Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 13th, 2013

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I, too, want to wade into the debate on Mr. Dykstra's motion, which seeks an extension of 30 sitting says to consider the bill. Tied to that 30-day extension is the possible expansion of the bill's scope.

I want to start by sharing the additions the minister is planning to make to the bill's scope, as regards the offences set out in the National Defence Act.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have a point of order, Ms. James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and as you can see, I'm wearing my jacket, so I think I have the floor now.

I just wanted to say that we're not talking about the actual amendments in the debate right now. We're talking about the 30-day extension only, so if you're going to start reading amendments or talk about what may or may not have been proposed in committee, I think that's already been ruled out of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Madame Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Chair, in response to that point of order, I'd like to ask you a question.

In light of what Ms. James just said, are we talking about limiting this motion to the 30-day extension? Could you clarify that please?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Madame Groguhé, we've had this out. Several members of the committee have raised the issue of amendments, and I have pointed out to the committee that in my observation amendments have never been formally made. It's inappropriate for members to debate something that hasn't happened, and may indeed never happen.

I'm going to repeat this for your benefit.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Please. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The recollection I have is that members of the government and members of the opposition distributed proposed amendments, unofficially, to everyone on the committee. Indirectly, the legislative clerk at the time did make some comments about some of the amendments, but those amendments were never formally made. They were amendments that were simply distributed. Because they were never formally made, Ms. James is right. You are entering into debate on something that has never happened, and indeed may never happen. So quite frankly, I really think you are out of order in debating matters that haven't happened.

We do have a speakers list on this point of order. We'll see what the other members have to say, but at this point that's my position.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I respect that you didn't forget me this time. Thank you.

With respect to the dimension of amendments that were proposed in committee, I actually did pull the Hansard.

As you have explained to us, Mr. Dykstra had moved the motion to take the bill back to the House before going through clause-by-clause. He had mentioned that's what he wanted. It was revealed to all of us that those proposed amendments, which were passed around but weren't moved, would be beyond the scope, so he moved a similar motion to send it to the House.

But after hearing the comments made by Ms. Sims and Monsieur Lamoureux, Mr. Dykstra actually responded. He suggested that he knew the amendments were outside the scope and could not be adopted in committee and that only going back to the House to expand the scope would allow the amendments to be possible at all at committee.

I will quote from the Hansard, just like Mr. Dykstra was doing earlier.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I'm sorry, can we continue?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You're doing fine.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

Just as Mr. Dykstra was reading out of Hansard earlier, I'd like to read a couple of passages quoting Mr. Dykstra. It says:

Jinny, your point around statelessness is something that witnesses have pointed out. It's a concern that ministry officials have pointed out as to why they support the amendments—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Can you help me as to where that is?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

It's in Hansard. I have excerpts. It is from the blues on April 23.

[The Clerk]

What time was it?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I don't have the exact time-stamp. That was when we were discussing this in committee.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I can give the committee reference, if it helps.

It was on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, and I believe she is reading from page—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I don't have the page. I just have excerpts from the electronic version.

Do you want to see it? Would that help you, Julie? This is how it looks.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Ms. Sitsabaiesan. I have the quote that you wish to refer to.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Fabulous. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The quote reads:

Jinny, your point around statelessness is something that witnesses have pointed out. It's a concern that ministry officials have pointed out as to why they support the amendments that have been put forward. I think all of us around this table heard very clearly from the United Nations' representative that indeed we need to set this bill up so that it does not put individuals in a position of statelessness. That's what the amendments do. Unfortunately, we need to go back into the House of Commons to get those amendments into the bill itself. But I appreciate your comments on that, because that is where we're driving to in working through this.

As to your final piece about the bill needing work, that's why the amendments are here and that's why we're going to go back to the House of Commons, Mr. Chairman, and that's why we'll come back here, once we've been through the House of Commons, to get this bill passed with the amendments necessary to strengthen the bill itself and the legislation it carries with it.

So clearly, on April 23 the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the lead from the government side, the Conservative side, spoke of amendments publicly and said that we even had heard comments from witnesses about these amendments. Earlier I thought maybe I was losing my mind, because these amendments had never been spoken of, had never been seen, were just kind of shown, but truly, these amendments were spoken of and were presented to witnesses, and witnesses had an opportunity to see them and comment on them.

So, Mr. Chair, for us to now say that we cannot make reference to any amendments because they weren't officially moved...that's because Mr. Dykstra, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Immigration, clearly stated here that that's because we now know that the amendments will be beyond the scope of what this committee can do, so we need to go to the House to get permission.

So clearly these amendments were presented—I'm not going to say moved because they weren't moved. They were presented to the committee and to the witnesses, and the witnesses were questioned on them.

Mr. Chair, I don't believe that Madame Groguhé is out of order to mention them.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Well, I'm going to agree with what you said, that the amendments have never been moved. That's the position that I as chairman have taken all the way along. They have never been moved.

It's a very strange thing. We've discussed proposed amendments. The ministry officials and I think Minister Kenney came, and I honestly can't remember who, one of them, either a ministry official or Mr. Kenney, or maybe all of them, said we needed some amendments. No formal amendments were described, but there was a discussion that certain amendments should be made. They were listed off. I don't know where they were, but I will—

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Yes, Minister Kenney actually listed them off as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

But the reason I am making the ruling that I am, Ms. Sitsabaiesan, is there is no doubt in my mind—so far, I still haven't heard anything that specific amendments were actually moved. We can't debate amendments when they haven't been moved, and they have never been moved. Proposed amendments have been suggested by the officials and others. You have just admitted that, but they've never been moved.

If someone can find something in the blues that shows me where they were moved, then I'll reconsider my position, but I'm not going to allow a debate on something that hasn't happened. There's no question there was a whole number of amendments.

Again, I'm repeating myself I don't know how many times, but no one seems to listen to me here.