I want to welcome you all, and I am much impressed with what I heard. All four of you were born elsewhere and we have five members of this committee who were born elsewhere, so it's good to see you here.
Certainly citizenship has been one of my areas of great interest over the years. I'm happy to say that we still have citizenship court judges instead of having commissioners, as was proposed by the department. I think that's a battle that we have won.
Five of the members of this committee were part of producing the unanimous committee report on citizenship the last time around, in the last Parliament. We are looking to get re-engaged in that debate so that we can actually come up with a new Citizenship Act, particularly given the fact that parts of the Citizenship Act are unconstitutional. This is the sixtieth anniversary of Canadian citizenship, so it would be proper to actually have a new Citizenship Act that captures the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. So all those things come together.
When we debated the whole issue of citizenship—and I remember having the debate with some Conservative members—and we debated the issue about having it done by government and making it a political appointment, I remember telling my colleagues on the other side, when they were in opposition, that it's a good thing to be able to appoint people who have been politically active and who have contributed to the community.
I really hope that in your endeavours you encourage Canadians to be active, be it in voluntary organizations, in the political party of their choice, or in municipal politics, because that is a good thing. I also hope you educate them on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and what it means, and what it means to live in a democracy like Canada.
Have you been following the debates in Parliament and through parliamentary committees, on the Citizenship Act? If you have not, I would recommend that you do so.