Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 5th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

We have CPC amendment 36 on the floor.

Seeing no debate, we will go for a vote on CPC amendment 36.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

CPC amendment 36 is defeated.

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will have to wait for CPC-37 to be distributed before I can read it into the record and explain its purpose.

Just so you know, Chair, there are also CPC-38, 39, 40, 41 and 42, and there is a 43rd one. That is it until we get into clause 2. I am just giving you notice now that we will stop and then move to clause 2.

On amendment CPC-37, I move that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the Act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

24.1(23) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Orthodox New Year.

Orthodox New Year is celebrated as the start of the new year in the Julian calendar for Christian Orthodox, Eastern-rite Catholic and Coptic Christian communities. The time is normally spent eating traditional dishes at home with loved ones, and they also attend a special New Year's Day liturgy at their churches. This typically happens about two weeks after Christmas....

I think it's on the Gregorian calendar. Forgive me if I have the calendars wrong, but it's a very important celebration, especially for Coptic Christian communities.

I just spent my weekend, especially Sunday, with the Coptic community in Montreal, and it is a very important holiday. It has been celebrated almost exactly in the same manner for over 2,000 years, including the music in their services and the practices and the liturgy, which are almost intact. They have not updated it in that amount of time.

If anybody is curious about what the practice would have been over 2,000 years ago, the music, the liturgy, the style of the churches, the contents and the traditions have basically not changed in that time.

It's an important day, and we should not be scheduling citizenship ceremonies that would conflict with a person's religious faith and obligations to attend these liturgies at their churches.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

We have CPC amendment 37 on the floor.

Seeing no debate, we will go to the vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Amendment number 37 is defeated.

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

If CPC amendment 38 could be distributed, then I can get into the details of what it is.

To read it into the record, amendment CPC 38 states that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

Section 24.1(24) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Nayrouz (Coptic New Year).

Unlike Newroz, Nayrouz is a feast when martyrs and confessors are commemorated within the Coptic Orthodox Church. It's celebrated on September 11. The day is both the start of the Coptic new year and its first month, which is Thout.

Again, citizenship ceremonies should not be placed on the new years of cultural significance or religious significance to the different multicultural groups and cultural groups in Canada. It would be good practice to avoid those days, and this is an amendment to the Citizenship Act that would see that enshrined in law.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We have CPC amendment 38 on the floor.

Seeing no debate, we will go to the vote

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Amendment 38 is defeated.

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Amendment CPC 39 should be distributed shortly. This one is a Korean holiday.

To read it into the record, amendment CPC 39 states that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

Section 24.1(25) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Chuseok.

Hopefully, I pronounced that correctly.

Chuseok, also known as Hangawi, is a major mid-autumn harvest festival in Korea. Chuseok celebrates the bountiful harvest and strives for the new year to be better than the last. Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of traditional food.

Again, we should be avoiding days of significance like this to ensure that Canadians of Korean heritage can spend them with family, but also so that any new Canadians who are about to take the oath of citizenship don't have to choose between spending time with their families or going to take their oath of citizenship.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We have CPC amendment 39 on the floor.

Seeing no debate, we will go to the vote.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Amendment CPC 40 should be distributed, and I'll just hold off until it is.

Amendment CPC-40 is that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the Act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

24.1 (26) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Onam.

Onam is an annual harvest festival celebrated predominantly by the people of Kerala. The purpose of the festival is to commemorate the mythical King Mahabali, celebrate the end of the monsoon season and welcome the harvest.

Again, Madam Chair, I believe it's important that we avoid such important cultural holidays when setting days for citizenship ceremonies so that persons don't need to choose between spending the day with their families and taking their oath of citizenship to become new Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We have CPC amendment 40 on the floor.

Seeing no debate, we will go for a vote on CPC amendment 40, Mr. Clerk.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Continue, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Amendment CPC-41 should be distributed. I'll speak to it once it's in everybody's hands.

Amendment CPC-41 is that Bill S-245 be amended by adding after line 18 on page 1 the following new clause:

1.4 Section 24 of the Act is amended by adding the following:

Respecting holidays and days of significance to promote Canada's multicultural identity

24.1 (27) Citizenship ceremonies may not be scheduled on Tet.

Tet is an important day of celebration and a time of reflection and hope for many in Asia. It's especially celebrated by many people in the Vietnamese community. I remember growing up with many friends, and a lot of my mom's clients especially were either from Vietnam or from Hong Kong. Tet is a chance for families and extended family members to celebrate together and give blessings for good luck and for cleansing of bad fortune in the past.

Again, it's really important for us to make sure that we enshrine this in legislation and ensure that persons don't have to pick between going to their citizenship ceremony and taking the oath to become new Canadians versus spending that time with family and being able to celebrate some of their cultural inheritance and holidays from their countries of origin after they come here to Canada. I think it's important to enshrine that in law and to make sure that Tet is one of those holidays.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

We have CPC amendment 41 on the floor.

Seeing no debate, we will go for a vote on CPC amendment 41, Mr. Clerk.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Chair, I have good news.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Oh, already?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

No, not already. We're moving on to clause 2. I'm not sure if at this point we need to vote on clause 1 to complete it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

There are other amendments we will put forward, but they come in the next clause.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Yes, okay. We will come to them.

On new clause 1.4 and G-9, Mr. El-Khoury, would you like to move G-9?

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

No. We decided not to move G-9, Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will go to clause 2. As I indicated in the beginning, NDP-2 was defeated. That's why we cannot move NDP-13. It makes a reference to paragraph 3(1)(s), which would have been created by NDP-2, had it been adopted.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I have an amendment I'd like to have considered that would be after line 22. That's just a heads-up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Shall clause 2 carry?

Go ahead, Ms. Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I move that Bill S‐245 be amended by adding after line 22 on page 1 the following:

Section 27.2 of the Act is amended by adding the following after (d):

(e) specifying required timelines for citizenship applications to be processed by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to ensure reasonable timelines for applicants are met.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Go ahead, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

The interpreters indicated to me that they don't have the text of the amendment and that they can therefore not do the interpretation. It would be much easier if they had it in hand. That would make it possible for everyone watching us at home to hear the interpretation into French.