Bill C-71 (Historical)

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

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the speech I am giving today is probably the most anticipated one of the day.

As I was saying, I must have spoken to this bill or another version of it at least 45 times. For that reason, I really have no need of notes. There was Bill S-245 in the previous Parliament and Bill C-71, which was almost identical to Bill C-3.

That said, when we invited experts to appear before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration when it was studying Bill C-3, the Parliamentary Budget Officer came and set the record straight. Basically, when we were presented with such a bill, we were told that it would affect about 800 to 1,000 people at most. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that, depending on the algorithms he used, it could affect between 115,000 and 300,000 people. That is a huge difference compared to what we were told before.

We did our job. We brought in experts and tried to understand how this bill should move forward, given the injustices done to the people known as “lost Canadians”. At the same time, we must do our work rigorously. When changes are made to the Citizenship Act like this, we need to be serious, and this is coming from a Quebec separatist. We were serious, we brought in experts and we worked very hard in committee. All members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration from all parties contributed to that effort. The Conservatives came up with amendments that were very well drafted. The majority of committee members voted in favour of these amendments.

Today, we find ourselves in a situation where the House has blatantly used a parliamentary tool, one that is not used very often, to undo everything that was done in committee. Every day, I hear the Liberals say that committee work is important, that amendments need to be proposed and that the parties will work together. That is exactly what we did. We worked together and we proposed amendments. We then voted on them, and the majority of committee members voted in favour of these amendments, but the procedure that was used in the House completely wiped out the work done in committee.

I find that hard to accept. Once again, a Bloc Québécois member is standing up to defend Canadian institutions. It is quite remarkable that we have reached this point. Once again, we respect democratic institutions. These democratic institutions exist to serve the people we represent. If, unfortunately, the government is once again undermining the work being done in these important forums, particularly the one I am talking about, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, what message does that send to the public? How can the public have confidence in democratic institutions if all the work being done is undermined?

By the way, committee work is not free. It costs the public money to run committees. We are talking about astronomical costs to run committee meetings. We did the work, but in the end, we find out that our work will not be respected.

The amendments that were proposed were very interesting. That is why we supported them. Take, for example, the idea of 1,095 days to establish a substantial connection with Canada, which the government decided to include in the bill as a way to demonstrate that a person has strong ties to Canada. The individual must have spent 1,095 days in Canada over an unspecified period of time. Those 1,095 days are not a new concept; they come from the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Under that act, if a permanent resident wants to become a naturalized Canadian citizen, they must have spent 1,095 days in Canada over a five-year period. That is the variable. The government is using the 1,095 days in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as a reference, but it is removing one of the two variables, namely the five-year period. In Bill C-3, the 1,095 days could occur over an indefinite period. A person could be 65 years old, have spent 1,095 days in the country intermittently, not over a specific period, and still be considered to have a substantial connection to Canada.

We felt that this did not make sense. The Conservatives proposed an amendment to add the five-year period as a variable and we supported it.

The astounding thing is that today, with the help of independent MPs here in the House, the Liberals undid what we accomplished in committee, even though it made a lot of sense. Our work was based on provisions in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

We also thought people should have to be proficient in one of the two official languages in order to obtain Canadian citizenship. I am well aware that there is a former prime minister out there who wanted a postnational state, but the idea that people do not need to speak either English or French fluently to become Canadian citizens is quite bizarre. It is just odd. The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois worked very hard together to, again, take the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as a reference and slip this criterion into Bill C‑3. These amendments were adopted in committee in a very reasonable and responsible manner. Once again, the government has undone what we accomplished. It is unacceptable to me when the government does not respect an institution such as a parliamentary committee, particularly when it lectures us day after day about the need to work together, to work in committee. It tells us that it will listen to the experts and encourages us to propose amendments.

Bill C‑3 was one of the first bills introduced in this Parliament. As a matter of fact, it was the third one, hence the bill number. It is one of the first bills to come up for third reading in the House of Commons. However, everything that was done before has been gutted. There is no respect for the work of the committee. This is unacceptable. It tells us a bit about the Liberals' view of democracy and democratic institutions on Parliament Hill. That is very unfortunate. I believe this could set a dangerous precedent and lead us down a slippery slope. What is the point of committee work if this is the outcome?

We would have voted in favour of this bill if the government and independent members had respected the committee's work, but the outcome shows that nothing happened. We have a bill before us, but it is as if no work was done in the committee. All the work that was done has been thrown out. The Bloc Québecois will not be able to vote in favour of this bill in its present form.

I presume the government has struck a deal with the NDP, but this is an unfortunate situation. I think it is appalling. It shows a lack of respect, not for parliamentarians, and not only for democratic institutions, but for the people we represent, who expect us to work in democratic institutions the right way. Above all, they expect us to do our work the way these institutions were designed to function.

That concludes what is probably my 44th speech on this topic.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with one of my colleagues.

It is unbelievable that I am here before the House, just before question period and before the budget is tabled, to once again talk about Bill C‑3. I would remind members that we also discussed Bill S‑245 and Bill C‑71 in a previous Parliament. I have probably given 25 speeches on exactly this issue, which is discussed in Bill C‑3 in particular. As my Conservative colleague just said, we did a thorough and responsible job in committee. We did our job, we listened to the experts and we even heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer in committee.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would say to the member for Winnipeg North that it is very simple: If they are the children of Canadian citizens, but not citizens themselves, and are in a federal prison, they can confer citizenship to the second generation, and that is exactly the point the legislation has.

Essentially, Bill C-3 would allow foreign-born individuals who have never lived in Canada to bypass the immigration system and gain citizenship just because a parent spent a few months in Canada years or even decades ago. It would create a plethora of citizens born outside the country with no meaningful connection to Canada whatsoever. That is what grandchildren are.

That is why our party worked collaboratively at committee to improve the bill. Our amendments would have solved the lost Canadians issue but limit potential abuses. These were common-sense proposals, such as requiring knowledge of Canada's official languages and undergoing a security assessment. However, the government has teamed up with the NDP to gut these changes. This is happening despite the NDP not even having a seat at the committee table. Not only is this underhanded, but it also violates the spirit of the democratic process we have in this place.

They even removed our changes that would allow Canadians working overseas in the service of our government to pass on their citizenship. This goes to show that we may have a new Prime Minister, but this is the same old Liberal government.

It should be noted that Bill C-3 is the successor to Bill C-71 in the previous Parliament. The government has basically tried to re-pass the same failed policies as the last government.

This whole debacle arose because the last prime minister refused to challenge a 2009 court decision in Ontario that struck down the previous Harper-era provisions that protected our citizenship system from abuses. Conservatives have always understood that citizenship has an inherent value. After all, a Canadian passport is one of the most valued in the world, offering visa-free travel to 184 countries.

For years, Canadian citizenship was the envy of the world, attracting the best newcomers wishing to better their lives, but years of mismanagement under the Liberal government has harmed the reputation of our citizenship. Where does this value lie? Aristotle defined this concept of citizenship roughly as the right “to rule and be ruled in turn”, being closely associated with the ideas of civic participation in the polis. His ideas of citizenship were still primitive compared with today.

Rome would expand on these ideas by defining the rights of citizens as being tied to certain responsibilities, namely the protection of the state through military service. Later, Rousseau and Locke expanded on these ideas to include a more robust system of rights and responsibilities, often referred to as the social contract that defines the obligations that both citizen and state have with each other. While the franchise of citizens has expanded since then, no one disputes these ancient ideas that rights cannot exist without responsibilities.

How does this tie into the current debate on Bill C-3 and on citizenship? Citizenship is the culmination of these ideas. It is the pinnacle of proof of belonging to a certain group of people, these being people who share the same rights and obligations; who have similar underlying values, and in Canada this includes things like the rule of law, a respect for democracy and a tolerance for those with differing views or opinions; and who share similar historical, linguistic and cultural links to each other.

