Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 7th, 2006

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Actually, Mr. Chair, the minister might like....

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I can't see any reason why we wouldn't move right on to the motion, and if people wanted....

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

And the minister might actually enjoy listening to the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Andrew, are you giving notice of the motion, or do you actually want to move it?

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Chair, let me say that this question refers to recognizing what happened during the movement of people during a time of crisis 50 years ago, as the outflow of the Hungarian Revolution. It really was the golden age for citizenship and immigration, which not only meant that on a per capita basis Canada took in more Hungarians, by far, than any other country, but it also changed the policy of dealing with refugees in those kinds of situations.

I came here as a refugee.

That had an impact on Mr. Jaffer, on the other side, who is the other refugee I know of in the House, because it applied to dealing with Ugandans, it applied to dealing with the Czechs, people from Indochina, and people from the former Yugoslavia.

Essentially, what this does is it recognizes what took place during the revolution and the events that caused 37,000 Hungarians to locate in Canada.

So I would give notice on this, unless I could get unanimous consent to move it. Then I hope, Mr. Chair, we can get it tabled in the House and ask for concurrence.

A similar resolution has gone through the United States Congress, and I think it would be meaningful to members of Hungarian Canadian community, but I think it would be meaningful to all Canadians, because it represents such a significant step that we took in the life of this nation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Right.

Do we have any comments, Ed, on the motion?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I appreciate the motion that Mr. Telegdi wishes to make, and certainly I can empathize with a lot of what's there, the seriousness of it, but essentially it's to deal with the 50th anniversary of what took place in October 1956. When we look at the contents of the motion, it has a page and a half of “whereases” and factual allegations. My sense is--and I was thinking about this--that when you put the notice forward it gives everybody an opportunity to have a look forward to it, and if it comes up again on Monday, as it should through the normal practice, then we may get unanimous consent.

The point I'd like to make is this. I have some concerns about any member here having a motion put forward, unless it's an urgent matter or has some urgent consideration component to it that we might want to consider. But if it doesn't, I think the better course is to give notice of a few days and then present it for a vote at that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Since it would require unanimous consent, we'll take it as notice today and we'll deal with it at our Monday meeting.

Thank you very much, Minister.

Thank you, committee members.

We will adjourn until Monday at 3:30.