Bill C-3

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025)

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.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the immigration minister could not get up in her chair and defend her record. She cannot tell us how many rejected asylum seekers remain in Canada or how many thousands of people came here without a proper security screening, or even give the most basic answers about her job. Her signature bill, Bill C-3, could give citizenship to millions of people abroad with the click of a button, and she has no details and no explanations.

I have a simple question for the minister: How many people, under this piece of legislation, would become Canadian?

Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a great time to get up to speak. We are into the Christmas season now and kind of in that spirit. I was reading this morning about something the NDP interim leader, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, said yesterday. Apparently he had asked the Prime Minister to grant party status again to the NDP in order to, in his words, make the House “function better”. I do not think it is a good idea.

I was thinking that maybe the member was just continuing his comedy shtick from the parliamentary press gallery thing a week ago, which, by the way, I think was quite funny. He was not as funny as our leader, but it was pretty good. Actually, if we are in that mode, I have a better idea of something to ask the Prime Minister, and that is to grant Canadians what they really want, which is for him to go back to his job at Brookfield and allow the Conservatives to run this country and fix the massive problems we have.

Continuing on the Christmas theme, I want to give heartfelt thanks to all the support staff in this place. There are translators, pages, people in food services, security people and all kinds of staff in this building, including our party staff and all our own staff, who work so hard. I really want to thank all of them and wish them all a very merry Christmas.

I also want to give a special shout-out to the parliamentary dining room staff. They are always missed in the thanks. I am not a very good tipper, so this is my way to make up for that. Canadians would probably be happy to know that oftentimes many of us from different parties meet in the dining room and talk about substantive issues. We actually are able to talk with each other and get business done. I want to thank Lynn, Charles, Guy and all the staff in the parliamentary dining room, as well as my dining room colleagues I talk to many times; they all know who they are. I thank them so much and wish them all a merry Christmas.

I will move on to Bill C-12. This was the marquee legislation of the government when it was introduced as Bill C-2. Just so everybody is clear, Bill C-2 is the designation for the first bill introduced by a government. Bill C-1 is kind of a technical thing. The government members put all their effort into Bill C-2; it is the most important thing. Has anyone heard of the current session's Bill C-2? No, they have not, because it became stalled because it was a mess.

The pieces of Bill C-2 that the government could rescue came into what is now Bill C-12, which is what we are debating today. This is part of the government's pledge to do amazing things at unimaginable speeds. Here we are, and there have been no amazing things done. In the whole year, I think the government has passed two bills. If that is unimaginable speed, then I do not understand the word “unimaginable”.

The purpose of the bill, partly, was to fix immigration problems around asylum and deportation, because everybody in our country knows we have tremendous problems in that area. There were some good things in it, but there were so many more things that we needed to do in order to properly fix our flawed system.

We proposed 27 different amendments, and I think eight of them were accepted, so there were many that were not accepted. I have to commend the Bloc, which worked very hard at committee to help. Its members put forward some of their own ideas, we put forward ideas, and we were able to work together and get the committee to agree to a lot of things.

Even the Liberals agreed to some things, but then of course had the Speaker turn them down once they came to the House. For example, with respect to foreign criminals, we had created an amendment that would deport people convicted of serious crimes, because there are many cases where judges are letting immigrants get lesser penalties. However, that amendment was not passed by the Liberals.

Our asylum system is so broken. There is a story today from British Columbia, where 14 people were identified by the British Columbia extortion task force and were charged with extortion. A lot of effort was put into this. Extortion is a big problem right across the country, but particularly in B.C. Guess what all 14 of these newly charged people did. They claimed asylum, so their charges are now on hold because they are in the asylum system. It is probably a four-year wait, and of course they get benefits. They receive all the wonderful benefits we choose to give to people who are claiming asylum, even though we know the claims are illegitimate.

We put forward an amendment to automatically reject asylum claims from any non-Canadian guilty of a serious offence, but of course it was rejected by the Liberal government. We put forward many amendments to restore sanity to the asylum system, such as that lying to an officer would result in an automatic removal, that knowingly withholding information would automatically terminate a claim and that not showing up or not complying with basic requirements would terminate a claim.

We also proposed that once someone had been denied, but then appealed, only emergency health care would be provided. That was rejected. We also proposed that designated learning institutions be on the hook when they bring someone into the country and that person claims asylum, but that was also rejected by the Liberals.

