Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the amendments in Group No. 1 to Bill C-16 put forth by the critics for citizenship and immigration. I am not our party's critic for immigration. The critic for our party is the member for Compton—Stanstead, but I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to the amendments.
In dealing with the motion put forth by the member for Lakeland, our party does not agree that either the father or the mother should have to be a citizen or a permanent resident for a child to have Canadian citizenship. Citizenship in this country is precious and should not be thrown around frivolously. However, if someone is born on Canadian soil, he or she should be recognized as Canadian. It is for this reason that we have a problem with this amendment.
Concerning Motion No. 2, we do not feel that an individual should claim time toward permanent residency status after having made a refugee claim. When an individual makes a claim there is not even a guarantee that he or she will achieve refugee status. We support the present provision in the act, which states that a person begins claiming time toward permanent residency status once he or she has been determined to be a convention refugee.
With respect to Motions Nos. 3 and 17, the hon. member for Rosemont has been quite concerned about the adoption provisions for some time. The amendments he proposes solidify the fact that adoption is a provincial area of jurisdiction. We support the autonomy of the provinces in their areas of jurisdiction and would gladly support the hon. member for Rosemont; however, he specifies only jurisdictional powers over adoption for the province of Quebec. If the motion had specified all of the provinces in Canada we would have supported it.
We support Motion No. 22 put forward by the hon. member for Lakeland. During the course of debate on Bill C-16, this party raised concerns about the coming into force of this act. It stipulates in the bill that all citizenship cases will fall under the new act once it is proclaimed. We did not like this. What kinds of extra paperwork and headaches will this cause for cases which are smoothly making their way through the system under the current act? There should be some sort of cut off point for cases presently going through the system. Perhaps there could be a period of one year to give the department and applicants alike time for adjustment.