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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

We are resuming meeting number 70 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. We are continuing our study of Bill S-245.

When we left off, we were debating the question on whether the chair shall report the bill as amended to the House.

I have two people on the speaking list, Mr. Redekopp and Mr. Kmiec.

Mr. Redekopp.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There were just a couple of points made by Ms. Kwan. There was a short point about the intentions or the views of Senator Yonah Martin. It's commendable that the member reached out to our colleague from the Senate when the bill was tabled and that she met with Senator Yonah Martin and that she said her views had changed between then and now, at some point.

That's not comparable to us. We sit with our Senate colleagues in all of our meetings. I know that's different from the case for most caucuses, but our senators are involved in everything we do, with regular reports in caucus. They listen to the whole debate and they get to participate in it. They are equal members in our national caucus.

I should know. I chaired the national caucuses of the Conservative Party during the pandemic as well as a little before that and a little after that. Her views did not change. I thought she was very clear, when she came before the committee on Bill S-245, which was taken through the Senate so quickly, that there was a common understanding among senators that the substance of the bill was the same as that of Bill S-230.

That's why Senator Martin was able to convince her Senate colleagues to expedite the bill and to convince our caucus that the substance had not changed and that, therefore, this bill should be pushed through because it was essentially the same as before.

You can't interpret every conversation you have as a permission slip for any action to be taken. I did follow up and I have followed up repeatedly with the senator in question and also with the House of Commons sponsor of the bill, who was my predecessor on this committee, about their intentions concerning the contents of the bill.

At this final stage of the bill, I just want to ensure that we have a common understanding of how we got to this point with some of the work we have done and where we agreed on certain amendments to be passed. Again, having one-off discussions doesn't compare to being in the same caucus room. I know it's different for certain caucuses that don't have senators who sit with them regularly, but in this case we do, and I believe we've reflected what was Senator Martin's understanding when she testified at this committee as a witness. Also, we have been able to speak to her continually about stakeholder relations, the contents of the bill and certain amendments to be considered.

As my colleague Mr. Perkins said, when all of us are drafting bills, the tighter a bill and the simpler it is, the more likely you are to get consensus from more people. When bills are changed at committee stage—and it happens, and I agree. I'm sure if there is another IRPA bill or maybe the government will have a bill to amend the Citizenship Act at some point or a modernization bill, as they like to call it, there will be amendments made by the committee that may result in our having to return to our caucuses to get a review or to get agreement on them. That is how my caucus works. When a bill is substantively modified, seriously amended as this Bill S-245 will be, it should be reported back to the House and it will require us to go back to caucus.

We have a caucus meeting tomorrow. I think all of us have caucus meetings tomorrow, so I was wondering, Madam Chair, whether you would be willing to perhaps suspend the meeting, and I could take it back to my caucus, and we would meet tomorrow at 3:30. I could therefore get direction tomorrow morning from my caucus team and the Senate caucus members on the Conservative side as well, and I could come back to the committee. We could either expedite it or we could maybe reconsider it, but I would hope we could expedite it. I hope my caucus would give me very clear direction.

That is how we work. We have a consent system. We have caucus advisory committees, and I don't think that's a big revelation to anybody out there, but there is a substantial amount of consultation that every shadow minister has to do on their file and every sponsor of a private member's bill or a Senate bill has to do.

The substance has changed. The scope is much beyond that of the original version that came to this committee. On at least one of those matters—the adoption clauses—we did agree with them, and I'll stand by those votes. I thought we voted wisely to expand it there.

I think that would perhaps be better for us, because it is late and I know this committee met extensively on Monday. I was not here on Monday. Forgive me for that. It was my oldest son's junior high graduation, and that's one of those things you can't miss, especially when it's your first one who is graduating. I could not miss that, so I was present for that.

That would be my suggestion and perhaps you could take it under advisement.

I'll stop there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You are going out of scope. Please keep your remarks to Bill S-245. Otherwise, I will have to cut you off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Perkins.

