Madam Speaker, let me first say that I support the bill before the House because it would give greater value to citizenship for those Canadians who are citizens by choice and not by birth.
When we look at Bill C-16 we notice that clause 12 talks about people who become citizens by choice having all the rights and responsibilities of every other Canadian. I am one of those five million to six million Canadians who are citizens by choice. Let me tell hon. members that it is a very central part of my identity as a person.
When my family left Hungary in 1957 we came through mine fields. I was a young boy. There has to be something pretty desperate to motivate a family to cross mine fields. The situation has to be pretty bad. When I arrived with my family in Canada I could say that we felt we had arrived in heaven. It is important for Canadians to know that.
The problem with the present act in dealing with the revocation of citizenship pertains to the fact that it is the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, who, under section 17, could proceed on grounds with a notice stating that it is believed an immigrant at some point in time obtained citizenship by fraudulent means. The person has 30 days to respond from the time the minister sent the notice, not from the time of receipt of the notice.
If the immigrant wishes to dispute the allegations of the minister, there will be a hearing before a federal court judge in the trial division. What is important to understand is that there is not an opportunity to appeal the decision of that judge.
Think about it. The whole history of jurisprudence in Canada and the western world is based on the right to appeal. It is the recognition that no one judge is infallible. If judges were infallible we would not need courts of appeal, nor would we need the supreme court. The fact of the matter is that judges are human and they are prone to error. It is the ability to appeal the decision to revoke somebody's citizenship to a higher court that really underlies the judicial system in its finest sense.
Under the present system there could be a case of an individual who got here by fraudulent means, whom the crown strongly believes got here by fraudulent means, but a judge could make a mistake and say that the immigrant did not come here fraudulently. The crown would not have the option to appeal. Conversely, if a judge makes a wrong finding and says that an individual is guilty of coming here by misrepresentation, the immigrant would not have the right to appeal.
What happens is this. The minister is the prosecutor in the case. She goes to the federal court trial division. The decision of the federal court trial division goes to the minister, who, under the present act, has to act as an appeal court and also has to make a report to cabinet. The cabinet makes an order on revocation.
As a Canadian by choice who values his citizenship, like many other Canadians by choice, if I am to lose my citizenship I want to have the due process of law. My family came across mine fields because we wanted to be in a country that is ruled by law, not where the politicians or the prime minister of the country decide what my rights are as an individual citizen.
This is a good motion. It reflects the views of all of the people who made presentations before the committee on Bill C-63, which was the predecessor to Bill C-16. They included people from right across the country. We had the B'Nai Brith. We had the Ukrainian Congress. We had the Immigrant Lawyers' Association. We had the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. What was so unique about it was that they all agreed that there should be the opportunity to appeal.
The motion before us was prepared mainly through the work of Kenneth Narvey, who is a legal researcher for the Coalition of Concerned Congregations on the law relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including those of the holocaust. It captures the spirit put forward by the B'nai Brith and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, as well as the Ukrainian Congress—all those groups representing people across this country, who are in many cases citizens by choice.
The law on revocation goes back to 1920, which is one of the darkest periods of our immigration history. If we think back, we had the Asian exclusion act. We did not want Asians coming to this country and we made laws to keep them out. We had the head tax to keep the Chinese out.
We had the time of the Komagata Maru , a ship from Asia which arrived legally. The popular belief was that we did not want those kinds of people in this country and laws were passed to turn them around and send them back.
It was not long ago that we had a policy in this country that related to Jews which said “None is too many”. We only have to go back to the second world war. To our collective shame in the western world we turned away the SS St. Louis , which had almost a thousand Jews on board. They were sent back to the gas chambers. That is the timeframe in which this piece of legislation concerning the revocation of citizenship goes back to.
The right to my citizenship as a citizen by choice is only as good as the least popular among us in the country.
We have made some great strides heading into the new millennium. We have a premier of British Columbia who is from India. We have a governor general who is from Hong Kong. We have a Minister of Citizenship and Immigration who is Jewish. I urge my colleagues in the House to go the rest of the way. Let us get rid of this archaic piece of legislation on revocation. If we are going to revoke citizenship, let us revoke it by the due process of law, let us trust our legal system that we have built and supported, and let us not have second class citizens in this country.