Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 2nd, 2007

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

You're probably right.

I think to fix all of the errors in the legislation, if you want to call them such, would require parliamentarians and the minister to come together.

I want to focus on the unintended consequences. By saying that many of them were intended, it implies that many of them were unintended.

If we know there are some unintended consequences, and we know that Parliament is not always fast to act, especially in a minority government, and we know, as Mr. Devolin said, that some individuals are concerned about stepping forward and hearing something they don't want to hear, and they'd rather ignore this issue, is there a way that we can fix at least the unintended consequences administratively?

[Mark Davidson]

The mechanism that we have is the mechanism that's in the law. That is this subsection 5(4) process. This is what we're using to resolve those cases that fall within the minister's guidelines, and that seems to be the way we have.

If the committee can identify other amendments to the act that may be necessary, that would be ideal.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

So you're saying the only discretion the department has is through the minister in subsection 5(4)?

[Mark Davidson]

The Citizenship Act has very little discretion for citizenship officers. The discretion is given to the Governor in Council to direct the minister.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Was there a $20 million fund that was set aside for review of the Citizenship Act that was cancelled recently?

[Mark Davidson]

Mr. Chair, last September, I believe, the government announced a series of cost-saving measures of program review, and I believe the total figure was in the range of $1 billion. In that was twenty point something or other million dollars that had been allocated a number of years ago for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, RCMP, possibly CSIS, and maybe one or two other departments for implementation of comprehensive citizenship legislation. So this is money that had been allocated by a previous government many years ago but had never been used because that comprehensive citizenship legislation never came to fruition, the comprehensive bill having died on the order paper in a number of previous Parliaments.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

The question is, then, should a brand-new or comprehensive review of the Citizenship Act come from the department first, or should parliamentarians be the ones who do the review?

Why was a review set aside? Isn't that an implication that departments should start reviewing the Citizenship Act?

[Mark Davidson]

The money that had been set aside was actually money for implementation of an ultimate bill, of an ultimate piece of legislation. It was not money that was allocated for a review of citizenship legislation.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

There was a pending new citizenship act?

[Mark Davidson]

There were three pending citizenship comprehensive bills that died on the order paper in previous Parliaments.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Where is it now?

[Mark Davidson]

They have all died on the order paper. The minister has indicated and the former minister had indicated that their legislative priorities were Bill C-14.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Where is Bill C-14 now?

[Mark Davidson]

I understand Bill C-14 is in the House at report stage.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It has been delayed, actually, but we should ask the minister that.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

You have about 20 seconds.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Alghabra.

Ms. Grewal.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all for coming here today.

I think the citizenship problems we are discussing here today haven't risen overnight. They have existed for many years. The previous governments did very little or nothing at all to address these problems. When the minister met with us, she explained that the department—

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

She lied.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

—was implementing both short-term as well as long-term solutions to address the problems of so-called lost Canadians. In your experience, please can you tell us if there are any steps helping to address the cases brought before the department?

[Mark Davidson]

The department is using the mechanisms that we have in order to present cases to the minister and the Governor in Council that fall within the minister's parameters. That mechanism is subsection 5(4) of the Citizenship Act and is the only area of discretion that's available to us. As Clark had indicated, we've also assigned additional resources to process these cases and set up a dedicated unit at the call centre in order to process these cases on an urgent basis.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Is there anyone else who would like to answer this question?

[Clark Goodman]

Just to tack on to what Mark said, we have the call centre agents standing by to answer your calls. There are people in CPC Sydney ready to contact clients when the call centre isn't able to answer the questions, or when the questions are of such a nature that it really requires a citizenship expert. It's the officers in CPC Sydney who can answer those. Also, as I indicated, we're looking at measures to ensure that information is getting out to everyone. Those are the two areas that we're concentrating our efforts on.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

With the western hemisphere travel initiative and the need for a passport to travel to the U.S. and the publicity surrounding lost citizenship, has there been a large influx of inquiries concerning citizenship?