than it's actually fed.

This food program is just a total sham. It's a total sham. You should not promote it. There are other things you could talk about that maybe you could convince the public on. Judging from the polls the public doesn't trust you. They don't trust the cabinet and really doesn't trust the Prime Minister. I have not even met Liberals at the doors who would be willing to say “I trust the Prime Minister of Canada.” I've found Liberals at the doors saying, “I want to continue voting Liberal.” It's not, “I'm going to.” They say, “I want to continue. I want to find a reason to vote Liberal.”

I think they're ready for that carbon tax election that my subamendment is calling for. I think they recognize that this has to be done. There are a few more things that were mentioned about C-37, the originating piece of legislation that introduced the first-generation limit, which the superior court judge found was charter non-compliant. Again, if you read the actual judicial decision in the paragraph 60 range, specifically, the charter non-compliance is connected to the incompetence of the former IRCC minister.

The Minister of Immigration's department is incompetent. He's incompetent. He can't seem to get a handle on his file. Some people are just not meant for this. They're on their fifth or sixth immigration minister. Maybe it's time for a seventh. I'm not sure how many it will take to fix this.

Bill C-37 was unanimously voted on not once, where perhaps the argument made by the NDP would make sense, but twice. It wasn't that it was just unanimously agreed to; it was unanimous without dissent.

Because I have been the deputy House leader on the Conservative side, I'm going to reveal maybe some inside baseball things for the public. Typically in this place, House leaders talk to each other. The deputies talk to each other. We all know the positions of our caucuses. I'm not sure how the other caucuses work, but in our caucus, we run our House leadership. We tell them what to do. We have votes, and they are directed on certain matters on what to do. That's the way it works.

On Bill C-37 at the time, my understanding then would have been that if everybody unanimously supported it, you unanimously supported everything within Bill C-37, including the first-generation limit. Bill C-37 also restored citizenship to a lot of Canadians. It was fixing some of the errors in the 1977 Citizenship Act, and I think that is really important to mention.

To make the claim that a third party who wasn't a member of Parliament, who wrote a book and who made a claim that was not backed because that person had not talked to Stephen Harper, as far as I know, or parliamentarians, the House leadership or staffers of the time.... To make that claim...it's just that. It's hearsay: Somebody said something. I would not take that to the bank. It's also, I think, a false interpretation of what was said in Hansard. I don't have that particular page with me. It's upstairs in my desk.

I look forward to debate continuing on Bill C-71 in the chamber, and I'm going to be there every single time it comes up. I'm going to participate. I'm going to keep asking the same question I asked the minister on the first day. How many people would be affected by Bill C-71? I know how many people would be affected by my subamendment right now. It would be 40 million-plus Canadians, who are going to go to the polls and pass judgment on all of us, including the Conservatives. They're going to pass judgment on our performance, and I'm looking forward to it. I have zero fear for my constituents and the residents in my riding. I am more than willing to submit myself to their wisdom, and if they choose to vote me out, they can do so.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to earn their support. I'm pretty sure. I've got a gut feeling. They're pretty satisfied with my work, based on my door knocking in my riding and other parts of the country. I have a good feeling about it this time. Even the vice-chair says he'd vote for me. I want to make sure of that as we continue to talk about this subamendment I've put forward.

I also want to talk about the delays in Bill C-71 and this sudden rush that I see from at least one opposition party and the government side now because there is a court-imposed deadline. There was a court-imposed deadline in June, and the government never bothered to put up Bill C-71 for debate. It did not even bother. It was on notice as of May 23, so at any time afterwards it could have been put up for debate. There was almost 20 days' worth of debate during which they could have put up the bill.

Why didn't they tell their House leadership to do it? This I don't understand. There was a court-imposed deadline then as well, and their side chose not to do it, so it is interesting that, after the summer, they come back and now they claim this must be rushed because there's a court-imposed deadline for December.

I'll also remind us that the court's decision in Bjorkquist from the judge was made in December 2023. Why did it take 156 calendar days for them to table a piece of legislation called Bill C-71? It's not even that long. It's an open question; anyone can answer it. Go back to the minister. That's 156 days for legislation when there were multiple breaks in between, and then not a single day was it debated. However, today we're being told that this committee must approve an aggressive, partisan, anti-Conservative motion with a whole bunch of hearsay in the preamble to rush the bill through the House.

