Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 5th, 2023

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Yes, basically I was setting the stage for why these are so important, especially to a rural community like the people I represent.

In 2019, I attended my first citizenship award ceremony. My predecessor, Robert Sopuck, hosted it. He brought a judge in from Winnipeg. It was a wonderful community, which is three hours away. The judge was there, and the oath directors were there. All the pomp and ceremony was there. Meanwhile, there were 200 people standing below the stage ready to be sworn in.

This was the first time I had ever attended anything. As I got talking to the different people, I realized that someone brought in a sister from California, a Filipino person. They came in through the U.S. side, and they came to Canada to watch them be sworn in as citizens of Canada. I have to tell you, it was one of those moments when you realize just how precious a country we have here. It was all in person. You couldn't have brought these people together.... For people to come up all the way from California, for people to come in and go through the process of absolutely wanting to be Canadian and cherish that moment.... I think it's something magical that we don't need to lose.

That's why I'm so much in favour of this amendment. I'm thankful that my colleagues brought this forward. We all get it. It is pretty special to be Canadian. I think we should really appreciate that and encourage people to celebrate it whenever new citizens come into this country.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Next I have Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to build upon that. When I did my first citizenship ceremony, I didn't think much of it until I was actually there participating in it. When you have people from different cultures standing there arm to arm in the same ceremony, they start to sense what it is to be a Canadian. We are made up of a variety of different cultures, of people from all sorts of different backgrounds, from different ethnic backgrounds. We are a melting pot. We bring people together. We take advantage of each other's strengths, and we build a better country because of it.

If you didn't have that ceremony in person, you wouldn't see that. If you just click on Zoom and say, “Okay, I'm a citizen,” it doesn't mean the same. I don't think we should belittle the fact that it's an honour to be a citizen of Canada. It is something that they've worked really hard to become. For the hoops they have to jump through to get to that point of being a citizen, we shouldn't shorten that. We shouldn't belittle it. We should make sure they recognize that this is something great and that they've accomplished something great in being a citizen of Canada.

This is a simple amendment that can move that forward. I think it's something that all parties can look at and say, “You know what? This makes a lot of sense.” I don't want to see that taken away from those individuals. I don't want to see that taken away from them and their families. I don't want to see their first impression once they're citizens of Canada to be something they see on Zoom. I want them to experience it with other people at the same time.

That's why I think it's very important that we actually put that in here and we maintain that. Sure, it costs money—everything costs money—but these people become the fabric of our society. They become our next workforce. They integrate right into the rest of Canada. They make us the greatness that we are. Let's make sure that we set them off on the right foot. Having a simple ceremony means so much to them. Why would we reject that or prevent that from happening?

I think this amendment would be a good step in that direction.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Next is Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me the opportunity to speak.

I'm a first-generation immigrant. I had my ceremony around April 1994. That was a good story. When I went to receive my citizenship and take the picture with the judge, there was a gentleman sitting right beside him. He was from Lebanon too. I'd never met the guy before. It so happened that he had my first name and my middle name—the same thing. The judge looked at this distinguished guy and said to him, “Do you think this gentleman is going to be as distinguished as you?” The guy said, “Well, I hope so.”

After the—

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

On a point of order, Madam Chair, I just want to reiterate that we want to stick to the amendments and not tell personal stories.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I need a couple of minutes—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Kayabaga. This is not a point of order.

I'll just remind you, Mr. Aboultaif, that it should be relevant to the amendment that we have on the floor.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I request that everyone speak through the chair and not across the aisle. All the questions should be directed through the chair.

I have Mr. Aboultaif, please.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Getting to that, we had an individual who called us last week asking us not to give up the tradition of having people attending those ceremonies, to be there and to have pride to receive one of the most distinguished citizenships. I think the tradition is very important. I think we can afford, one way or the other, to continue having those ceremonies.

It is a great place for people to meet and to get to know each other. It's a place of opportunity. It just makes people appreciate more the many cultures or many people from all different walks of life getting together at one place, celebrating together and having the honour of being Canadians.

I hope the rest of the members around this table from all parties appreciate that and go along with this amendment.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

I have Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I think we're ready to go to the vote. I just wanted to remind you that we have another amendment after this.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will take the vote on amendment CPC-5.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a new amendment. It's new clause 1.4. 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:

24(3) The oath of citizenship cannot be completed through an online web form.

That's the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Redekopp has moved an amendment. The clerk is sending it to everyone. I hope everyone has received it in both official languages.

Mr. Mazier.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

This one is really important, especially when it comes to rural Canada. Connectivity in rural Canada, as you know, is not very good. Over a million homes right now in rural Canada are still not connected, and over 50% of the first nations are still not connected. You might say, “Oh, but we're talking about an oath ceremony. It doesn't really matter.” It matters. You need to be connected to do something online, and I think we all forget that, when it comes to connectivity here in Canada, you don't have to be that far out of a big city or in a rural municipality to really understand how disconnected we are here in Canada.

