Bill S-245

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians)

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to permit certain persons who lost their Canadian citizenship to regain it.

Citizenship and Immigration

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, a situation with the cut-off rule for first-generation born Canadians has been in place for 14 years now, and many families have suffered during this period. It is true that the government could have brought in legislation to make that change, but that has not happened. With that being said, we now have an opportunity before us through a Senate bill, Bill S-245, to fix the lost Canadian rules once and for all.

If we all care about this issue as we say we do, should we not then seize this opportunity to expand the scope of the bill, fix the lost Canadian community that has not been addressed in this bill and fix those issues once and for all?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a specific question for the member. It is more of a commentary on what I heard her read to the House to provide the perspective of her party.

I will mention to those listening at home that the member is a parliamentary secretary. The government has known for almost eight years that there were these different groups of lost Canadians. There is always the ability to table government legislation, and I think we will find that a lot of members of this House are willing to consider plugging holes in legislation.

That is exactly what Senator Yonah Martin has been doing in two Parliaments. She was able to convince the Senate to move Bill S-230 through the Senate with one committee hearing to consider the exact same bill we have today, Bill S-245. She was able to do so because she is widely considered to be a non-partisan member and widely considered to be well informed on the subject of the Citizenship Act. Members at that committee voted against my amendment to suggest, if we are going to go beyond the scope, that we give ourselves more time to consider what groups of lost Canadians we could consider and what different situations lost Canadians might find themselves in. I will tell the parliamentary secretary that the Liberal benches voted against my amendment to the motion that brings us here today to debate this concurrence report.

This is about process. We do not know when the next election will come in a minority Parliament, and it very well could be that lost Canadians will have to wait again for another Parliament before this particular group of lost Canadians will have their citizenship restored to them, as it should be.

This is not a question about whether it is the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. It is about process. We have a bill and an opportunity to fix something for a particular group of Canadians. We all agree on that, and by doing this, the bill will be sent back to the Senate, and the Senate will thereafter make further considerations and call more witnesses to the committee. That is simply the legislative process.

I know that is difficult for the government to understand. I know it is difficult to have such a thin legislative agenda. However, this situation could have been avoided.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to wrap up my comments, I will share the last thoughts of the stakeholder who wrote to the committee. She said:

If you can see us as the Canadians we are then I believe this issue can be dealt with more clearly. This cannot be an issue where members let their views, beliefs or desires regarding immigration cloud an issue that is very clearly about citizenship policy....

We are Canadians since birth looking to return home, not immigrants desiring to move to a new country. We may be lost, but we are proud and hopeful.

See us for who we are so that you may help us. Kindest Regards, Jennifer Johnnes.

I think the words speak for themselves and show how deeply painful the subject of lost Canadians is and how traumatic it is for them. I would add that the amendments in 2009, in essentially creating a situation where families would be separated, where they could not be reunited and where almost a two-tier system of who is Canadian has been created, is something we should be addressing.

While Senator Yonah Martin may have put this bill forward with one intention, I think it is a unique opportunity for us to correct the path to make sure everyone who is eligible for Canadian citizenship by birthright, by the right of their parents and by the right of their families to raise their children here or their desire as Canadians to raise their children here is contemplated. We must take this up with the utmost urgency.

I humbly ask members of the House to consider the importance of expanding Bill S-245 so that it can be improved and ultimately better meet its objective of addressing more lost Canadians.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today to speak to the motion to concur in the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, with regard to expanding the scope of Bill S-245, which seeks to address lost Canadians.

While the bill is well intended in its aim to address the remaining lost Canadians, as drafted, it falls short of correcting what I see as the key challenges on this file. As a matter of fact, it is something that I spoke to in our first debate on this bill when it came to the House.

Before outlining the concerns that I have with Bill S-245 as written, I will briefly touch on the circumstances that led to the emergence of lost Canadians. The requirements and complexities of the first Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947, and former provisions of the current Citizenship Act, created cohorts of people who lost or never had citizenship status. They are referred to as “lost Canadians”.

