Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will continue, even though I have lost my momentum. I am very passionate about these issues because they fundamentally and strikingly change the Citizenship Act, as I have mentioned in my comments so far. We are completely distorting the precepts that have applied so far when it comes to citizenship.
The proposed amendments send a message that Canadians are not all equal and that the loyalty of some Canadians is called into question. Yes, it is an essential issue and argument. Some of our fellow Canadians have already expressed their concerns. In fact, they felt in some way that they were being maligned by the messages being conveyed. They were concerned. Sometimes, as I mentioned, Canadians do not know they have dual citizenship and might become stateless persons.
There is another important aspect. I truly believe that we, as parliamentarians, have a responsibility to ensure that the Canadians who make up our country, the builders, the immigrants who came to build Canada, are truly regarded and considered as full-fledged Canadians. That is not what the bill's proposed amendments say, which raises the following question: are all Canadians equal? Is there discrimination when a person belongs to a certain category? These are vital questions, and they need to be asked. We need to find some real answers.
This negative message affects some Canadians in particular, including Muslims and Arabs, who have been persistently and unfairly associated with terrorism. Unfortunately, some Muslims or Arabs have suffered from the direct impact of this hatred toward these communities, something we have unfortunately seen since the 2001 terrorist attacks. It's appalling.
We have a responsibility as parliamentarians to pay attention and ensure there are no differences. When certain citizens are singled out, it further stirs up these disparities and this hatred that, unfortunately, we know exist. It's our responsibility to see to that.
I will now share with you the brief from B'nai Brith on Bill C-425, which was prepared for the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and tabled for the April 18, 2013 meeting:
Bill C-425 proposes that those who are citizens or legal residents of a country other than Canada and who engage in an act of war against the Canadian armed forces would be deemed to apply for renunciation of Canadian citizenship. The government has indicated that it would propose amendments to the bill. These amendments have not yet been tabled.
I need to clarify that at that point, these amendments had not yet been tabled.
The absence of the text of the amendments has both an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that their absence makes it difficult to be specific about matters of potential concern. The advantage is that the situation is now fluid. The government may well be more flexible before the amendments are introduced than afterwards. A. Acts of War The first question is: what is intended by the phrase “an act of war”? The member of Parliament who introduced the bill, Devinder Shory, said to this committee on March 19 that what he intended “was to address those individuals who are either members of some armed forces or armed group who attack our men and women in uniform.” So for him, an act of war was an attack on Canadian men or women in uniform. In terms of international law, an act of war is an act which justifies a military response. An act of war permits going to war in response without the response being considered an act of aggression. An act of war against Canada can be committed in a number of ways. One way, to be sure, is to attack the Canadian armed forces. However, it is not the only way. Other ways are to attack a Canadian merchant vessel, blow up public buildings, assassinate the political leaders or diplomatic representatives, bomb civilian centres and so on. Why would there be a deemed application of renunciation of citizenship for an act of war in one way but not another? Surely, if an act of war justifies a deemed application of renunciation of citizenship, that justification stands no matter how the act of war was committed. The bill suggests that there is a right way and a wrong way to commit an act of war against Canada, or perhaps more accurately, a bad way and a worse way and that the worst way of all is to attack the Canadian armed forces. We are reluctant to rank acts of war against Canada in terms of their gravity. We consider them all bad. How could one possibly say that an attack on a civilian centre of any of the major Canadian cities ranks less in gravity than an attack on the Canadian armed forces? We recommend that this bill, instead of mandating revocation of citizenship for those who committed acts of war against the Canadian armed forces, mandate revocation for those who have committed acts of war against Canada pure and simple. We note that Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney stated to this committee on March 21 that there is no clear definition of what constitutes an act of war and suggested that the committee amend the bill by replacing that term with other acts that are more clearly defined in law. The phrase the minister suggested at the committee to replace “war” was “armed conflict”. Our position is that, whatever…