Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 13th, 2013

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I might want a few more minutes, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

That's fine. I realize you have a meeting to go to.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Chair, I think what I would like to do is to contrast the government bill versus the private member's bill.

I talked about the private member's bill and the process that it goes through. What I haven't talked about is the government bill and the process it goes through. This is where it would be wonderful to build the connection between how the government, or its behaviour since the last federal election, has not been favourable and how rules such as time allocation have worked to the detriment of the House of Commons. What's happening with the private member's bill is even worse.

When you think in terms of the scope of the legislation, we first need to recognize and ask why the minister is choosing to use the private member's bill to invoke the changes the government wants. I've given a lot of time to try to figure out why they might be doing that. I'm sure that I'll get another opportunity to expand on that point, but I want to conclude my remarks relatively quickly by saying that at the end of the day, the manner in which the government brings in its own legislation is profoundly different from the process a private member's bill goes through. My concern is that the Minister of Immigration is using a private member's bill to pass legislation that should have been a government piece of legislation. If it had been a government bill, we would have seen a totally different approach to passing the legislation.

In a nutshell, look at it in this sense: there's two hours of debate at second reading on a private member's bill and unlimited time for debate on a government bill at second reading in a normal situation. That means that as opposed to maybe six people giving 10-minute speeches, you'd potentially have 305 members, or up to 308 technically—well, not the Speaker, but 307 members—who could speak. Many of them would have been provided the opportunity for 20 minutes. In reality, that is not going to happen. The most you will probably get on a government bill would be 150 speakers and you might get 20 of them, or whatever the rule is, who would be able to go 20 minutes. But you have 20-minute speeches followed by 10-minute questions and answers. You have 10-minute speeches followed by five-minute questions and answers. There's a whole lot more diligence and accountability inside the chamber for a minister to be able to do what Mr. Shory is doing. That is for good reason.

I'm going to conclude my remarks by saying that there is so much more that I want to talk about on that particular issue. I trust and hope that I'll get another opportunity to express it in such a fashion that members will understand why this offends me and why it is so critically important that Canadians need to be really aware of what's happening. As a member of Parliament, I am going to do what I can to make sure that in fact they are made aware of it.

So I appreciate the members listening to my comments so far. I look forward to being able to continue some dialogue on the bill, whether it's in committee or at third reading. I hope, and would highly recommend and suggest, that we ask the minister. If I could move a motion, the motion I would move, Madam Chair would be that the Minister of Immigration be disallowed the bills he has asked Mr. Dykstra to introduce on his behalf—because they are government bills—and to allow Mr. Shory the opportunity, without any sort of penalty, to continue to go ahead and try to work out some sort of a compromise and hopefully get amendments that would then allow for other political parties to genuinely get engaged and possibly support the bill.

Now I would look to the clerk and ask how we put that in the form of a motion and maybe write it out. Then I would hope that at the very least Mr. Shory would vote for it, and maybe one or two other members who would recognize the difference between a government bill and a private member's bill, and the value of sometimes saying no, even if it's to the Minister of Immigration, who might have greater ambitions at some time in the future.

So thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to share a few thoughts.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lamoureux. You've really earned that sip of water.

I'm just going to go through my speakers list. We're on the amendment, and Mr. Toone, you're next.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

And Mr. Toone, welcome to our committee. I think this is your first foray into the immigration committee.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

It's actually my second or third. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

It's the second or third.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Right, time flies

[An hon. member]

When you're having fun.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Anyway, welcome back.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity. I'd like to congratulate my colleague Mr. Lamoureux for his breathtaking intervention just now and a well-earned water break indeed.

I share his concern that this bill risks not getting all-party support, which would be unfortunate. The process that's been invoked until now has been difficult and, in many cases, without parallel. We have here a private member's bill, not a government bill, where a government minister has proposed a number of amendments—a very unusual step and one that calls into question the validity of this even being considered a private member's bill.

I'd like to point out that all members of the House of Commons, with a few exceptions, have the opportunity to present private members' bills in the House. The exceptions, I think, are very revealing: ministers and parliamentary secretaries. And yes, I would have a reaction to that as well. Parliamentary secretaries and ministers are not allowed to present private members' bills, and there's a reason for that. They are government officers of the House of Commons. Private members are commonly referred to as backbenchers. They need their time in the sun. They need the opportunity to be able to speak freely within the House of Commons without undo influence. This bill has been influenced perhaps more than any other.