To address this issue, changes to citizenship laws that came into force in 2009 and 2015 restored status or gave citizenship for the first time to the majority of lost Canadians. Before the 2009 amendments, people born abroad beyond the first generation, that is, born abroad to a Canadian parent who was also born abroad, were considered Canadian citizens at birth, but only until they turned 28 years old. This is sometimes referred to, as my colleague mentioned previously, as the “28-year rule”. If these individuals did not apply to retain their citizenship before they turned 28, they would automatically lose it. Some people were not even aware they had to meet these requirements and lost their citizenship unknowingly. These people who lost their citizenship because of this rule are often referred to as “the last cohort of the lost Canadians”. Since we began this debate in the chamber, many of them have written to me and other members of the immigration committee.

To prevent future losses, the age 28 rule was repealed in 2009. At the same time, the law was changed to establish a clear first-generation limit to the right of automatic citizenship by descent. This means that, today, children born outside Canada to a Canadian parent are Canadian citizens from birth if they have a parent who is either born in Canada or naturalized as a Canadian citizen. Unlike the former retention provisions of the Citizenship Act, those children do not need to do anything to keep their Canadian citizenship. Those born in the second or subsequent generations abroad do not automatically become Canadians at birth. This first-generation limit is firm on who does or does not have a claim to citizenship by descent.

I would like to lean into this with a personal experience I have had with this, with my own two daughters. As is well known, I am a citizen of two countries, born Canadian but raised in Israel. At a certain point in my early adulthood, I chose to return to Israel to be with my family there. I got married and had my eldest daughter. She was born there, and upon her birth I applied for Canadian citizenship for her. Subsequently, we returned to Canada, in approximately 2008, and my second daughter was born here in Toronto, where we live today, in York Centre. She also obviously has Canadian citizenship, having been born here. However, if my eldest daughter chooses for some reason to live elsewhere in the world, such as in Israel, where she is currently living this year, and if she has children, my grandchildren will not be Canadian, even though she has lived here the majority of her life. Although her core ties to Canada are clear and well committed to, she has lost the ability to confer that citizenship onto her children as a result of the Bill C-37 change that was made under the Harper government in 2009. Ironically, if my younger daughter, who was born here, were to have children abroad, they would automatically be Canadian, as she would be able to bestow upon them what I was able to bestow upon her. Herein lie some of the problems we have been discussing as colleagues in this House.

I can appreciate the work of Senator Martin in wanting to narrow it down to a specific group of individuals, but, frankly, as my colleague from the Bloc said, this is about dignity, compassion, and a sense of heritage and connection that is being stripped away from many, so I will continue to talk about this. There are many people who are born abroad or adopted from abroad to a Canadian parent beyond the first generation. These individuals are not citizens, but still feel they have a very close tie to Canada, just like my daughter does, and also see themselves as lost Canadians.

Currently, these individuals can only become Canadian citizens by going through the immigration process. That is to say, they must first qualify and then apply to become permanent residents. Then after the required time, they must apply to become citizens. In some specialized cases, people born abroad in the second generation are eligible to apply for a grant of citizenship, but only in exceptional circumstances.

Turning back to Bill S-245, though it is well-intentioned as written, it does not address some of the remaining lost Canadians. Bill S-245 is targeting only the lost Canadians who lost citizenship because of the age 28 rule for those who were born abroad after the first generation and had already turned 28 years old and lost their citizenship before the law changed in 2009.

The bill as written excludes people who applied to retain citizenship but were refused. This is an issue because those who never applies to keep their citizenship would have their citizenship restored by the bill as written, while those who took steps to retain their citizenship but were refused would not benefit from this bill. Recognizing that the age 28 rule was problematic for all, it is my hope that the committee will consider amendments to restore the citizenship status of all those impacted by the former age 28 rule, which has since been repealed.

