Mr. Chair, this amendment would provide citizenship to more individuals who currently do not meet the requirements for citizenship, including to persons born abroad beyond the first generation, and it would remove the first-generation limit.
The government does not support this amendment because it would extend citizenship to persons born beyond the first generation who do not necessarily have a closer attachment to Canada. This prevents the passing on of Canadian citizenship to those with little or no attachment to Canada—the original clause—so we would prefer to keep it that way.
The provision in the bill addresses most cases of lost Canadians. Any remaining exceptional cases will be examined on a case-by-case basis, and there may be a case on occasion for a discretionary grant of citizenship under the Citizenship Act.
For those reasons, we cannot support this amendment.