Then their own members complained, along with one opposition party, that we Conservatives, and others too, because they all participated in it, spent 30 hours debating different amendments and hearing from government officials, and that was invaluable. They want us to take it to committee, but then they will complain that we have to rush it through committee because we Conservatives will take too much time.

They should go back to their comms people. That's a bad talking point. Their policy people should be writing their talking points. As a former policy guy, I fervently believe this. Let the policy people write the points, not the comms people—with all the blessings to them, because I know we have them on all sides. They exist everywhere I'm sorry to say. Policy people should be the ones writing these points. It just makes no sense.

I now understand the Citizenship Act better, I think, than any other piece of legislation before the House. I'm comfortable now when I read Bill C-71 after what happened with Bill S-245, and we moved many amendments. We all know this. More than 10 of them were Liberal amendments the Conservative side voted for. We proposed over 40 amendments, some of them very substantial. That was not a filibuster. It wasn't a waste of time. It was productive. We were doing actual work.

I also made promises during that meeting so they were on the public record, and I intend to keep those promises. If they play games, then we will be here debating subamendments, amendments and main motions like this from here until the end of this session, because the public is tired of the government side especially. They're in government. They're supposed to govern. If they want to persuade us, then persuade us. Persuade my House leadership and persuade Conservative members of Parliament that they are right. So far, I haven't seen that. What I've seen instead are attempts to circumvent the process.

When Bill S-245 was before you, I said we could expedite that piece of legislation if we stuck to section 8, lost Canadians, which we all agree with. It's even in this legislation. We could still agree with it. It was a Conservative idea from Yonah Martin. I will also add the fact that during the minister's speech, when he was speaking in French, he referred to this.

He said “sénateur Martin” instead of “sénatrice Martin”. Not even knowing that the sponsor of Bill S‑245 in the Senate is a woman, a Conservative senator from British Columbia, is truly ridiculous. His staff did not even check to see who Yonah Martin is, why she tabled Bill S‑245—which is identical to Bill S‑230—and why it passed so quickly in the Senate the last time.

I'd like to see an attempt, a serious attempt. If you want to work together, we can, I'm more than happy to, but I have members on my side who have serious concerns about Bill C-71. They also have concerns, like in my riding, that we will not have the carbon tax election my subamendment is calling for.

I find it interesting too that I heard particular members saying that Conservatives are doing this at all committees. I literally wrote that subamendment on my notepad in what I affectionately call my chicken scratch. I can sort of read it, and then I wrote out the French version right afterwards. There are no games here. I don't go to my House leadership to ask for permission. They know that. They're as frustrated with me as you are.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

—that would have been lost altogether. Isn't that right, Greg?

That would have meant that all of that would have been lost and war veterans who fought for this country would have gone to their graves without having been recognized as Canadians. That is shameful. The gender discrimination of the war brides is shameful. That's what happened with Bill C-37.

Fifteen years later, we're trying to fix all of this and again the Conservatives want to play games with people's lives and their suffering. Children that are born stateless are the result of the Conservatives' bill. Separated families are a result of the Conservatives' bill. It got to the point where enough was enough and courageous people took this to court and won.

Even then, the Conservatives say, “Let's put our politics ahead of everybody else and call for an election.” That would mean Bill C-71 would die on the Order Paper. That means constitutional rights will continue to be violated for these lost Canadians.

Mr. Chair, I would add that the Conservatives claim that they support the family members of lost Canadians. Wouldn't you know it? The leader of the official opposition, in correspondence responding to lost Canadian families, said that they would actually see Bill S-245, which is a Senate bill, go to third reading. How did that go?

Not only did they filibuster the bill in this committee for 30 hours but, after we finally got all that passed and it was reported to the House, the sponsor of the bill, Jasraj Singh Hallan, moved in the order of precedence the motion for Bill S-245 as amended to come up to the House for third reading debate and a vote eight times—I think that must be a record—to pre-empt it from actually getting voted on and passed in the House. That is the reality, folks. They can say all they want in all those speeches they just made so that they can put it on social media and say to their leader, “We did our job.”