The committee heard compelling testimony from witnesses that precisely highlighted the problem with excluding one of the cohorts impacted by the age 28 rule. As I understand it, the committee for immigration also received dozens of written submissions from stakeholders both inside and outside of Canada. As a matter of fact, some of those stakeholders have also written to me in light of my previous interventions in the chamber on this matter. It would seem that there were many people watching Bill S-245 closely, like me, as parents. What is interesting is that almost all of the written submissions point out the challenges that exist for people born abroad in the second generation or beyond.

Given the call from stakeholders, I feel strongly that the committee should be empowered to at least consider solutions for some of the other people who consider themselves to be lost Canadians. This is the subject of today's debate. Does the House support the request from committee to expand the scope of the bill to see what could be done for the other lost Canadians? I think we must support this.

My story with my daughters is really not unusual for many of the constituents I represent in York Centre whose children go back and forth between Israel and get married here or in the United States. The Jewish community has very close cross-border ties, and these families, like many Canadian families, sometimes have some fluidity due to faith, culture or language and have other strong connections. They are watching this closely as well.

That is why I think we should be supporting this, because those who were born to a Canadian parent abroad beyond the first generation, including those adopted from abroad, are not Canadian citizens but feel they should be because they have a strong connection to Canada, similar to my older daughter. To address these other lost Canadians, the bill could be amended by introducing a pathway to citizenship for people in this exact situation.

I was really disappointed to hear about the reaction by Conservative members when the motion to expand the scope of Bill S-245 was presented at committee. They are, of course, entitled to their opinion, but rather than give serious or substantive arguments about why the scope should or should not be expanded, some members took the opportunity to make threats about what they would do if the scope is expanded. This is actually very disappointing. The member for Calgary Nose Hill stated:

...do we really want to have the immigration committee all of a sudden drop into a broader review of the Citizenship Act? If we are opening up this bill beyond the scope of what is here right now, I will propose amendments that are well beyond the scope of this bill. There are a lot of things I would like to see changed in the Citizenship Act. I will come prepared with those things, and we will be debating them.

I really take issue with this approach. I am not a member of the committee so I do not know what confidential amendments the members have already put on notice for the bill, but the Conservative member for Calgary Nose Hill absolutely does not have that information. We do know that. When she made these comments, she was fully aware of what members were going to propose.

Furthermore, the member for Vancouver East was pretty clear in her comments on the motion that she was not trying to make changes to some completely unrelated section of the Citizenship Act. As a matter of fact, she said that today as well. It is quite something for a member to threaten to overwhelm committee processes by trying to propose amendments that are, in her words, “well beyond the scope”.

I am disappointed, and it is unfortunate that the Conservatives are closed off to the urging they heard from stakeholders and that all members heard at committee from witnesses. I am not alone in having been put off by that fact, and I want to read into the record a communication that I understand was sent to committee members after the motion to expand the scope was moved at committee last Monday. I think it has a lot of meaning for all of us listening to this debate today. It says:

Dear Members of the Citizenship and Immigration committee of the House of Commons,

First I would like to thank the committee for taking the time to reflect on and discuss Bill S-245. Although the current language of the bill will have no effect on my status as a Lost Canadian, I am hopeful that this bill will help to pave the way for a path to citizenship for myself and others who are lost.

My story is like that of many other Lost Canadians. I live a life unfairly exiled from the country that my mother lives in. She lives alone in Haida Gwaii, and as she grows older, I wonder how I should be able to care for her, when it is illegal for me to live in the same country as her. I will not at this time speak to the immense pain, suffering and grief I live with every day.

I am not writing to you to tell you another story of a Lost Canadian. I am here instead, asking that the language you use while discussing Canadian citizenship be more sensitive and fair to those with ancestral ties to Canada. I do not believe it is the members intention to further marginalize those Canadians who have been stripped of their ties to Canada and it is for that reason that I make this plea to you all.