You can imagine someone living in Neepawa, Manitoba, who rooted up their whole life and all and wants to be a part of this Canadian ceremony but they can't even do that. If anything should be amended on this, this should be. This is something that.... You need to have the ability to be able to connect online. This is kind of really important. You have to make sure that they are connected in the first place.

I think it's something that needs to be addressed. These people have made an honest effort to become Canadians, and I think they need to be included. I don't think anybody gets just how important it is to make sure that rural Canada is connected.

With that, I'm done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

One thing about rural Canada is that it's where we experience high rates of employment. That's where a lot of immigrants are actually relocating to because of the job opportunities that they have in the smaller communities—for example, in rural Saskatchewan. They become vital members of those communities. They're much appreciated, and the work they do is very much respected and, again, appreciated.

However, it still comes back to the fact that you're going to do something this important in their lives over Zoom. Really...? Is that what we're going to do? Is that what we've denigrated the citizenship of a Canadian to be—just click on Zoom and you're done? It needs to be more. This isn't good enough. This amendment speaks directly to that. Why would you be so heartless and not give them a chance to actually be at and experience a proper presentation of that citizenship? Why would you sit there and say, “Good enough. Zoom is good enough”?

Then you put them into rural Saskatchewan where they may not have Internet access or may have very limited Internet access, so they're halfway through the ceremony and all of a sudden it cuts out. Are they half citizens or full citizens? It's not Ottawa. It's not Toronto. It's not downtown Vancouver. There are some real reality problems with this proposal of doing it over Zoom. I just think it's impersonal. I just think it's wrong. I think it's unimaginable that we think this is a good idea. Why would we go down this path? I just don't understand what we're trying to save or do here. It just seems ridiculous to me.

Hopefully I will see some consensus around this table, just out of common decency and the understanding of the types of people we're bringing into this country—the really, really good people coming into rural parts of our country. Let's give them a proper citizenship ceremony. I'm sorry, but Zoom doesn't cut it. Teams doesn't cut it. You have to be face to face.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Mr. Redekopp.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just to be really clear on exactly what this amendment is talking about: The minister has proposed that in the future, rather than going to an in-person ceremony or a Zoom ceremony, there would be a button one could click online. They would navigate to a web page and click, and that would be the extent of the citizenship process for them.

We're not even talking now about whether we are in person or on Zoom. There is no ceremony at all. There isn't even a picture of the RCMP person dressed in uniform.

This is an important issue. For all the things we have talked about prior to this, it is so important that citizens have the ability to remember the time they became a citizen. It is important that they have the chance to have the photos with the dignitaries and the people there, and that they receive a memento, even if it's a little flag or a piece of paper, rather than getting a package in the mail after they have clicked. It takes more work to order a package on Amazon than to do this. It's all in the name, supposedly, of efficiency and trying to move people through the process.

I'm all for efficiency. We really do need to improve the way that IRCC works, but I don't think it's right or fair that deficiencies and problems in IRCC get paid for by sacrificing the people at the end of the chain who are getting their citizenship. Effectively, what is happening is that there are problems, inefficiencies and things that aren't working well at IRCC and the solution is to skip over all that, go to the end of the process and have people click to get their citizenship because it will save a couple of months. In reality, that isn't the problem. The problem is at other stages of the process.

I find it disconcerting that this would be a solution that would be proposed for that. Obviously, the real solution is to fix the issues at IRCC. It's to fix the backlogs and speed up the time. That's what we need to do rather than having citizenship by a click.

I also want to refer to the study that was done. The IRCC did some surveying on this. There was an article about that in the news this week. Lots of comments were received on both sides—some positive and some negative.

Looking at the story, of course the government did not release the details or the final numbers of this study because they are keeping that information to themselves. My guess, looking at the comments, is that there was an awful lot of opposition to the idea. A lot of people thought it was a terrible idea and that it shouldn't be done. Apparently there were about 700 comments, which I find surprising. I would wonder if there were more than that.

One person said, “This is a horrible idea!” in big capital letters. I think that would echo a lot of what we've heard from others. It's sort of the same logic that we talked about on the Zoom citizenship idea. It's the same kind of thinking. The same people are going to have same opinions about that. The newcomers to our country who are becoming citizens are going to have the same opinions. They want to be there. They want to feel the moment. They want, as my colleague, Mr. Mazier said—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Redekopp. Can you avoid repeating things? Please stay on the point of this amendment and avoid repetition.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Yes, for sure.

For the people who want to bring in their relatives to be at that ceremony, you can't bring in somebody to watch you click a button. It just doesn't work that way. That is really important.

I am curious to hear from my other rural colleagues. Mr. Mazier spoke a bit about the whole idea of connectivity. If you are relying on the Internet to do this.... We all know that Internet connectivity, as you get outside the major centres, is a problem. I live in Saskatoon. We have reasonable Internet there, but I am curious to hear the points of view from rural Manitoba and rural Saskatchewan. I think that would be an issue with this.

For the moment, I think that's everything I have to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Mr. Mazier.