By the way, to my understanding, they're using that amendment at every committee. It is absolutely a political stunt they're trying to do. I project that they're using it at every committee because I think those are the tactics they want to engage in. That's what we see with those kinds of tactics, a repeat—throw it in, rinse, recycle, start all over again. Those are the kinds of tactics that we have seen over and over again. That's my projection—that it is the kind of thing they will do with the other committees as well, always putting partisan politics ahead of the needs of their community and of Canadians. That's what we're seeing right here, right now, today.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank very much, Mr. Chair. I'll be very brief about this.

Really, all of this is just a ploy, in my view. It's playing politics at its worst.

What we're seeing here in relation to Bill C-71 is an attempt by the Conservatives once again to kill the bill. I suppose I should not be that surprised because, after all, it was them who brought in Bill C-37, which stripped the rights of Canadians and then deemed them to be second-class citizens. Irrespective of the fact that the Superior Court in Ontario has found this to be unconstitutional, the Conservatives want to persist. I know they'll make arguments and say things like, when Bill C-37 was passed, all the parties in the House supported it.

Let us just be clear on the record. In fact, Don Chapman—who is absolutely an expert about the history of lost Canadians—noted in his book that the Conservative government and Harper at the time, made it clear that, if that bill was not supported unanimously and unchanged by the parties, then he would strip all the other elements that would have impacted veterans and war brides. They would have gone to their graves without having their citizenships recognized.

What did the parties do? They held their noses and did what they had to do in order to honour the veterans and the war brides. Bill C-37 was founded on violations that, in my view, were based on sex discrimination.

Mr. Speaker, I should also add that the NDP's Olivia Chow—who was the critic at that time because I wasn't around the House at the time—attempted to raise concerns around the provisions that stripped second-generation-born Canadians of their right to citizenship. She did, in fact, call for that section to be struck or amended. Of course, that didn't happen because if she had ultimately gone down that track to do anything, it would have meant that the war veterans and the war brides and others.... There were some elements that were good in Bill C-37—

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak to MP Chiang's Bill C-71 amendment, but more specifically to the subamendment by Conservative member of Parliament Tom Kmiec, which adds, after "temporary foreign workers", the following words: "and after a carbon tax election is held so that Canadians and Québécois can vote out this tired and out-of-touch NDP coalition government".

That is the subamendment. It has been ruled in order several times by the chair, and he did need to admonish different members for being disruptive. I'm glad to see there was no disruption to MP Kmiec's comments and I'm looking forward to being able to get through my comments here.

My remarks focus on the carbon tax and how out of touch the Liberals—and I would add the NDP and the Bloc—are with Canadians from coast to coast, and why we need a carbon tax election.

I represent Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge. That is a suburb of greater Vancouver, on the north side of MP Dhaliwal's riding, near to the south, in Surrey. It's a beautiful area. My perspective will be as a British Columbian MP, though comments I share are in line with how Canadians feel across this country.

I've never seen residents in my riding as stressed out as they are now. I've been an MP since 2019, and prior to that I was an MLA for eight years, representing the same region. I'm talking about seniors living on fixed incomes, single parents, couples with and without children, new immigrants and students, who are feeling very stretched with costs of living. I talked to one worker recently, and he told me that he's working from 10:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night, seven days a week. He says he can't give his body a break: He's exhausted, but if he does that, he's going to lose his home.

These are comments that I'm hearing throughout British Columbia and in my riding. People are maxing out on their line of credit, credit card debt, feeling anxious and frustrated. I'm sure that this is in sync with what members here at this committee may be hearing also. Consumer debt continues to rise, and it's especially impacting those who are new to the country and Generation Z, but it's being felt across the board. According to an August 27, 2024, market pulse consumer credit trends and insights report from Equifax, we have $2.5 trillion in consumer debt. It's increased from the past year by 4.5%, which is very significant.

Millions of Canadians are tapped out and struggling to make ends meet. They're going deeper into debt, which means higher interest payments. That only puts on more pressure, because the same expenses that they had to pay for—whether it's food, gas or shelter—are not just staying the same but increasing. It's what we call a “debt trap”. It is terrible. It's a very difficult place for people to be.

In the Lower Mainland and the greater Vancouver area, housing costs are more than a million dollars to own a home and have a mortgage. People are having mortgages of $600,000. Then there's the increase in payments.

I just want to step back here for a second. I know that I'm mentioning different costs of living, but it all relates to the real challenge and burden that Canadians are feeling. The carbon tax, which I'll get into more, really highlights it and is an unnecessary cost that is being added to Canadians.