We did work on human trafficking, trying to get amendments for tougher penalties to protect victims, but of course the Liberals voted no. We also put forward amendments on transparency so we could bring back some basic transparency on reporting. Often we have to do deep questioning and written questions to the government to try to find answers, and the government refuses to provide some of that information. Some of the amendments were passed, but not all of them, and some of them were stripped out.

Probably the biggest success the Conservatives got was that we proposed that the government would not be able to do mass conversion of temporary residents to permanent residents; that amendment was accepted. We also proposed that the government would not be allowed to give mass extension to temporary residents with student visas and things like that.

The bottom line is that we worked very hard to toughen up and fix our weak system. Unfortunately the Liberals blocked most of this work.

Speaking of working hard, I want to mention that we on this side of the House have put a lot of effort and work into improving our immigration policies. A lot of people think the opposition's job is to oppose, and it certainly is, but we also want to propose solutions, so we have proposed many. Our entire caucus worked very hard under the leadership of our shadow minister for immigration, who is the member for Calgary-Nose Hill. She worked very hard and did a great job of making sure we had substantive policies that would actually help to fix our country.

For example, we worked to restore the value of citizenship. That is a problem we have in our country right now. For example, we were very concerned about Bill C-3. It is the bill that would generate endless chain migration, which allows people not born in the country to become citizens, have their children not born in the country become citizens, and on and on. We tried very hard to put some common-sense amendments in the bill, which, of course, were rejected.

The other big one is online citizenship ceremonies. The one-click online citizenship ceremonies are still, certainly in Saskatchewan, the majority of the ceremonies. For many newcomers to our country, the ceremony is the most important thing to them in this phase of their life. To have them sitting behind a computer at home because it is expedient for the department is just embarrassing, frankly. It does not convey the true purpose and meaning of becoming a Canadian citizen. We pushed hard to eliminate the online ceremony, and the government is, I think, slowly moving in that direction, but not fast enough, in our opinion.

We suggested an end to the temporary foreign worker program. There is a youth jobs crisis in our country right now; the unemployment rate for Canadian youth is hovering around 15%, which is far too high. The temporary foreign worker program is part of the reason.

Of course we need to consider agriculture and some other considerations, but generally we have way too many temporary foreign workers, and we do not need our immigration minister to be the chief HR officer for a place like Tim Hortons. I have nothing against Tim Hortons, but there are many Canadians who could work there. The minister confirmed, by the way, just a couple of days ago, that the program is staying. She said that nothing is going to be changing there.

We worked hard to restore the sanity of sentencing immigrant criminals. The member for Calgary-Nose Hill introduced Bill C-220 to end sentencing reduction for immigrants. This is a big issue. An editorial in The Globe and Mail said that judges in our current system “are protecting non-citizens from the consequences of their criminal conduct”, and the author lamented that no one seems to consider “whether Canadians would want those offenders as citizens” in the first place.

Essentially, judges look at the current rules, which say that if a non-citizen is convicted of a serious crime with a sentence of six months or more in jail, they have to be deported, and they reduce the sentence to below six months so it does not affect the non-citizen's citizenship status, which we think is wrong. There should be one standard for all people. Whether they are a Canadian citizen or non-Canadian citizen, the same standard should apply, and that is not the case.

Of course, there is ending the pull factor for asylum, including getting rid of free hotel rooms, endless medical benefits, and departure tracking, which are other things we do not do in our country that the Conservatives have some good policy ideas for.

There are so many things that we worked hard on this year in order to provide good policy solutions for the government. Pretty much all of them were, of course, rejected, but the bottom line is that we worked hard on them. We believe that we can fix our system, but there are so many things that need to be done.

The Liberals took the lazy route with Bill C-12 and did the bare minimum number of things that need to be done, but there is so much more. Conservatives will continue to work to fix legislation like C-12 and continue to propose solutions to make this country better and to make our immigration system work better.

Once again I wish everyone in the House a merry Christmas.

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

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, it is important to note that in introducing the nearly 130-page document originally known as Bill C-2, an act respecting certain measures relating to the security of the border between Canada and the United States and respecting other related security measures, the government was doing a complete 180°. I say this because, as I am sure members will recall, the Liberal government has mismanaged a lot of border crises over the past few years. I am thinking in particular of the wave of irregular immigration at Roxham Road, the human smuggling rings that sprang up at the border to take advantage of migrants and that continue to thrive, the Mexican cartels that set up shop at the border, the wave of car thefts at the port of Montreal, gun trafficking, and plenty of other examples. The Bloc Québécois believes that with Bill C-12, formerly Bill C-2, the government is indeed taking a step in the right direction. However, we also believe that this bill, if passed, leaves one major problem unaddressed, and that is the staffing shortage at the CBSA and the RCMP.