Time and time again, when discussing citizenship and lost Canadians, House members use the words “immigrant” and “citizen” as if they are interchangeable. The intent of Bill S-245 has nothing to do with immigration, and everything to do with citizenship. As a Lost Canadian, when I am referred to in the same sentence as someone looking to immigrate I am astounded. I am heartbroken. Above all, I fear that if we are constantly grouped together with those individuals looking to immigrate to Canada, that we will never be seen for who we really are—individuals who have been unjustly stripped of our birthright to Canadian Citizenship.

From an outside perspective it seems that the members inability to separate these two concepts—citizenship vs. immigration—while trying to address the issue being studied in bill S-245 is creating divisiveness over expanding the bill to make it fair and just for those of us who have been unfairly stripped of, or denied our birthright to Canadian citizenship.... It is disingenuine to speak of this as if it were an immigration issue. [Such language]...continues to reinforce the emotional damage and trauma we experience daily living in exile.

It goes on:

The intent of bill S-245 is to extend Canadian citizenship. To threaten amendments to Bill S-245 such as mandating in person citizenship ceremonies, is not only ridiculously out of scope for this bill, it is insulting to the masses of Lost Canadians simply looking to return home.

I understand that the complexities surrounding this issue of Lost Canadians and second generation born abroad Canadians make the situation difficult to understand. But until the members of this committee, those with the most influence on legislation regarding citizenship can themselves make the distinction between “Citizenship” and “Immigration” there will be no clear path forward for those of us who are lost.

So I beg of you. Lost Canadians are not immigrants. We are Canadians. The language used by the members should reflect that. The words spoken in this moment have much weight for those of us who are suffering. Please see us for who we are so that you may more fully open your minds and hearts, and let us in.... If you can see us as the Canadians we are then I believe this issue can be dealt with more clearly. This cannot be an issue where members let their views, beliefs or desires regarding—

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

moved that the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration presented on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, be concurred in.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this important motion before the House, the concurrence motion.

What we are dealing with is essentially seeking authority from the House to expand the scope of Bill S-245. Bill S-245 is a Senate bill that is before the House to address the situation of those who are commonly known as “lost Canadians”. Bill S-245 would amend the Citizenship Act to allow Canadians who previously lost their citizenship due to the age 28 rule to regain their citizenship. The age 28 rule means that second-generation Canadians born abroad were subject to the laws of citizenship under the former section 8 of the Citizenship Act, which required them to apply to certify their citizenship before they turned 28 years old.

In 2009 the Conservatives repealed this section through Bill C-37. However, the legislation did not restore citizenship to those who lost their citizenship prior to 2009. This oversight created major problems for many Canadians, as they somehow could lose their citizenship status as they turned 28. Many of them actually did not even know that was the situation they were faced with. It was only when applying for their passport, for example, that they realized they had lost their citizenship.

Bill S-245 seeks to fix the age 28 rule. However, the rule does not address other situations where Canadians have lost their citizenship. The archaic provisions of the Citizenship Act have resulted in many other lost Canadians, and New Democrats seek to actually fix this problem.

Mr. Speaker, 14 years ago, Bill C-37 passed in this House and came into force, and as a result of that, many people lost their citizenship rights. In fact, it created a scenario where Canada's Citizenship Act, for this group of lost Canadians, in many ways was not charter-compliant. For decades some Canadians have found themselves even to be stateless due to a number of these archaic immigration laws.

In 2007, the UN's Refugees magazine listed Canada as one of the top offending countries for making its own people stateless. In 2009, as I mentioned, the Conservatives said that they were going to fix the lost Canadian issue with Bill C-37. Sadly, this did not happen. Worse still, the Conservatives created a brand new group of lost Canadians, and today we have an opportunity before us to fix that.

Bill S-245, the bill that was introduced by Senator Martin, is now before the committee for citizenship and immigration, and the bill aims to address this group of lost Canadians, lost due to the age 28 rule. I want to be very clear that the NDP wholeheartedly supports ensuring those who one day woke up and found themselves without Canadian status are made whole. This absolutely needs to be done. However, it is the NDP's strongest view that the scope of Bill S-245 is too narrow. The NDP wants to seize this opportunity to fix the lost Canadian issue once and for all.