The increase in mortgage rates is making it tough for residents to pay for kids—to clothe them with new clothes, to pay for their sports or just to put food on the table. It is not just people who own houses; it's also people who are renting. Someone very dear to me has just rented an older one-bedroom apartment. It costs her $2,800 before utilities. You pretty much need $80,000 to $100,000 just to be able to make ends meet nowadays. It is so hard. That is one of the reasons that so many people—new residents, students and others—are cramming into apartments and other places. It's just to try to share the cost of living. They're sleeping on couches and sharing bedrooms. It's really hard.

As a government, as legislators, that's not the direction that we want to see our nation go in. We want to see things getting better. I know that's the feeling of all the members here at this committee and all the representatives. We don't want to see things getting worse for people. We don't want to be adding to the misery index. We want to see things getting better. I know we share that wish, but the thing is that there are policies that are doing the exact opposite. It's time to wake up. The government seems to be like a train going off a bridge that has been blown up and going right off the edge. It's like they're not changing.

As a matter of fact, though, they are changing. They're making things more expensive: Oh, we'll just spend hundreds of millions more dollars here and billions of dollars there. We'll throw money around willy-nilly, with no real consideration of the finances and what the policies are doing to impact everyday Canadians.

In British Columbia, we pay the highest gas prices in Canada and in North America. Right now it's $1.75 a litre. Last summer it was up to $2.50 a litre. It's expensive. The carbon tax is a significant portion of this price. Before summer, Conservatives put forward a motion that the government—the Liberals, backed by the NDP and the Bloc—remove the GST from the carbon tax. We have the carbon tax. Then there's the GST, which only augments or elevates the price on gas. That was defeated.

People can say, “Well, just take public transportation.” I suppose that's possible in the downtown city core in Vancouver and maybe Toronto and Montreal, but for those living in the suburbs and those living in rural communities all over, it's not as simple as that. Quite often the bus systems don't operate throughout the night. A lot of times it's not direct.

Using the bus lines means it takes a lot longer to get to work, which only puts more stress on a person's life and means less time at home.

It's important to have a good public transportation system, and in Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, we have a bus system. West Coast Express goes one direction, with five trains in the morning going one way and five trains coming back from the downtown core. That just doesn't do it. People need to get their kids to sports or need to go shopping, so they need to use their vehicles. It seems as if the government is just trying to get people out of their cars, to make them walk, to take us back to the Middle Ages, the dark ages.

B.C. used to be a net exporter of electricity. The direction of the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc seems to be to just use more electricity. The fact of the matter is that British Columbia used to be an exporter, and now it's importing electricity. Saying that we need to have more and more EV vehicles.... EVs are a good option for many people, but it doesn't work when you consider all the demands on our electricity grids. It's very challenging. How can I say it politely? It is kind of foolish to say, “Well, no more—”

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

The relevance, to my colleague across the way, is that my subamendment to the main motion is exactly on the carbon tax election. I'm quoting back to him a seasoned politician on the NDP side who is saying that he's facing a carbon tax election in British Columbia, and that's what the public wants. I'm trying to remind my colleague across the way through you, Chair, that we need a carbon tax election, and that's why I have a subamendment on this exact subject before this committee: It's so that we can have a carbon tax election and submit ourselves to accountability from Canadian citizens, who will get to pick who will represent them in the 45th Parliament, in our next Parliament, and I'm more than happy to do that right away.

My residents back home are enthusiastic about having a carbon tax election, and I'll go back to quoting now Premier Eby, who is less enthusiastic about facing the electorate in his home province. That's because they're upset at the carbon tax, and they're specifically, I'd say, more angry at the federal government for forcing British Columbia to keep a carbon tax because of the federal backstop legislation that forces every single province that doesn't have a carbon tax to have a price imposed directly upon them.

Premier Eby has clearly said that should there not be a federal backstop, British Columbia would abandon the punishing carbon tax. It's really convenient for him to say this so late in his term and so close to the provincial election day. I think it's of interest to the committee, and especially, I think, to our chair, who happens to be from the beautiful province of British Columbia through which I backpacked for two weeks over the summer with my kids. That's why this is important.

