Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 29th, 2007

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

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

I have a point of order.

Perhaps Mr. Karygiannis could table the letter, and I would ask that he do so. He's reading from the document, and he should table it.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, we'll be happy to table it, as soon as I'm able to print it, and I did say where it came from.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi.

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

Mr. Chair, I hope we shall put on the record the e-mail by Sue Rouleau, addressed to Denise Tessier, and it can be distributed to the committee.

Mr. Chair, when the history is finally written on this, I really hope Melynda Jarratt and Don Chapman will get an Order of Canada for the heroic service they have done on this issue. Hopefully, Don will be a citizen by that time.

I take exception to the issue about playing politics. I've been on this committee since 1998. As a matter of fact, I resigned as parliamentary secretary in the year 2000 because I could not stomach what was happening and the government was not going to change it.

In the last Parliament, Mr. Chair, we tabled three reports on citizenship to give guidance to the government on how to produce a new citizenship act. The Liberal government finally came to its senses. They had $20 million in the budget to produce a new citizenship act.

When the neo-Conservative.... Oh, I'm sorry. When the new Conservative government came in, the first thing they did was to decide that citizenship was not a priority for the government of Stephen Harper. It was not a priority for the Minister, Monte Solberg. It was not a priority for the Minister, Diane Finley. They cancelled the funding for a new citizenship act, and when they came to this committee, they lowballed the numbers.

It was this government that appealed the Joe Taylor decision, when the Federal Court under Justice Luc Martineau ordered that the citizenship be restored.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

To be fair....

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

I am being fair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm talking about the time. I gave everyone one and a half minutes, and you're up to two minutes. I'll give you 10 to 15 more seconds to finish up.

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

In the last Parliament this committee did not play politics. We had some problems from the parliamentary secretary. But the Liberal members were on the government side, for the most part, and voted together with the rest of the committee to produce these reports, which were unanimously endorsed by the Conservative members of the committee.

One of the reports received concurrence in the House by all of Parliament. All you have to do is pick it up, operate in the same way we did in the last Parliament, and we will have a new citizenship act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. I'll have to cut the member off there, because everyone had their one and one-half minutes, except you had two minutes and ten seconds.

Mr. Chapman, a final comment, and then we will....

[Don Chapman]

Yes.

My getting the Order of Canada—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Please be brief.

[Don Chapman]

—is quite irrelevant to the point, but I was nominated and I didn't know that I was nominated. It took no time at all to turn the request down from Rideau Hall, and what I found interesting—again, I didn't even know that I was nominated—is that it came back saying there is no Order of Canada or category for citizenship. With Mr. Komarnicki I do agree: citizenship should not be politicized. Citizenship is a stand-alone issue. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Chapman.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. It has been very interesting. As you can see, committee members are very interested in this topic, and hopefully we will be able to have a solution fairly soon. Thank you again.

We will wait a moment for our witnesses to vacate the room, and we will begin our motions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Can I get committee members back to the table so that we can deal with motions that we have here today?

The first motion belongs to Mr. Karygiannis, and he's the author of two of these motions:

That the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration study the issue of refugees from Iraq; that the Committee invite expert witnesses, stakeholders and community groups to appear before the Committee; and, that Members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration provide to the Clerk of the Committee the names and contact information of prospective witnesses by Tuesday, June 5, 2007.

Mr. Karygiannis.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Chair, over the years, a lot of people have been displaced from Iraq. There are different communities, be they Christian or Muslim, that have written to individual members of Parliament asking that we take up their cause. We invite them to tell us what is happening, be it in Iran--where some people have sought refuge--be it in Oman, be it in Jordan, be it in Syria or in Lebanon.

The last letter that I did receive--actually we all did--was from a colleague, Mr. Vellacott, who is a Conservative member, asking that we deal with this. I have spoken to a few stakeholders in this issue, and this is one of the reasons I'm bringing it forward. I think since we're dealing with refugees, and we have people from different parts of Canada coming to talk to us, this is a country that is in, if you want to call it, a moratorium--we're not shipping people back. As we have a war happening in that place right now, we should deal with the situation and get to hear from people and give some advice to the minister. If we're going to move and bring in people from that part of the world, as we've done recently from Nepal--we're bringing 5,000 Bhutanese in, as we did from Kosovo. This is something for this committee to listen to the stakeholders on and to work with groups on to make sure that if we do move in that direction, we have heard them and the committee supports the minister in doing so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.

Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I would like to speak in favour of the motion.

I have already spoken out on the issue of Palestinian families currently living in Iraq. Canada takes in younger refugees, but forgets about parents and grandparents. They are left behind. Cases involving 150 Palestinians are still pending. As a result of US operations, large numbers of people have been displaced in Iraq. There is also the issue of Iran and the countries bordering Iraq. We should seek the advice of experts and DFAIT officials on the refugee situation.

The Iraqi community is in crisis mode. I have received calls from Edmonton, Alberta, from lawyers working with Iraqi families. I have also received calls from Arab-Muslim and Catholic communities in the Montreal area. The situation is rather desperate. We need to be briefed on the situation. It is up to the steering committee to decide when we can hear from these experts. Therefore, we intend to vote in favour of the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. I don't see any hands going up for further discussion on the motion, so I will call for a vote.

(Motion agreed to)

[Norman Doyle, Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Karygiannis.

The second motion is:

That the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration order that the Department of Citizenship and Immigration provide the Committee with a complete copy of Joe Taylor's application for Canadian citizenship and all other documents related to this application within 30 days of this motion being adopted by the Committee; that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration discuss the application and any related documents at an in camera meeting; and that CIC officials appear before the Committee regarding the application at an in camera meeting.

Mr. Karygiannis

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I would like to put this motion aside until the next meeting we have, after the minister comes in front of us today. I realize there is a lot of hype, that the minister will be making an announcement. In view of what she will be saying, I would like to put this aside until the next time we meet--after the minister is here. This could be an issue that might not need to be addressed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Motion withdrawn.

There is no further business.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

This motion is withdrawn until our next meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The meeting is adjourned.