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.

Citizenship Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that there are individuals out there who can better explain to the member opposite than I could. There are individuals such as Don Chapman, who has been cited, and even glorified, by some. However, there are people out there who would be able to explain to the member opposite that, in fact, there are many people who should be considered citizens of Canada. I would like to think that, if that member met with and talked to some of those people, he might have a different opinion than he currently has.

I can appreciate that the member has likely been instructed to come into the House and make an argument as to why Bill C-71 should not pass. I find that unfortunate. What is next? Is the Conservative Party going to say, “Well, we are going to put limits”? Will it say, “We are going to increase the number of days required to become a Canadian citizen from a permanent residency”? Can we anticipate that this would happen?

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I go back to the point that this subamendment is out of order because it seeks to direct a future committee to report on something that the House, and you, cannot bind in a future Parliament. This makes no sense.

We're sitting here discussing Bill C-71 and you're entertaining a motion to direct a future Parliament. That is something that you, yourself, cannot do as chair, Mr. Chair, respectfully.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, again, I go back to the point that Mr. Kmiec made that Bill C-71 is not important to them. We get that. They don't want it to come to committee, but we want to talk about—

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Okay. I understand it's sometimes difficult. I'll read the motion again so that it's very clear.

There's a part in the motion about what we do about Bill C-71, and then there's this part, which would say, “and after a carbon tax election is held so that Canadians and Québécois can vote out this tired, out-of-time NDP-Liberal coalition government”. That is the subamendment.

The point of the subamendment is to place a timing issue on this motion. It is to recognize the fact that as I speak to people, as I was saying, I hear that they are concerned about the carbon tax and the effect it is having on their costs.

What I find very interesting is that people are connecting the carbon tax to all of their expenses. They're not just connecting it to the price of gasoline or the price of diesel fuel. They're not even connecting it to just the price of natural gas to heat their houses or heating oil to heat their homes. People understand how it affects truckers, for example, and truckers pay a lot of money for their carbon tax—

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate that my colleague started on the right path by talking about Bill C-71 and the lost Canadians, which are what we're talking about right now, but then he went back to the carbon tax. Again, I fail to see the relevancy here to the main motion and the main matter we're talking about right now.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to speak to this subamendment.

So that we're clear, we have this motion regarding Bill C-71, and we have already subamended it once. We are looking to subamend it again, and as my colleague pointed out, it essentially puts a condition on what the motion says.

It is also very important, based on what I heard this summer as I spoke with constituents not only in Saskatoon but in other parts of the country, and I can tell you that the carbon tax is very much disliked in Saskatoon. I hear this constantly from people. The interesting part is that people have figured out that the carbon tax is actually the main driver of inflation in the costs of items in the city of Saskatoon.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm happy to read back the motion. There was the main motion, there was an amendment, and there's my subamendment. My subamendment follows after the addition of the closed work permit study being completed. I added the words, “and after a carbon tax election is held so that Canadians and Québécois can vote out this tired, out-of-time NDP-Liberal coalition government”. It's very simple. It's germane. I'm speaking to my subamendment about what I heard at the doors and what people want us to do as parliamentarians, which is to submit ourselves to the greatest bit of accountability our democracy has, which is to let Canadians have a say and let them vote us out if they don't think we're doing, individually, a good enough job in our local ridings. Then it's based on both your political leadership, it's based on your political party, but it's also based on the quality of the representation that you do.

What I heard at the doors in my riding of Calgary Shepard repeatedly was that costs are too high, the carbon tax is imposing too much of a burden on everyday Canadians. I think by offering this subamendment to the amendment to the main motion, we're just time-limiting when this would go back to the House and the impact it would have on Bill C-71 and the other bits of legislation.

I think it's time, and I hope that the Liberals will see the wisdom in this and submit themselves to accountability and let the Canadian public decide.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, the bill before us today, Bill C-71, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act to do three things. First, for children not born in Canada but adopted by Canadian parents, it would ensure that they are treated as Canadian-born citizens for the purposes of passing on citizenship if they have children abroad in the future. This is something I support. Second, it would restore citizenship for individuals who lost it due to non-application for retention or rejection under section 8 of the former Citizenship Act. Again, this is something I support. Third, and most important, the bill would abolish the first-generation limit for Canadian citizenship by descent, established in 2009, and replace it with a substantial connection requirement that would allow a foreign-born Canadian citizen to pass down their citizenship to their children and grandchildren born abroad as long as they have spent at least 1,095 days in Canada cumulatively. I have concerns with this portion of the bill that I will outline here today.