Currently, there is a large group of Canadians who are deemed to be second-class citizens, due to the Conservatives' first-generation cut-off rule brought on by the Harper administration in 2009. Bill C-37 ended the extension of citizenship to second-generations born abroad. By stripping their right to pass on citizenship to their children if they were born outside of Canada, the Canadian government has caused undue hardship to many families. For some, it means separating children from parents. Some even find themselves stateless.

I spoke with Patrick Chandler. He is a Canadian who, while born abroad, spent most of his life in Canada. As an adult, he worked abroad, married someone from another country and had children. He was later offered a job in British Columbia. When he moved back to Canada, he had to leave his wife and children behind because he could not pass on his citizenship to his children. He had to go through an arduous process to finally reunite with them a year later.

There are many families being impacted in this way, and it is wrong. We should not put Canadians in those kinds of situations, yet here we are and that is what they have to suffer through. There are many families being impacted.

Another family faced with this situation is the family of Emma Kenyon. In fact, Emma lived here in Canada, as did her husband. However, they worked abroad and they met abroad. They had a child abroad. That child is stateless because neither Emma nor her husband has status in that country. They are now in a situation where they have a stateless child born to a Canadian. This is so wrong, and we need to fix this problem. Immigration officials said to them at the time that, before their child was born, they had a choice. They could actually travel back to Canada and have their child be born in Canada.

This, of course, did not make any sense. It was during the COVID period, when, basically, it was unsafe for her to travel. If Emma did travel back to Canada, she would be without a family doctor or a gynecologist to care for her pregnancy. None of that made any sense, but that is what she was told to do. Of course, she did not risk the birth of her child in that situation. She did not risk her own health either. As a result, her child was born abroad and is now in a stateless situation. It should never have been this way.

Families are so frustrated with these archaic immigration laws, especially with the stripping of the rights of immigrants having children born abroad. Those rights were stripped because of the Conservatives’ Bill C-37. Families are now taking the government to court to address this inequity. The Conservatives deemed first-generation Canadians born abroad to be less worthy and less Canadian, even though many had grown up in Canada. The implications are so serious that people are taking the government to court.

At the citizenship and immigration committee, when the opportunity arises, I will be moving amendments to ensure that this does not happen to anyone else. The NDP amendments would ensure that first-generation, born-abroad Canadians would have the right to pass on their citizenship rights to their children based on a connections test. They would also retroactively restore citizenship to persons who have not been recognized as citizens since the second-generation cut-off rule was enacted in 2009.

The same principles would apply to adoptees as well. We need to make sure that individuals and families that adopt children are not going to be caught in this bad situation. For those who do not wish to have citizenship conferred upon them, upon notification to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, these changes would not apply to them.

This will mean that people like Patrick, whom I mentioned, and people like Emma and her family would not have to suffer the challenges they face as a result of Bill C-37’s stripping of their rights.

In addition to the amendments related to the first-generation cut-off rule, I will also be moving amendments to symbolically recognize those who died before citizenship was conferred upon them. For example, many of Canada's war heroes fought and died for Canada. However, they were never recognized as Canadians. The NDP amendments would also honour them and recognize them as citizens, retroactive to birth.

The situation with what I call “war heroes” is this. The first Governor General of Canada, in 1867, right after Confederation, said that Canadians were a new “nationality”. However, according to Canada's immigration laws, Canadian citizenship did not exist prior to January 1, 1947. That means that no soldiers who fought and died for Canada in battles like Vimy Ridge or D-Day are deemed to be Canadians.

Bill C-37 was supposed to fix this, but it did not happen. Don Chapman, who has fought for so long on the issue of lost Canadians and trying to rectify those concerns, indicated that “the government has confirmed they're leaving out all the war dead [pre-1947]. So, the war dead in Canada were really just British. We might as well just scratch the Maple Leaf off their headstones.”

