Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 5th, 2007

[Janet Siddall]

The agreement that we have is to facilitate the discretionary grants that the minister is putting forward. That is the agreement we have with the RCMP.

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

The question is straight to the point. Is somebody who was born a cross-border baby considered a lost Canadian? Yes or no.

[Janet Siddall]

I'm sorry, without the specifics of the case I could not—

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

It's a hypothetical case. I live at the border of Saskatchewan and the U.S. My wife is pregnant. Right across the border, there's a hospital. It's 1950. We go across and my wife has the baby there.

[Janet Siddall]

Mr. Chair, I'm afraid I'm not going to deal with hypothetical cases, because one thing we have learned through the last several months that we've been working with people is that everybody's circumstances are different. If there is an issue that a member of Parliament or a member of this committee would like to bring to us, if there's a case, I would be delighted to have that case forwarded directly to us and we'll look into it.

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

Mrs. Siddall, then those you're considering to be lost Canadians are those in cases similar or identical to that of Joe Taylor. This is what you're telling me.

[Janet Siddall]

I'm telling you that the cases that the minister has asked us to expedite with a discretionary grant, where possible, are those cases of individuals who have lived most of their life in Canada and had a reasonable grounds to believe they were Canadian, but who have subsequently found out that they are not Canadian.

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

Is that a lost Canadian? It's not a hard question.

[Janet Siddall]

I would say it is a difficult question, because I would suspect the term “lost Canadian” means something different to many different people. What I have provided you with—and you will see it on our website—are the parameters that the minister has given us for those cases that she's very concerned about, and they were concerned about—

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

You're cutting into my five minutes.

How are you flagging the individuals who are lost Canadians? What are they supposed to be putting on their package that they're sending to the RCMP? Have you given instructions to your officials throughout the country?

[Rosemarie Redden]

Yes. The staff in my unit send the fingerprints to the RCMP for the discretionary grants.

I would like to note that it's important to differentiate between those cases that are being processed for a discretionary grant and those cases that are being processed in the regular citizenship grant stream. Some of the people who have come to the attention of the case processing centre in Sydney, Nova Scotia, are actual permanent residents. They have been given the option of either waiting for the outcome of the Taylor case or proceeding with the regular grant or resumption process. They have opted to do that, and those cases are being processed with the regular stream, which takes—

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

Thank you, Mrs. Redden; however, you and I and the deputy minister have spoken on a particular case of someone who was considered to be a lost Canadian. I pointed out to you and I pointed out to the minister that it was not two weeks. More than likely, it was 120 days. I'm going to read to you, on the record, what the RCMP responded with yesterday:

The application for

—and I'm not going to mention the name—

has not reached our system. CFSS processes more than 15,000 criminal record searches each month. The processing time is currently in excess of—120 days from receipt of an application. Note that processing time can vary due to incoming workloads.

I'd like to table this, Mr. Chair.

I have another question. Is your department aligned with the Department of Indian Affairs? Could somebody be an aboriginal and not be a Canadian citizen? Could somebody be granted aboriginal status under the Department of Indian Affairs and not be a Canadian citizen, yes or no?

[Margaret Dritsas]

In certain circumstances that can happen, but there is a provision in our current Citizenship Act that deals with aboriginal members in order to make them Canadian citizens.

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

I want to bring to your attention an individual who was born out of wedlock, to a Dutch mother and a Canadian aboriginal father. This individual was granted aboriginal status, yet this individual has been denied by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

How dare we—ministers, members of Parliament, officials—deny our first nations their right, their birthright? How dare all of us even discuss that we're going to deny second-generation Canadians their birthright?

How dare you in the department and the minister say to my daughter, if she has children outside Canada, that they cannot be Canadian citizens? This is what the minister—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

You're out of time, Mr. Karygiannis.

We're going to go on to Mr. Gravel.

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

Can we have an answer to the aboriginal question, Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair, I think the government officials can answer the—

[An hon. member]

Your time's up.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Yes, Jim, your time's gone.

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

Mr. Chair, at other times the chair has allowed the witnesses to answer the question.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

I did, and you—

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I have a solution to that, Mr. Chair. If you will permit me, I will speak to it.

Could you answer my colleague, please?

[Janet Siddall]

The first question that I would like to respond to is the issue of the RCMP clearances. If you believe there's a case that we are considering putting forward to the minister for a discretionary grant, I would certainly invite anyone to bring it to our attention.

I would also like to read for the record a quote from Superintendent Robert Thompson, the director of Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services:

The present is to advise of the formal arrangement that has existed between CIC Case Management Branch and the RCMP Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services (CCRTIS) since February 2007 relative to citizenship anomaly cases. The RCMP undertakes to treat Case Management Branch requests for anomaly cases as priorities, with the commitments to responding to each request for service within a two-week cycle time. The RCMP will continue to honour this agreement until December 31, 2007, at which point in time the agreement will be revisited by both parties.

So there is an agreement between us and the RCMP to expedite the fingerprint checks, where necessary, for those cases that we are putting forward for a discretionary grant, a section 5(4) grant.

On the second question, I have no comment on that question. I think you've raised an issue that is more of a legal issue, and I do not have the expertise to answer that question.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

No, we're going to get an answer. You were looking to answer that, were you not?

[Margaret Dritsas]

Mr. Chair, there is a section in our Citizenship Act that takes care of aboriginal people who are questioning if they are Canadian citizens or not. Under our Citizenship Act, we do refer to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Act, so we do take the definition from that act into consideration. If you are defined under that act, then there is a measure to make you a Canadian citizen. If you are not sure of the status of your citizenship, then we do take that into consideration as well. So there are measures under our act to take care of that.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Andrew Telegdi]

Well, Mr. Willy Van Ee—and I'll refer you to the book Voices of the Left Behind—is the only—

I would suggest that you folks read that book. Committee members are going to be reading the book, and they'll certainly be asking you questions on it.

Mr. Van Ee is the only status first nations person in Holland. He had his status conferred upon him, so it would be nice if his birthright is recognized and we don't end up with another blockade someplace because we refuse to recognize his Canadian roots.

So I recommend the book Voices of the Left Behind to you. This case is outlined in there. It's the only case of its kind in all of Holland, one person. This person is a status Indian, and he should have that recognition granted.

We'll leave it at that. You have been alerted to it.

Mr. Nadeau.