I'm an airline pilot. This is so basic: you know, our weather in Hong Kong is pretty bad, we're down to one engine, and we have several hours to fly. What do you think we should do? Well, let's press on.
Come on, folks, this is common sense. If I were sitting in a cockpit with a guy sitting next to me, it doesn't matter what his political persuasion is, or his religion. White, black, green, orange, or red, I don't care; we have one thing in common: the safety of flight and to get that aircraft safely on the ground.
I share something that you don't all share with us. Your decisions don't necessarily affect you, but my decision as an airline pilot affects everybody in that airplane; if I do something against them, well, I'm probably the first one who's going to die.
What we're looking at here is common sense. Of course, everybody here really is Canadian, and nobody should prove it. If we are going to go on a witch hunt here, I want to start with the parliamentarians. Let's turn it to you guys. I want you guys to prove that you're Canadians—not average Canadians; let's start at the top. We already have four people inside Parliament and members of Privy Council who look like they might not be Canadians. Is this really a witch hunt we want to go down? The answer is no.
This is an answer that is absolute, total, 100% common sense. That's it. You are supposed to lead with common sense.
We have the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, which I handed around. On page 11 it makes a statement about every person who, like me, was stripped of Canadian citizenship. Unfortunately, I do have a Canadian birth certificate. That was my problem: I was born in Canada. Had I been born outside of Canada, I'd be Canadian, but go figure that one.
On page 11 it says that any person like me can come back to Canada any time in my life and the minister shall grant me citizenship, so for 60 years the bureaucrats and the minister have not been following law. It was a bad law. It was a very bad law.
It shouldn't take major brain surgery to fix it—it's one paragraph, paragraph 3(1)(f). The current Citizenship Act ends on paragraph 3(1)(e), so you put paragraph 3(1)(f) on there. Countries like Trinidad and Australia were able to do it; why can't Canada?
You put that on there and fix this problem, but then you must have a new citizenship act that every party agrees to, one that brings everything into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is compliant with it. It's very simple—so lead with common sense.
I couldn't care less about two pilots arguing, “You're a Conservative, you're a Liberal, you're an NDPer, you're the Bloc”. That doesn't mean anything to me. What means something to me is that I finally, after 60 years, have the right to belong to my own country.
We're going to hear some stories, and I'm going to come back here in a minute.
First off, it's a waste of taxpayer money. It is a real waste of money to go on witch hunts like this. We have court cases going on.
Sheila, let's start with you. This is a woman who's an abducted Canadian child. She has never vowed citizenship to another country. She's guilty of being abducted, and her own country turned its back on her. She has been here for 16 years, and her father fought for this country in World War II. For Sheila Walshe, World War II is still going on. You people have the power to correct it, so do it.