In our system, those who wish to attain this level of belonging are diligent and work hard to attain it. This is not given to them; they earn it. They are the best fits for our system, including their participation in our economic and social fabric. That is why it is disheartening to see the current government say our citizenship basically has no value. If we do not treat our citizenship carefully, why would any other country do so? Will other countries retaliate and reduce our visa-free access?

Citizenship is not a commodity. It should not be bought, and it certainly should not be given away cheaply by way of Bill C-3. To hold Canadian citizenship is to belong to one of the greatest nations on the planet, and that should not be forgotten.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think my colleague's question points to a broader problem on the other side of the aisle in the government, and that is a lack of creativity and a lack of ability to create good legislation.

We can see that in the current legislation. This is a carbon copy of Bill C-71, which was a carbon copy of the highly modified Senate bill that came to the House prior to that. There is not one bit of difference between Bill C-71 from the last Parliament and Bill C-3 in this Parliament. There was no thought put into it. The new minister just took it and ran with it. There was no consideration given to some of the limitations raised in the previous discussions and debate. It is clear that the government does not know what it is doing when it comes to immigration.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C‑3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act, 2025, following my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, who explained the issue well.

This topic interests me because certain places in Quebec have been identified as settlement areas, and Granby is one of them. These are communities located in regions outside major urban centres. The Quebec department is asking people to settle there and discover Quebec culture, which is who we are. Granby is included in these settlement areas, and that is a tremendous asset. One organization in Granby is working very hard to teach immigrants French so that they can take their place in Granby's regional community. It is called SERY.

I would like to salute the members of that organization this morning as they prepare to present their intercultural recital on Saturday, which is returning after a forced hiatus because of the pandemic. This performance is being presented as part of Quebec's week of intercultural encounters, which is being held this week, from November 3 to 9, with the theme “Quebec in common”. The goal is to really emphasize encounters and exchanges between Quebeckers of all origins. This is extremely important, and I will be stopping by to say hello to everyone at Verbe Divin Secondary School on Saturday and to take in the cultural richness, beauty and various forms of artistic expression.

That said, today we are talking about Bill C-3, which corrects a historical injustice in the Citizenship Act in response to a December 2023 ruling by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which found that the first-generation limit on citizenship is unconstitutional. This limit was put in place by the Conservatives in 2009. Now we are in a bit of a bind, because if we do not take action, the court's ruling is going to apply instead of Bill C‑3. Could that open the door even wider? We do not know, but we want to know. That is why we are debating Bill C‑3 in the House today.

We also know that this issue has been dragging on for years. Bill C-71 and Bill S-245 were introduced to address citizenship. An election was called and the bill died on the Order Paper. Now we have to hurry due to this court ruling and the fact that this matter has unfortunately been dragging on for some time.

The goal is to make the right to citizenship fair, consistent and inclusive. It is true that the current law creates some bizarre situations. I am going to begin by talking about the Bloc Québécois's position and the amendments that were proposed in committee. Next, I will talk about what the bill fixes, and I will close with a few statistics.

For now, the Bloc Québécois is reserving judgment. We are going to wait and see how things play out. We know there are negotiations going on. We are a bit disappointed about what happened, and we are asking that the work done at committee be respected. The amendments were rejected at report stage. We opposed the amendments from the government, which teamed up with the NDP. Those amendments sought to eliminate the requirement that the 1,095 days of residence take place within a five-year period, abolish the tests for adult applicants, and remove the obligation to report to Parliament. These are important matters. They are not trivial.

In contrast, we did support the amendments presented at committee that called for a residence requirement of 1,095 days in Canada during the five years preceding the child's birth. We also supported the amendment that established a language test, a citizenship knowledge test and a security assessment for applicants 18 years of age and over. The Conservative members and my Bloc Québécois colleague, who rose to speak just before I did, told us in their speeches how important these amendments are. They deal with language, culture and citizenship knowledge. They also deal with the security risk people might pose. That is essential. The same requirements apply to other naturalized citizens. They are requirements, and we want to have the same rules for everyone. In a nutshell, that is what we are asking for.

We also want accountability through an annual report to Parliament on the number of citizenships that are granted. We have the right to get a report and to know where we stand. We want these measures to ensure that applicants have a real connection to Canada, as required by the court. We need to ensure that this is the case. We are concerned that the new amendments proposed by the NDP and the Liberals will water down this bill and undermine the essential amendments that we worked on in committee with the Conservatives.

This bill also seeks to correct absurd situations, as I mentioned earlier, where a child born abroad to Canadian parents cannot obtain citizenship. Take the case of Jean-François as an example. His father was born abroad, and he himself was born abroad while his father was completing his doctorate in the United States. Even though he returned to Quebec when he was three months old, and even though he grew up here and spent his entire life in Quebec, his daughter was not automatically granted citizenship.

The spark that ignited this whole debate came from Don Chapman, a former airline pilot who worked for United Airlines and whose story attracted public attention. Chapman discovered that his citizenship had been revoked when his father emigrated to the United States. His astute demonstration that this problem affected many Canadians, such as Roméo Dallaire, without them even knowing it, forced Parliament to take serious action on this issue.

The bill aims to remedy the status of the following individuals: Canadian women who lost their citizenship before 1947 upon marrying a non-Canadian; individuals born between 1977 and 1981 who lost their citizenship because they did not renew it by age 28; and children adopted abroad whose Canadian parent died before the adoption. It would fix situations such as these.

I will conclude my speech by presenting some data. We will also assess the scope of this bill. My colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères mentioned that this reform would affect 150,000 people over five years. The estimated cost is $20.8 million, which is not insignificant. We know that 91.2% of the Canadian population already has citizenship, that 50.6% are women, and that gender equity with regard to citizenship remains essential.

As well, 19.5% of the population is 65 or older. Many seniors have been affected by the old laws and exclusions. As the Bloc Québécois critic for seniors, I have heard about some cases that deeply concern me. All of this has reduced naturalization rates, which were 57.5% for immigrants admitted between 2011 and 2015, down from 68.5% between 2006 and 2010. New citizens tend to integrate well: 93% are filing taxes in Canada 10 years after landing.

In Quebec, the percentage of first-generation individuals born outside of Canada has grown among young people, climbing from 9% to 18% in the 15- to 24-year-old age group. Among members of the second generation, it increased from 11% to 16% for that age group, according to Statistics Québec. In 2021, Statistics Quebec also reported that immigrant women accounted for 14.9% of all women in Quebec, excluding non-permanent residents.

As I was saying, a significant number of seniors could be affected by the old citizenship rules, including the parents and grandparents of the individuals concerned.

Staying with Quebec, it is estimated that nearly 10% of Quebeckers have at least one second-generation foreign-born parent, and nearly 10% of Quebeckers are second-generation immigrants, according to New Canadian Media.

This is a serious topic. In conclusion, I would like to say that, aside from everything the bill could change, this situation shows that the Liberals are not mindful of the minority mandate they received for a third time in the last election, nor do they respect the work done in committee. The committee heard from witnesses, and there were discussions and negotiations among MPs. The Conservatives and the Bloc worked hard on amendments to fix the flaws in this bill, but all that work was ultimately undone by the NDP and the Liberals. What a blatant lack of respect.

I want to acknowledge the work my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean did on this file. This is a minority government, and it should take that into account. Passing laws on closure and disregarding the work done in committee should not happen in this democratic institution.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Jonquière for his very appropriate intervention. I wanted to share my time with the member for Shefford, who will certainly have a lot to say about the bill as well.

As I was saying, Bill C‑3 applies equally to everyone. It applies to anyone who has obtained citizenship by birth or naturalization, whether or not they are an immigrant or, like me, someone who was born here and whose family has been citizens for several generations. The bill will also apply to me. If I decide to leave Canada to live elsewhere and my descendants do not return to live here, this bill will apply to them just as it would apply to any other immigrant.