I would request that you please keep your comments to Bill S-245, such as whether the bill can be reported to the House as amended.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'll be very brief and say that when Bill S-245 was tabled, I had a chance to meet with Senator Martin. I indicated to her my intentions of expanding the bill beyond the scope it touched on.

The senator made it clear to me that as long as I had the minister's support, I would have her support as well. That, of course, changed at the last minute, because later on, I was advised that she would no longer be able to proceed with that out of respect for her Conservative parliamentarians.

Anyway, I just wanted to set the record straight on the process that I embarked on. We are where we are. We've gone through several rounds of this. I don't want to prolong this, but I want to get that on the record.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

No, and I want to speak to that.

The reason it's still a no—despite the fact that we've had I don't know how many hours of debate to get to this point—is that I want to make very clear that both my position and the position of my caucus is that this was a bill where the sponsor came here and distinctly said where the tracks were to go, in her view. I reiterated and spoke to her again during the clause-by-clause consideration.... I just want to make sure it is understood that we were opposed to the expansion of the scope of the bill and the votes that were held then. We did not want to go beyond the original scope. It was a very narrow support and help for a certain group of lost Canadians that we were trying to address.

Expanding the scope then led to our side thinking of things we have heard from constituents and stakeholder groups and from witnesses before the committee on important amendments that could be made.

I then said in the House during the debate on the tabled reports from this committee, when concurrence was moved, that we would consider this a statutory review. We tried to demonstrate that this would be what we consider a statutory review of the Citizenship Act. Therefore, we would make amendments that we thought were necessary or important or that addressed concerns we heard in different communities.

Again, we showed some goodwill. We voted for some of the amendments, such as the improvements in language that the department brought forward and said needed to be done—the difference between Bill S-230 and Bill S-245 and the difference in language that needed to be brought forward. We decided that, yes, we would vote in favour of that.

There were measures in there to make sure that adopted children would be treated equally to children born in Canada and children naturalized in Canada. We supported those as well.

We did not support the substantial connection test being only 1,095 days, and we suggested it should be successive or continuous days. We thought that it could have been toughened up with some prohibitions on persons who have been convicted for crimes with two years plus a day. It would have strengthened the bill. We could then have voted for a substantial connection clause, especially if it had added more days.

I have to say, there was much unpleasantness in May, unfortunately, during those breach of privilege debates that we had to have at this committee. I will also remind you, Chair, and others at the committee, that I proposed a motion that would have seen us deal with amendments at the table by May 15—for other parties to submit them—now that the scope had been expanded.

I know that this was a long and arduous process. However, I think we've learned more about the Citizenship Act than any of us on this side and on that side probably knew. I have copious notes now, and I probably understand the Citizenship Act better than I ever wanted to. Now when somebody from my caucus comes has a question or a bright idea, I will use the content from this meeting to dissuade them from touching this act and making further amendments, because I realize how simple it is to lose entire groups of Canadians and make more lost Canadians in so doing.

I hope we also demonstrated the fact that we can be reasonable and can proceed to quick votes when necessary, when time is of the essence. We were making a point that the way May went down was, in my view, still not acceptable and that we all take this back to other committees that we may serve on so that this doesn't happen again.

When the sponsor of a bill asks that we not affect the contents of the bill, the substance, the scope and the principle, and that we leave it intact and have a simple up or down vote on whether we support the bill as is, it is a courtesy to our colleagues not to—what I will again call—vandalize their bill. I have used that language, and I will continue to use that language, I'm sure, at report stage, at third reading of the bill and then as it goes to the Senate.

The witness testimony that was heard at the Senate committee was that, if amendments were to be made, that would delay the passage of this bill and it should just be passed as the original. There was a certain gentleman who said that repeatedly. I have the witness testimony from that committee on Bill S-230 when it was being debated originally.

Now that there are amendments that are very likely to pass, this bill will likely go back to the Senate. That could be as late as perhaps the fall—late fall—or into the spring session, and who knows whether there will be an election then.

