Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
On behalf of the Canadian Council for Refugees, I thank you for the invitation to appear before you as part of your study on Bill C-6. I will be sharing my speaking time with my colleague Jennifer Stone, member of CCR's executive committee.
We have submitted a detailed brief and we would also like to draw your attention to a document that summarizes our concerns.
The CCR is an umbrella organization for about 180 organizations from all across Canada. Most of those organizations work with refugees and other newcomers, whose experiences on the ground form the basis for our comments on the bill.
As a general comment, we want to highlight the importance of citizenship for the mental health of newcomers, especially refugees. Our members see on a daily basis what a difference it makes to people once they become citizens. They are finally secure.
This is particularly the case for refugees who have been forced to flee their own country. Until they become Canadian citizens, they face not only practical problems because they have no passport, but also the psychological stress of not having anywhere they can definitively call home, of still having the fear that they might again be forced out. Facilitating access to citizenship plays a vital role in promoting good mental health. Conversely, barriers in access to citizenship and measures that call into question the security of citizenship have negative impacts on mental health.
Our comments on Bill C-6 can be summarized in two points. First, we support early access to citizenship for newcomers without discrimination, and second, we recommend that the law guarantee the equality of all citizens.
We are glad to see several amendments in Bill C-6 that advance the objective of early access to citizenship without discrimination. Refugees and others can count time spent in Canada before becoming a permanent resident toward the three years required for citizenship.
Many refugees wait years in Canada before they become permanent residents, through no fault of their own. Thousands of people who made claims before December 2012 still haven't had a hearing on their cases—the so-called legacy cases—and for those who are accepted as refugees, the processing time for permanent residence was two years, until recently. For live-in caregivers, the published processing time for permanent residence after they have met all the criteria is 49 months.
Second, we welcome the proposed residence requirement of three out of the past five years to qualify for citizenship.
Third, Bill C-6 proposes reverting the application of language and knowledge tests to people aged 18 to 54. Youth under 18 are in school when they learn English or French and are educated about Canada, so we never understood the logic of imposing tests on youth.
Regarding the older age group, while we know that many are fully capable of passing the tests, some older people struggle with learning a new language and with doing tests. This is certainly the case for people who have suffered many losses and hardships as refugees.
Despite these changes, there are still important gaps in access to citizenship, and we recommend for your future attention the need to, one, create a right to apply for citizenship for youth under 18 who do not have a parent or legal guardian in Canada; two, prevent long wait times by requiring the government to process applications within a reasonable time; three, introduce an option for applicants to request a waiver from the strict physical residency requirement when compelling facts exist; and four, prevent citizenship applications' being used to launch a process to strip status from former refugees through cessation.