This is the last quote I have from Premier Eby before I move to other provinces. Premier Eby argued that large increases to the federal tax, now $80 a tonne as of April 1, are, to use another quotation, unsustainable. “Unsustainable” is what I heard at doors when I was door knocking in communities in North Vancouver, in Burnaby, in Delta, Vancouver Granville and Vancouver proper—but not Surrey.

Don't worry, Chair, I didn't make it out to Surrey to door knock, but I did door knock in New Westminster and I visited a lot of different groups as well. I door knocked also in a few spots in Seymour and North Burnaby, just to make sure that I heard directly from British Columbians, and what they were saying at the doors was that many of them wanted just what this subamendment has: a carbon tax election.

Moving on to my home province of Alberta, it's an unusual day, I think my colleagues from Alberta will agree, when we're quoting NDP MLAs, but I'm going to quote some NDP MLAs now.

Alberta NDP MLA and former leadership candidate Rakhi Pancholi spoke against the carbon tax, and this was reported earlier this year, before my subamendment even came to grace this committee to have a carbon tax election. On February 9, 2024, as reported in the Calgary Herald, she said the following: “It may be time to move beyond a consumer carbon price and focus more on the things that do work”, which again is an implication a carbon tax does not work and that we should abandon it.

This is another quote: “I’ve been having many conversations with leading climate activists in our province, experts in this area, and we need to continue those conversations to say, what would that climate plan look like without a consumer carbon price.”

It sounds to me like she was shying away from a retail carbon tax being imposed, which is exactly the point of my subamendment, which is to have a carbon tax election. I think it's perfectly reasonable that we time it for this report going back and its impact on Bill C-71 legislation before it comes to this committee.

I'll note that the government obviously finds no urgency in passing Bill C-71, because it's not up for debate today, as far as I can tell. It wasn't up for debate yesterday. I don't see it on notice for tomorrow's business. In fact, I don't think it's on the business for several more days, and the government saw no great urgency from the moment it tabled it in May to have it debated at any time in May or June before it came here.

I'll also remind members here that this committee was in public in a multi-meeting filibuster from the Liberal side, and I heard many people comment yesterday that the bad Conservatives were delaying Bill C-71. There's no delay happening. Members are debating the merits of the bill and the contents of the bill in the House. Then I also heard the other side of the argument, which is that Conservatives take too much time at committee to do their work. I will continue to do the work the residents of Calgary Shepard expect me to do, which is to represent them.

The content of my subamendment is exactly what residents in my riding want to see. That's every single word in my email inbox. They want to have a non-confidence vote and they want a carbon tax election, which is what my subamendment would deliver for them.

I am going to go back this weekend. I'm going to go to my veterans walk in Glenmore Park. I'm going to go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the Calgary food drive that they do for the whole city. When I meet my residents, my constituents and my voters, they're going to ask me, "What did you do for us this week?" I'm going to tell them I moved at committee that we report back to the House that we have a carbon tax election. They'll be like, "Tom, that's great. That's exactly what we sent you to Ottawa for. That's what we sent you to Parliament for. That's what we want. We're tired of the government. We want to see it replaced. We want to have a say."

That's what reporting this back would give them. It places conditions on the main motion. That's exactly what my residents want to see.

I have another quote I want to read you. It's from a different Alberta NDP MLA, one whom I actually met briefly at the Alberta legislature when we were waiting in a line to greet the President of the Republic of Poland. I got a chance to meet, I think, one of her kids. She got a chance to meet my kids, and we were just talking family issues.

Alberta NDP MLA and leadership candidate Sarah Hoffman spoke out against the carbon tax. According to CTV Edmonton, on February 11, 2024, Hoffman said, “I think the consumer carbon tax is dead”, and later, “So we need to find new tools that are successful.”

She went on to say, “Nobody is on board with what [the Prime Minister] did with the federal carbon tax. He absolutely broke trust and broke confidence when he looked at the polls in eastern Canada and decided to exempt them.”

Finally, she said, “There's no way people can be on board with the federal plan when even the prime minister isn't on board, when he's playing games with it.”

Even the Alberta NDP agrees, I think, with my subamendment. The purpose is to have a carbon tax election federally. Let's get this resolved. Let the voting public pick. They can make a decision.

I believe in the wisdom of crowds. I believe that voters always have the best say. They get to choose who represents them. I hope that I can continue to earn their trust, just as we all hope we can continue to earn their trust and continue to represent them in our national Parliament. It is a great privilege to do so.

