Evidence of meeting #54 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cases.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Mark Davidson  Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Citizenship Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Clark Goodman  Acting Director, Citizenship and Immigration Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Rose Anne Poirier  Manager, Program Support, Case Processing Centre - Sydney, Nova Scotia, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Rosemarie Redden  Manager, Citizenship Case Review, Case Management Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Eric Stevens  Legal Counsel, Legal Services, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

4:30 p.m.

Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Citizenship Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Mark Davidson

The way to change the law, the responsibility to change the law, is the role of parliamentarians. Our responsibility as civil servants is to implement and administer the law that we've been given. This is why the minister has asked the committee for their advice on how to change the law.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

You have 30 seconds.

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Raymond Gravel Bloc Repentigny, QC

I'd like to make a comment. The legislation is there for the good of individuals, and not the opposite. Individuals are not there for the legislation.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

Well, you have 20 seconds, if you can fit something in.

Mr. Batters.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I am a new member of the committee, so I'm going to ask you to help me out a little bit so that I can help the minister responsible by providing him with some insight on how he might be able to change things for the better, especially regarding this issue of lost Canadians, which is new to me.

I fully respect the fact that you are public servants and not policy-makers, yet as a new member of this committee, I ask you to give me two or three very specific common headaches that plague you on a daily basis that, if dealt with, would make your lives and the lives of lost Canadians a lot easier. I'm not asking you for recommendations on policy changes; I'm asking for two or three common headaches that you, in your experience, face on a regular basis.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

That might be a difficult question to answer, but I'm sure Mr. Davidson is up to it.

4:35 p.m.

Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Citizenship Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Mark Davidson

It is indeed a difficult question to answer, because it does stray towards the line of civil servants not providing policy advice, in confidence to their minister. I would say that the legislation we have, both the 1947 and 1977 legislation, is quite old.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

I'm going to stop you there, Mr. Davidson, because I know which road this is going down.

I'm asking you to help me out a little bit, sir. Just restrict your comments, then, to something that everyone in your department—Again, I'm a new member of the committee, and, yes, I'm playing dumb a little bit here, but I truly am brand new to this. So give me something that everyone recognizes is a problem and that the minister will have heard a number of times is a problem. So you're not divulging any confidences here. These are things that could be addressed, and which everybody knows are problematic.

4:35 p.m.

Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Citizenship Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Mark Davidson

Probably the best example would be that piece of legislation the minister has indicated is a priority, and that's Bill C-14. We're aware that the treatment of adopted children, or children who have been adopted by Canadians outside of Canada, is not what it should be. Via the subsection 5(4) mechanism, we have a way to resolve these individual cases, but it's not an ideal situation. There is a bill in the House at the moment that is dealing with resolving that particular problem in citizenship.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

Thank you, Mr. Davidson.

The second question is about your indication that you don't really know how many lost Canadians might come forward when you do your ad campaign.

Are your offices prepared to deal with the influx of calls you might receive as a result of this ad campaign?

4:35 p.m.

Acting Director, Citizenship and Immigration Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Clark Goodman

We've been talking about that, obviously. We've been going out and updating our websites and putting out materials, which may spur people to contact us with their questions. So our plan is to adjust our resources accordingly, in terms of what our priorities are. So if we have an influx of calls, be they at the call centre, or applications later on at the CPC, we'll adjust accordingly to make sure we can respond to those demands.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

Will the individuals who fall into this lost Canadians category continue to be priorities for your department?

4:35 p.m.

Acting Director, Citizenship and Immigration Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Clark Goodman

We have assigned many resources, yes.

4:35 p.m.

A voice

The answer is yes.

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

I just have a little bit more, Mr. Chair.

I want to know where you're at with your ad campaign. When are we going to see it? What form is it going to take? You talked about the website. Am I going to see television ads that say if one falls into this category, this category, or this category, you should check to see if you're a citizen? I want to know where that ad campaign is at.

4:35 p.m.

Acting Director, Citizenship and Immigration Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Clark Goodman

I would say that it's still in the preliminary stages. I've indicated that we would take it under advisement to share with the committee the documents and the strategy.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

My last question, Mr. Chair, is—

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

Jim Karygiannis Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON

On a point of order, I'm not sure, my hearing was—Did the witness say that he will share the campaign with the committee?

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

That's what he said.

4:40 p.m.

Acting Director, Citizenship and Immigration Program Delivery, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Clark Goodman

The original question to me was whether I would be willing to come back to the committee with information on the campaign, and I said I had to take that under advisement to the minister.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Dave Batters Conservative Palliser, SK

Okay. I was just asking what the status or the progress was.

My last question, Mr. Chair—and I'm really at a loss in this, because I'm new to the committee—is how did these people not know that they were lost Canadians? Many individuals are well into adulthood. For example, I have a social insurance number, and I really couldn't work without it. How does this happen? How do so many people not realize that they're not Canadians well into adulthood?

That's my question. It may be a very easy one.

4:40 p.m.

Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Citizenship Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Mark Davidson

It's actually a very good one.

The short answer is that every case is just a tiny little bit different from every other case. A lot of them turn on some archaic provisions in the 1947 act, where individuals could lose citizenship without their knowing about it because of some other action that they may have taken. So it's quite possible for individuals to have lost their citizenship without being aware of that, because of the way the legislation worked.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Norman Doyle

Thank you, Mr. Batters.

Mr. Alghabra.

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga—Erindale, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do want to thank all the witnesses for coming here this afternoon.

I want to follow up on a couple of the items that were raised here earlier today.

I have a question for you, Mr. Davidson. Do you believe that the issue of lost Canadians--maybe we can't judge all of them--is an unintended consequence of the law, or was it intended by the 1977 law?

4:40 p.m.

Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Citizenship Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration

Mark Davidson

I think we'd probably have to go back to the transcripts of Parliament in 1946 and in 1976. In some cases, I'd have to say it was intended. For some of these individuals who lost their citizenship, this is how the law had been intended to operate by Parliament. I'm not saying that's the case in every situation, but in some situations I think the short answer is yes.