On the same point of order, Chair, again, for my colleague opposite, we are debating a motion regarding expanding the scope of a bill that is entitled “An Act to amend the Citizenship Act”, so I am giving my colleagues an example. If we expand the scope—if we vote to accept Ms. Kwan's motion to expand the scope—there are no limitations on that. I will be submitting amendments as well to amend the Citizenship Act, and I will be submitting an amendment to ensure that in-person citizenship ceremonies carry on and that Canada doesn't implement the ridiculous and “insulting”—a quote by a former refugee—practice of doing away with these ceremonies.
Therefore, it is in order, because I am giving an example of what I will do should this pass. I am debating the merits of the motion and giving my colleagues something to consider. To carry on and to finish this article, which is just so devastating for the government, it states:
Tareq Hadhad, a Syrian refugee famous for founding the Nova Scotia-based chocolatier Peace by Chocolate, described Canadian citizenship ceremonies as “the magical rituals that bring everyone together (new and old citizens) to celebrate the true meaning of the Canadian dream.”
“We cannot afford to lose the significance of this celebration of belonging nor can we diminish the value of Canadian citizenship,” he added.
This article continues, saying that credit should be given to the government for moving a notch forward on indigenous peoples. That's great. That's good.
He talks about the “new language of the oath”, but what he is saying in this article is that the citizenship ceremony should stay in place. If we do vote for this motion, I will certainly be putting forward an amendment to the Citizenship Act to ensure that citizenship ceremonies stay in person. This is something that, again, goes across political stripes, and I would love to see every person in this article come to this committee and be given a chance to talk about how important this is. This is something that should be amended in the Citizenship Act, given that the government is proposing to do this right now. It's ridiculous. It's crazy.
Now, if my colleagues would like me to present a private member's bill to do this, or if perhaps the government would like to do this, perhaps they wouldn't want to vote to open up a private member's bill with a very narrow focus—that we all agree on—to put in place amendments that are out of scope.
Now, I am going to say one thing. I just heard that my colleague from the NDP did a press conference about this prior to this committee meeting. I don't believe that she had talked to Senator Martin about this at all. She certainly didn't talk to us, so I have to surmise that this is now part of the Liberal-NDP coalition agreement and that there's probably some sort of agreement between the House leaders to get this done, which is essentially.... You have to think about this: This is backdoor legislation.
My colleague does not have a private member's spot, as I know right now, so what they're doing through this coalition agreement is that they're saying, “Okay, we'll go way outside parliamentary procedure and allow you to put amendments into a bill that is not in scope, and that's what we're going to do to preserve this coalition agreement.”
That's what I have to surmise here. What I'm saying is that, if that's the game we're playing, giddy-up, because I have a lot of things that I would like to see amended in the Citizenship Act—a lot, years' worth of things. There are years' worth of things that I'm so eager to hold the government to on all their injustices towards.... In fact, I think there are going to be amendments to the Citizenship Act regarding the Afghan refugee crisis and all the things that happened around potentially fraudulent visas, which we're about to look at as well. I'm very excited. I have mountains of amendments for the Citizenship Act. Do you know what? Maybe I will vote in favour of this. Maybe I will. I don't know. Maybe I'm convincing myself that this sounds like a good idea. I'm looking down the table. Do we want to? Are we going to review the Citizenship Act? I don't know. It sounds exciting. Now I'm excited.
I'm not the vice-chair, so I defer to your position, but I'm excited. Let's amend the Citizenship Act and keep citizenship ceremonies in place. That's one thing for sure. I guess I had better get busy. I don't know. Maybe I will vote in favour of this. It depends on what my colleagues in the government do. They won't know what I'm going to do—giddy-up.