Let us go back a few months. In its election platform, the Liberal Party promised to hire 1,000 additional RCMP officers and 1,000 additional CBSA officers. The Speech from the Throne mentioned the 1,000 RCMP officers, but there was no mention of the 1,000 CBSA officers.

The customs union is saying that the CBSA needs another 2,000 to 3,000 officers in order to do its job properly. Although the government stated that the border plan it introduced in December 2024 would result in the hiring of additional officers, I am sure members will agree with me that we are still nowhere near the staffing levels the union asked for, and nowhere near the number the Liberals promised during the election campaign. This is another broken Liberal promise.

In an effort to resolve this issue, the Bloc Québécois and the customs union are asking Ottawa to allow CBSA officers to patrol between border crossings. The aim is not to replace the RCMP, but rather to give federal agencies more depth and flexibility in enforcing the law. This would not require a legislative amendment, only a regulatory change, or maybe even just an administrative change. It really depends on whether the federal government is willing to implement more effective measures to secure the border, while responding to a request from current officers. This is a straightforward and practical request that is coming from the union, but we know what the Liberals are going to say: Why do things the easy way when we can do them the hard way?

The Bloc Québécois has been calling on the government to make changes for some time now. Overall, we are satisfied with the principle of Bill C‑12. We applaud the government's intention. The bill seeks to address several issues that we have been raising for months, if not years. Like all Quebeckers, the Bloc Québécois remains staunchly committed to welcoming people fleeing persecution and hardship.

The bill would mostly ensure that the system that welcomes migrants is fairer and more effective. I wish to commend my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for their tireless work on this bill. I am sure that like me, many members of the House have noticed that the important parliamentary work and committee work being done in this Parliament does not appear to be of much interest to the new Prime Minister of Canada. He seems far more interested in meeting with the leaders of what I will politely call countries with unsavoury reputations, such as China and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, parliamentarians are working diligently in committee to improve bills and to contribute to reports and recommendations on issues that are often complex and poignant. I am thinking in particular of the colleagues with whom I have the honour of serving on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, as well as my peers on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, whom I recently worked with to study Bill C-3 on lost Canadians. Our amendments to that bill received support from the majority of committee members, but they were stripped out when the bill got to the House.

Today, I must reiterate the importance of the work parliamentarians do in committee. I know that this aspect of our work requires a lot of rigour, precision and, above all, willingness to work together and improve things. Unfortunately, it is clear that this government does not seem to understand the amount of work that is involved in serving on a committee or the legislative scope of that work.

As I was saying, overall, the Bloc Québécois is satisfied with the principle of Bill C-12, and we applaud the government's intention. However, several questions remain unanswered. I am thinking about resources in particular, but also about processing times for asylum claims, which I have to say are more than problematic. After analyzing the bill, I am having a hard time understanding how those processing times will be reduced. I quickly realized what the government is really doing with Bill C-12: It is transferring the influx of claims from one place to another and it is getting away with it by saying that it has solved the problem.

The public servants who process asylum claims and those who conduct pre-removal risk assessments have different training. That was mentioned in committee. Given that the training is different, the claims will likely just be transferred from one processing centre to another, which means that the overall volume of claims will not change. The claims will just be moved from place to another. Not only will the volume of claims not change, but the processing times will skyrocket. There will likely not be enough employees with the training to deal with pre-removal risk assessments. They will not be able to deal with those claims.

Obviously, my other concern is the distribution of asylum seekers. It is not right that asylum seekers arriving in Montreal suddenly find themselves without shelter because we lack the means to properly provide for them on arrival. Meanwhile, some provinces in the rest of Canada are doing absolutely nothing. They are making no effort at all to take in their share of these asylum seekers.

I want to remind the House that, in 2024, the former immigration minister, the member for Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, who is currently the heritage minister and is already making unseemly remarks, announced with great fanfare that he was going to form a committee and make sure asylum seekers were distributed across the country. It was all a dog and pony show. He held a big press conference alongside provincial immigration ministers from across the country. The federal government proudly proclaimed that it had finally found the solution. Since then, all that we have heard is dead silence. The committee was never mentioned again. The Liberals never came up with any more solutions. It is a damn shame.

