Some hon. members call for more, Madam Speaker. I could go on all day pointing out how nonfunctional our immigration system is in the area of refugee determination and in the area of independent immigrants being allowed to come to our country and reuniting very quickly with their families. It is a broken system.
I will get back to the citizenship bill that we are debating today. We should be debating changes to the Immigration Act. I would be happy to do that. I am ready for it. Canadians think it is many years overdue, but here we are.
I will talk specifically about three different areas of the citizenship bill. The first is clause 6(1)(b) in relation to residency. This was an area where there were a lot of concerns expressed at committee. I know my colleague, the hon. member for Dewdney—Alouette and my other colleague from Calgary, who were both on the committee at times throughout the debate on this bill, know that there was a lot of concern expressed about residency.
The intent was good. Bill C-16 defines the term permanent resident more concisely than does the current act. The existing legislation may be loosely interpreted. Some individuals have been found to be residing in Canada because they have a bank account here or own property in the country without actually having ever lived in Canada. Redefining that is good.
Bill C-16 calls for 1,095 days, or three years, physical presence in Canada before someone is eligible to apply for citizenship. However, Bill C-16 does not provide any mechanism for determining when applicants arrive in Canada or when they leave, nor is there any intention to develop one. The proposed change is a good idea and I support that change, but there is no way expressed, or in fact even in testimony from the various civil servants who appeared before the committee, of plans to enforce the law.
It is of great concern to me when the government puts forth law that cannot be enforced. It admitted to that. I have several quotes here. I will not read them all because I have a few pages of quotes from witnesses at committee, including the civil servants who deal in this area, where they admit that, no, they cannot really enforce it. One quote says that they will enforce it when they really want to. In other words, this allows them to target people they want to target, but it will not ensure that people really have had physical presence in the country three years out of six. A physical presence in the country for three years out of six is a good idea. I think that is an appropriate goal, but that is all it is in here, a goal, because there is no way of really enforcing it.
The minister of immigration at the time, on March 3, 1999, expressed the following:
Our primary goal is to ensure that people who obtain Canadian citizenship have a deep commitment to their adopted country. We believe that such a commitment is possible only if the person is physically present in the country.
I think that makes sense.
I understand that many newcomers need to travel extensively, either for business or personal reasons. Many maintain strong economic and social links with their countries of origin and Canada benefits from these links. That is why, in Bill C-16, we provide these permanent residents with the flexibility to travel outside the country by extending the period during which they need to meet the physical requirements. It has been extended to six years now, three years out of six. I believe that is a fair accommodation.
That is important because we are truly part of a global economy. That is a huge advantage for Canada because we have people from almost every country in the world who speak the languages of probably all countries on the face of the earth. It is great for doing business. They know the culture. They can speak the language. It gives us an incredible advantage over many nations that do not have that diversity. This is a good change. The intent is good, but why do we have a law that we cannot enforce?
This change is in response to a committee report from 1994. That is a six year time lag. In the committee report of 1994 the government dominated Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration recognized the problem being dealt in this clause in point 6 on page 12 of the report where it says that residency should be defined in the new act so as to require physical presence in the country on an application for citizenship.
However, my main concern is that the very next recommendation in the same report, recommendation No. 7, states that measures should be introduced to enable accurate monitoring of the periods of time that permanent residents are absent from Canada.
That government dominated report recognized not only the need for the change but the need to be able to enforce the law. Unfortunately it is not there. I have pages of quotes. I know I cannot go through them all today, but I have some quotes to which I will refer. The member opposite has expressed an interest in hearing more, so I will certainly give a little more.
Greg Fyffe, assistant deputy minister of policy and program development, when questioned by me and others at committee on how he was going to monitor the physical presence, said that it was obviously a serious concern.
Norman Sabourin, director of citizenship and citizenship registrar, during the same meeting agreed with Mr. Fyffe when he said that there was no question that without any regimented border controls in place in Canada there would always be a challenge in assessing whether or not a person was in Canada. Mr. Sabourin claimed that the department had developed a lot of expertise in assessing documentary evidence that supported and outlined whether or not a person was in Canada. These include passports.
In terms of passports, how many people who cross the border, for example from Canada to the United States, ever have a passport? Of course a non-Canadian will have one, but how many have them stamped? I have travelled to about half a dozen countries in the last four years and only once had my passport stamped, and that is when I asked to have it stamped. The passport is not a very reliable document to use when trying to determine physical presence in the country.
Mr. Sabourin went on to explain some other methods the department would require individuals to employ in order to verify whether they are physically present in Canada. They include whether or not a person has been attending school or has been in a job, or whether or not someone can vouch for that fact. There is some merit to that.
