Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 14th, 2014

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To our witnesses, thank you once again for coming here and enlightening the committee with your views and your opinions.

Mr. Gupta, once again, I feel sorry about your loss a long time ago and the grief you've had to go through in your life.

I am very happy to hear from you that you know about the bill and you know that in Canada Nelson Mandela was never considered and would not have been considered a terrorist, because also under this bill, you talked about our judicial system and equivalency, so I won't put in much time on that.

But talking about lawyers, by profession I'm a lawyer. I will tell you this: lawyers have different interpretations. Different lawyers will have different interpretations, and lawyers are not judges. Judges have to decide. When they talk about this fearmongering and also the charter, lawyers said this and that. I'll leave it there, because this bill, as the minister told us already, has gone through our justice system to have a look at it about the charter challenge.

I want to be straight. I also want to put on the record that the opposition has to understand the bill. When we talk about revocation, the minister may revoke the citizenship of an individual who has already been convicted and already is either serving or has served. What this means is that when the individual is convicted or going through the court process, that individual has the right of the judicial process to go up to the Supreme Court of Canada. So when they talk about how there is no process, I just laugh.

Anyway, Mr. Gupta, let me ask you this. Actually, both of you know that part of this revocation specifically and the armed forces credit were part of my Bill C-425. Mr. Gupta, I'll quote what you said when you appeared in front of this committee on April 16 last year:

By waging war against the Canadian Forces, such persons clearly demonstrate that they have no loyalty whatsoever to Canada and attach no value to the Canadian democratic system. Thus, they do not deserve Canadian citizenship, which they are using as a matter of convenience to further their criminal and terrorist activities.

I would like you to expand a little bit on why you feel that loyalty and citizenship have a connection and why it is important to prevent citizens of convenience from using a Canadian passport to more easily carry out terrorist acts—crimes.

[Dr. Bal Gupta]

I'll give you reasons. We have discussed it in our meetings, and it came out even in our presentations to the Major commission, chaired by Justice Major.

We are very perturbed by the criminals who use Canadian citizenship as a shield to commit crime. We have a very good example in today's judgment of the Supreme Court. Does anybody remember when the process started? It must be at least 10 years ago, and, God knows, it may continue for another 10 years, because he will use the excuse that he will be tortured in Algeria if he's deported there. That's a very good example of people using the loopholes in our system.

I will give you a very good example related to the Air India tragedy. A person who is still in Canada made the statement in the U.S.A., in Madison Square Garden, that they would kill 60,000 Hindus, and he's a Canadian citizen. Nothing has happened to him.

We have to wake up. The next time, I'm sorry to say.... And I don't need sympathy. I've waited 29 years. A child who was five and a half years old at that time lost a mother. She is now a pediatrician in Ottawa.

But what we need is support from our lawmakers to keep terrorism away from Canada. We don't need sympathy. We have had enough of it. We need the politicians not to associate with people or organizations who are known to glorify terrorism and in that way encourage it, whether it be a religious activity.... And that applies to all political parties.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Gupta.

Ms. Siddiqui, now I'm going to ask you something on the same line, on the provisions in Bill C-24 that would revoke the citizenship of a convicted terrorist who had chosen to seek the destruction of Canada and Canadian values.

When you testified on my private member's bill, Bill C-425, on March 26 last year, you said, “We cannot be politically correct in everything and it's not about political correctness, because at the end of the day, by being politically correct we are not doing service to the immigrants who have come here and are working in an honest manner.”

I would like you to expand a little on the impact homegrown terrorism has on the vast majority of honest, hard-working immigrants who share our values and who come to Canada seeking a better life and seeking to make Canada even a better place.

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

Madam Siddiqui, you will have 30 seconds to answer. Sorry.

[Salma Siddiqui]

This is a longer thing than—

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

I understand.

[Salma Siddiqui]

Start the 30 seconds from now, please.