The first issue relates to birth tourism, a hot-button issue in British Columbia for many years. Birth tourism has long been an issue in Canada, and the bill would leave the door open to the practice's continuing long into the future. In fact, it would encourage it. For those who do not know, birth tourism is the practice of travelling to another country for the purpose of giving birth there. This is generally done to obtain citizenship for the child, taking advantage of birthright citizenship laws.

In Canada, there are three pathways to citizenship. The first is jus sanguinis, or “right of blood”; in other words, it is being born to a Canadian parent. The second is naturalization, which is the process of immigrating and obtaining permanent residency and eventually citizenship, as my colleague alluded to previously. The third is jus soli, or “right of soil”; in other words, it is being born on Canadian soil.

A 2023 article in the National Post discussed jus soli, highlighting how a single hospital in Richmond, B.C., had 502 non-resident births in 2019. Across Canada, 4,400 non-resident births took place in 2019, which is more than triple the number from 2010. In 2023, the first baby born in Vancouver was born to a birth tourist. The mother even told local reporters that she had made her first-ever trip to Canada specifically to secure a Canadian passport for her daughter. A 2020 CBC article titled “‘All about the money’: How women travelling to Canada to give birth could strain the health-care system” highlighted that Canada is in a small minority of fewer than three dozen countries that grant citizenship based on a baby's birthplace, regardless of the parents' nationality or status. The article noted that a high concentration of non-resident patients giving birth in Canada “has led to compromised care for local mothers-to-be and struggles for nursing staff”.

Another article from 2023 noted that, while air travel restrictions during the pandemic slowed down the trend, numbers have now started to increase again. It highlighted that, of 102 non-resident women who were surveyed after giving birth in Canada between July 2019 and November 2020, 77% cited birthright citizenship as their primary reason for giving birth in Canada. It is very clear that this pathway to citizenship is being abused; this program will only see the numbers increase as the Liberals reduce security checks for visitor visas as well. Thousands of children each year are born in Canada and leave with the full rights and privileges granted to any other Canadian; should they choose to come back to Canada at any time in the future, they will have access to Canada's health care and generous social security benefits without being required to pay any taxes before they arrive.

Right now, Canadians are paying more taxes while getting less. How is it fair to Canadian taxpayers? Even Liberals have recognized that this is a big issue and called for change. In 2018, the former Liberal MP for Steveston—Richmond East, Joe Peschisolido, presented petition e-1527, which called on the government to address birth tourism, citing its exploitation of Canada's generous public health care and social security system and violation of Canada's sense of fairness.

I would be remiss if I did not note that, in 2019, when the first-generation limit was brought in, Liberals even voted in favour of it at third reading in the House of Commons.

How is it just that a birth tourism baby would be able to pass citizenship on to their grandchildren under the proposed law? That is the big question today. Citizenship would be passed on to the grandchildren of Canadians born here solely for the purposes of obtaining citizenship. For my constituents, that is not just.

The second issue I have to raise respecting the bill is the obvious ramifications of eliminating the first-generation limit, namely the capacity of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to meet its current obligations on top of the additional files the law would inevitably create if it is passed.

Earlier today in the minister's remarks and in response to questions from the member for Calgary Shepard, the minister was not able to say the number of people who would be impacted by the law. That is irresponsible. The proposed legislation could lead to tens of thousands of additional files to process, leading to even more backlogs in our strained immigration department.

In the Ontario superior court ruling that led to the legislation proposed here today, the court cited a 50% error rate even among the samples that were cited during the court proceedings. We already have seen the effects of an overcrowded immigration system. In fact, we are living them today. Checks are being missed, and dangerous people have been allowed into our country due to a lack of due diligence and effectiveness by officials.

Just over a year ago, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered outside a gurdwara in Surrey. It was revealed that his alleged murderers were in Canada on student visas. In just the last months, the RCMP has foiled multiple terror plots by people who had recently come to Canada. In the spring, RCMP officers foiled a plot by a 62-year-old Canadian citizen who had been filmed taking part in a beheading on behalf of ISIS in 2015, which was not found before he was granted citizenship. Then, over the summer, we learned of the arrest of a 20-year-old Pakistani citizen who obtained residency in Canada and who was planning to commit a massive attack in New York around the anniversary of Hamas's barbaric attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. His plan was to kill as many Jews as possible.