Symbolically recognizing those who fought for Canada and ensuring that they are recognized as citizens would have zero implications, no legal consequence whatsoever or liability for the government. It is really a strictly symbolic gesture, and it is an important one, especially for family members of loved ones who fought and died for Canada. I see some of these family members on Remembrance Day every year. Many veterans went to war and fought for Canada, and never came back. We should remember them as Canadians.

Beyond this, there are a couple of other categories of lost Canadians, who, due to one of the discriminatory rules, such as the gender discrimination rule that existed in Canada, were not recognized as citizens. The NDP's amendments would aim to fix that as well. Suffice it to say, there are long lists of people who have been hurt by this set of rules, and successive governments have said they would fix it. However, it never came to be. Now we have a chance to actually do that work. It is important we do that work now.

I fear that the Conservatives would not support this effort. At committee, when the senator and the sponsor of the bill were before us at committee to talk about this bill, the Conservatives indicated they wanted to just ensure the bill would be left as is and address only the 28-year rule, not deal with the other categories of lost Canadians. To me, that is wrong. Their argument is that it is too complicated, that we do not have time and that if the matter goes back before the Senate, then an election might be called and the bill might just die. That is, of course, if the Conservatives want that to happen.

We could actually work together, collaboratively, to say that we are going to fix this problem once and for all, for lost Canadians. We want to make sure that people like Emma Kenyon, whose child was born stateless, would never be in that situation. We could actually make that happen by amending the bill.

I know that Conservative members, even their leader, would say that they support the immigrant community and that they are there for them. If they are there for them, first, I would say that Bill C-37 should never have stripped of their rights the immigrants who became Canadians, such as myself. If I had a child born abroad, my child should have citizenship conferred upon them. The Conservatives took that away. We have a chance today to fix that, to say that immigrants, such as myself, would be able to have the same rights as those who were born in Canada, and be able to pass on their citizenship rights to their children born abroad.

To be sure that there is a connection between individuals like that, we could put forward a connections test, such as, for example, having been in Canada for 1,095 days. This happens to be the same number of days required, through the Citizenship Act, for people getting their citizenship. We could put in provisions like that to ensure there is a clear connection between them and Canada. There is no reason to say that we are not going to do any of this and that we are just going to strip them of their rights and not recognize them. Let us fix this once and for all.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:21 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion to concur in the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration concerning the extension of time to consider Bill S-245.

Call in the members.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting, in both official languages, the following two reports of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

In relation to Bill S-245, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to certain Canadians, I have the honour of presenting the 14th report. The committee has studied the bill and, pursuant to Standing Order 97.1(1), requests a 30-day extension to consider it.

I also have the honour of presenting the 15th report. The committee has studied the bill and recommends to the House that it be granted the power during its consideration of Bill S-245, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to certain Canadians, to expand the scope of the bill such that the provisions of the bill be not limited to an application to retain his or her citizenship under section 8 as it is read before April 17, 2009.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to reiterate some of the things that have been said here in regard to that and maybe add some personal views to this.

For certain, we had witnesses come before this committee in regard to Bill S-245, an act to amend the Citizenship Act regarding the granting of citizenship to certain Canadians. That is the focus of the bill. It was the intent of Senator Yonah Martin, who brought it forward. It was made very clear at this committee that her intent was to have a specific, narrow focus for this particular bill, so that we can at least help someone. There have been years outstanding in this regard.

There are other areas, as my colleagues have just said, and there are other means of dealing with those. We dealt with that at the committee when Ms. Martin was here. I don't know why we're trying to extend it to do this now. I get the fact that we were extending it for 30 days. If the intent is not to bring in anything more than the wording changes that my colleague, the vice-chair and critic in this area, indicated, that's one thing. However, 30 days is a long time when you already have a bill that's very focused on what was requested to be done by the person who brought the bill forward.

