Evidence of meeting #70 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Yes, and you'll be happy to know that I am pretty much at the end of what I wanted to say. I just wanted to quickly summarize what it was I said. I'm trying to get my thoughts together.
I also want to mention, Madam Chair, before we move to the next clause, that we have another amendment after this one, just so that you know there is another one coming.
I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting. The bells are ringing again.
Do I have unanimous consent to continue the meeting?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
We do not have unanimous consent, so we will come back 10 minutes after the vote happens.
The meeting is suspended.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I call the meeting to order.
We are doing clause-by-clause on Bill S-245.
We have Conservative amendment 5 on the floor, and I have Mr. Maguire on the list.
Mr. Maguire, go ahead.
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm very much in favour of this amendment, this motion, Conservative number five, if you will, for the new clause. There are many reasons.
I have a very good friend who happens to be the general manager now of the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba, Mark Humphries. Mark's a great guy. He does a lot of things. He has a band that includes most of the music teachers in southwest Manitoba. He came from England, where he played in big bands over there. He has tremendous experience in regard to a lot of different areas.
I met him a long time ago, just after he came to Canada, about seven or eight years now, maybe 10. I met him when I was a member of the legislative assembly, so it would be more than 10 years ago, Madam Chair. He's quite an entrepreneur. He has worked his way into politics as well. He's a municipal councillor in his local area of western Manitoba. As I said, he has become the general manager of the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba, which puts on—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Maguire, but could you keep it on topic?
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
I'm certainly going to be there. Thank you.
This is pertinent because he has mentioned to me many times how important it was for him to get Canadian citizenship in person. He's an entrepreneur, running his own operation in western Manitoba, just to the west of Virden, in between there and the Saskatchewan border. He's hoping that many of these ceremonies can continue to be conducted at future events by the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba.
He described getting his citizenship. I was there that day to shake his hand and give him a little Canadian flag and a pin as well. I see that Mr. Dhaliwal knows exactly what I'm talking about. The pride he took that day was exhilarating. I can still remember his smile. He and his family came through the citizenship ceremony that was done live in Brandon. He never knew when he became a Canadian citizen that he would ever be the general manager of the Provincial Exhibition in the Keystone Centre in Brandon, Manitoba. That's where its headquarters are. He's done a tremendous amount of work to rejuvenate the exhibits and the entertainment that comes from that facility, bringing in musicians and that sort of thing from all over North America. It has been a great plus. His predecessors did a good job as well. I'm not putting anyone down here. The pride Mr. Humphries has shown in having Canadian citizenship is pretty tremendous, having come from England and continuing to develop our whole area. Virtually everybody in the whole region knows him, and he's been here for just over a decade.
To show you the responsibility of that, he's been a municipal councillor, as I said. He runs his own business. He's the general manager of the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba now. His wife is also an entrepreneur, and I know the type of operation they have on their own farm in a rural area. She also serves as a substitute teacher. This is a family that feels that education is extremely important. Their daughter is taking her Manitoba bar this month, and their son is in the latter stages of achieving his Ph.D. They know how important it has been to provide the opportunity for their children to be educated and grow up in Canada, and the pride they all felt in getting their—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Maguire, but can you please keep your points on the topic of the amendment on the floor?
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
I'm just trying to point out, Madam Chair—and I am pointing out—how important it is and how successful this family has gone on, having received their Canadian citizenship, he has felt, in person.
He has another reason for that as well. It is because of the facility that he is now the general manager of, which is where he got his Canadian citizenship. It's what's called the “Dome Building”. It's one of the few buildings left in Canada that was built from the dominion fairs of the 1880 to 1925 period. There's only one left. There's a bit of one that hasn't been rejuvenated here in Ottawa. The other one is in Brandon. It's been fully renovated. It's a great facility for these types of programs.
Being the new general manager, he would like to see that facility used for many more in-person citizenship ceremonies. I'd like to quote what he wrote to me. He said:
As a new ambassador for this much cherished Manitoba organization, I would welcome the opportunity to have physical ceremonies return to our summer event, and indeed suggest the addition of citizenship ceremonies to the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair held in the March—
It's March of every year. It's the last week of March. It's a school break, so children could attend this, as well, because they're all out of school at that time.
Of course, the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair is only one of two fairs in Canada to get that designation of “royal”. There's the the Toronto Royal and the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair in Brandon, Manitoba.
He added, “Canada encourages and welcomes with open arms immigrants from overseas. We must return to and recognize the importance of our citizenship ceremonies.
Madam Chair, that is a pretty tremendous—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Maguire. I think the bells are ringing again.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
The bells are ringing. A vote has been called.
Do I have unanimous consent to proceed with the meeting?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
I call the meeting to order.
We have amendment CPC-5 on the floor. I have exhausted the speakers list. We will go—
Yes, Mr. Mazier, go ahead.
Conservative
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thank you.
To remind the committee, this is an amendment to new clause 1.4 amending section 24 of the act:
24(2) The Department of Citizenship and Immigration shall arrange for all oath of citizenship ceremonies to be conducted in-person, including in rural and remote communities.
Is that correct?
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
That's very good.
I thought I'd share with the committee a story. I'm from rural Canada. Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa is my riding out of Manitoba. The riding is the size of Nova Scotia. It has over 200 communities comprised of 38 municipalities, 14 first nations and 28 Hutterite colonies. The second most-spoken language is German, not Ukrainian, as a lot of people think it would be.
In there, there's a national park. It's called Riding Mountain National Park. I first got elected in 2019, and I had personally never attended a citizenship ceremony. It was never a big thing. I was a citizen, so it didn't really matter.
In our riding, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, Neepawa is a growing community. It has a hog processing plant there, HyLife. They immigrate Filipino people, mostly, to work at that plant. The community right now of 4,000 has expanded, and now the second language of that community is 50% Filipino. It's basically changed the whole dynamic of the community that's been there for many years.
Liberal
Arielle Kayabaga Liberal London West, ON
I have a point of order, Madam Chair.
It is now 7:10 p.m., and I think that it's important that we keep everything in context. I would caution our colleagues not to share personal stories that are not relevant to what we are talking about right now. It's 7 p.m. I think people want this bill to pass. Let's get back to talking about the amendment—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Salma Zahid
Thank you, Ms. Kayabaga. We are getting into debate.
Yes, I have reminded other members also. I'll remind Mr. Mazier to please keep his remarks relevant to the amendment we have on the floor.
Please, Mr. Mazier, go ahead.