Mr. Sabourin, the departmental official, explained how they would monitor physical presence by saying that finally, and maybe the most important part of equation, they have in place a quality assurance program which allows them to verify the quality and integrity of information provided by applicants. As part of this program they randomly target applicants to verify the information they provided and to explore in detail whether or not the information is accurate. They are also able to develop profiles based on indicators of certain types of applicants who might be less enthusiastic than others in providing a complete picture of their presence in Canada. It concerns me that this clause will allow the department to target certain types of applicants.
It appears that the department will be picking the types, stereotyping, and relying on luck in many cases to implement the change which it feels is so important and which I believe is so important. I contend that based on the promise of random quality assurances that nothing is in place to allow this physical presence to be properly monitored. I have to skip over the rest of my commentary on that clause. There are other valid points that should be made but I understand that time is limited.
Another concern is the area of retroactivity. People who have applied under the current Citizenship Act will be made to meet the law set out in the new citizenship act when it is passed. That type of retroactivity is not acceptable. Subclause 55(2) stipulates that when the application has made its way to the point where a citizenship judge is considering it, the application will be considered under the old act. The department has stated that processing time may vary between eight and twelve months.
However, we have been informed that the real processing time is more like 17 months under the current act. There should not be two different paths that applications follow depending strictly on the speed with which the department currently processes. People will be penalized if the department has stalled their application, or if it is moving slowly through the process for whatever reason. People should not be penalized and made to qualify under the new act just because they have not reached the final stage where a judge is about to declare them citizens.
That is very unusual under law and I do not think it is appropriate under this law. One Liberal member of the committee, the member for Scarborough Southwest, stated on April 28, 1999, in relation to this clause that he took the position of the traditional historic pattern of the Liberal Party of not having retroactive legislation. If this citizenship law passes as it is, as he understood it, notwithstanding that someone has been making his plans in anticipation of the law as it currently exists he will lose his one year credit and will have to wait for no apparent reason other than the change in law to apply for Canadian citizenship.
To him that is retroactivity; it is taking away from people who have relied on an existing law and it is un-Liberal, whatever that means. That came from a member of the Liberal Party at the committee who showed great concern about this clause. Generally the committee did not like it and here we have it again in Bill C-16.
Other penalties which are of concern relate to bureaucratic delays as well. This is the last point I will to talk about today because I see that my time is drawing to a close. People being punished for bureaucratic delays concerns me. It is something that is unacceptable. It is something which is in this bill. It is allowed to happen as a result of this bill in different areas.
Subsection 6(1)(b)(i) of the current act allows individuals who claim refugee status to count each full day of residency in Canada from the date of application as a half day toward the total needed for a citizenship application. If there is a delay for whatever reason in getting the application through then a half day credit will be allowed toward residency in Canada. That will be completely taken away under the current bill. If there are bureaucratic delays, under the bill no time will be granted. People will be punished for the time it takes the civil service to deal with the application.
Therefore refugees who want to become citizens will be punished because of the slow process of the bureaucracy. Does that make any sense? We and several other witnesses have called for leaving in place something like what is under the current act. If the process is slowed down by the bureaucracy, at least part of that time will be considered to be time when the applicant is physically present in Canada because the person is physically present in Canada. That makes sense. Many witnesses said that it made sense, but we do not find that change in the legislation. To me that is a great concern which must be fixed.
I have several other areas I will talk about in future readings of the bill. My colleagues will talk about some of the changes they want to see in the bill. We presented many of these arguments when Bill C-63 was before the House. We heard many of the same arguments from witnesses at committee. The government heard some of them. It did not deal with them very well, particularly in terms of residency, but it heard them. Maybe we can fix them in committee but many of them have not even been acknowledged by changes in the new piece of legislation.
For that reason I cannot support the legislation. I cannot speak for all my colleagues, but I believe they are unlikely to support this piece of legislation unless we get some of the key changes required to make it a good piece of legislation.
We want a new citizenship act. The old one is outdated. Does the new piece of legislation provide for a new citizenship act that will work for Canadians and for people who are aspiring to become Canadians? No, I do not believe it does. For that reason we will not be supporting this piece of legislation but I certainly look forward to the arguments, the discussion presented by all opposition parties and by the government in the House and at committee. Hopefully we can make some changes that will make it work.
That is what I am looking for. It is not a bill that should be partisan. I do not believe that it will be treated as a partisan piece of legislation. We are talking about Canadian citizenship. We all feel the same about Canadian citizenship. We take the same pride in Canadian citizenship. We realize what a valuable asset Canadian citizenship is. All we want is a good piece of legislation.