Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member for his strong feelings about this country and his citizenship privilege which I likewise received 30 years ago and can share that with him. I have a couple of comments and then a couple of questions for the member.
One thing he did say was he appreciated the minister's ongoing efforts to deal with citizenship and immigration. I would like to remind the member that this is the first piece of legislation I have seen since she has been minister which has been a long time so I do not think it is very ongoing. We need to speed up the process in the immigration and refugee areas.
I compliment the member for his private member's bill. He can count on my support once it is drawn. We are certainly thinking alike on that.
I wonder if the member is aware of the fact that there have been 20,000 deportation orders issued in Canada and there have actually been 4,000 deported, which means there are about 16,000 people who have not been deported. I wonder how the member feels about that and what should happen.
On his birthright statement, the member feels that any child born in Canada should have the privilege of becoming a citizen of the country. I would not debate that a great deal. In the case of a refugee claimant who may have given birth to a child here and the refugee claim is denied, then what should happen to the Canadian citizen, namely the child? What should we do? Does he not see something missing in this bill to deal with that?
Based on what I am getting on the changes of no longer having citizenship judges but having commissioners of citizenship, and judges already being released, I would hope that he would fight hard for the judge whom he believes so strongly in. I think the judge's job is very short lived if this bill passes. I think the citizenship judge will be gone and replaced with some patronage appointment.
I would like the hon. member's comments, please.