As I was saying, we support the basic principle of Bill C‑12. I noticed the government's attempt to respond to the Bloc Québécois's priority request to remove the 14-day rule, which was included in the Canada-U.S. safe third country agreement and which has created a loophole that has been exploited by human smuggling networks at the border. However, in Bill C‑12, the 14-day rule was not dealt with in the right way. The actual impact of the alternative that has been proposed is pretty hard to pin down. Quite frankly, I think that the networks that are currently exploiting migrants will still be able to do the same thing even if Bill C‑12 passes.

Simply put, the safe third country agreement should have been reopened, as requested by the Bloc Québécois, so that this provision could be removed, because that would have put an end to the exploitation of vulnerable people at the mercy of smuggling networks. The government decided otherwise, but I do not think people understand the extent to which human smuggling networks take advantage of the 14-day rule. We talk to people on both sides of the border, in the United States and here in Quebec and Canada, who work with migrants and try to help them. These people tell us that human smugglers are using the 14-day rule.

They used to just ask migrants for money to smuggle them across the border illegally. Now, they add a clause to the contract saying that they will smuggle them across illegally and, as a bonus, they will hide them for 14 days. After hiding for 14 days, migrants can apply for asylum. The thing is that these people, who have to hide for 14 days because of this provision in the safe third country agreement, are at the mercy of human smuggling networks for 14 days and do not dare to leave their hiding place because, if they do, their asylum claim might no longer be valid.

It is frankly mind-boggling. The same legislation tells migrants that they have to break the law in order to comply with the law. If they cross the border irregularly, then they have to hide in the country for 14 days. Once they have done that, once they have broken the law, they can apply for asylum, and their application will be admissible.

What G7 government asks people to break the law in order to comply with it later?

Speaker's Ruling

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is a good question. The idea is that committees are masters of their own proceedings. When we study a bill and we come to an agreement on amendments, even if they do not please the government, it is strange, not to say unacceptable, that the Speaker of the House can then rule amendments that were duly debated and adopted out of order. That means that they disappear completely from the bill, which I find rather odd. To answer the member for Winnipeg North's question, perhaps we could look at the procedure to ensure that this does not happen anymore.

We had a similar situation with Bill C‑3. The committee did a lot of hard work and then, because the government of the day was not happy with the result, it teamed up with the NDP to destroy all the democratic work the committee had accomplished. The Bloc Québécois was in a minority position in 2011 and 2015, and the rules provide that, when a party is not recognized, it does not get permanent seats on committees. That does not mean that the work done in committee should not be respected. In my opinion, that should be changed in order to safeguard democratic debates that are truly important.

Sergei Magnitsky International Anti-Corruption and Human Rights Act

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

Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to be able to give this speech this evening because what I have to say is very important to me.

Since the new Parliament began, many of my colleagues in the House will certainly have noticed, as I have, that the importance of parliamentary and committee work seems of little interest to the Prime Minister of Canada. He seems far too busy meeting with leaders of what I would call dubious countries, to put it politely, including China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In the meantime, parliamentarians are working hard in committee to improve bills or collaborate on drafting reports and recommendations, often involving complex files, based on testimony that is frequently heart-wrenching or hard to hear. On this point, I am thinking more specifically of the colleagues I have the honour to serve with on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights or my friends on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, with whom I recently studied Bill C-3 on lost Canadians, and whose amendments, though supported by the majority of committee members, were defeated once they arrived in the House.

Today, I feel I must highlight the importance of the work carried out by parliamentarians in committee. I know that this aspect of our work requires thoroughness, precision and, above all, a willingness to collaborate and improve things. Unfortunately, as we know, committee proceedings are not the most exciting thing to watch on television. However, committees are where the most important work is done for the future. Committee work has a concrete impact on people's lives.

Unfortunately, as I said at the outset, I do not believe that this government fully understands the legislative implications or the scope of the work involved. Without wanting to make puns like my Conservative friends do, who cares about committee work? That is probably what the Prime Minister would say. I say this because, while the bill before us today incorporates several aspects of Bill C‑281, some elements are quite different.

Bill C-219 was introduced by our Conservative colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. I would like to send him my thoughts because he is an extraordinary person and a pleasure to work with, and he is going through some difficult times these days. Bill C-219 is similar in some ways to Bill C-281, which died on the Order Paper in the Senate after receiving unanimous support in the House of Commons at third reading, including support from the Bloc Québécois.

