Mr. Speaker, I say to the hon. member that I came over in the same class as her husband in 1957.
The member mentioned that we do not have any legislation before us. We have this legislation before us and we are looking forward to getting it into committee to debate the various points and issues and then to bring it back to the House. Furthermore, once the committee discharges its duty in relationship to this bill, it will be engaging in a revision of the Immigration Act which will result in a bill being brought before the House.
I wanted to put that on the record to let members know that as soon as this bill clears the House a committee is waiting to study it clause by clause and call witnesses.
The member questioned why we were changing the citizenship judges to citizenship commissioners. Basically the courts have expressed a level of discomfort with having citizenship judges being called such since they are not graduates of law. It was therefore deemed that commissioners would be much more appropriate. However, that will be open to debate once it gets to committee.
The member also wanted to know what the functions would be of a citizenship commissioner. The function of a citizenship commissioner, as the government now envisions it, will be to very actively throughout the country promote Canadian citizenship. Clearly one task that should be embraced by all members of the House is to promote Canadian citizenship.
Let us get this bill to committee and we can get working on it clause by clause and then look forward to doing the revision of the Immigration Act.