Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

We'll go to Mr. Komarnicki to make a brief statement.

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

I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to make a brief statement.

Certainly with respect to the report itself, we did not request to make a dissenting report, even though we did have some reservations in some areas. I highlighted some of them, which were with respect to the recommendation that made citizenship retroactive without regard to the January 1, 1947, date, which is inconsistent with the recent Federal Court of Appeal Taylor decision, as well as a recommendation that certificates issued in error should only be able to be recalled within a set period of time, as it relates to a program integrity measure.

That said, there's no doubt that the government, if it wants to have an official position, can do that in its response, and it can take such a position on those issues as they want to, but it's a type of recommendation that we would, of course, like them to consider very seriously, as it comes from the committee after hearing a lot of evidence. Resolving matters from a date in 1947 forward certainly would be a laudable goal, but there was some feeling that we should go beyond that to resolve all the issues we could.

So it's with that statement that we decided not to do a dissenting report, but rather have the report go forward unanimously.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.

Mr. Telegdi.

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

Mr. Chair, I think I'll make a statement as well.

We have come a long way in terms of the two ministers we had initially saying there would be no amendments to the Citizenship Act and that it was not a priority. I'm pleased to see that position has changed.

I draw attention to the fact that Minister Finley said to the committee when she was in front of us that if the committee comes up with unanimous recommendations, she will bring them into legislation to make amendments to the Citizenship Act to address the whole issue of lost Canadians.

While the report doesn't go quite as far as I believe it should—and others can speak for themselves—those who listened to the evidence will also agree that we do not like to see discriminatory practices. Having people born out of wedlock because they had a church wedding and not a civil wedding being a cause for denial of citizenship, and quite frankly, having birth out of wedlock as a criterion in this day and age, certainly are not the rules that apply now, nor are those morals reflective of our time.

That said, I'm pleased with the progress we have made in terms of this report. I look forward to its speedy passage, because I think you will find support in all sections of the House for it.

By speedy passage, I mean that we're going to have to move very quickly to make that happen. I'm hoping the minister and officials already have it in the draft they've been working on for amendments and were anticipating what our response or our report was going to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Telegdi.

Madame Faille.

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

Actually, I would like to...

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Did you have your hand up, Mr. Bevilacqua?

Madame Faille.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to stress the interest we have in the question of citizenship and the seriousness with which committee members have approached it.

I would particularly like to thank the people at CBC/Radio Canada, who have done a monumental job in getting out the information on this injustice, and who have managed to draw attention to it all across Canada in spite of the pressure brought to bear on them by people who did not believe the stories.

I am glad that the committee was able to shed light on the identity of the people whose citizenship was lost. I really hope that the department will take the recommendations seriously. But there are still situations that the government is aware of that are not covered in this report. I really hope that the bill to be tabled shortly will also deal with the situations that Mr. Telegdi has mentioned.

Well done, everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you.

Ms. Chow.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to thank my predecessor, Mr. Bill Siksay, who did a lot of work together with other members of this committee. Certainly, there are stories of people who lost their Canadian citizenship through no fault of their own, whether they were war brides or people born to a Canadian parent before the act came into place in February 1977, or between January 1947 to February 1997 because they themselves or their parents became citizens of another country, or those who were born outside Canada after the act came into place in February 1977.

So I'm glad we have this report in front of us, which we are supporting unanimously. I certainly hope the minister has all her documents ready and that when it's introduced in the House, hopefully by February at the latest, we would give it speedy passage, so all the historic wrongs we have seen in the past can be quickly amended and finally all those sad stories can be corrected as quickly as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Chow.

I want to thank all committee members for your very hard work and diligence in putting together this report, and the analysts and former members of the committee who have moved to new committees, who worked very hard on the report as well.

Am I moving a bit too quickly, Mr. Bevilacqua? Did you want to say something?

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

I was wondering, with these reports, sometimes when you say that it would be a first report of the....

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Andrew Chaplin]

It's likely that if the committee decides to report the estimates, that will be the first. So we could say that—

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

The point I'm making is that sometimes when we say it's the first report from the Standing Committee on Immigration, most viewers will say--

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Oh, yes.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

I think a title kind of captures it a bit for people, a lot more than.... So I may I propose one?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Yes, please.

[Maurizio Bevilacqua, Liberal, Vaughan, ON]

I have here “Reclaiming Canada for Canadians: a Report on the Loss of Canadian Citizenship”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay, that sounds pretty good.

We've heard Mr. Bevilacqua's proposal that there would be a title attached to the report, “Reclaiming Canada for Canadians: a Report on the Loss of Canadian Citizenship”.

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

I'm not sure about that. It should be “A Report on Lost Canadians”. I'm not sure about the other editorializing as to what it does for Canada. I think we should just call it “A Report With Respect to Lost Canadians”, because that's how we referred to it throughout.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Madame Faille.

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

I do not know how that will turn out in French, but I would prefer it to reflect the subject directly.

So it would be “Reclaiming citizenship to those who have lost citizenship”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

What was that again?

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

“Reclaiming citizenship to those who lost citizenship”, or “Reclaiming citizenship to the lost citizens”, those lost Canadian citizens....

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

I don't believe it can be too long.