As I was saying, Bill C-219 incorporates some aspects of Bill C-281, but with a few significant differences. Committee work will therefore be essential—as I think my Liberal colleagues have said—to verify the scope and impact of the bill and to propose amendments as necessary. More specifically, as my colleague from Jonquière mentioned in a question earlier, I am thinking that the request to publish the names and status of political prisoners may not sit well with immediate family members for a number of obvious reasons. For example, a family could be afraid of reprisals from the country in question and could be totally opposed to making the information publicly available. This point was raised by the Bloc Québécois during the study of Bill C-281.

The bill also introduces the concept of transnational repression, a request that was also made by the Bloc Québécois. We even included it in our election platform. I would like to thank my colleague, the sponsor of the bill, for including this concept in his bill. It is extremely important and it is certainly very timely. The world is changing at breakneck speed, and transnational repression is happening here, in Quebec and Canada. My Uyghur friends, my Tibetan friends, my friends from Taiwan, my friends from Hong Kong will attest to that. It is pretty obvious. In that sense, what would this bill actually do?

Bill C‑219 amends several laws, including the Sergei Magnitsky Law, to provide that “transnational repression be sanctioned”, which is very positive, and that “visas or other documents must not be issued to immediate family members of a foreign national who is the subject of an order or regulation”. The enactment amends the Special Economic Measures Act to change that act's long title and shorten it to the “Sergei Magnitsky Global Sanctions Act”. Mr. Magnitsky wound up in a Moscow prison where he was tortured for 358 days for alleged tax evasion. He succumbed to untreated pancreatitis in a grim way in 2009 at the age of 38.

The bill proposes a definition of “prisoner of conscience”. It reads as follows:

an individual who, in contravention of international human rights standards, has been detained or otherwise physically restricted solely because of their identity or their conscientiously held beliefs, including religious or political beliefs.

As I said earlier, the bill also adds a definition for transnational repression. I want to reiterate that this was a Bloc Québécois proposal made during the last election campaign. Since we have fewer members that can introduce bills, we appreciate when our colleagues incorporate our ideas into theirs.

The bill defines “transnational repression” as follows:

tactics used by a foreign state to intimidate, harass, surveil or threaten individuals or groups located outside the state borders or physically harm such individuals or members of such groups, including elected officials, political dissidents, human rights defenders, exiled journalists, diaspora communities, civil society activists and refugees, for the purpose of silencing dissent and stifling activism.

As I speak these words in the House, I am thinking of several members of various communities who, here in this very place, day after day, week after week, bear the burden of foreign repression, of transnational repression. They are human rights defenders, refugees and civil society activists. These people, who were once acquaintances, have now become friends. I do not want to identify them by name, but I know for a fact that they know who they are. I am thinking of people who care deeply about democracy and justice and who, simply because they believe in a better future for their loved ones, are subjected to intimidation, harassment, threats and even imprisonment and torture.

I am thinking of people like Jimmy Lai, a human rights defender who has become a prominent figure in the fight for freedom and democracy. Right now, Mr. Lai, who is 77 years old, is languishing in appalling conditions in a Hong Kong prison. His crime was that he supported journalism and freedom of the press. Obviously, my thoughts are with his son, Sebastien, to whom I once again express my solidarity.

Repression can be insidious, so insidious that it can be hard to see at times. Anyone who encourages repression must be held accountable for their actions. Bill S‑219 therefore adds something to the legislation. It adds the fact that sanctions can be imposed in cases of transnational repression. The bill would also force the minister to respond to a parliamentary motion calling for sanctions against a corrupt foreign leader.

This means that I, along with my Bloc Québécois colleagues, will support Bill C‑219 introduced by my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. While the provisions of the Sergei Magnitsky Law and the Special Economic Measures Act both allow for targeted sanctions, only the Special Economic Measures Act is currently used for this purpose. The Sergei Magnitsky Law has not been used to implement targeted sanctions since 2018. My colleague's bill also helps reignite discussions on this subject, which I think is extremely positive.

I will conclude my speech by commending my colleague's work and confirming that the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑219, which will, however, have to be studied in committee. We will be thorough and we will collaborate, as usual. I am more than ready to work with my colleagues. This bill is likely to be studied by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, of which I am a member. We will be there. I believe this is a bill that can truly make a difference and have a real impact on people who are fighting for the freedom of their loved ones.

I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to deliver this speech tonight.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

November 20, 2025

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that Mr. Ken MacKillop, Deputy of the Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 20th day of November, 2025, at 10:29 a.m.