With IRCC already failing to ensure that dangerous people are not granted visas, PR or citizenship, how can we trust it will be able to effectively track the three-year significant connection clause for potentially tens of thousands of new applicants on top of our already overburdened system?

Additionally, the bill would not require individuals granted citizenship to undergo criminal background checks, which would pose even more security risks and undermines Canada's standards for who can become a Canadian citizen.

The third issue I would like to raise today relates to the Supreme Court and the lower court in Ontario. When it comes to something as important as the granting of Canadian citizenship, I believe this decision should have gone to the Supreme Court of Canada and not a provincial court judge in Ontario.

If I had more time today, I would also raise points on the financial implications of the bill and the effects it could have on our democracy and voters abroad in future elections. Finally, on the financial implications as well, the government has not been able to provide any estimates in respect to the costs the bill would have on Canadians.

As was referenced in the House already multiple times today, the former Conservative government brought forward a first-generation limit in response to the crisis in Lebanon in 2006. It cost Canadian taxpayers over $94 million. As my colleague from Edmonton outlined, many of those people left Canada after they used our consular services and generous supports that Canada used to protect them.

The question before us today is whether we really want to create a new wave of Canadians of convenience.

In closing, I do not believe it is a good idea to extend citizenship to the second generation, born abroad, for the reasons I have been able to briefly outline.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am also surprised by the Bloc Québécois. I am not sure what there is for them in Bill C-71. As I said, the bill is ill-conceived and badly written. There is no evidence to support their argument. Therefore, I am surprised.

I will throw the question back to them: Why will they be supporting the bill?

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to come back to the last comment that my Conservative colleague made about how Canada's immigration system is a mess and how it is failing in so many ways. I completely agree with him on that. However, Bill C-71 does not deal with the entire immigration system. That is not what we have here. The bill seeks to correct an injustice, which affects women and people who work abroad for the government in particular. That is what Bill C-71 seeks to correct.

The Conservatives are filibustering. They did the same thing with the Senate bill on this topic. They are filibustering to prevent Bill C-71 from being passed immediately.

Is the fact that the bill targets legislation that was passed under Stephen Harper's Conservative government the real reason the Conservatives are against it?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I already listed many points as to why I do not support Bill C-71. I am not interested in a political game with the Liberals and the NDP.

There are many other Canadians the government needs to speak to. The government should hit the road, talk to people and knock on doors. The first thing that will come out is how disastrous the immigration system has become in Canada and why Canadians need it fixed, rather than having an additional disaster added to it.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, we know that Bill C-71 is the right thing to do. The bill would correct an injustice that was caused by the prior Harper government, when the courts ruled that the law in place at the time was unconstitutional. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled it unconstitutional. This is the right thing to do to correct an injustice. It is about fairness.

I have much respect for the hon. member for Edmonton Manning. Why would he not support a piece of legislation that would correct an injustice?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

Like many members of this House and millions of other Canadians, I was born in another country. Canada is very much a nation of immigrants, and I am proud to be one of them. I came to this country as a young man, leaving behind a civil war that had been raging for much of my life. I came here seeking peace, stability and opportunity.

I will admit I did not know that much about Canada before moving here. It did not seem necessary to learn more about what I already knew, that Canada is a cold country with warm people, a place where newcomers are readily accepted regardless of nation of origin, race, colour or creed. What more did I need to know?

I was welcomed here with open arms. It did not take long for me to realize that Canada was a place I would be proud to call home. I found a job, got married, started a family and realized just how much this country means to me. I knew I wanted to be part of it and that my future and my family's future was here. I became a Canadian citizen in 1994. I started a business, got involved in community organizations and, eventually, was asked by the people of Edmonton Manning if I would represent them in this House. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve my country in this way.

One of the delights of being a member of Parliament is that I have been able to hear so many stories from my fellow Canadians, especially those, like myself, who came to this country to make it home. I have heard hundreds of times how people came to this country and why they chose Canada. Pledging allegiance to this nation is a serious business. In becoming a Canadian, you are saying that you want to be part of the greatest family in the world. Like marriage, becoming a citizen is a serious commitment. It is not something that should be entered into lightly for convenience sake.

