Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 12th, 2014

[Paul Attia]

It would put you in isolation, yes.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Let me talk about my favourite topic in the bill, which is revocation of citizenship from dual nationals convicted of.... We are talking about those who are convicted of terrorism or treason.

The bill also allows the government to deny citizenship to someone who has committed and been convicted of such acts in other countries. I want to clarify one thing here. It is very clear in intention and in the writing of the bill that those actions of treason or terrorism have to be on the Canadian standard. The jurisdictions must have the same judicial system.

I have to ask you if, in your view and of course that of your organization, revoking citizenship from convicted terrorists helps preserve the value of what it means to be Canadian.

[Paul Attia]

In principle, it certainly does.

Again, I began at the opening by saying we hold citizenship in Canada as a privilege.

Again, going back to the hockey jersey analogy, everyone has the chance to try out. You've done your part, you've earned a spot on the team, and you're handed a jersey. If we find out later that you have done things that are quite contrary, against your teammates, your jersey should be taken away and your spot on the team should be taken away.

I think we do hold to that. The only concern I have with it, as I raised, with respect to the convictions from a foreign nation are, again, what the ultimate decider is as to whether or not it's to the standard of Canadian jurisprudence. To me currently and in the current drafting, that remains slightly unclear. Again, I would invite the committee to take a look at that particular portion of it to come to some clarity with respect to who decides that and how.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

On a similar issue, Mr. Goldberg, I read your statement of May 6, and I'll quote it for the record:

Citizenship is the bedrock of Canadian identity.... Especially for new Canadians, becoming a citizen means they have joined the Canadian family. Canada is their home. They and their families are full-fledged Canadians. Now there will be a question mark beside their citizenship status. A bureaucrat, not a judge but a bureaucrat, may now decide on very vague criteria that they are not really a member of the family. They can now be kicked out of the family for imputed intention. That weakens Canadian citizenship. It does not strengthen it.

My question is this. If a person who holds Canadian citizenship has committed an act of terrorism, not only committed but has been convicted of terrorism against his or her fellow citizens; has subscribed to a radical ideology, intentionally and knowingly, that seeks the destruction of the state of Canada and of democracy itself; and has murdered innocent civilians in an attempt to destabilize the state, are those really very vague criteria for stripping that person's citizenship?

[Mitchell J. Goldberg]

As Mr. Attia said, the devil's in the details.

I think everybody in this room condemns terrorism with all their hearts. I think we all fundamentally believe in democracy and the rule of law and in protecting innocent people. The question is this. What is the best way to do that, and what is the best way to do that in a way that reinforces Canadians' citizenship?

To use the hockey analogy, which is popular today and popular in Canada, if somebody commits a heinous act against another hockey player—not just roughing, but smashes them over the head and injures them—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

I'm sorry, sir, I will ask you for a short answer to make sure we have time to hear it.

[Mitchell J. Goldberg]

The short answer is that they're penalized, and the full force of the biggest penalty imaginable, perhaps suspension, is given. But do you banish them to another country and send them off to China, Russia, Siberia, or somewhere like that? That's the issue.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you, sir. The time is over.

Mr. Sandhu, you now have the floor.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

I have five minutes, so I'm going to try to be very quick.

Mr. Attia, you pointed out that language is a unifier. Do you think we should be investing more money into language programs for our new citizens?

[Paul Attia]

I appreciate that this is an issue that's outside the scope of the actual bill, and to be quite honest, our organization doesn't actually have particular knowledge in terms of what the current status is or what the previous programs are. I obviously have picked up some information today in terms of the comments that are being made.

But again, in preparation for this, the organization's position was that, of course, language is a unifier and that the age broadening is something we do support. As to whether or not the programs exist or who is funding them is an issue that I think is outside of our scope for today.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Okay, I would presume that, if you were speaking strongly of language being a unifier, you would want to invest some money for programs that will help our immigrants to better integrate into Canadian culture. I would presume that the Conservatives would be doing that, rather than cutting funding to those programs.

Ms. Go, you talked about the exclusionary policies in the early 19th century, whether it was the head tax, for which this government apologized in the last few years; or whether it was the Japanese internship; or whether it was turning away 376 passengers on the Komagata Maru, for which this government has still not apologized.

You alluded to the fact that maybe some of these policies, which we have denounced and which we thought were a dark chapter in our Canadian history, may be coming back here. Can you maybe elaborate on that?

[Avvy Yao-Yao Go]

Sure, in particular it's around the Citizenship Act. Until 1947, for instance, Chinese were not allowed to become citizens of Canada. There are many different ways in which we exclude individuals from citizenship based on race, particularly during those days.

In my comment, I talk about the various ways in which this particular bill would result in the exclusion of certain groups. Live-in caregivers are in one group, and people from certain countries where English is not their first language are in another.