I think that's exactly what Sarah Hoffman was speaking to here. She was speaking to the fact that even the Prime Minister had abandoned the federal carbon tax. Premier Eby had talked about the fact that if there hadn't been a backstop in law, he would have abandoned it as well. That's what the subamendment proposes to do: move it up to the House and have the House confirm the committee's report to say, “not before a carbon tax election happens,” because that's what the public wants to see. I think it's critically important.

With that, Chair, I'm going to stop my comments. I have more comments. I also want to note that I have a letter from the Public School Boards' Association of Alberta, which represents all the public school boards who wrote to me and other Conservative members of Parliament specifically about the impact of the carbon tax on schools in my home province, but I'll leave it at that, Chair, and I'll cede the floor.

Thank you.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't understand the relevance of Mr. Kmiec's comment about the carbon tax. It has no relevance to Bill C-71. That's the matter before us that we're debating. What he's talking about is completely not connected to the matter before us.

Citizenship Act

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, “broken, broken, broken” has been the refrain this summer, a summer that showed Canadians once again that the Prime Minister and the Liberal government are just not worth the cost. I suspect that was the refrain the Liberals felt last night after a brutal loss in a safe riding in Montreal, where Canadians sent the Prime Minister yet another message to say that his plan is not working. Nowhere is that truer than in our immigration system and citizenship system.

Let us go back to 2015, the last time the Conservative government was in charge. We had a consensus in this country, and it was a multi-generational consensus that existed long before 2015. It was a system that worked for our economy, with inflation low and home prices half of what they are today, and a system that kept our nation safe from terrorist attacks and multinational criminals. It was a system that was truly the envy of the world, through which a person could come to this country, welcomed with open arms, in an effort to build a life better than the one they left behind.

However, in just nine short years, none of that is true today. Housing prices keep going up, reaching record highs in cities small and large everywhere. International students are living seven, 10 or 15 to a basement, or even resorting to homeless shelters and food banks. Opportunity keeps slipping away in the face of higher taxes, more expensive groceries and, yes, more and more people in the way. People who came here after being promised a new beginning are instead finding that their hard work does not pay off, and shockingly, they do not want to stay. In fact, they want to leave. It is all made worse by a government that cannot seem to exhibit a single ounce of competence and organization in immigration. That is why the consensus is broken.

The Liberals lost a million people and still cannot tell Canadians where they are. The Minister of Public Safety, just a couple of weeks ago, insisted that the system is working when a terrorist was given citizenship. The member for Kingston and the Islands, who I missed very much over the summer, claims that the Liberals are delivering results for Canadians. However, Canadians keep sending them the same message that this is simply not the case, because nobody with an ounce of common sense can step back and say that things in Canada are working as they should right now. If this is what the Liberals consider delivering results, then I would hate to see what not delivering results looks like. Even when they do not know where people are, the system still does not work and incompetence still reigns supreme.

The government gave citizenship to a terrorist who appeared in an ISIS snuff video and who somehow passed six security checks while plotting an attack in the country's biggest city. It gave a student visa to a guy planning a massacre of Jews on the anniversary of October 7, all while being exposed for not even checking his criminal record, the record check we do for any temporary resident. This was just in the past month. With each successive blow, the confidence among Canadians and our peers abroad in the integrity of our immigration system, in who we grant citizenship to and in the basic ability of government to get anything done is certainly in question.

No one of us should relish the fact that the Canadian immigration system seems to be falling apart right in front of us. I am a child of immigrants. There are many children of immigrants. There are many immigrants among us, many of our colleagues and constituents. We can testify to the power of a necessary immigration system, but a system that lacks integrity just does not work, and Canadians will not trust it. If not for immigration, my family would have never been able to experience the freedom of opportunity that this country gave us. If not for immigration, our communities would never benefit from the skills and expertise of countless doctors, nurses, engineers, tradespeople and the many people who built this country. If not for immigration, our country would never be strengthened by the values and pluralism of our newcomers, who are rooted in their culture, and what that provides for us.

What happened in less than a decade is nothing less than a tragedy, which is why it is even more disappointing to see the Liberal government plowing head-first into more misguided policies like this one rather than taking the time to fix what is wrong, further extending the reach of Canadian citizenship in the same ham-fisted and incompetent way that we have come to expect. The Liberals cannot even tell us how many people will be eligible under this piece of legislation. Surely, they can come up with a model.