As Canadians, we are all very aware of our rights. We even have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What we do not talk often about is our responsibilities as citizens. It is not only about what Canada can do for us, it is also about what we will do for Canada. Being a Canadian should mean something more than having a passport accepted everywhere in the world. Being a Canadian is a state of mind, of a joining together of different people for a common cause.

Because I know what it means to be a Canadian, I cannot support Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, 2024. To me, this legislation devalues the idea of citizenship. It is as if the Liberals want to grant citizenship to tourists. I can see the advertising slogan now, “Come spend your summers in Canada, and after 10 years we will throw in citizenship as an added bonus.” Why are those who wish to become Canadian citizens no longer expected to live here and become part of our country and society? Where is the commitment on their part to become part of the community? Does being Canadian not matter anymore?

In 2006, the Canadian government spent $94 million evacuating 15,000 Canadians from a conflict in Lebanon, my home country. Many of those were people who had the benefit of Canadian citizenship with minimal connection to Canada. Once things died down, they went right back to the country that they thought of as their first home. They were “Canadians of convenience”. That is why the Harper government amended the Citizenship Act to restrict the transmission of Canadian citizenship to only one generation born outside of Canada. It does not seem right to me or to most Canadians that citizenship should be granted to generations of people with no ties to Canada.

Perhaps it is time to tighten our citizenship rules, not weaken them. We do not need more Canadians of convenience, people who hold Canadian citizenship but live abroad and do not participate in Canadian society.

The legislation is intended to address concerns raised by the Ontario Superior Court, which ruled that the first-generation cut-off rule in the Citizenship Act was unconstitutional. However, Bill C-71 is a hastily written, ill-conceived proposal that needs a lot of work to make it acceptable to Canadians. Instead of fixing the problem, the bill would weaken the rules. Under this act, the bill introduces a substantial connection test; for parents to pass on citizenship to children born abroad, the parents must demonstrate that they were physically present in Canada for 1,095 cumulative days at any point in their lives. This rule applies to those who are Canadian-born, those who are naturalized Canadians and those who were born abroad.

I do not know what members think of as “substantial”, but being present in Canada for a thousand or so cumulative days does not seem to me to be much of a connection. If people live elsewhere but spend summer vacations in Canada, it would not take that long to reach the required number of days. I can see that this could be a part of a new tourist industry. Maybe I am biased, but I think that experiencing a couple of Edmonton winters should be a requirement for anyone wishing to become a Canadian citizen. After all, one of the things that bind us together as Canadians is the shared experience of cold weather. Certainly, without amendment, the bill would increase the stress on the civil service. Somehow, someone will be tasked with checking that the citizenship applicant has really spent 1,095 cumulative days in Canada. What burden of proof would be required?

When I became a Canadian, I did so knowing that I would give my all to this country. I understood that Canadian citizenship was a privilege, not a right, and that it was something offered to those who understood what it meant to be Canadian, who accepted Canadian values and who wanted to work together with other Canadians to make our society even greater. Canada is not my backup plan; it is my only plan. I know how important Canadian citizenship is. However, I do not see that importance reflected in Bill C-71.

Both the Liberal Party and the NDP want to play a game. All of a sudden, after they made such a mess of the immigration rules and laws in Canada, they are starting another chapter to make a bigger mess, adding more stress to a failing department and a failing immigration system. Bill C-71 would not respond to that; it would add to the disaster. I will not vote for it.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention in the House this afternoon.

I think we could all agree that this very late in coming. I know that my colleague from Vancouver East has done incredible work on this file to push the government to do this and to call out the government for why this has taken so long.

I do have a specific question for the member. The commencement provision of Bill C-71 confers discretion on the Governor in Council, so the cabinet, to determine when the act will come into force. It does not specify the timeline or a deadline for when this needs to happen.

I wonder if the member could talk a little about the intention of the government, and whether we can be certain that the government will bring this forward and will bring this into effect upon royal assent.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Chair, after hearing the partisan attacks on the Conservative position on Bill C-71, I'm going to move the following motion. It's the first day, so let's start with what we all expect this session is going to become.

This is my amendment after the title—