I'll remind the members of the process involved. The private member's bill goes through a process, a time-honoured process of some 30 years now in Canadian politics. We have had this process in place where there's essentially a lottery, a lottery of private members who are put in an order of precedence whereby they can present bills or motions to the House of Commons—and I'll get to the distinction between a bill and a motion in a moment—and are in fact encouraged to do so. In fact, there's an unlimited number of bills or motions that can be presented, but the member must determine the one within the order of precedence that he or she will in fact debate in the House of Commons.

Mr. Shory had the opportunity to be within roughly the first half of members who were selected what was essentially a lottery, and had the opportunity to present his bill a little bit earlier on. We're almost midway through the 41st Parliament if, indeed, it does last a whole four or five years. He had the opportunity to present his bill according to that order of precedence. Here I'd like to point out that I'm more or less at the bottom of that order of precedence. I have no idea if I'm going to have an opportunity to present my bills, but I certainly look forward to being able to debate any bills that are brought forward to this House. We have that order of precedence for a reason. Everybody gets a turn, depending on the length of the parliament. Every parliament is defined from one election to another as a parliament. We're currently in the 41st Parliament, and the order of precedence was set.

Again, I'd like to bring it back to the point that only private members have the opportunity to present these bills—not ministers, not parliamentary secretaries. When a minister tries to present amendments to a private member's bill, it in fact puts into question the very validity of that private member's bill. Is it really a private member's bill if a minister, who's not allowed to present bills within the order of precedence to private members bills, proposes a series of amendments. Then the question really is about whether we are even discussing a private member's bill. Are we in fact not discussing a government bill? And if it's a government bill, it falls under a series of new criteria. I think my colleague Mr. Lamoureux mentioned a few of them and they bear repeating.

Private members' bills only have a certain amount of time to be debated in the House. They're essentially an opportunity to bring forward motions or bills in an express manner, in a rapid manner, with very little debate.

I'll get to the process of that in a moment. I just want to point out that if government ministers introduce amendments to a private member's bill, they're essentially circumventing the opportunity for members of Parliament to be able to debate those motions fully. That is a clear violation, as far as I'm concerned, of the spirit of private members' bills and their place within our parliamentary system.

Private members' bills, when they're presented, have the opportunity to be briefed, to be put through a process, whereby experts within the House of Commons are helping them to vet the bill, to properly draft the bill, to see whether it will meet certain criteria.

This bill actually had the benefit.... This was before the amendments were brought forward, suggested by the minister. We had the opportunity to hear from experts, from clerks, from lawyers, from experts within the House of Commons on whether the terms of this bill actually met the basic criteria of a private member's bill. The question still remains whether it's actually a bill that should meet those criteria.

The only real break or possible opportunity for a bill to be rejected is through our private members' bill subcommittee—which I happen to sit on, if I can take an opportunity for full disclosure. The private members' bill subcommittee is a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, commonly known as PROC. That subcommittee has a duty to vet private members' bills or motions according to a series of criteria.

It bears mentioning what those criteria are, so I'll just mention them now. According to Standing Order 91.1, the criteria are that bills and motions must not concern questions that are outside federal jurisdiction. Bills and motions must not clearly violate the Constitution Act, 1867 to 1982, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which as we know is part of the 1982 Constitution Act. Bills and motions must not concern questions that are substantially the same as ones already voted on by the House of Commons in the current session of Parliament, or as ones preceding them in the order of precedence. Bills and motions must not concern questions that are currently on the order paper, or notice, as items of government business.

Those are the four criteria that the private members' bill subcommittee base themselves on to approve or disapprove a bill.

More specifically, I'd like to point out that a bill is deemed votable right from the get-go. It's only deemed non-votable if the subcommittee deems it so, according to those four criteria.

I think the fourth among the criteria bears addressing here, that bills and motions must not concern questions that are currently on the order paper or notice paper as items of government business.

Now, while this bill doesn't actually break the stated wording of that criteria, I'd say it actually breaks the spirit. Again, because the minister brought in so many amendments, it bears questioning whether this is in fact not government business. Government business, as we know...and I think Mr. Lamoureux put it quite well a moment ago when he said that bills that are a part of government business have the benefit of exhaustive debate in the House of Commons—or at least in a normal Parliament it does.

We have the serious difficulty right now that government business seems to be fast-tracked at an incredible rate. We also have omnibus bills that make it clearly impossible to debate issues of great importance to Canadians in a fulsome manner.

But the government seems to have found another way, a third way, to fast-track their legislation, and that's to piggy-back them onto private members' bills. At least that seems to be what's going on here.