All those provisions added together mean that certain groups, because of their gender or their race, will be disproportionately affected by this particular bill. So while I am not suggesting in any way that this government intends to discriminate, we need to look at the result of passing this bill, which will mean that some groups are more likely to be excluded than others.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Goldberg, you talked about how your daughter may go to the United States and study there. A citizen who had become a naturalized citizen here will be taking a risk going to another country. It may be for a job or to study. You talked about some bureaucrat speculating on their intentions.

What are the charter implications of having two-tier citizenship in our country?

[Mitchell J. Goldberg]

With regard to the intent to reside provision, I have read the briefs of the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. It's very clear I think to the entire legal community that it would be a violation of section 6 mobility rights and possibly also section 15 equality rights. There are further constitutional concerns about banishment in general, as mentioned.

It's interesting to note the U.S. Supreme Court has said banishing citizens is cruel and unusual punishment. We agree with that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Farber, five cases have already been struck down by our Supreme Court under this government. That's unprecedented.

You said some of these changes are unnecessary and arbitrary. Why would the government bring these changes?

[Bernie M. Farber]

If I had the answer to that question, I'd be writing a book and selling it at this point. I'm not sure why governments do what they do, and if I can answer the honourable member's question in relation to the costs, he's judging Canada on the basis of other countries, Australia and New Zealand. I'd rather judge us on the basis of us as Canadians.

We are raising our costs here and making it more difficult for refugees and immigrants to gain citizenship. I don't care what they do in Australia, to be honest with you. I care what we do here. We have a history, and we're known to be compassionate, engaging people. That's why we are the country we are.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you very much. Sorry about that.

Mr.Opitz, you have the next five minutes.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're right. As I look around this room I see five MPs who are from other countries, and at least two who are first generation, born here to immigrant parents, as I was, and I know as Mr. Menegakis was.

I thank you, Mr. Attia, for your comments at the front end about the transparency of this public debate and this process, because that's what this committee is all about, to be able to kick around this bill and find areas where we can strengthen it. It's always been the case that we're willing to do that, and that's why these things come to committee.

I hear you loud and clear about language. I grew up in a Polish community in Toronto, and there were people, quite frankly, who lived in those communities for 30 years or longer who didn't speak a word of English, or barely any. They managed because they spoke the language at the church, at the bank, at the local stores, and so forth.

Anyhow it was very important. That made an impact on me. I recognized that from growing up because it made people's lives very difficult. They were very limited in how they could integrate into Canadian society, and what they could achieve, and in some cases what their kids could achieve because the parents weren't well versed in being able to instruct them or to provide.

By the way my parents came in the late forties. They had the two-year contract. When you got here, first you were given a job. You weren't allowed to go wherever you wanted. You had to work very hard for those sorts of things. That's very important.

Mr. Attia, you wrote a letter to the National Post conveying your support for the minister, who at the time was Jason Kenney, for cracking down on immigration fraud. Of course as we know Bill C-24 aims to crack down on citizenship fraud.

Immigrants and their families here work very hard. We know that. As Mr. Menegakis said, we allow in more immigrants historically than anybody else ever has. They do come with values of honesty, integrity, and wanting to get ahead, and of course they appreciate the cost of all of that.

In terms of the residency requirement, do you believe spending a certain amount of time, in this case four years out of six, in Canada is too much? I preface that by saying we often use European models as a model for Canada, but many of those European models have much longer residency requirements than we do.

I'd ask you to comment on that.

[Paul Attia]

Thank you for your comments, and thank you for the question.

As indicated in the outline, we as an organization do not think that the proposed requirement of four years out of six years is too much. We actually do welcome the increase. Again, this is an immigrant community that's positing this. These are people of very diverse ethnic backgrounds and of a very broad range of countries of origin who are strongly supporting this. It's for the very reasons that you and others today have already indicated, which are that we came to this country, we made a strong effort to say we wanted to be Canadian, we put our time in and worked really hard, we love it, and we view ourselves as Canadian.

My father taught me something when I was a kid that I'll never ever forget. Born and raised in the Middle East, he came here by boat with $200 in his pocket, really hasn't stopped working in the last 45 years, and continues to work today. That's the mentality and that's the attitude shared by many others in this room. He happened to be from Egypt, and he always said he didn't leave Egypt for Egypt but left Egypt for Canada. I was always inspired and motivated by that.

But again, on the logistics front, recognize this. We are saying this is a requirement for citizenship, not to arrive at the borders, not to apply for refugee status, not to obtain permanent resident status. It's for citizenship. You can work here, you can study here, but if you want to get that Team Canada jersey, if you want to be on the team and be a Canadian citizen, we would like to see this commitment. You benefit from it and we benefit from it.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, in my final 30 seconds, I'd like to make a motion that we move into camera. It's a non-debatable motion.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

This motion can't be debated, so we will proceed to the vote.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

We are going to continue the meeting in camera.

I would ask our witnesses and guests to please leave the room. Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]