The notion that these proposals are anti-immigrant is simply wrong. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion we are having today. I would like to clarify this, as it is creating some confusion, given that what we are discussing is citizenship. Immigrants are people coming into the country, and emigrants are those leaving the country. This bill does not apply to immigrants, it applies to emigrants. That is the difference. An emigrant leaves the country and will no longer be living here. The purpose of this bill is to define the criteria that should be applied for granting citizenship to the descendants of people who have left the country. This applies to everyone, regardless of religion, skin colour or any other personal characteristics, with no distinction as to race, ancestry or anything else. It is equal for everyone, without exception.

As for the current state of the law, it already allows two things. Firstly, people who leave the country keep their citizenship. If a person has citizenship and goes to live somewhere else, unless they no longer want it and give it up, they do not lose their citizenship because they went to live somewhere else. This has always been the case. Secondly, the law as it now stands allows citizenship to be passed on to the first generation born and living outside the country. If I leave the country to go and live abroad and I have children, I can pass my citizenship down to my children. That is the law as it currently stands.

Today, we are discussing the possibility of expanding that right so that not only the first generation of persons born abroad, but also the second and subsequent generations, may obtain Canadian citizenship. We are having this debate because the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the current law is too restrictive. In the court's view, the first-generation limit on citizenship is unconstitutional. The Liberals had a choice: They could challenge the ruling, or they could accept it and amend the law. The Liberals chose not to challenge that ruling. What they said, indirectly, is that they were in agreement with the court's ruling.

The court also decided to give Parliament six months to define what constitutes a substantial connection with Canada. Everyone knows what happened over the past few months. There was an election, and it took longer because of that. The new deadline is November 20, just a few weeks from now. What will happen if Parliament does not comply? Since the judge ruled it is unconstitutional, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling would become the law if there is no challenge to the ruling. Thus, the current rule setting out the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent would no longer exist. There would no longer be any limits on citizenship by descent. This means that it would be unlimited until the end of time, even 100 years, 1,000 years or as much as 10,000 years from now, and even if it involves the descendants of the descendants of people who no longer live here. They would still get citizenship. That appears to be the Ontario Superior Court of Justice's view, unless the government intervenes to counter it.

Today, we are debating Bill C-3, which is actually the very same as Bill C-71. It is a carbon copy of the former bill. Although a bill was introduced prior to the election, an election was called before we could resolve the matter. What we are examining now is basically an ultimatum from the government and, indirectly, from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. This is partly because an election was called, but it is also because if we choose not to define the conditions under which a citizen born outside Canada qualifies for citizenship, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling will apply by default. The onus is on us, and the government is asking that we support the bill before us.

When we examined this bill, the first question that came to mind for the Bloc Québécois was this: What criterion does the government wish to impose? The criterion it wishes to impose is based on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which states that a person must have resided in Canada for 1,095 days. A descendant of a Canadian citizen would therefore have to have resided in Canada for 1,095 days, the equivalent of three years. The government itself admitted that it looked to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act when it established this criterion.

We thought that sounded a bit lenient, but we decided we would do our homework by studying the bill, asking questions and sending the bill to committee. At committee, we heard from witnesses, including the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We asked questions, such as how many people would be affected by Bill C-3, how many more citizens the bill would create, and how many more people would be entitled to vote. The government side told us that they did not know, but that there would not be very many, a hundred, perhaps a thousand. The government had no figures to give us. We were being asked to vote on a bill without knowing what the repercussions of the bill would be. That basically sums it up.

We asked the question again. The Parliamentary Budget Officer seemed to have done a bit of work on the topic, because he estimated that the bill could affect 150,000 people. That is not an insignificant number. It is not a handful of individuals or even a few hundred. It is a lot of people. Let me also be clear that in the event of an international conflict, those 150,000 people who do not live here would need us to charter planes to go and get them. As Canadian citizens, those people would have to be defended and looked after. That also means 150,000 people who could potentially obtain a passport, as well as the right to vote. On that subject, we might ask ourselves this: In which riding would these people be allowed to vote? No one knows. However, we do know that there are a number of ridings where the results are often very close. We saw that in the last election. Some ridings are won by a whisker. The government would like us to meekly agree and let this bill go through as easily as a letter goes through the mail, as the saying goes in Quebec, although these days, it is no secret that the mail does not go through all the time, especially during an election.

For the Bloc Québécois, this simply did not work. We believe that citizenship is not a prize to be given out in a box of cereal or handed out like candy on Halloween. We believe it should be taken seriously, so we proposed some amendments. Knowledge of French or English should be a basic requirement. It seems logical to me that citizenship should not be given to someone who does not speak the language of the country. We agree with the 1,095 days, but for immigrants, it is 1,095 days over a period of five years. Why not apply the same requirement in this case, since the government took inspiration from this criterion for its bill? Also, why should there not be an assessment to check whether the person poses a threat to national security? Why should there not be an annual report tabled in Parliament about how many people obtained citizenship under this law?

All of these are proposals that we wanted to put forward. Unfortunately, the government teamed up with the NDP and dismissed them out of hand. It was so insulting of the government to act that way. We are disappointed that the reasonable proposals we put forward in good faith were rejected like that.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, for generations, Canadian citizenship has been a symbol of pride, opportunity and belonging. It has been the envy of the world, a beacon of hope for those seeking freedom, safety and a better life. Countries around the globe have looked to Canada as a model for how to build a fair, compassionate and principled immigration system, but today, that reputation is destroyed. After a decade of Liberal government, Canadians are rightly concerned, not because of the newcomers who arrive here with hope in their hearts and a desire to contribute, but because of a government that has mismanaged our immigration system, neglected its responsibilities and introduced policies that dilute the very value of Canadian citizenship.

In Kitchener Centre, residents are deeply frustrated by the federal government's failure to manage the international student program. What was once a pathway to great Canadian education has become a cautionary tale of neglect and mismanagement. Let us be clear. This failure is not the fault of our citizens or the students who came here in good faith. It is the government that failed to protect the integrity of our education system, and now our community is left to deal with the consequences.

Many first- and second-generation immigrants in Kitchener have shared with me at their doors their deep frustration with the federal government's failed immigration policies. These are individuals and families who came to Canada with hope, worked hard, followed the rules and built lives rooted in contribution and community. Now they feel their reputations are being unfairly tarnished by a government that allowed this system to spiral into dysfunction. They deserve better than to be lumped in with the consequences of Liberal mismanagement. They deserve a government that honours their commitment and protects the integrity of Canadian citizenship.

Let me be clear that this is not the fault of immigrants. It is the fault of a government that has broken the system. While the Liberals broke it, Conservatives will fix it.

Canadians were rightly outraged to learn that a convicted child sex offender listed on the national sex offender registry was granted a Canadian visitor visa despite his criminal history. This individual, who had sexually abused his underage niece, was allowed into our country under the watch of the current federal government.

This is not just a bureaucratic oversight; it is a shocking failure of basic due diligence. A simple background check would have prevented this, yet the government chooses to rely on the self-disclosure of applicants rather than proactively protecting Canadians. This case has shaken public trust, further highlighting how broken our immigration system has become under this leadership. Canadians deserve a government that puts public safety first, not one that allows dangerous individuals to slip through the cracks.

Under the current public safety minister's watch, 599 foreign criminals slated for deportation have gone missing, including 431 convicted of serious crimes such as sexual assault and violent offences. These individuals were under deportation orders but have vanished from the system, exposing alarming gaps in Canada's immigration enforcement and border security.

This is not just a failure of policy; it is a failure of leadership. Canadians deserve to know that those who pose a threat to public safety are being tracked, detained and deported. lnstead, we are seeing a system where dangerous individuals disappear into our communities, unchecked and unaccounted for. This is yet another example of how the Liberal government has lost control of our immigration system, and it is Canadians who are paying the price.

Bill C-3 is just the latest example of the Liberals' misguided approach. lt is a recycled version of Bill C- 71, with portions hijacked from Senator Yonah Martin's thoughtful and targeted Bill S-245. However, instead of building on that work with care and clarity, the Liberals have chosen to abolish the first-generation limit, a measure introduced by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2009 to prevent the rise of Canadians of convenience. That measure was never about exclusion. It was about ensuring that Canadian citizenship meant something, that it was earned, not inherited, without connection and that it reflected a real and meaningful bond with our country.