I am just laying out the concerns I have with the way this was done. This bill could have been passed way back in May. I am convinced of it. It could have been royally assented to and then we could have worked on a different piece of legislation, or a member could have tabled a different bill that could have been considered. That's not me, because I drew third from last in the private members' bill draw.

I will note, for the benefit of all of us, that senators seem to be able to legislate faster than members of Parliament. We get only one chance from one draw in each Parliament, while senators can keep drafting new bills and expediting them through the Senate, if they can convince their colleagues....

I just think there's a certain measure of unfairness that now has been built up in our system, whereby members of Parliament get to legislate less quickly and less easily than senators can, and senators don't have an elected mandate from the public to push the bill, so they push.... Nevertheless, they are nominated and they are appointed by the Governor General upon the advice of the Prime Minister, so they can do work like this, like Bill S‑245.

I just want to lay that out, because I've seen a few articles using the F-word and people know how much I love that word, because I've used it at other committees. It's not the one you think. It's the “filibuster” word. We have not done that. We have asked questions to wonder about the contents of the Citizenship Act and the impact on different groups of lost Canadians. We also had structural amendments that we wanted to do on the Citizenship Act, which we have proposed and laid before the committee. Unfortunately, none of our amendments passed even though I heard that some of them were.... The content was quite good and could form part of future private members' bills that any member can pick up and reuse. I just want to make sure that members remember that and also that the vice-chair of this committee and I can be merciful when we want to be merciful and allow things to continue and proceed to business.

Madam Chair, there is a group of hopeful Canadians out there—international students who really need our time and our efforts—and I really hope that this committee is going to do that, but with the state of this bill right now, I know that I'm going to have a very tough time presenting this to my caucus to convince them that we got something in it. There's nothing in here that I can really point to, nothing to convince them that this bill is the same substance as it was before it came to this committee intact. That is a concern to me. This might happen to any one of us with our bills in the future—where the content might be deleted and replaced with things that we don't agree with—but it looks silly when you're the sponsor of a bill and you're whining to have to either vote against it or against your colleague's bill just because the content has been drastically changed from the original.

I want to put that on the record, because I'm sure there will be journalists who will want to refer to this, and I would want to refer to it, too, and send them the clip. That way, it can answer all of their questions on our feelings and thoughts on the process up until this point.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

No, we don't. I've checked with the legislative clerk.

Shall the bill as amended carry?

(Bill S-245 as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

Mr. Kmiec.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Amendment G-10 reads that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 22 on page 1 the following:

Coming into Force

Order in council

3 This Act comes into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council, but no later than the 548th day after the day on which this Act receives royal assent.

I would like to give some thoughts on it.

Madam Chair, this motion introduces a “coming into force” provision to set a future date when the bill will take effect, but no later than 18 months after royal assent. I think we can all understand that, with all the complexity around this bill, IRCC will need time to prepare for the changes. This will help assure an orderly implementation of operational readiness, systems changes and the development of supporting regulatory changes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to move amendment G-10. However, I want to move the updated version that I believe was sent to members recently.

I would like to read it in both languages.

For my friend Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, I will read the French version first.

Je propose que le projet de loi S‑245 soit modifié par adjonction, après la ligne 23, page 1, de ce qui suit:

Entrée en vigueur

Décret

3 La présente loi entre en vigueur à la date fixée par décret, mais au plus tard le cinq cent quarante-huitième jour suivant la date de sa sanction.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will read amendment 47 on new clause 3.

That Bill S‐245 be amended by adding after line 22 on page 1 the following:

Section 27.2 of the Act is amended by adding the following after (d):

(h) overriding licensing boards under federal jurisdiction and provincial licensing boards with regards to foreign credentials, which include, but are not limited to, numerous fields such as medicine, nursing, pharmacology, engineering, among others, to enable immigrants to practice their professions in Canada, which may serve as a step towards gaining citizenship.

Madam Chair, this is also a very significant issue in Canada right now. Newcomers to our country have skills. They have training. They have had, in many cases, years of experience in a certain field. When they come to our country, they're told that they can't practise their profession, whether it's as a doctor, nurse, engineer, lawyer or veterinarian—there are many examples.