Yours sincerely,

Ryan McAdam

Executive Director

Office of the Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates the bills assented to were Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025)—Chapter 5, and Bill S-1001, An Act to authorize Gore Mutual Insurance Company to apply to be continued as a body corporate under the laws of the Province of Quebec.

Bail and Sentencing Reform Act

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to my hon. colleague, this may seem slightly off topic from the current bill, but it was important for me to rise as a member of a party that has never been a recognized party in the House so that Canadians know that those of us who are not permanent members of committees are aware of what happens in committee.

This is prompted by the member's comment that NDP members were not sitting on the committee. I am not putting myself in their shoes, but having been in their shoes many times, I want to assure Canadians that when we bring forward amendments as members of parties in this place but not recognized parties, we have access to what happens in committee. In the case of the colleague who sits right in front of me, the hon. member for Vancouver East, no one knows more about that piece of legislation than she does, having worked on it through many iterations and through many committees.

The hon. member may disagree with the way colleagues voted, including me, but it was not because we did not have access to the information. We had more than enough access to the information. We wanted to see Bill C-3 pass.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to an issue that is fundamental to what Canadians want from their government: security, safety and the conviction that the law will protect innocent people rather than reward violent criminals.

Canadians nationwide are dealing with the fallout from a justice system that puts violent repeat offenders ahead of the security of families and small business owners after 10 arduous years of Liberal soft-on-crime policies. The government has now acknowledged with the introduction of this bill that the catch-and-release strategy has failed. However, it is not enough to ensure that Canadians are safe in their country and that those who commit crimes are jailed and not out on bail.

It is good to see that the government has finally responded to the pleas of the Conservative Party. We have been advocating over the last four years for the scrapping of Liberal bail. One of the things we want to see in this bill changed, enhanced or improved is the adoption of the principle of public and community safety. At its base level, that means eliminating the principle of restraint, presuming detention for major offences and turning Liberal redundancy into mandatory actions from judges.

Let me tell members why. I made a promise to a group of people in my riding several months ago after the brutal assault of a three-year-old toddler on a street on which I grew up, at my grandparents' house in Welland. I made the promise that I would stand in this House until bail reform and the justice system were changed for people like Daniel Senecal. This repeat offender was recently released after serving just one year after sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy. He served one year for that sexual assault and then was released into the community. Within weeks, he brutally sexually assaulted a three-year-old girl in Welland. While she was in her bed at night, this three-year-old toddler was brutally assaulted and left for dead.

I know everybody in this House is familiar with that case, and as I continue to talk over and over again about it, I am grateful to the many people in my community who have supported the petition that I launched and that was tabled in the House about a week ago. Tens of thousands of people have called on the government to change bail laws and initiate bail reform.

It is becoming almost a habit in my riding on Saturday mornings to meet with people who are survivors of sexual assault or who have children who are survivors of sexual assault. We sit and have coffee on Saturday mornings in my office, and they give me the strength to carry on in this quest. This last Saturday, more people arrived. It seems they know that the only voice they have is their representative on the floor of the House of Commons. They have spoken to municipal councils around southern Ontario to ask municipal governments to help support this effort to get bail reform on the floor of the House of Commons.

In a vacuum, people will do anything they can to raise awareness, from the delegations around southern Ontario to municipal councils to the protests that have popped up across Niagara. There were several protests in front of courthouses and municipal buildings. These are people who are frustrated with the lack of action after 10 years of catch-and-release.

A police officer came to my office a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him, “What is the pattern of catch-and-release, because I hear a lot about it and the Conservatives have been talking about it?” He looked at me and said that I would not believe it, but over the span of about 60 days, he arrested the same guy 30 times. In some cases, it is now a situation where they sit in the back of a cruiser, they do a promise to appear and then they let someone out, only to rearrest them a few hours later.

That brings me to the question of release after the shortest possible time under the least onerous conditions.

Daniel Senecal, the guy who raped and beat a three-year-old toddler, was out early, reoffended and is now in jail awaiting trial. Under this legislation, he would get out again in probably about seven years, if he is convicted. We are waiting for that trial.

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader asks over and over again why we do not just let this bill go to committee, where we can do the work and make amendments. Well, we did that with Bill C-3 at the immigration committee. We did a lot of work, as my colleague will attest to. We did months of work and made lots of positive amendments to the legislation, but once we brought it back to the House, the government wiped it out in a single vote.