Bill C-3 would replace the first-generation limit with a weak substantial connection test: just 1,095 non-consecutive days spent in Canada at any point in a parent's life. There would be no requirement for a criminal background check and no meaningful demonstration of a commitment to Canada.

Let me put that into perspective. Under this bill, a child born abroad could gain Canadian citizenship even if their parent spent just a few months here decades ago. That is not a substantial connection. It is not how we build a strong and united country.

Conservatives believe in restoring citizenship to lost Canadians, those who were unfairly excluded by outdated laws. We support equal treatment for adopted children, ensuring that all families are treated with dignity and fairness. However, we cannot support a bill that goes far beyond these necessary corrections and opens the door to unlimited chain migration, undermining our national identity and creating a two-tier immigration system.

Let us talk about fairness. Immigrants who come to Canada and work hard to earn their citizenship must meet strict residency requirements, pass language and citizenship tests and demonstrate their commitment to Canadian society. They contribute to our communities, our economy and our shared future.

Under Bill C-3, individuals who have never lived here could gain citizenship simply because a parent once did decades ago. That is not fair. It sends the wrong message to newcomers who are doing everything right. It tells them that their hard work is worth less than a technicality.

Residents in Kitchener Centre are frustrated. They see their public services, health care, pensions and housing, everything, under strain. They worry that a surge of new citizens living abroad who have never contributed to Canada will stretch those services every further. That is why Conservatives took action.

At the immigration committee, we worked constructively to amend Bill C-3 and bring common sense back to our citizenship laws. We introduced amendments to ensure prospective citizens by descent or adoption would go through steps similar to those of naturalized citizens.

We have added a residency requirement. Parents would have to demonstrate a consecutive physical presence in Canada equal to that required of naturalized citizens. On language proficiency, they would have to speak English or French unless they are under 18 or over 54. There would be a citizenship test. They would have to understand Canada's history, values and responsibilities. On security screening, they would have to undergo a national security assessment. On transparency, the minister would have to report annually to Parliament on citizenships granted under Bill C-3, which would include country of residence and any exemptions to security screening.

These amendments are not about exclusion; they are about preserving the integrity of Canadian citizenship. They are about ensuring that every new citizen, whether born here or abroad, shares a real connection to Canada and understands what it means to be Canadian.

We must empower newcomers to place the same value on Canadian citizenship that generations before them have held. We must reassure Canadians there is a better way, a way that is fair, principled and rooted in our shared values.

Canadian citizenship is not just a passport; it is a promise, a commitment and a privilege earned through dedication, contribution and connection. Let us protect that promise, let us stand up for fairness and let us fix what the Liberals have broken.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for the applause, but they should save it for my second point, which is even better.

All of Canada will be united tonight. With one voice, we will support the Blue Jays. Tonight, they will beat the other team and bring home baseball's biggest prize. If they should happen to lose tonight, I am not even worried, because they always come back strong. There is no doubt that the Blue Jays are going to win the World Series.

Let me quote the famous slogan from Rogers: “Bring it Home”. It reminds me of something, but I do not know what.

Now I want to talk about Bill C‑3, which deals with an extremely important yet sensitive issue. This bill addresses immigration, citizenship and other delicate situations that must be handled with care. Once again, I am thinking of my parents. I am the son of immigrants. This is a subject that is very close to my heart.

Bill C‑3 replaces Bill C‑71, which was debated during the previous Parliament. It deals with citizenship by descent, lost citizenship and the status of children born abroad. Why was this bill introduced? It was because, in 2009, Stephen Harper's Conservative government introduced the first version of an amendment to the Citizenship Act. It put a limit on the conditions under which citizenship could be automatically granted to foreign children, and this applied to the first generation. There were some heated debates, but the bill was passed.

The act has been upheld to this day. However, the very nature of a law makes it open to challenge, and citizens are entitled to do just that. That is what happened in Ontario in the early 2020s. In 2023, an Ontario judge ruled this law unconstitutional and set the government a deadline for making adjustments. That deadline has been extended repeatedly in light of political events, including the end of a government, an election and the installation of a new government. We are therefore faced with a situation of some urgency considering that we have until November 25, if memory serves, to pass a bill amending the Citizenship Act.

The amendment has to do with the right of the soil. Can a person born on Canadian soil obtain citizenship automatically, within limits? This is a sensitive but fundamental issue that keeps coming up with increasing frequency. It prompted commentator Mario Dumont, among other observers, to write, “The Conservative Party of Canada has kicked off a real debate....Is the right of the soil completely off-limits?” So far, this right has indeed seemed like something carved in stone, beyond the realm of debate. He says that “the right of the soil is no longer off-limits” and that “the Conservatives are right” to take this action.

Bill C-3 addressed this issue, but in our view, it did not address the most sensitive aspects of it that call for serious, humane and political reflection, because we need to consider how this might affect future generations. That is why we had serious reservations about this bill as it was introduced and why we proposed amendments in committee. A total of 11 issues were discussed in committee, based on the amendments we brought forward.

These amendments were supported by the second opposition party, and we are grateful to our Bloc Québécois colleagues. We welcome their support and their endorsement of what we proposed, which related primarily to residence, language, knowledge and security.

One thing is certain. If we fail to properly define certain entry routes and to prioritize responsible immigration, the primary victims of our negligence will be the immigrants themselves. Sadly, we all remember the unfortunate events that have occurred over the past 10 years involving immigration practices that did not always show respect for those arriving.

Citizenship requires even more care. We know what a Canadian passport and Canadian citizenship are worth, so we need to treat it with dignity. We proposed several amendments that the Bloc Québécois supported. These amendments were incorporated into the bill because the committee welcomed them. That is great.

Now the Liberals have decided that they preferred the original version. That is a shame because the work in committee was done properly. It feels like the Liberals are saying that they are not interested in any of that work. Need I remind the government members that they were elected to a minority government? Being in the minority means having to work with opposition parties to find common ground. What common ground did we find with the support and assistance of the Bloc Québécois? We agreed on certain points.

With regard to the residency requirement, the parent must demonstrate continuous physical presence in Canada for the same period of time as that required of an applicant for naturalized citizenship, at any time prior to the birth of the child. This is entirely logical, relevant and practical in the context of the approach we wish to take.

With regard to language requirements, individuals must demonstrate proficiency in one of Canada's two official languages, English or French, unless they are children under the age of 18 or individuals over the age of 54.

With regard to the citizenship exam requirement, individuals must demonstrate satisfactory knowledge of Canada, as well as citizenship-related legislation and responsibilities.

With regard to the security assessment, individuals must not pose a threat to Canada’s national security, though this does not apply to children under the age of 18.

Can we really call them requirements? They are realities that all of us must deal with as citizens. There is nothing unreasonable or partisan about this. It is all common sense. It is all clear and specific. It spells out exactly what we expect from newcomers who want to become Canadians and who we gladly welcome into our country. We are grateful to them for choosing our country and they are grateful to us for making them welcome. However, there are a few basic conditions they need to meet. We want to require exactly the same thing for the right to citizenship.

In our opinion, our suggestions are fair, balanced, reasonable and, most of all, constructive. They are constructive for the country we love, for the hospitality we need to provide to people interested in living here with us, and for the approach we want for future generations. The right of the soil is not a given, and it comes with certain responsibilities.

That is why the amendments that we adopted, with the support and consent of the Bloc Québécois, are meant to be positive and constructive. They will ensure we can provide a better welcome and a better life for a lot of Canadians and people interested in becoming Canadians. Once again, certain basic conditions must be met. As I showed earlier, there is nothing unusual about these conditions.

I therefore urge my colleagues to reconsider their current position of rejecting the proposed amendments. It is never too late to do the right thing. Some people look interested, and I congratulate them. I would ask the Liberals to reconsider their position so that all Canadians can come out winners in this debate.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, I spoke to Bill C‑3, a reiteration of Bill C‑71, and Senate Bill S‑245, intended to correct a historic injustice by granting citizenship to Canadians whose files had fallen through the cracks.