If it hadn't been for the fact that the minister had brought so many amendments, trying to divert the meaning of this bill, then perhaps my impression wouldn't be accurate.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Just as a point of order, I realize that the minister is here, and he's actually going to substitute at committee.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

We welcome the minister to our committee.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Great. Thank you, Chair, but I do want to mention, and I think it's important to note, that we are speaking to an amendment that has been moved by the New Democratic Party.

I know we heard Mr. Lamoureux comment about whether or not this is a government bill or whether this is a private member's bill. I'd have lots to say on that issue if I had the opportunity to speak, but I will say that the amendment in and of itself is something that needs to be referred back to in terms of the speaking that Mr. Toone is going to do.

I just would like it if you could remind him that making accusations is fine when we're in the House of Commons during question period, but there is a point to be made of sticking to the core message of what their amendment is attempting to do to the motion.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

I would like to remind all members to take a look at what they're here to debate, but I also want to remind all my honourable colleagues that we did have a speaker here who spoke quite at length, and was given a lot of leeway, without any objection, on a similar line of—

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I objected twice, actually, but....

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Well, not on this line of debate.

I will remind members that you always have to remember what the motion is and what it is you're debating, and that we must apply the rules in the same way to all members.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Then, Madam Chair, if you felt that the previous speaker was going out of line in terms of not sticking to the topic, I would leave it to your determination when to bring that person back closer to the amendment.

I'm just reminding Mr. Toone that I would love to hear his comments with respect to the amendments. I've heard lots of comments that are very similar from Mr. Lamoureux and that Mr. Toone is making now regarding who actually has ownership of this bill. I've heard them from Mr. Lamoureux, and they sounded very, very similar from Mr. Toone.

I'd like to hear more about his feelings on his amendment.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Mr. Dykstra, two different members speaking on it can be saying the same thing, but it's their feelings, their perspective, and that's what this member has the right to express.

I've given...I wouldn't say a lot of latitude, because I believe there is a connection here. So we'll let the member finish.

I would remind all members when they're speaking to always be cognizant of the motions that are before them, and the amendments as well.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to point out that I am trying to bring out arguments here as to why this is an important amendment, and why this amendment was brought forward, and how it is there is a need for an amendment to this bill. It is contrary to the amendments that were brought forward in the past that were going to substantively modify the meaning of the bill. They were brought forward by a minister of the crown, which in my opinion puts into the question the very validity of this in fact being a private member's bill.

Certainly this bill will benefit from amendments. I think that's the whole point of bringing members' bills to committee. It's important that all members' bills have an opportunity to be heard. They certainly tend to benefit from the process of committee and the process of fulsome debate and also the process of having witnesses testify and possibly bring forward ideas for amendments.

The amendment on the table right now is one that's worth debating.

Certainly when it comes to a private member's bill being presented as it was to the subcommittee for that private member's bill, had there been a question of non-votability, had there been any suggestion that it in fact was a government bill, the subcommittee for that private member's bill would have had a difficult time continuing to consider that this bill was votable. It might have in fact deemed it to be non-votable, which would have changed the whole process.

I'll get back to that process in a moment, but the process would have brought this bill to an entirely new level, where the House of Commons itself would have had to determine whether or not this bill were actually votable. But it was deemed votable; it kept its votable status.

We're here now, and we have to debate whether the amendment that was proposed is actually going to be of benefit to this motion and whether it's going to be of benefit over the long haul to the democracy that we're in.

I want to point out that when this bill was debated in committee—and I was able to sit in on a couple of occasions and benefited from hearing the minister himself speak on this bill—the minister mentioned that he supported the bill and that he believed this bill would probably benefit from amendments, were they to be brought forward.

If I remember correctly, he brought forward ideas especially on the second part of this bill, which had to do with determining whether Canadian citizens could lose their citizenship if they were to engage in acts of war against the Canadian Armed Forces. That certainly led to a fairly important debate on the matter. That question is still being raised, and I would argue that it's not been completely exhausted as a matter of debate.

Certainly we heard from a number of witnesses at the committee who called into question whether that was actually an appropriate manner in which to remove citizenship from an individual. I won't go through all the witnesses who brought it up, but we can certainly go back to the testimony and point out that when it comes to removing citizenship without any apparent due process, that seems to be in opposition to the principles of fundamental justice that we tend to abide by in Canada, or at least I thought we did.

The other part of the bill, though—which I think is more a point of the bill—is to fast-track Canadian citizenship for members of the Canadian Armed Forces who do not yet have that citizenship. That's certainly an interesting proposal.