I've been on this committee now since fall. I was on it five years ago when we went through a whole list of things. I didn't know my colleague was going to bring up the report today on the 300,000 workers needed in the agricultural industry as well. I come from the agricultural industry, Madam Chair. I can assure you that we dealt with this back in the days of TFWs and the shortage of labour in the agricultural industry then, trying to get people into activities here that could fulfill those spots. A lot of these people we're trying to help are already in Canada. We want to get them their citizenship as quickly as we can.

I would also agree that I'm not very enthralled with the idea of getting citizenship through the click of a button. I really believe that ceremonies mean something. They certainly do. At the citizenship ceremonies I've been at, the people there take them very seriously. They phone my office. We spend about half of our time dealing with citizenship issues in the Brandon area. We're very thankful to be one of the 15 places in Canada, with the Westman Immigrant Services in Brandon, that has been able to focus on the citizenship opportunities that are arising from the rural and northern initiative.

We want to make sure we keep this particular bill. There are lots of other ways of expanding it to those outside of this bill who are not included in it. This is very specific to a certain group of individuals. I think it's very important, even though we've extended it for 30 days, to certainly not use that amount of time to deal with it, when it can be done.... If it it is just wording and corrections to the bill, we can do it somewhat more accessibly. This bill is ready to go, as I say.

The idea of vandalizing the bill is not a threat. I mean, it's about precedent. It's not about whether we like the idea or not, as my colleague and critic from Calgary just indicated. It's about the precedent of what could happen to anybody's bill in the future.

I brought my own bill, Bill C-208, forward about two years ago, I guess. It was in regard to family farm transfers and family business transfers. We did get that consensus through Parliament, but there were talks about changes. The government decided to do that through regulatory mechanisms. We're still studying those because it was just brought in through the budget. We're very thankful that the bill has moved forward. It is active. People are able to use it across Canada.

With the type of bill that's before us, if we don't do this in the manner that has been put forward by the mover of Bill S-245—Senator Martin, herself—then it will likely end up doing what my colleague indicated, which is going back and forth with amendments and ping-ponging back and forth.

Everybody sitting here knows full well that the Senate agreed on this specific wording of this bill. It was the only way it passed the Senate to get here in the first place. I think we should honour the fact that all of the Senate indicated that's the way it should be. It's not just Ms. Martin, even though it's her bill. She was very diligent in making sure she got the consensus of the Senate to bring this bill forward in this manner.

I would say that it's not about the motivation to pass the bill or the motives in passing it. It's about the setting of this precedent for all future private members' bills in the House of Commons.

I think we know what she said and indicated in the bill itself.

There are a number of other issues in areas I pointed out—from the past experience I've had on this committee—that we could be dealing with. My colleagues mentioned some of them already. I've outlined a few more. We travelled extensively in Canada at that time, in order to look at the types of individuals who would be affected by some of the changes required from revamping the whole immigration act.

We're not suggesting we need to do that with this bill. In fact, we're emphatically saying we don't need to do that with this bill. This bill is very well written and focused on its requested outcomes. Therefore, Madam Chair, I'll be voting against the idea of the motion to put forward further amendments to this bill, which may allow for amendments that would be out of the scope of this bill.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Chair, I'm looking at the wording of the motion. It says, “to expand the scope of the Bill such that the provisions of the bill be not limited to an application to retain his or her citizenship under section 8 as it is read before April 17, 2009.” When I look at this.... It means we could then propose to amend anything in the Citizenship Act in the consideration of this bill.

I have very strong opinions about things like citizenship ceremonies being done in person and not having the “click for citizenship” option. Are those the types of table-drop motions members want to open themselves up to? I think it is a good legislative idea. I would like to work on a private member's bill for that to be the first and only option, and then have very strict conditions under which it could be considered.

There's also the question about “substantial connection with Canada” and how that should be defined. Again, I have very strong views on what it should be, but I am not proposing to insert them into this bill, unless you pass this motion and expand the scope. Then, I may be so gifted as to write it out. Then, we will have debates endlessly on how it should be considered. You've also given an extra 30 days, possibly, to do this. If we're just going to review the entire Citizenship Act.... Let's do a fulsome and complete review if we're going to go completely beyond the scope of the original intent of the bill.