I've spoken to many people who have literally decades of experience in certain professions, yet the process to get licensed in Canada is so onerous that, essentially, they have to start again—spend many thousands of dollars, take years of education, essentially repeating what they've already learned, not only through school but often through experience.

Certainly in Canada, we need to have standards. We need to make sure that people who come here to work in those jobs have the skills and education required. That goes without saying, but at the same time, we know there are a lot of cases in which people meet that standard, and they would meet that standard but there are gatekeepers in the way. There are licensing boards. There are other boards that restrict the adoption of people into their groups so that those people cannot practise.

What is so important, I think, is that we eliminate these gatekeepers and allow for co-operation among these groups in our country so that we take advantage of the tremendous pool of labour that is just there before us.

It seems somewhat obvious to me, given that most parts of the country would agree that we have a shortage of doctors, for example. We have many newcomers who have been trained as doctors, who may have years and even decades of experience as a doctor in another country, but because of the way the licensing boards in Canada have set things up, they are just not able to go through the process. Either they can't get in or the process is so onerous and time-consuming and expensive that it's just not something they're able to do.

Particularly if you're a little bit older in years and you've already gone through school and have practised as a doctor, for example, for 20 or 25 years, to be told that you need to start again, the same as a 19-year-old or 20-year-old student and go through five or six years of education again, it's not a very attractive thing for many of these people. I've talked to them, and they've shared that exact thing with me.

This amendment goes to the part where the minister is able to make regulations. It would allow the minister to, essentially, force licensing boards to adopt certain standards when it comes to credentials, because sometimes the credentials are where people get tripped up. It lists some of the areas that this would work in, like medicine, nursing, pharmacology, engineering, etc. It basically gives the minister the ability to go in and write regulations that will ease the transition of newcomers to our country into the field that they're trying to work in.

This is, I believe, something very important and something that needs to be done. It wouldn't necessarily be simple. There would have to be co-operation, but I have confidence in our ability to co-operate on things like this, particularly today, right now in our country, when we have a shortage of doctors, for example.

I'm quite confident that there would be a way to co-operate to make this work, for all levels of government and licensing boards to work together, but if the minister had a little more power in this, I think it would be helpful.

That's why this amendment is here. That's what I'm hoping for. I really hope my colleagues will support this amendment.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I see that Mr. Perkins is on the list, but I would like to give my ruling on this amendment.

Bill S-245 amends the Citizenship Act to provide for the acquisition of Canadian citizenship. This amendment, which has been moved by Mr. Kmiec, proposes to establish a review mechanism for bonuses for senior public servants at the levels of EX-1 and DM-1 or above.

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states on page 770:

An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill.

In the opinion of the chair, the amendment is contrary to the principle of the bill. Therefore, this amendment is inadmissible.

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am going to read it into the record so the public is clear on what we're trying to do here.

It's that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 22 on page 1 the following:

Section 27.2 of the Act is amended by adding the following after (d):

(f) requiring that service standards of the department in managing application backlogs are tied to bonus compensation at the EX-1 and DM-1 levels and above on an annual basis, where bonus compensation is withheld or wholly rescinded should the departmental backlogs exceed more than five per cent of total applications.

I am trying to find it on my computer here quickly, Madam Chair. I have the department's spending for last year on how much was paid out in bonuses.

As we know, the department's immigration backlog is about 2.1 million. It grew by about 100,000 applications during the public service strike. Right after the pandemic, it was at a high-water mark, since 2015, of about 2.9 million applications that were backlogged.

In the Treasury Board Secretariat submission—the departmental plans that are submitted by the department when it tables its estimates—usually there are sections in there that refer to the service standard expectations and how many applications they expect to complete by a certain threshold. The department has a target for every stream, and usually they try to meet it within a fixed amount of time 80% of the time.