I talked about children, born abroad to Canadian parents, who had lost their citizenship because of changes in federal rules or based on other conditions that seemed to me difficult to justify at the time. Basically, what all these bills tell us is that we need to restore citizenship to everyone who lost their status because of exceedingly complex and often unfair provisions of previous Canadian legislation.

In fact, Bill C‑3 incorporates all of the amendments proposed to Bill C‑71, which sought to correct injustice and errors in the Citizenship Act.

The bill responds to an Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling declaring that the first-generation limit on citizenship applicable to the children of Canadians born abroad is unconstitutional. The government then had six months to amend the law. Bill C‑3 was introduced as a safeguard, because Bill S‑245 and even Bill C‑71 unfortunately could not proceed for partisan reasons.

On this point, I would like to reiterate the following. Despite my occasional differences of opinion with my colleagues from other parties in the House, as we all know, I am not in the habit of engaging in partisanship. I even think that being non-partisan often allows me to do my job well for the people of Lac‑Saint‑Jean, who, since 2019, have allowed me to proudly represent them in the House of Commons. In that sense, and without wanting to be partisan, I still believe that we must at least assess the overall impact of bills such as this on the public.

Let us come back to the matter at hand today. Although some believed it was 500 to 600, IRCC's initial estimates at the time were that between 100 and 200 people had still not regained their citizenship.

In committee, it quickly became apparent that the number of Canadians stripped of their citizenship was difficult to assess. Various publications, including that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, came to the same conclusion. According to the Minister of Immigration, who was there in committee, it would be impossible—that was the word she used—to estimate the number.

Times like these demonstrate the importance of the parliamentary work done in House of Commons committees. As parliamentarians, we must be thorough and mindful of the impact our decisions have. The Bloc Québécois has always worked that way, and it will continue to do so.

Before continuing, I would like to confirm that, as was the case with Bills C‑71 and S‑245, the Bloc Québécois agrees with Bill C‑3 as amended by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. My colleagues and I have done work on this bill that may have been perceived as harsh, but after gathering some information and analyzing the facts, it was quite obviously necessary.

In particular, the bill was amended in committee to ensure that the requirements for passing on citizenship by descent to second-generation Canadians born abroad are identical to the requirements for naturalized citizens. Bill C‑3 calls for citizenship to be granted to children as long as one of the parents spends a minimum of 1,095 days in Canada over an indefinite period before the child's birth.

To ensure consistency across federal laws, we supported an amendment calling for this 1,095-day requirement to be met within a five-year period, as is the case for someone seeking citizenship through the immigration process.

We also supported an amendment that will require people who are over 18 at the time of their citizenship application to comply with additional requirements. They would have to meet the same requirements as those imposed on naturalized citizens, namely, to pass a language test, to pass a citizenship knowledge test and to undergo a security assessment.

Furthermore, Bill C-3 will now hold the federal government accountable to some degree. There can never be too much accountability where the federal government is concerned. We will require the tabling of a report containing annual statistics on the number of citizenships granted under this legislation, which seems perfectly normal and understandable to me.

We sincerely believe that these amendments address the court's ruling that we determine what is meant by a real connection to Canada. Since everyone should be considered equal before the law, replicating the naturalization requirements for second-generation children born abroad establishes that the same rules apply to everyone.

The amendments brought forward by the government at this stage are problematic. We know for a fact that they aim to restore amended clauses to their original form, except for the one about the three requirements, in other words, the security, language and citizenship test for persons between 18 and 55 years of age.

In addition, one insidious aim of the amendments is to overturn the careful work done by a majority of committee members to achieve this outcome. In that respect, the Bloc Québécois demands respect for the work of committee members. It blows me away to think that the House needs to be told to respect the work of committee members. For that reason, we are going to oppose the amendments proposed by the government at report stage.

As the House knows, I was in favour of Bills S‑245 and C‑71. I am obviously in favour of quickly passing Bill C‑3 to meet the court's requirements. However, that does not mean I am in favour of shoddy work. I am talking about swift but effective adoption. I am talking about adoption that is the result of rigorous work that has allowed the bill to follow the usual steps, including committee review and the tabling of a report in the House. I am talking about adoption that respects the decision of the majority of members of the House and the important work of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

I find it a shame when I read amendments like the ones proposed today. I believe they reflect a lack of consideration for the work that is done at committee. As parliamentarians, we need to tackle the issues that matter most to our constituents with a strong sense of duty and without partisanship. At the Bloc Québécois, that is what we always do.

The Chair knows better than anyone in the House that when we step into this place, our goal is always to work for our constituents, not for anyone else. We in the Bloc Québécois are here for Quebeckers who care about Quebec's future, and not just when it is time to cater to our electoral ambitions. People know that. They saw the work we did in committee on this bill. They heard the evasive answers from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration officials when we asked them questions in committee.

I sincerely hope that the efforts and energy that my colleagues and I have put into studying this bill will be given due consideration and respect. I want to reiterate that citizenship status must be equal for everyone, and Canadian laws must be consistent.

Despite what my colleagues opposite may think, the amendments adopted by a majority of the members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration are consistent with that approach.

I look forward to questions.

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Bowmanville—Oshawa North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my comments about Bill C-3 today by first recognizing the great work done by Quebeckers to shift the conversation about immigration in our country to a more positive direction.

I want to congratulate Quebec nationalists. For several years now, Quebeckers have not been afraid to talk about immigration, identity and integration. More needs to be done to improve our immigration system. I thank them for their courage.

One of the Quebeckers I would like to acknowledge is a great young man from the beautiful city of Montreal, Mr. Anthony Koch, who took to the pages of the National Post this summer to identify his concerns about an issue that is holding Canada back from having a common-sense conversation about immigration policy. I would like to read some of the words from Mr. Koch for the benefit of those in the House. He wrote:

The fact that my grandparents were immigrants does not mean I must support mass immigration forever. It does not mean I must stand aside while my country becomes unrecognizable. It does not mean I must endorse the strain on schools, hospitals, housing markets and communities that unsustainable immigration levels brings in the name of some imaginary moral debt I never incurred.

I owe nothing to the people who use my heritage as a weapon.

I want to thank Mr. Koch for his words. I would like to highlight his point about how the heritage of the descendants of immigrants is often used by the Liberals as a weapon to wedge us, corner us and make us feel as though we have to agree with their immigration policies. It is immoral, and it is important to note that it is observable in the debates about Bill C-3, formerly known as Bill C-71, in the House.

Members may know I like to do my homework. I combed through the transcripts of the debates on Bill C-3 and found numerous examples of Liberal and NDP MPs making reference to their heritage as immigrants or as the descendant of immigrants, as if that necessitates a certain perspective or position on Bill C-3. Some examples came from the MPs for Vancouver Granville, Kingston and the Islands, Spadina—Harbourfront and Vancouver East, all of whom made reference in the House to their own family heritage or immigration history as if it were relevant to their positions on Bill C-3. That is a textbook example of what Mr. Koch wrote about. It is the tendency of Liberals to weaponize one's heritage against them. I would go so far as to say that it is a textbook example of Liberal racism, which has run amok here in Ottawa.

I would like to explain this further, and I will explain my own family history to provide some contrast.

My father came to this country from Kenya. Someone could make a movie about my father's life. He was born an orphan in Nairobi. He is a Black African man who is very proud of his heritage. He was adopted by an Ismaili family and reorphaned as a teenager, and he had to teach himself how to be a man. He came to this country and worked in hotel restaurants and kitchens. It was hard work and hard labour that took a toll on his body, which one can see in him today. I can assure members that my father did not do all of that hard work so that one day, some smug Liberals in Ottawa could tell his son he has to support Liberal immigration policies and the cheapening of Canadian citizenship.

