Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 27th, 2023

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Yes, I believe there will be amendments required to address specifically the age 28 rule. Then I think it would be important to bring forward amendments to address the second-generation cut-off and their descendants, and to address the issue around the war heroes and recognizing them. Hopefully the committee will get to that.

We will have opportunities. By the way, Senator, I think you might have copies of it. If you don't, I would ask the clerk to pass it on to you. We have received a giant stack of submissions from people on this issue, so—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Ms. Kwan. Your time is up.

We will come to you in the second round.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, can I just ask if the clerk can pass on the information that she has received to the senator?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to Mr. Kmiec.

Mr. Kmiec, you will have five minutes. Please begin.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My colleague reminded me that I had another notice of motion to give orally. The motion is as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship and department officials be invited to appear before the Committee to update it on the 2022 Additional Protocol to the 2002 Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement signed by the Government of Canada on March 29, 2022, by the Government of the United States of America on April 15, 2022, with a coming into effect on March 25, 2023.

I also have the wording in English. The notice of motion will therefore be given to Madam Clerk in both official languages.

I'll switch back to English, colleagues. I'll continue so it makes the meeting simpler.

Senator Martin, do you believe, when you had help from the law clerk in the Senate and that assistance in writing this bill, that they would have made a mistake in drafting the bill?

[Yonah Martin]

I have the explanation regarding subclause 1(3), and I could read that explanation again. I don't know if that's clear.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm just wondering if you think you're not going to be able to address those lost Canadians you were hoping to address in this bill.

[Yonah Martin]

No, I don't believe that. I think as written it does address those who were captured in the age 28 rule. That's clear.

On the question about June 2015, which would effect moving the first-generation limit from April 2009 to June 2015, the second part of the explanation from legal counsel says that, while it could be made more clear, as written the bill does not purport to have retroactive effect. That would need to be explicit. It cannot be implied. Without retroactive effect, anyone born between 2009 and June 2015 would be governed by the Citizenship Act as it read prior to the enactment of Bill S-245.

The subclause was put in so that my bill, if enacted, will intersect and work effectively with the previous bill, Bill C-24, and not the opposite, as implied by the official. If there's something that could be amended to greater clarify this, I'm very open to that.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

You're open to it.

When Bill S-230 was being debated back on June 16, 2021, the most senior officials there were Catherine Scott, assistant deputy minister, settlement and integration, and Alec Attfield, director general, citizenship branch, strategic and program policy. We heard something different from officials here at committee last week. Some of them said that there were equity issues involved.

Did you hear something like that, that there were any problems? Just a quick yes or no would suffice, because I have a question for Mr. Hallan specifically on this.

[Yonah Martin]

No, we did not hear of any issues.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

There were no issues then, but now people of a lower grade.... There was no assistant deputy minister here last week. They said at the Senate two years ago that there was no problem. Now they've raised that there are problems.

Mr. Hallan, since you sit on the finance committee, and you've sat on this committee as well, have you ever heard of a situation where over the years officials have contradictory opinions on the same bill? This is the identical bill. From Bill S-230 to Bill S-245 nothing has changed in the contents, but now there are two opinions on the bill's content.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec, my good friend.

I'd just like to open by thanking the committee for letting us be here today and for all the hard work of people like my good friend Senator Martin and Don Chapman. I'd like to thank them for the incredible work they've done to get the bill this far. I think this is the furthest this bill has ever gotten.

To your question, Mr. Kmiec, definitely there are differences of opinion all the time inside the House. I think what is clear in this very narrow and specific bill is the spirit behind getting this specific group of lost Canadians the right to be granted their citizenship again. It was something that was stripped from them very unfairly, and something that they didn't know about. I think our action moving forward....

I think you highlighted something very important. This is a narrow bill, and we don't know how much time we have. An election can get called at any point. All the good work that's led us up to the furthest we've ever been with this bill can be wiped out if we don't move on this quickly. In my opinion, and I think it's the opinion of the senator as well, we should get through this as quickly as we can to give citizenship rights back to those who were stripped of them unfairly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. Your time is up.

We will now proceed to MP Ali.

MP Ali, you have five minutes. Please begin.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and through you, thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

Senator, you just said in response to MP Kayabaga's question that the bill should be made “more clear”. Are you now saying that you would welcome an amendment to your bill?

[Yonah Martin]

The clarity I was referring to was regarding the concern that was expressed about the effect on the first-generation limit, that it would be moved to June 2015. I had not intended any unintended consequences with that specific subclause. If there's language that can clarify that, I would be open to it.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Senator, you've agreed that there's some confusion with part of the bill. Just to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, IRCC officials have said that the mention of the 2015 date effectively changes the application date of the first-generation limit rule. Are you saying that this is not your intention?

[Yonah Martin]

Yes. That was not the intention of that subclause. The explanation that I've read twice from the Senate legal counsel about it is that the bill doesn't purport to have retroactive effect, which is what was being addressed by the officials last week.

As I said, for that specific subclause, if there is language that will clarify so that we don't create an unintended effect, I would be open to that.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Again, through you, Madam Chair, can you explain, Senator, what it was that you wanted to achieve with the mention of the date and how legislative counsel advised you that it could be fixed?

[Yonah Martin]

Yes. The exclusion provision, which is subclause 1(3), was tied to the date of the coming into force of Bill C-24. There were some concerns during the drafting of Bill S-245 that not including the subclause may cause conflict between my bill and Bill C-24. That's why it was put in.

However, if what I'm hearing from departmental officials now is that there could be some confusion and an unintended consequence, as I said, I would be very open to an amendment that would clarify that specific section.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Senator.

Senator—again, through you, Madam Chair—in the United States, our closest neighbour, the rule is that all persons who are born abroad but have either a citizen parent or grandparent who meets the residency requirement are citizens by descent. Wouldn't this make more sense after the first-generation limit...?

[Yonah Martin]

We have our laws as is because of previous bills such as Bill C-37 and Bill C-24. What you're talking about is not captured in the bill that is before us. I won't comment on what makes more sense or not, but rather say that, for this specific bill, it's really addressing those who are captured by the age 28 rule. I ask the committee to support the bill.

[Shafqat Ali, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Wouldn't it make more sense to deal with this issue all at once rather than in pieces and add some amendments if needed? Why would you not be open to those amendments to make it clear once and for all?

[Yonah Martin]

The other categories are definitely different in scope, and it would require separate debate. For this particular bill, I'm just saying that it was very focused and narrow to begin with and that's what I am hoping this committee will support.