I am always very pleased to see the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve display his sense of humour and irony to the House, involving our colleagues on the other side of the floor and reminding us that they sometimes do listen to the opposition and its proposals.
I will be pleased to associate with my colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, as I have in other circumstances, moreover, in offering some views, some enlightenment arising out of my training as a professor of international and constitutional law, as someone who has spent a number of years in a university teaching about legislation such as this Citizenship Act. Someone who wants to take a constructive look at improving this legislation, clarifying some of its provisions, making that contribution for the most part within a parliamentary committee, which will examine it clause by clause.
It might be worthwhile raising a few questions here in the House, in order to provide the minister and her staff with the opportunity to reflect upon some of the clauses which strike me as needing more reflection and perhaps upon the changes which we can examine together within the parliamentary committee.
It seems to be that the general nature of the act has not been changed, overall. Of course it has retained the two major concepts for assigning nationality, the concepts of the law of the blood and the law of the soil, jus sanguinis and jus soli, adding to them naturalization and attribution of citizenship under a certain number of other criteria, such as the exceptional criteria by which the minister may, on occasion, on recommendation of the governor in council, award citizenship. These items are in many ways a repeat of the old act.
There is no doubt one thing the minister should look at, and that is the notion in part I of the right to citizenship. It seems to me that clauses 3 to 12 of the bill do not really concern the right to citizenship, a right that could have been acknowledged and guaranteed in the Canadian charter of rights and which was not. We could have, had we wanted, for example, incorporated in Canadian law the prescriptions of international instruments such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
I submit the following thought to the minister for her consideration: does part I not indeed concern the granting of citizenship and should we not use that expression rather than the right to citizenship. Although the quality of citizen is involved, clauses 3 and following are not drafted in a way as to concern a right really, but the government's ability to grant citizenship, especially when it is granted through the process of naturalization.
Compared with the part following, which concerns the loss of citizenship, part I should be entitled: “Granting citizenship”, with the corollary of the various reasons and grounds for granting citizenship provided in the various provisions in this part.
I would point out to the minister that in this part there is some doubt about the relevance of clause 11(e), which could pose a problem in the case of dual citizenship, as the government does not seem to want to grant or agree to grant Canadian citizenship when an individual is a citizen of another country or is entitled to citizenship in another country.
There seems to be a restriction to dual citizenship in paragraph 11(e). I therefore submit to the minister that this may be an exception to the rule, which calls for further investigation.
There is also a need to ensure—this has not been done and, in any case, it deserves careful consideration—that the legislation will not allow the two conventions signed by Canada, that is the Convention on the nationality of married women and the Convention on the reduction of statelessness, to be violated. By signing the latter, Canada and the other signatories agreed to pass legislation that does not cause statelessness.
I look forward to finding out at committee whether the act has been examined in terms of compliance with this international convention of which Canada is a signatory. This is one of the issues I think a parliamentary committee should look into.
There is another thing in this act that struck me; it is in part 4 on prohibitions. The concept of public interest may be too vague. In the context of paragraph 21(1), this concept is the basis for making an order prohibiting the granting of citizenship. This may be too vague a concept and the vagueness of the criteria set out in paragraph 21(1) of this citizenship bill could cause problems in terms of constitutional validity.
I also submit to the minister that it might be a good idea to consider adding, at section 23, which deals with national security, a provision to ensure that, in paragraph 2, reference is made not only to crimes provided for in federal legislation, but also international crimes now codified in several international conventions as well as in the statute of Rome establishing the international criminal tribunal.
It might be appropriate to add a reference to the criminal acts under international law referred to in section 11(g) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This might be one way of ensuring that international criminal acts, being increasingly codified, could be used to justify refusal of citizenship, since it would represent a threat to national security to award it to people who have committed criminal acts not only under federal law but under international law as well.
I have always found this act to contain a curious concept—and I found it so in my university teaching days as well—that of Commonwealth citizenship. In this act, as in the one it is intended to replace, there is the concept of Commonwealth citizenship, that any Canadian citizen or any citizen of another Commonwealth country holds the status of citizen of the Commonwealth in Canada.
This is therefore a nationality or citizenship which is superimposed on nationalities attributed by other countries, but it is one about which we know nothing. What point is there to Commonwealth citizenship? Does it confer any real rights, or is a highly symbolic assignment to citizens of other Commonwealth countries of a status in Canada?
I would like to be properly enlightened on the real significance of this concept of Commonwealth citizenship and its corollaries in Canadian law.
Perhaps there is one point here which ought to be of concern to the minister, which is that other concepts of citizenship or nationality appear to be being created here in Canada itself. It might be worthwhile checking whether the Nisga'a treaty, just signed between the authorities of British Columbia and the Nisga'a band, contains a concept of citizenship which is compatible with Canadian citizenship, or is complementary to it.
Then there would have to be an examination of, not only the concept of Commonwealth citizenship, but also other domestic citizenships which seem to have been created, or will be created in future, by treaties with aboriginal nations. So I suggest the minister examine this new idea of a domestic citizen and look at how it would work with the notion of Canadian citizenship.
Finally, on a more technical level, on the content of the bill, I sometimes have a hard time understanding why, in a bill on citizenship, there are provisions that have nothing to do with citizenship. All of part VI concerns what non-Canadians cannot or can do. There are provisions on their right to acquire property, for example, in this bill, and a number of provisions on the power of the lieutenant governor in council, by regulation, to alter bans on property ownership by non-Canadians. This whole part should not be included in a bill on citizenship.
The general organization of this bill, therefore, does not lend itself to the idea of including provisions that do not concern Canadian citizens and the rights they enjoy.
Therefore, in my opinion, we could readily contemplate the inclusion of clauses 49 and 54 in legislation other than on citizenship, because it seems to me they have no place in this legislation, except a place history has reserved for them, but that history does not justify now as it used to, especially since the existence of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other instruments enshrining property rights.
So, these in my opinion are the things that warrant debate and verification in certain cases. I was also interested in the matter of citizenship from the standpoint, as my colleague mentioned, of what would happen in the case of a sovereign Quebec, in the matter of dual citizenship, the opportunity for dual citizenship. I am one of those who consider the minister very wise to—