My grandfather came to this country from Scotland after World War II. He was broke. He had empty pockets. He had not a dollar to his name. He got a good, union job working as a school custodian with the Toronto District School Board. When everyone else went home for the evening, he was still there, working, mopping the floors and cleaning the classrooms so that children had a nice place to learn the next day. I can assure members that he did not mop those floors and clean those classrooms so that one day, some smug Liberals in Ottawa could tell his grandson he has to support Liberal immigration policies and the cheapening of Canadian citizenship.

My grandma came to this country from Ireland after World War II decimated her neighbourhood in Belfast. She came here and met my grandpa, and together, they raised four children. She helped raise grandbabies. She attended church every Sunday. She loved this country and she loved Jesus Christ. She did not do all that work raising children so that one day, some smug Liberals in Ottawa could tell her grandbaby he has to support Liberal immigration policies and the cheapening of Canadian citizenship.

My point is that my family came here to be part of this country. They came here to be free people, which means that we get to have points of view that are different from the Liberals' on important issues, including immigration and citizenship. We are free to say what we believe is best for the future of this country as equal Canadians. The idea that our heritage would be used against us to push us around and make us feel like we have to endorse their broken policies, which have led to public trust and confidence in the immigration system being the lowest they have ever been in my lifetime, is wild.

We reject the weaponization of our heritage. We reject Liberal racism. They can kick rocks. I do not want to hear it. It is a new day in the House of Commons. It is a new day in this country, where people from all diverse religious and cultural backgrounds can stand with confidence and say they reject Liberal immigration policies. We do not agree with them. We do not agree with what they have done to the system.

We are building a diverse and beautiful movement. In my home community of Bowmanville—Oshawa North, people from all religious and cultural backgrounds are coming together and unifying in opposition to what the Liberals have done to immigration in this country. People who grew up speaking English at home and people who learned English much later on in life are building bridges and talking to each other about what has gone wrong with immigration policy in this country.

The Liberals will pay lip service to that and pretend they are making changes, yet we see what is happening in the House right now with Bill C-3. They are doubling down on the very irresponsible and unsustainable approach to immigration that has gotten us to this point. It is a serious problem, and they make light of it.

They think they can tell us, because we are the descendants of immigrants, that we have to line up behind them. No. That is not happening. My grandparents and my father did not work this hard so that we could be pushed around by these guys, and it is not going to happen anymore.

The point I would like to reiterate is that we have very serious problems in the immigration system. If the Liberals want to assure the public they can have trust and confidence that the Liberals can fix the problems, doubling down on the same direction is the wrong way to go. Putting forward legislation and not being able to assure the Canadian people how many individuals will be entering our country as a result of it is them doubling down on the very same broken approach. They are putting forward legislation, and they cannot tell us how many new people would come into our country, despite the overcrowded hospitals, not having enough houses and enough jobs, and traffic in the GTA getting worse and worse every day.

We are supposed to sit back and accept that the very same people who broke the system want to continue going in the wrong direction, and we are not supposed to say anything about it because we are the descendants of immigrants. No. That is unacceptable.

In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the good work done by Conservative members on the immigration committee here in Ottawa to present some common-sense amendments to try to salvage the bill and instill some sensibility into a piece of legislation that is horribly flawed. The bill reflects, once again, that the Liberals have learned nothing from the fact that public trust and confidence in our immigration system are at the lowest they have been in my lifetime.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be in the House today speaking to the bill before us.

Fundamentally, we are talking about Bill C-3, which is a chain migration bill. It is a bill that would allow parents who were not born in Canada to give their children who were not born in Canada citizenship forever and ever. From my perspective, that is not a good thing.

How did we get to this place? Originally, way back when, there was Bill S-245, which was meant to fix one simple thing: the issue of lost Canadians. Then there was a court ruling that happened in Ontario that the federal government chose not to appeal. The Liberals chose to allow the courts to establish the policy of the Government of Canada. I think they were too weak or too scared, I am not sure which, to actually make the policy themselves, so they just said, “Great, we'll do what the court asks.”

In my opinion, the Liberals should have appealed the ruling and should have made their own decision in terms of what they wanted in the legislation. However, they then introduced Bill C-71 in the last session and forgot about it. They did not act on it in any way, and now here we are with essentially the same bill.

As I said, Bill C-3 is chain migration bill; it would allow people to pass on citizenship to their children indefinitely, whether they were born in Canada or not. The Liberals have actually put one condition on this. They keep talking about the semantics of the kind of method by which people are getting their citizenship, but at the end of the day, it does not really matter; there is a condition, which is the 1,095 days that a person would have to be present in Canada, which we have heard about all day long here.

We are essentially saying that it is fine, but we want to tweak it a bit and add a couple more conditions, which is all this is. Really what we are arguing about in the House today is how many and which conditions. It is not zero conditions; there are some conditions. The government has proposed some, and we are proposing a few more.

We are proposing that we strengthen the connection test a little so that, yes, a person could be here 1,095 days, which do not have to be consecutive but would have to be within a five-year period. We are also proposing making sure that people have either English or French proficiency, that they know the country they are coming to by taking a citizenship test and that they do not have a criminal record.

These are things that we believe are very reasonable and very fair and that should be done. Of course at committee we were able to put forward these common-sense proposals. We received majority support with the help of the Bloc at committee to do this, but now the government, in its incessant desire to break everything, wants to change that again, so here we are now.

Members might ask what the risk is. We are talking about children and other people who probably have a connection, which is quite likely true in many cases. There are people who are very legitimate who are young, under the age of 15 or 16 years old and potentially under the age of five or 10 years. Certainly those people, generally speaking, would be legitimate claimants to citizenship, but we have a very weak system.

The government has broken our immigration system so badly. It has messed up when it comes to asylum and when it comes to losing control of the number of students coming into our country. Everybody knows that; the faults are well known and well documented. However, now we have a government that has completely broken our system, saying, “Trust us. We've got this. We know exactly what we are doing.” Well, pardon me if I do not trust the government and if I do not think it has got this, because I do not think it does.

We know that when there is a weak system, there are bad actors in the world who try to take advantage of things, which is exactly what would happen through the proposed system. That is why we proposed some amendments, and I will quickly go through them.

First is the time period. The government's first condition that it proposed was that parents would have to spend 1,095 days in Canada before the birth of a child. We think that is fine, except that we want to see a bit of a stronger connection test, because the days could be over quite a span of years. What we are proposing is that the 1,095 non-consecutive days happen within a five-year window. That is what we are proposing, and we think it is very reasonable.

Second, we believe that people who obtain citizenship through this method should be able to speak either French or English. It is a fairly simple requirement; it is not complicated. We require this of all other people who obtain citizenship in our country, so we feel that is a very reasonable request and quite necessary for having a good, solid life in Canada.

The third condition we think should be in the bill is a citizenship test. We need to make sure that the people who are coming to our country actually know about our country, because by definition, these are people who have potentially not spent any time in Canada. We need to know that they understand what it means to be in Canada and what their rights and responsibilities are, just like other people who come to our country.

Finally, the other condition we think is very reasonable and prudent is a security check. We want to make sure that people who are criminals in other countries do not automatically get citizenship in Canada. This seem like common sense. I do not understand why it is so complicated for the government to understand.

There could be person who has been convicted of crimes in other country and then realizes that their parents lived in Canada for 1,095 days before they were born, when their parents were in university or something like that, and who thinks they have a solution: Even though they are wanted for crimes in their own country, they will just go to Canada because their parents could pass on their citizenship. That is what we are trying to avoid, and a simple security check would prevent that from happening.

One other thing that we asked to be included, which I think is very reasonable, is a reporting mechanism so Parliament and therefore Canadians would know how many people were granted citizenship through this method.

I think these are very reasonable things to ask.

There is risk when people can manipulate and abuse a weak system to their advantage. The amendments that would essentially add a few more conditions to the one the Liberals already proposed would mitigate those risks, making the system a little less weak and potentially a little less risky.