The government cannot possibly believe it still has the confidence of anyone in this country when it simply says, “Trust us. We got this.” This bill threatens the integrity and security of the citizenship system. In December 2023, as we have said here in the House, the Ontario Superior Court declared that the first-generation cut-off rule for the Canadian Citizenship Act was unconstitutional. The Ontario Superior Court itself found a 50% error rate in the Liberal-run citizenship department, with abnormally long processing times and malpractice.

The NDP-Liberals took six months to respond to Bill C-71, showing a blatant lack of urgency, which they claim to have found today. This bill proposes to grant citizenship to individuals born abroad to at least one Canadian parent who has spent 1,095 days in Canada. We know that. This is without requiring that these days are consecutive and without provisions for checks in the Criminal Code. We know that other countries require more time and certainly more consecutive time. I do not think it is out of line to ask for a security check given what we have seen in just the last month in this country, with a public safety minister who says that the system is working as it should.

We see in this debate that the Liberal Party voted in favour of Bill C-37. That is the bill that was here prior to this one, which the Liberals seem to have conveniently forgotten about entirely today and certainly have forgotten that they supported not once, but twice. It was passed at first reading and second reading and there was unanimous consent to pass it. The Liberals voted in favour of the very ideas they are attacking in this bill today. This further erodes the lack of consensus I spoke about that exists in our system.

The Liberals are doubling down on citizenship by Zoom and pushing forward with the present path, even as evidence shows that we are not building enough homes, that we are not credentialing those who should be able to work here in their professions and that we are not doing our due diligence. That is clear. That is a message they should have heard over the summer and is a message they probably heard at the doors in Montreal last night.

Perhaps most egregious is giving people who created this mess even more responsibility in running the government. The guy who used to be the immigration minister, the guy responsible for losing those million people, is now being promoted to the guy who is supposed to build houses in this country. This is a guy who ignored advice from his own ministry and instead chose to pursue a blind political agenda. What happened? He was given a promotion. It is the guy under whose nose blossomed a corrupt and phony international student program alongside a foreign worker program called a “breeding ground” for modern-day slavery. This is the guy who is in large part responsible for the debate we are having today, as the Ontario Superior Court cited bureaucratic incompetence at the IRCC as a major reason for its decision. Spoiler alert, that minister could not run the system, and he cannot build homes either. That should not surprise anyone.

We need to fix this broken system. We need to fix it for those who want to come here and create a better life, for the promise of Canada, for the promise that if they come here and work hard, they can buy a home in a safe neighbourhood. They should be able to work in their profession to the scope of its practice and to the scope of their education, and they should know that when they come here.

What we have right now is a broken consensus in the public because the system does not work. That is because people who come here cannot achieve the dream that we have promised and cannot achieve the dream that so many of us and our constituents have benefited from. That is a shame.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today in the House, the day after by-elections in two provinces in Canada. There are some commonalities in these two outcomes. In both ridings, the Conservative vote went up by 50% from the last general election. In addition, as in the election in June, when a Conservative was elected in Toronto—St. Paul's, another safe Liberal riding turned out to be not so safe at the end of the day. Something has to happen for people to start listening to what Canadians are thinking. For those across the aisle who are still pretending there is not a problem, that Canadians do not see a problem in the way the country is being run, I ask them to start paying attention and change their direction.

Canadians see clearly how badly government is being run and how they are being marginalized and divided; they are demanding change as soon as possible. One indication of the pure government incompetence is the way the Liberals have managed immigration. One year ago, I was directed to serve on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. It is not a strength I had before, but my office in Calgary Centre has an immigration caseload that is quite large.

Let me take a moment here to thank my staff in Calgary, Shaney Pap and Laura Wlodarczyk, because they do a fantastic job for Canadians, new Canadians, visitors and families that are navigating the maze of Canada's immigration process. It is a complex enough program, and it has been grossly mismanaged over the past four years.

How do we deal with a backlog of 2.6 million files? We should expedite 1.2 million files per year for two years in a system that previously managed about 320,000 files per year. They increased the workforce by 50%, from 9,200 employees in 2020 to 13,685 in 2023. It was a big increase in government, but corners were cut; we see the consequences of that with the recent arrests that are happening in Canada.