It has an immense effect. It has an effect on seniors that you haven't seen....

I agree with him that the political parties have to stop engaging with people who are basically maligning our reputation. The fact is, the effect cannot be described in 30 seconds. After 9/11, how many people went into a depression? What happened to so many people who felt as a Muslim that their religion was hijacked? I think 30 seconds is not good enough, but.... I feel that you would not even get to know the effect that it has.

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

Thank you, Madam Siddiqui. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Madam Sitsabaiesan, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to you both.

Since you both touched on the topic of citizenship revocation, I'd like to go in that vein as well. I'd like to quote for you a study that was done by an expert in the field, who is a lawyer with an LL.B. and a LL.M. from Yale and also is a professor. So this is a person who is an educator teaching future lawyers.

The study is by Craig Forcese and it's titled “A Tale of Two Citizenships: Citizenship Revocation for 'Traitors and Terrorists'”. I'm going to read a very brief paragraph from it:

Amending Canada’s citizenship laws to provide for denaturalization of “traitors and terrorists”, as proposed by the current federal government, is an idea consumed with legal flaws. To comply with international law on the prohibition of citizenship deprivation that would result in statelessness, any such amendments would have to apply only to individuals with dual citizenship. However, targeting those individuals would be very hard to defend against equality-based challenges under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In addition, denaturalization of “traitors and terrorists” might well be perceived as a punitive measure, whose impact and stigma would call for constitutional procedural protections far stronger than those set out in the current Citizenship Act and the proposed revisions to it. Such denaturalization also seems unlikely to advance any clear Canadian national security interest, and would accomplish less than can be done through other laws, including the Criminal Code.

This is just the abstract for a study. We clearly don't have time to go through all of it.

What are your opinions on what this expert has to say?

[Salma Siddiqui]

First of all, that a person is an academic and does the research does not mean they know everything. I'm sorry to say that.

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

Of course.

[Salma Siddiqui]

Because they are not taking the war on the street that we are.... We may say very well that we are not experts, but we are living this every day. The fact is—

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

You're saying you're living this every day. Is that revocation of citizenship you're living every day?

[Salma Siddiqui]

No.

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

What is it that you're living every day?

[Salma Siddiqui]

What the impact is of these terrorists who are coming in and not being, you know, penalized enough.

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

So these are terrorists who are Canadians, who hold current Canadian citizenship, who you are dealing with on a regular—

[Salma Siddiqui]

Absolutely. You know that as well, right?

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

I'm just making sure that we understand clearly.

[Salma Siddiqui]

I hope I'm being clear. Because you went very fast, so naturally I did not get that whole thing, but I'm getting the essence of what you're asking for. Again, the fact that somebody is an expert, somebody has done some research, somebody is doing.... It doesn't mean anything. When we go through everyday life and we meet people and what they are saying, that also counts. So to me, that does not make any difference: I am for this bill.

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

Okay.

Do I have time? I have one more minute? Fabulous.

I'd like to also touch on the residency requirement, because I know that one of you mentioned it. I think Mr. McCallum may have touched on the pre-PR time, on the people who are spending time in this country. We've heard many people say that getting the Canadian experience, committing to being Canadian, and living like a Canadian has value and is important for Canadian citizenship. For people who are living as international students, Ms. Siddiqui, I know you said that whether they come here as international students for four or five years, and they're living like Canadians, paying taxes and whatever, they should still wait out the time like everybody else does.

How about people who are coming to Canada as conditional permanent residents? These are usually women who come as spouses, who come through the spousal sponsorship program, and who are here for two years as a conditional PR or permanent resident. Should their time in Canada be valued towards citizenship?

This is for either one of you.

[Salma Siddiqui]

I would also like to go, but I'll let Mr. Gupta go....

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

A short answer, please. We're running out of time.

[Dr. Bal Gupta]

Well, the short answer to the first question she raised—

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

Maybe the second one, because we're very short on time.