One thing I also want to mention is that there would be many young people who would be affected by the legislation, those under the age of 16 years, as I said before. They should be able to fly through the requirements very easily: the time period, languages, the test of Canada and the security screening, which they may be exempt from. Right now we require that only of people who are between the ages of 18 and 54. There would actually be no burden on young people.

That gets back to my original point: We are not after the people who are coming here legitimately. We want to make sure that those people do get the citizenship they are owed. However, we want to make sure that people who do not deserve citizenship, those who are taking advantage of the system, would be subject to some checks, just to make sure we can control and know who is coming into our country.

I know that the NDP is very angry at voters for taking away its party status in the House. That has caused a lot of angst, I am sure, in its ranks and in its members. The member for Vancouver East was very much opposed to the changes made at committee without her being able to be there. I know that she spoke on Friday, and there are a couple of things that I want to make sure she understands.

The first is about consecutive days. The member mentioned that we are proposing that the condition needs to be consecutive days. It does not. It would be 1,095 days within a five-year period. We realize that people do need to have the opportunity to visit their home country for weddings, funerals or different events that happen, and that seems very reasonable. It is not consecutive days; it is just that within a five-year period, we feel there should be a substantial connection to Canada.

The other thing I want to mention briefly is the confusion about who is a visitor to our country. It is pretty clear. As a kid, I grew up in a lovely town on the eastern side of Saskatchewan called Yorkton. My grandparents lived on the exact opposite side of the province in a small town called Herbert, another lovely town in Saskatchewan. As a youth, I spent a lot of time in Herbert, Saskatchewan, but I always considered myself a visitor to Herbert; I never thought I was actually from Herbert or had any kind of substantial connection to Herbert. I grew up in Yorkton, and that was where I spent most of my time.

That is the principle we need to follow. People may have visited Canada a number of times, and that is fine. We welcome visitors. We love it when they spend their money in our country; it is amazing, but we also need to make sure that this does not imply in any way that it makes them entitled to become a citizen of this country. We have to be very clear on what "visitor" means and what it is.

We also have to be careful of the government we have and the now seventh immigration minister we have in the House. We have had seven immigration ministers in 10 years, who have not done their due diligence on bills like the one that is before us. The current minister just took the bill from the last Parliament, which was the bill from the previous one. They just bring the bills along without actually putting some thought and logic into what is going on. That is very dangerous, and we have be very careful of it.

What we are seeing right now is that the old NDP-Liberal coalition is back on. There is a budget coming up next week, and I think what is going on here is that in return for its support of the budget, the NDP has demanded that the Liberals support it on the amendments they want to this bill. That is where we are right now; the NDP-Liberal coalition lives on.

Citizenship has value. We need to make sure that we reinforce that and that we defend that.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, truly the only word that comes to mind is “incompetence”. We are now on the seventh Liberal immigration minister in the last 10 years. The bill is actually a copy of a previous bill. Members of the government just changed the title from Bill C-71 in the previous Parliament to Bill C-3 now. They introduced it in the month of May or June and then took the summer off. They all went home. They did not do any consultations across the country, with communities. They did not want to listen to people—

Motions in Amendment

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been carrying this file for more than a decade.

As I have said, I do not have lost Canadians within my own family unit. My children were born in Canada. I am an immigrant, so I am a first-generation born-abroad individual, but my children were born here, so they are not impacted in any shape or form. However, that does not matter.

What matters is that there are people who are lost Canadians in this context. It is critically important to pass this legislation back to its original form, based on the amendments made to Senate Bill S-245 that I motivated. It is also based on the government bill later introduced in the last Parliament as Bill C-71.

Here we are. It is morally and legally the right thing to do, and that is why we have to do it.

Citizenship Act

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Mr. Speaker, today, we debate a very familiar piece of legislation to the House that has been brought back from previous parliaments. Bill C-3 may be newly introduced, but the substance of the bill is more of the same. It is the same broken car that the Liberals tried to drive through the House last year with a different coat of paint.

Let us be clear that it was originally Conservative legislation from the Senate. Bill S-245 was a private member's bill containing provisions to address lost Canadians. The Conservatives were supportive of the original substance of that bill, but thanks to the Liberal government, the bill was significantly amended, and it eventually stalled at report stage. In May 2024, the Liberal government tabled Bill C-71, which drastically went beyond the original scope of Bill S-245. Therefore, we started with Bill S-245, then we had Bill C-71 and now we are dealing with Bill C-3.

Bill C-3 has three separate pieces of information that must be understood individually. The first part is citizenship by descent. We may not agree on everything in this House, but I believe we can all agree that becoming a Canadian citizen is a privilege. However, as written, Bill C-3 undermines Canadian citizenship. In fact, Canada has important safeguards in place that protect our citizenship, like the first-generation limit.

I want to stress that we have policy like this for a reason. As my colleagues have mentioned, at the height of the 2006 conflict, Lebanese Canadians living in Lebanon looked to the Canadian government for help, and Canada answered the call, spending $94 million to successfully evacuate 15,000 Canadians to safety. Despite living in Lebanon full time prior to the conflict and having little connection to Canada, they still benefited from their Canadian citizenship and became known as Canadians of convenience. Following a ceasefire in the conflict, many Lebanese Canadians immediately returned to Lebanon. This was a wake-up call for Canada, and in 2009, the previous Conservative government responded with implementing the first-generation limit. This reasonable measure set out that only the first generation of children born abroad to Canadian citizens could automatically obtain citizenship.

Members may be shocked to learn that this safeguard for Canadian citizenship against Canadians of convenience would be eliminated by Liberal Bill C-3, as written. The Liberals seek to replace this safeguard to obtaining citizenship by descent with something called a substantial connection requirement. This extremely weak requirement simply means that parents must prove they spent 1,095 non-consecutive days physically in Canada before the birth of their child. This legislation would not even require a criminal record check.

The Liberals believe that parents spending a few weeks or months spread out over decades is enough of a substantial connection to automatically extend citizenship to multiple generations of people born outside of Canada. We still do not understand what evidence would be required as proof that parents spent just over 1,000 days in Canada at any point in their life. Through Bill C-3, the Liberal government could be opening Canadian citizenship to people with criminal records or to individuals who may not even realize they could claim Canadian citizenship in the first place.

When the previous version of this legislation was studied, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that as many as 115,000 new citizens outside of Canada could be created. According to the National Post, “The government has no idea how many people will be automatically granted citizenship if the legislation is passed.” Why would the Liberal government create a new system with a potentially limitless chain of migration? This is deeply concerning, but after 10 years of the Liberals destroying our immigration system, we cannot be surprised.

The second part of Bill C-3, which the Conservatives do support, is the adopted children provision. Right now, provisions in the Citizenship Act state that when a Canadian citizen adopts a person born outside of Canada, the parent would need to start a lengthy process of applying for a child's permanent residence. Instead, this bill would remove an unnecessary burden on adoptive parents and treat an adopted person as if they were born here in Canada, automatically granting Canadian citizenship to the child. This is a simple and reasonable approach to achieving equal treatment for adopted children, and the Conservatives support it.

Third, we come to the restoration of citizenship to lost Canadians. As a result of compounding legislation and amendments to section 8 of the Citizenship Act, a group of people born to Canadian parents between February 15, 1977, and April 16, 1981, had to apply to reinstate their citizenship before turning 28 years old. Those who did not apply to reinstate their citizenship lost it, despite being raised in Canada, going to school here and starting their families here. The Conservatives support the provisions in Bill C-3 to correct this error.

Canadians are paying the price for the Liberals' out-of-control immigration policies. Let me be clear. Immigration is important to our country, but the government must have control over it. Right now, the Liberals have zero control over their immigration policy. Effective immigration policy should be tied to outcomes, and it should consider the supply of housing, health care and jobs. This is important not only for Canadians who are trying to buy a house, find a job and get a family doctor; it is equally important for newcomers. It is wrong to set immigrants up for failure in a country that does not have the capacity to support them. Unfortunately, the Liberals have lost complete control over immigration.