I understand the government would rather us not talk about that here on the floor of the House of Commons, because it raises too many of the issues that are inherent in this bill, too many of the shortcomings, but we will take it to committee eventually and we will propose amendments. I guarantee that when those amendments come back to this House, the government will reverse everything we would like to do to improve this legislation. That is a travesty.

When we talk about co-operation, the government likes to say that this is a minority Parliament and that we should co-operate. I say to prove it, because we have tried and members have voted us down. We will try again with this legislation. I request that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader commit today to taking our amendments seriously and not just throwing them out when it comes to report stage. I hope he will accommodate that request today.

I want to move on to a couple of things in this proposed act about the CBSA. I am going to refer to it as the CBSA facade. We heard the minister say that he wants to hire 1,000 new recruits at the RCMP and 1,000 new recruits at the CBSA. That sounds interesting and sounds like a lot, but once we take into account retirements, attrition and people who leave the profession, it amounts to a drop in the bucket of what the CBSA actually needs to protect Canadians today.

There is not enough training capacity to train 1,000 new officers for the CBSA right now. This is the first problem. Second, we have a serious problem of morale at the CBSA and a very high level of suicide. The morale level is bad, and the government needs to dig into that to make improvements at the CBSA so it becomes a profession that people would like to join.

Interestingly, the CBSA recently reduced its detention capacity across Canada. We are talking about jail and not bail, and the CBSA has actually reduced by over 40% the detention capacity across Canada. How is this reality reflected in the legislation we are talking about today?

There is lots more I could speak about. I would like to take some time to talk about the extortion problem in this country and the crime issues. In my community, I have several businesses that I still manage, and I see that the level of crime in our streets has gone up substantially over the last number of years. It saddens me that in my small town of Port Colborne, crime is at a fearful level for the business community. We have never seen the number of security cameras we see today at our homes, at businesses, at commercial buildings and on our streets in our communities and municipalities. We rely on them now for policing and to help police catch criminals roaming our streets.

In conclusion, I really hope the government will take up our suggestions at committee when the bill goes to committee and will help us improve it. Let me be clear. I will continue to rise in this House day after day on this issue until criminals like Daniel Senecal spend the rest of their lives in jail and until he never gets another chance to assault a little toddler, as he did in Welland such a short time ago.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member generously offered to accept our comments and suggestions. Just recently, Bill C-3 was passed, and there were a lot of comments and suggestions made at committee that were reversed.

Why should we trust that our suggestions and comments will be moved forward?

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, from the moment she was elected, that member has committed herself to matters of fundamental justice, and that is exactly what is at stake with Bill C-3.

In December 2023, as colleagues will know, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that there is an inconsistency in Canadian citizenship law, so Bill C-3 would rectify that inconsistency. Whereas Canadians who were born here or naturalized here can of course pass down their citizenship to their children, that same right is not available to Canadians who were born abroad with children who were also born abroad.

I urge colleagues to get behind Bill C-3. I thank the NDP for its support. This is the measure that would improve Canadian citizenship law in conforming with the Charter.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-3 sets out a balanced, straightforward framework for citizenship. Canadian parents born abroad would be able to pass on their citizenship if they can prove a substantial connection to Canada before the birth or adoption of their child. This is fair.

Would the parliamentary secretary for immigration please share with the House what would be at stake if we were not to act today to advance Bill C-3?

Business of the House

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there was a lot in there that was kind of like a Trey Yesavage slider. We will try not to swing or flail too much at all of those hard pitches from the opposition House leader.

Next week, Canadians will have a choice. An affordable budget for an affordable life that would build Canada strong and build the biggest and best economy in the G7 is one choice they have. The second choice is a Christmas election that no one wants, that would follow six months from the last election and that would deprive Canadians of benefiting from the budgetary plan that the government will be presenting next week.

The opposition serves up green eggs and ham, but on this side of the House there is a plan to build Canada strong and build the strongest economy in the G7.

This afternoon, we will continue the second reading debate of Bill C-14, the bail act. Tomorrow, we will resume debate at report stage of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025).

On Monday at noon we will go back to debate on Bill C-14, the bail and sentencing reform act, and in the afternoon we will turn to Bill C-4, with major tax cuts for all taxpaying Canadians contained in the affordability legislation, at report stage and third reading.

Next Tuesday we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C-13, an act to implement the protocol on the accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Tuesday will be a big day. At 4 p.m. the Minister of Finance and National Revenue will deliver the budget speech.