However, that's not the experience that many of us have with our constituents. Probably 90% of the work in my constituency office in Calgary is on immigration case files, and many of those are related to backlogs. Backlogs cause problems for constituents. They mix up their lives. It delays planning for family reunification. It makes it very difficult to plan trips for families. It's very difficult to know whether you can grow your business or not when you're waiting for someone's work permit.

Although this is my favourite example to give, it is not a happy example. I have a constituent who came to me about a month ago. Her temporary resident visa application was from Tanzania. This application has been 1,113 days in the system.

I have another constituent from Nigeria. Her husband wasn't able to join her to celebrate Christmas in 2022. Every time she logged into the system, the delay kept increasing—every single time. When my constituency office and I would follow up with the agents, they told us we would have to wait.

I don't think that's acceptable. In the private sector, compensation bonuses are based on performance. The department, at this level that I'm referring to, the EX-1 and DM-1, is not performing up to the standard of my expectations.

A few months ago, I filed an order paper question in the House asking for the total amount being spent on bonuses. Over $30 million was paid out in 2022. Sadly, I don't have the exact number before me here, but quite a bit of money was spent by the department on bonuses.

For the benefit of my constituents and yours, Madam Chair, and I'm sure just like every one of us around this table, I would like to tie that to performance. I don't think that's unreasonable. It's strictly on the service standards set by IRCC and nothing more. I think tying the two together would give a very strong incentive to the most senior members of the department to drive the department towards excellence.

When you have an application backlog of two million, including all applications that are within the service standard and those that are way beyond the service standard, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that bonus compensation be withheld or wholly rescinded if the backlogs exceed more than 5% of total applications.

You could do it by streams. You could do it by overall numbers. I think it's reasonable to do. I think it's time that our constituents back home see some type of accountability from this department that has, as we know, doubled its staff since 2015 and doubled its budget since 2015.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Amendment CPC-41 should be distributed. I'll speak to it once it's in everybody's hands.

Amendment CPC-41 is that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the Act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

24.1 (27) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Tet.

Tet is an important day of celebration and a time of reflection and hope for many in Asia. It's especially celebrated by many people in the Vietnamese community. I remember growing up with many friends, and a lot of my mom's clients especially were either from Vietnam or from Hong Kong. Tet is a chance for families and extended family members to celebrate together and give blessings for good luck and for cleansing of bad fortune in the past.

Again, it's really important for us to make sure that we enshrine this in legislation and ensure that persons don't have to pick between going to their citizenship ceremony and taking the oath to become new Canadians versus spending that time with family and being able to celebrate some of their cultural inheritance and holidays from their countries of origin after they come here to Canada. I think it's important to enshrine that in law and to make sure that Tet is one of those holidays.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Amendment CPC 40 should be distributed, and I'll just hold off until it is.

Amendment CPC-40 is that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the Act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

24.1 (26) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Onam.

Onam is an annual harvest festival celebrated predominantly by the people of Kerala. The purpose of the festival is to commemorate the mythical King Mahabali, celebrate the end of the monsoon season and welcome the harvest.

Again, Madam Chair, I believe it's important that we avoid such important cultural holidays when setting days for citizenship ceremonies so that persons don't need to choose between spending the day with their families and taking their oath of citizenship to become new Canadians.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is amendment CPC-34. There is a CPC-35 and a CPC-36 as well. I move that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the Act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada’s multicultural identity

24.1 (20) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Hanukkah.

In brief, the eight-day Jewish celebration known as Hanukkah commemorates the rededication during the second century before Christ of the second temple in Jerusalem. Often called the “festival of lights”, the holiday is celebrated with the lighting of the menorah, games, traditional foods like latkes and doughnuts, and playing games with the dreidel, which is a little instrument that you spin. It's kind of like a die, but you get to spin it too.

I think it's important to ensure that we don't have citizenship ceremonies on days when persons practising the Jewish faith will be unable to attend a citizenship ceremony to take the oath and would much rather spend time with their families. Hanukkah is a very important holiday. It's one of those high holy days in the Jewish calendar.

Thank you, Chair.