Let us examine health care, for example. Last year, the Liberals brought in nearly a half a million permanent immigrants. Meanwhile, 6.5 million Canadians do not have a family doctor. The Liberals see no problem adding hundreds of thousands of new patients to a health care system that is already overburdened. Emergency room closures are occurring on a regular basis while health care workers are burnt out from working millions of hours of overtime. Canada is currently short at least 23,000 family doctors and 60,000 registered nurses, with these numbers set to dramatically increase in the next few years. Someone does not need an economics degree to understand that the increasing demand on our health care system through unfocused immigration while the supply of capacity is collapsing is a recipe for disaster. I guarantee that our health care system is only going to get worse under the Liberal government's failed immigration policy.

The Liberals are not just driving up demand through their failed immigration policy; they have failed to build capacity too. While the government adds record demand to our health care system, it is restricting the supply of qualified health care professionals from working. According to the health minister's own department, of the 200,000 internationally trained health professionals employed in Canada, 80,000 are not working in their field. Eighty thousand internationally trained health care professionals who immigrated to Canada thinking there was a place for them to contribute to our overwhelmed health care system are being blocked from working.

I met a vascular surgeon from Brazil who has years of training and experience yet sees no path to practising in Canada. The Liberals bring doctors and nurses to Canada for their expertise but block them from working in their profession. I was in Toronto, where I met a doctor from Argentina with many years of experience. She came to Canada hoping to use her skills and experience to provide care for our people. Today, she works at Home Depot because gatekeepers and licensing bodies block her from getting certified to practise.

For 10 years, the Liberals have turned immigration into a numbers game while ignoring capacity, ignoring the needs of Canadians and ignoring the very newcomers they claim to welcome. Blocking doctors and nurses from working while adding millions of new patients to a broken health care system is insane. We cannot fix our broken health care system without fixing our broken immigration system first. The Conservatives are committing to fixing that problem. We should only invite the right people in the right numbers so that our health care system can catch up. At the same time, we must implement a national blue seal professional testing standard to ensure that foreign-trained health care workers can work in Canada. We must enable health care workers to take their skills wherever they are needed across our country.

The Conservatives know that the parts of Bill C-3 have potential, but we cannot support rushed Liberal legislation that is so poorly thought out. The Conservatives will make recommendations to improve this legislation and implement real safeguards to strengthen the citizenship we are so blessed to have.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as members know, Bill C-3 responds to a court ruling. I will provide a bit of background. In 2009, the Harper government amended the Citizenship Act to prohibit passing on citizenship beyond the second generation. On December 19, 2023, the Superior Court of Ontario struck down certain provisions of the Citizenship Act, ruling that they violated the section on mobility rights, which states: “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada”. The provisions also violated a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with regard to equality before and under the law and the equal protection and benefit of the law.

The parties challenging the Citizenship Act represented seven families that had been discriminated against by the legislation. The court recognized that the ban introduced in the act was unfair, particularly for women who had to choose between the birthplace of their child and the ability to pass on citizenship. Take the case of the Brooke-Bjorkquist family's child. That child was born in Geneva in 2010 to Mr. Brooke and Ms. Bjorkquist, who were working for the government abroad. Despite the fact that the child was born to two Canadian parents and returned to Canada at age one, the child could not, under the current provisions of the act, follow in their parents' footsteps by working abroad and having a child abroad, because they would not be able to pass on citizenship to their child. That is the problem that was raised in court. This is an absurd situation because the birth of that child in Switzerland is a circumstance due to their parents' work abroad in service of Canada, and practically their entire life has been and should continue to be spent in Canada.

Bill C-3 is an identical copy of Bill C-71 from the 44th Parliament, which did not pass. It is also similar to Bill S-245. In 2023, the court gave the government six months to pass legislation to fix the problems. Despite the deadline having passed, here we go again.

I would like to briefly review certain aspects of the history of Canadian citizenship. It is a relatively recent development in the country's history. When Confederation came about in 1867, Canadians were British subjects. It was not until the first Immigration Act was passed in 1910 that citizenship was first mentioned. It defined Canadians as persons born in Canada, British subjects living in Canada, or immigrants naturalized as Canadians. The objective was to facilitate their passage across borders.

In 1921, the Canadian Nationals Act was passed, defining Canadian nationality for immigration purposes for the first time, but without establishing Canadian nationality status. Other laws were also passed, such as the naturalization acts of 1906 and 1914 that sought to govern naturalization, as their names suggest. It was not until Mackenzie King, who became the first Canadian citizen, introduced the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1947, that Canadian citizenship was finally defined for the first time and granted to women as a matter of right.

However, the 1947 act was not perfect. At the time, citizenship was not considered a guaranteed right, but a discretionary power of Parliament. Many situations, particularly those involving naturalization and citizenship by descent, were covered incompletely or not at all. For example, under this regime, when the responsible parent took the citizenship of another country, their children lost their Canadian citizenship. Other obscure provisions, such as the requirement for Canadian children born abroad to reside in Canada during their 24th year, resulted in many individuals living in Canada not officially having citizenship.

The act was next modernized in 1977, and this iteration attempted to simplify the previous citizenship regime. However, the regime remains unfair for several groups, particularly children born abroad. For example, under the 1977 Citizenship Act, individuals who obtained citizenship by descent had to reiterate their desire to retain their citizenship before the age of 28 or risk having it revoked. Because of this little-known requirement, many individuals living in Canada lost their citizenship without even knowing it.

The government failed to communicate this requirement to its citizens, and it was only when the affected individuals had to prove they were citizens, to apply for a passport, for example, that they discovered that they no longer had Canadian citizenship. Some people had been living in Canada for generations. Their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on had been living in Canada, yet they found themselves stateless. These people continue to experience problems, and Bill C-3 aims to fix some of these issues.

These individuals who lost their citizenship as a result of certain obscure, unfair or discriminatory rules are known as lost Canadians. It is a diverse group, consisting of military spouses, children, soldiers, second-generation children born abroad, children of immigrants, border babies, orphans, indigenous Canadians and Chinese Canadians, to name but a few.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration establishes four categories of lost Canadians. The first is war brides, meaning women who married Canadian soldiers fighting for Canada in World War II and who immigrated to Canada during or after the war to join their Canadian husbands. The second is people who were born abroad to a Canadian parent before the current Citizenship Act came into force in February 1977. The third is people who lost their citizenship between January 1947 and February 1977 because they or a parent acquired the citizenship and nationality of another country. Lastly, there are second- and subsequent-generation Canadians born abroad since the current Citizenship Act came into force in February 1977.

Their plight was brought to the public's attention thanks to Don Chapman, a former United Airlines pilot who found out that he had been stripped of his citizenship when his father emigrated to the United States. By deftly showing that this problem was affecting many Canadians unbeknownst to them, he forced Parliament's hand. Even General Roméo Dallaire was affected by the problem. To address it, Canada adopted a series of legislative reforms in 2005, 2009 and 2015.

Errors and inconsistencies persisted, however, and Bill C-3 seeks to correct them. Obviously, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of the bill before us. There will be some very important discussions in committee and amendments will be proposed to improve the bill and allay the fears and uncertainty that have been raised in the speeches in the House. For the Bloc Québécois, these are technical adjustments being made in the interest of justice that seek to harmonize the application of laws and to correct injustices committed in the past. To us, it is a matter of principle.

This bill, which I believe is technical in nature and responds to a court ruling, should, in our opinion, have been passed within six months of the ruling. When it comes to citizenship, and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in particular, there are still a number of ongoing problems and irregularities that need to be addressed. I cannot describe in parliamentary language how this department functions. It should be thoroughly reviewed and improved.

In each of our constituency offices, we receive numerous calls, emails and requests almost every day from people asking us to speed up the process, deal with lost documents and provide assistance. In most cases, these are heart-wrenching stories. These are people who are living in uncertainty and facing challenges. Our immigration and citizenship legislation needs to be completely overhauled to simplify and clarify the process. The department needs to speed up the process, because in most cases, it is inhumane.