It doesn't affect very many people, as we heard in the committee. I was also present when we heard from Canadian Armed Forces officers who pointed out that it was either 14 or 17 people in a year who would actually benefit from that.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

It is 14.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

It's 14? Thank you, Mrs. Chair.

So 14 people would benefit from that, which is sizably different from all the other Canadians who also wish to benefit from Canadian citizenship. The backlogs are horrendous, and those issues should be addressed, not only by this committee but also by the ministry and the minister himself.

It's unfortunate; had the government come up with a plan for all of those people waiting for citizenship, perhaps this bill never would have been required in the first place. The idea to fast-track Canadian citizenship for some, with the backlogs that keep increasing every year—so in fact slowing down the process for just about everybody else—really leads us to question whether the member might have benefited from discussing with the minister other ways of fast-tracking citizenship. Perhaps some of those would have been to ensure that there are enough officers within Canadian immigration to be able to process files within a reasonable delay and not allow backlogs to increase.

When it comes to the question of citizenship and fast-tracking citizenship, and that we need to be referring this back to the House in all due haste, I think that speaks to the fact that this is an important matter. I think it's important on many levels. We want people who are working in Canada, people who are contributing to that society, whether by paying taxes, producing wealth, extending family and friend relationships, or adding to the vibrancy that makes this nation such an exciting place to be. We really need to be looking at making sure we are not creating a two-tiered system where some individuals will get citizenship sooner rather than later.

I just want to point out how it stands right now with the Canadian Forces: (1) In order to be eligible for enrolment in the Canadian Forces as an officer or non-commissioned member, a person must:

a. be a Canadian citizen, except that the Chief of the Defence Staff or such officer as he may designate may authorize the enrolment of a citizen of another country if he is satisfied that a special need exists and that the national interest would not be prejudiced thereby;

So we have the problem here, a real dilemma, that in order to be considered acceptable to be a member of the Canadian Forces, you have to be a Canadian citizen. Without any clear system for getting that status, a person must be a Canadian citizen, except that the Chief of the Defence Staff or other such officer believes that person deserves to be a member of the Canadian Forces.

There's no clear path here, even for an individual who wants to contribute by being a member of the Canadian Forces. I think this bill might benefit from further debate even in the House of Commons in terms of how that process would actually work.

We have here a situation where the bill would allow shortening by a year the amount of time it would take to go through the process of residency requirements in order to be eligible for that Canadian citizenship, which is laudable in and of itself. The difficulty here is how do you become a member of the Canadian Forces in the first place? There is a bit of a catch-22 in this bill. It doesn't seem to address the issue.

Again, we're only talking, according to the Canadian Forces themselves, of 14 people in a year. We're not talking about a very effective way, I think, to be dealing with the fact that we need to deal with backlogs in the Canadian citizenship process.

I think it's really a horrendous thing, in a country that's essentially built on immigration, that we don't have a better process to be able to welcome new Canadians in a more forthright and expeditious manner than trying to come up with other ways, through another door, in order to be able to gain that citizenship.

In this bill we're creating a false hope for new arrivers in Canada that they might also become Canadian citizens, by suggesting to them that they could fast-track if they became members of the Canadian military, when the Canadian military, in a prima facie manner, cannot accept them as members of the Canadian Armed Forces unless they have exceptional circumstances.

We're creating exceptions to exceptions. This is not a way to deal with an immigration issue. It might be a way to congratulate people and to thank them for their service, but the problem is that it's very difficult for them to even give that service in the first place.

This bill has a lot of difficulties on so many levels. Just the process involved here leads one to really question one's ability to be able to come out in favour of this bill.

Again, this bill risks not getting all-party support, and that would be very unfortunate, because all parties believe that this country benefits from new Canadians. As we all know, this country in fact was built on the backs of new Canadians. We have a lot to thank the new Canadians for in regard to all the hard work they've put into creating this wonderful country that we live in today. We should honour them, and we should honour them in many other ways.

Some of those ways would include having the government producing bills in the normal manner, that is, as government bills that offer the opportunity for a fulsome debate. A fulsome debate means the government coming forward with bills in order to bring witnesses forward, to have fulsome debate in the House of Commons, either at second reading or at report stage, and to have a fulsome debate at the committee level. Then, when we finally get to the third and final reading in the House of Commons, the bill will have had the opportunity to be debated fully and with the benefit of testimony from expert witnesses.