Why is the legislation before us? In December 2023, Ontario's Superior Court declared the first-generation cut-off rule in the Citizenship Act unconstitutional. That ruling was a damning indictment of the Liberal-run citizenship department. The court found a staggering 50% error rate in the processing of citizenship applications. This means that half of all applicants were mishandled, leading to abnormally long processing times and widespread malpractice. Such a high error rate is unacceptable and speaks volumes about incompetence and mismanagement in the current administration. That is the rationale for finding the previous law unconstitutional.

I might suggest that fixing the problem would make the whole issue less unconstitutional, but Bill C-71 proposes to grant citizenship to individuals born abroad with at least one Canadian parent having spent 1,095 days in Canada, the equivalent of three years. At the same time, it fails to require these days to be consecutive and lacks provisions for criminal record checks. This approach is deeply flawed and undermines the very essence of what it means to be a Canadian citizen.

Citizenship is not just a legal status. It is a commitment to our values, our laws and our way of life. By lowering the standards for obtaining citizenship, the NDP-Liberals are devaluing this precious status and putting our national security at risk. The world looks at a Canadian passport as being a very important document.

I forgot to mention at the beginning of my speech that I am splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Thornhill.

Let us compare Canada's rules with rules around the world. The requirement is three years in Canada, according to the proposed bill, and five years in most other democracies. This would be five years of real connection, not just 1,095 days sporadically spread out over a quarter century of a person's life. Bill C-71 would remove the 2009 limit that only allows citizenship for the first generation born abroad.

Under the bill, children born abroad to a Canadian parent, even if the parent was also born abroad, can gain citizenship as long as the parent meets a weak substantial connection test. The parent only needs to show 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada at any point in their life. Since the days do not need to be consecutive, people from multiple generations living abroad, with limited and sporadic ties to Canada, can still claim citizenship for their children. This weakens the substantial connection requirement and risks creating a class of citizens with minimal ties to this country.

Moreover, the government has not provided any analysis of how many new Canadians will be created by Bill C-71. Despite the potential for tens of thousands of new applicants, especially with the removal of the first-generation limit, the Liberals have failed to disclose how many people will gain citizenship through the legislation. This lack of transparency, a common thread, is concerning and prevents us from fully understanding the impact of the proposed bill. Bill C-71 would add thousands of new applications to an already overburdened system.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is already struggling with delays and errors in processing citizenship applications. Adding a significant volume of new applications from abroad would overwhelm the department, exacerbating the existing backlogs. This would lead to an even longer processing time and further erode trust in our citizenship process. The bill does not require individuals granted citizenship to undergo criminal background checks. This poses a potential security risk and undermines Canada's standards of who can become a citizen. Ensuring that new citizens are of good character and pose no threat to our society is a common-sense measure that should not be overlooked.

We do support parts of the bill. While we have significant concerns, there are aspects that we support. Conservatives support the restoration of citizenship to individuals who lost it because of non-application or rejected applications under section 8 of the former Citizenship Act . This primarily includes people born between February 15, 1977, and April 16, 1981, who were affected by the old rule that required them to apply to retain their citizenship before turning 28 years old. This was part of the original content of Senator Yonah Martin's Senate public bill, Bill S-245, which aimed to address these issues more directly.

We also support the extension of equal treatment to adopted children born abroad. Under the proposed changes, adopted children would be treated the same as biological children of Canadian citizens for the purposes of passing on citizenship. This was supported by Conservative members during the Bill S-245 clause-by-clause committee review, and it is consistent with our party's long-standing position on equal treatment for adopted children.

Conservatives are committed to fixing the broken citizenship system that the Liberals have neglected. We will enforce a more robust substantial connection requirement, streamline processes and address backlogs to ensure timely handling of citizenship applications.

Our approach will restore integrity and trust in the system, ensuring that Canadian citizenship remains a privilege earned through genuine connection and commitment to our great nation. After nine years under the government, Canadians have endured enough chaos and incompetence. It is time for a change. Only common-sense Conservatives will put an end to the Prime Minister's reckless mismanagement and fix our broken immigration and citizenship process. We will restore integrity, trust and efficiency to it, ensuring that Canadian citizenship remains a privilege earned through genuine connection and commitment to this great nation.