Again, it's a warning. I don't think this is the right direction to go. I'm willing to put in whatever work is required to get Bill S-245 back to the House in as clear a legal language as the government believes it needs and with members of the public service here to explain what the effects would be of the different pieces of legislation we would be amending.

The way we would be amending it here.... As I said, the original intent and scope were very specific. Senator Yonah Martin was extremely direct and honest about what she was trying to do. My warning goes back to this. If you expand the scope of this bill, this is an idea: Do it to every single private member's bill from members of the House of Commons and the Senate. Some of us have long memories. We're like elephants. We will do it to every single other bill when we feel there is an opportunity to insert partisan agendas into them.

I don't think that was the intent here. On government legislation.... That is a different story. I think we all accept that things are done to amend them, but on private members' and Senate bills.... We know these are the initiatives of members. They are not driven by parties. They're driven by individual members who have one issue they really care about. We would leave that intent intact. It would allow members to legislate for themselves and persuade fellow parliamentarians that it is a good idea.

Again, it's a fair warning: Everything in the Citizenship Act becomes eligible for us to consider. There would be a lot more public servants here from the different branches explaining the impact of different changes we could potentially do.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm now going to move a second motion, a copy of which has been sent to the clerk, also in both French and English.

The motion is as follows:

That, the committee report the following to the House: that the Committee recommends to the House that it be granted the power during its consideration of Bill S-245, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians), to expand the scope of the Bill such that the provisions of the bill be not limited to an application to retain his or her citizenship under section 8 as it is read before April 17, 2009.

Madam Chair, we've had extensive discussion about this, particularly with witnesses who came before us. As we know, there are many categories of lost Canadians. Bill S-245 currently deals with the category of lost Canadians pertaining to the 28-year-old age rule. However, it leaves out many other categories of lost Canadians. Most notably, the current situations are such that many families are faced with forced separation because of the first-generation cut-off rule that came about with Bill C-37 back in 2009.

We've heard from witnesses who urged us—the committee, the government—to make amendments to this bill, which would be out of scope for this bill, to address those lost Canadians. There are other categories as well for which we can get into the details when we get to the clause-by-clause, but in order for that to be considered, this motion is required.

I'm therefore moving this motion so that we can follow the procedure absolutely, as has been advised to me by the head clerk and the legislative clerk sitting at the table, to make sure that we do not end up in a bad situation with this effort.

To that end, I hope committee members will support this motion I've put forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Kwan.

Ms. Kwan has moved a motion to request an extension regarding Bill S-245.

Go ahead, Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm happy to see everybody back after a constituency break of two weeks.

Related to Bill S-245, given the tight timeline of the requirement for the bill to be reported back to the House, I'm going to move the following motion, Madam Chair, a copy of which, in both French and English, has been sent to the clerk for distribution to the committee members. That motion reads as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 97.1, the committee request an extension of thirty (30) sitting days to consider Bill S-245, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians), referred to the committee on Wednesday, November 16, 2022, to give the Bill the consideration it requires and that the Chair present this request to the House.

Madam Chair, as indicated, we're kind of a little bit down to the wire here with the timeline. To ensure that the committee has the opportunity to do all the necessary work related to this bill, I therefore move this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Good afternoon, everybody. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 58 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Today, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, June 23, 2023, the committee will resume consideration of Bill S-245, an act to amend the Citizenship Act regarding the granting of citizenship to certain Canadians.

Ms. Kwan, you have the floor.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

We heard and you both heard from the previous panel: Senator Martin, who brought this bill before us, and of course, the sponsor of the bill in the House of Commons, MP Hallan. Both said that we should not be advancing amendments to Bill S-245.

Would you agree with that and, if not, why not? If yes, you can expand.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you again.

Could you explain to this committee the difference between someone who has received a grant of citizenship versus someone who has had their citizenship restored through a change in legislation, such as what is proposed through Bill S-245, please?