When it comes to private members' bills, a lot of those processes are simply unavailable. Private members' bills only benefit from a couple of hours of debate in the House of Commons, and “debate” is probably a very generous way to express what happens in the House of Commons with a private member's bill, seeing as only the sponsor of the bill, that is, the member of Parliament who's presenting the bill to the House of Commons, alone will have an opportunity to benefit from a question and answer period. No other person who does any presentation or at any time intervenes to speak to the bill will benefit from the opportunity to be questioned by any other member.

The process is short, the process is expeditious, and the process does not benefit from the fulsome debate that a government bill would benefit from. Even in this era of time allocation, even in that environment, government bills, as a rule, are actually getting more debate than a private member's bill does.

Here's what the question really is. With the attempts being made to turn this into a government bill, or to at least give it the appearance of a government bill, wouldn't this bill and all those amendments have benefited from a more fulsome debate in the House of Commons? If that had been the intention, why wasn't the minister perhaps more forthcoming, at the stage when we were debating this in the private members' bills subcommittee, to make it apparent that the government is very interested in this bill and would be bringing forward a series of amendments?

It is very possible that at that point the private members subcommittee would have deemed this bill non-votable. I'll remind members that if it had been deemed non-votable, it would have been very similar to the bill on sex selection that was brought forward recently by the member from Langley, whereby the private members' bills subcommittee deemed that bill to be non-votable.

Such an occurrence could have happened. If it had happened to this bill, there would have been an appeal process, certainly, and that would have led perhaps to another level of debate, but on the matters of the bill itself, we would have missed that opportunity.

What we could have had here was the minister bringing forward a bill that would have reflected his amendments. Unfortunately, we were not given the opportunity to benefit from that process. We were given the opportunity to debate this bill, which, again, has a series of difficulties.

I really need to bring this point forward, Madam Chair. On the possibility that we would remove somebody's citizenship, I find it very difficult and very disturbing. When we talk about removing somebody's citizenship, as the bill points out, we would remove it only if the person is “a citizen or a legal resident of a[nother] country”. That seems to contravene the 1961 UN convention on human rights. It contravenes the point that we must not create a situation whereby an individual is stateless. This bill, without even the benefit of due process, seems to lead to the possibility of somebody becoming stateless, because the bill does in fact say the person would have to be “a citizen” or simply “a legal resident” of another country. The bar is fairly low.

We also actually would have difficulty with the definition of a resident in another country. I would put forward, Madam Chair, that even determining who is a resident in Canada sometimes is not very apparent. Province by province, the rules change, and the rules of international law are sometimes misunderstood.

In my opinion, it is simply not appropriate that in Canada, without any apparent due process, somebody's citizenship could be removed without giving them an opportunity to be heard. A fundamental principle of justice in this country is the right to be heard. This bill doesn't seem to allow for that. It just says that if an individual engages in an act of war, we will remove their citizenship if they have citizenship or if they have residency status in another country.

It's fraught with danger, Madam Chair. Even the possibility of defining “an act of war” has been debated in this committee. I would challenge anybody to actually come up with the definitive answer as to what an act of war is. That part of the bill still remains highly questionable and again seems to contravene an international convention to which Canada is a signatory. It's very difficult on many different levels.

But if we get back to the fact that this bill seems to be one that brings forward government business, and not private members' business, I have to ask this question. If this bill isn't being whipped by members of the government party.... It would at least appear to be a two-line whip, if not a three-line whip. To be clear, a two-line whip occurs when ministers have to vote in favour of the bill and other members are left to vote according to their conscience. I'm not sure that this isn't a three-line whip, considering the amount of attention the minister has put on this bill and his presence in this committee—

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

[Inaudible—Editor]...a point of order, Mr. Toone, if you could.

We're fairly relaxed with extra people coming in and visiting, with extra staff, MPs, and whoever wants to come in and enjoy our company here, but I am going to ask if people could be a little respectful and not get so loud that it interferes with my being able to hear, because that's the test I'm using.

Thank you.

Carry on, Mr. Toone.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Loud and clear, Madam Chair. Thank you.

The very presence of the minister at this stage suggests that the government ministers continue to be very interested in this bill. Again, it's an unusual level of interest, given that this is a private member's bill.

I'm not sure if the minister had the opportunity to hear this or not, but it bears repeating that ministers are not allowed to bring forward private members' bills, nor are their parliamentary secretaries. Only those who are commonly referred to as “backbenchers” can bring forward private members' bills, so the fact that the minister would bring forward amendments calls into question the process. I think a fulsome debate just on that point alone would be an interesting one for the House of Commons to engage in—