Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm now going to move a second motion, a copy of which has been sent to the clerk, also in both French and English.
The motion is as follows:
That, the committee report the following to the House: that the Committee recommends to the House that it be granted the power during its consideration of Bill S-245, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians), to expand the scope of the Bill such that the provisions of the bill be not limited to an application to retain his or her citizenship under section 8 as it is read before April 17, 2009.
Madam Chair, we've had extensive discussion about this, particularly with witnesses who came before us. As we know, there are many categories of lost Canadians. Bill S-245 currently deals with the category of lost Canadians pertaining to the 28-year-old age rule. However, it leaves out many other categories of lost Canadians. Most notably, the current situations are such that many families are faced with forced separation because of the first-generation cut-off rule that came about with Bill C-37 back in 2009.
We've heard from witnesses who urged us—the committee, the government—to make amendments to this bill, which would be out of scope for this bill, to address those lost Canadians. There are other categories as well for which we can get into the details when we get to the clause-by-clause, but in order for that to be considered, this motion is required.
I'm therefore moving this motion so that we can follow the procedure absolutely, as has been advised to me by the head clerk and the legislative clerk sitting at the table, to make sure that we do not end up in a bad situation with this effort.
To that end, I hope committee members will support this motion I've put forward.