Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 19th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Our meeting will now come to order.

We had our subcommittee meeting a couple of days ago, and you'll see before you the 9th report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure of the standing committee. This is pretty well what we recommend to our full committee. We'll just go over it briefly.

We talked about the study on the loss of Canadian citizenship, and we're recommending that we consider the draft report as the first item of business in the fall of 2007. We are informed by our analyst that she would have a copy of that report maybe within the next few weeks, mid-summer maybe. If you so desire, she can distribute that to us at that time, so we'll be able to look it over and have a heads-up and what have you for the meetings coming up.

Okay, we might as well wait for a few minutes and start again.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I apologize, Mr. Chair. We were in a private meeting before.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I know.

We just began a moment ago, and we're considering now the 9th report of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure. We had our subcommittee meeting a couple of days ago, and you have the sheets in front of you that we've given out. The recommendation is that we'll consider the draft report and the loss of Canadian citizenship as the first item of business when we come back in the fall. We were mentioning a moment ago that the analyst informed me that she'll have a copy of it maybe mid-summer, so you can have a look at it and have a heads-up when we come back for consideration of it in the fall.

Also, the meetings regarding the study will be held outside the committee's usual meeting time. We won't eat up our usual committee meeting time. We'll do it outside of that, unless you want it otherwise, as the report says here.

I'll stop there for a moment. Is there any discussion on that part of the report, that we would have it as the first item of business? This is what the steering committee is recommending, that when we come back that will be number one on the list, and we'll have meetings outside of the usual meeting time. Is everyone pretty well okay with that?

Mr. Batters.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

I'm just wondering, Mr. Chair, why we have to hold meetings outside the committee's usual meeting times to study this draft report. Why can't we just study this report within the usual meeting times of the committee? That would certainly be my preference, and I would bet that if you go around the table, that would be the preference of a number of members on the committee, to not devise separate meeting times, to just dedicate our normal Tuesday to Thursday, 11 to 1 o'clock, or whenever our meetings are in the fall, to this report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Telegdi.

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

I guess one of the reasons we're doing that is that on this committee we really have a passion for the issue of citizenship and immigration. There are, quite frankly, a lot of problem areas. We want to be able to get it done. I can appreciate that if you don't have the same kind of passion, then you might not feel quite the same way as many of us do.

The reality is that immigration is, has been, and continues to be the lifeblood of this country, and we have issues coming at us head-on. I think the committee can make a real contribution, and hopefully the ministry will see the wisdom of the contribution to make some real changes that will improve the lives of Canadians. This committee has always been pretty passionate on the issues when it comes to citizenship and immigration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Siksay.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Chair, I just wanted to add that when we first agreed to do the work on citizenship in this Parliament, we did agree to do that as an extra subject outside the regular meetings of the committee, partly in recognition of the amount of time we spent on citizenship issues in the last Parliament, to the exclusion of any issues related to immigration, almost entirely at the request of the government of the day. Promises were made that if we did that work, there would be citizenship legislation forthcoming. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

I'd like to maintain that commitment to do it as an extra topic. We're facing the same situation in which we have legislation promised for the fall. We'll see if that promise comes through. I hope it does. I would like to maintain the commitment to do this as an extra piece of work, and get on with our immigration agenda, on which there are a lot of topics for us to deal with in the fall.

So I speak in favour of maintaining it as an extra subject.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Mr. Wilson and Madame Faille.

[Blair Wilson, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was just going to reiterate the point that Mr. Siksay talked about. When we were initially putting through our schedule of work, one of the issues was lost Canadian citizenship, and we agreed that we would be dealing with that outside of our normal work.

The only other point I would add is the fact that a lot of these individuals, a lot of these Canadians who lost their citizenship, are aging. It behooves us as a committee to expedite the discussions on this issue while they're still with us.

In addition, there are a lot of issues that we need to deal with in the immigration file, and the two days a week that we meet aren't enough to deal with all of the issues, so we have to go into these extra meetings.

So I'd be in favour of them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Madame Faille.

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

We do not have many objections to hold the meetings outside the usual meeting times. However, if it were possible—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I'm very slow here this morning. I'm sorry about that.

Okay.

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

We do not have any objection to hold the meetings outside the usual committee meeting times. However, our whip's office—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Please hang on a moment, Madame Faille, until we can get a proper channel.

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

This is a test!

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Is it working now, Andrew? Okay.

I thought you were fluently trilingual?

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

Then I'll speak in Chinese.

The Bloc has no objection to hold the meetings outside the usual meeting times. However, if it were possible, we prefer not to meet on Monday. I do not know whether we have any idea when the rotations will begin. If we continue to meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We're not aware just yet what the schedule is, but of course we will within the next month or so. We'll keep that in mind.

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

I am going to tell Mr. Batters why we are holding extra meetings on citizenship. The issue of skilled workers would be discussed next. Consequently, if we are not too busy in the fall, we will be able to deal with this matter at the end of the fall. At Mr. Jaffer's request, the committee does have quite a busy schedule. If we manage to get everything we plan to do done, we could discuss the issue of skilled workers in the fall.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

The clerk reminds me that it's not a very big report. We could deal with it fairly quickly anyway. The hope is that we'll deal with it in two, three, or four meetings maybe, but who knows? Anyway, the consensus is clear that it will be done outside of the usual times.

We'll go on to the next part of our report.

Mr. Komarnicki.

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

Obviously Bill C-57—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, we're getting to that as well.

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

Are we? I don't see it in the report. Is the subcommittee not aware of Bill C-57?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I have a note made of it here. Let's deal with that a bit later on.

Next we have this:

That, in relation to its study on Undocumented and Temporary Foreign Workers: All members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, Calgary, Alberta, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec, from October 22, 2007 to October 26, 2007.

Madame Faille, ladies first.