I would also like to inform all hon. colleagues that, as we approach the fateful day when the opposition gets to decide whether it deprives Canadians of their Christmas, Wednesday and Thursday will be days reserved for debate on the budget.

Bail and Sentencing Reform Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her work.

We have been hearing a lot about the work done in committee and how important that work is when legislation like Bill C‑14 makes its way there.

Unfortunately, something happened recently with Bill C‑3, which the committee worked on and amended. The bill that came back here was not the same as the original version because we had amended it with Conservative support. However, the Liberal government decided to undo those amendments using House of Commons procedure.

Apparently the government decided not to respect the work done in committee. We are in favour of Bill C‑14, but we want to work on it in committee. We have concerns.

I would like assurances from my colleague today that the committee's work on Bill C‑14 will be respected and that what happened to Bill C‑3 will not happen to Bill C‑14.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today to address what I believe is a major issue, one that has been talked about at great length.

I am going to go back to the last federal election. The constituents of Winnipeg North looked to the political entities and made a decision to support certain specific policy ideas and initiatives. The Prime Minister talked a great deal about building Canada strong, about one economy and about looking at ways to expand trade beyond the United States, but the Liberals also spent a great deal of time talking about bail reform.

We understand the concerns Canadians have regarding safer communities. That is why the Prime Minister and every Liberal member of Parliament have spent a great deal of time and energy dealing with the subject. Two ministers were assigned the responsibility of bringing forward bail legislation that reflects what we were hearing at the doors. Ministers have done extensive consultations on substantial issues like extortion, violent repeat offenders, automobile theft, sexual assault and many other crimes that take place in our communities.

The legislation is not only a reflection of what Canadians have been telling Liberal members of Parliament over the last number of months; it is also a reflection of what stakeholders have been telling the government. It has widespread support throughout our nation, I would suggest. That does not mean it is absolutely perfect legislation; I do not think anyone is saying that, but I will continue to advocate that if members are serious when they talk about the need for bail reform, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that we cannot deliver that to Canadians before the end of the year.

I do not know how many Conservatives I have heard talking about the importance of bail reform. They are challenging the government to bring it forward. It is here, and we are debating it. I am now going to turn the tables and tell my Conservative friends that if they want to deliver on bail reform, we have the opportunity to do just that.

I would remind all members of the House, but in particular my Conservative friends, that this is not something one political party is talking about; it is something Canadians want, and they want Parliament to deliver it. In a minority situation, that requires a whole lot more co-operation. We have demonstrated that very clearly. Now the opposition has the opportunity to show Canadians it is more than just talk on the issue and will, in fact, respond.

The end of the year is coming quickly. There is other very important legislation before the House. There is Bill C-3, which deals with citizenship, and a Superior Court order has demanded that the legislation has to pass by November 20. Bill C-4 has just come from committee and would legitimize a tax break for over 20 million Canadians. Bill C-14 is before us, and I understand that the official opposition wants and is demanding bail reform legislation, but we all know it does not take much to frustrate the legislation.

We have a budget coming up on November 4, which will also demand the time of the chamber. There are substantial things before us, and that is why I look to my friends across the way, because they will ultimately determine whether in fact we are going to be able to have bail reform before the end of the year. It is up to the Conservatives to make that determination.

Let me encourage members in the strongest way possible that if we want bail reform legislation and the opportunities to have extensive discussions at the committee level, we need the bail reform legislation to pass quickly to committee. This would not take away from democracy within the chamber; In fact I can cite what members said earlier today when I raised the issue about the end: Let us have a goal and pass the legislation, new bail laws, before the end of the year.

Today a number of Conservatives have said that, yes, that is something we can achieve. I am going to call their bluff and challenge them to allow the bill to go to committee. That would mean they could continue to discuss it if they want to once it comes back at third reading, but it would also provide for detailed discussions and debate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Etobicoke—Lakeshore for his speech. I work with that member on various issues, including those related to Tibet, but we are dealing with something else today.

As my colleague knows, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C‑14 and wants to refer it to committee. However, we are apprehensive. We will propose amendments in committee. There will be discussions and hard work. The bill may be amended in committee.

Our fear is what will happen when the bill returns here from committee. If it is amended, but the Liberals do not like the amendments, they might use the House of Commons to cancel the amendments to the bill made in committee. That is what happened with Bill C‑3. That scares me because, if they can do that, then what is the point of working in committee?

Can my colleague assure us that the committee's work on Bill C‑14 will be respected?