Mr. Speaker, no one is asking for anything special. What is being asked for is the protection of the charter, for the right to defend one's citizenship. What is being asked for is the due process of law.
My friend may not like it but the due process of law is having the right to appeal a finding of fact to the supreme court. It happens in our courts each and every day. The problem with the bill is it denies Canadians by choice the charter. It denies them the due process of law.
We do not want political decisions on citizenship revocation. We want the courts to make those decisions because they are not a political body.
A week and a half ago the Prime Minister was visiting a neighbouring riding to my own. He said that the one key thing in the life of our nation is to make sure that the rights of the citizens are protected by the court in our land and not subject to the capricious elected. The Prime Minister had it right. The principle being referred to was holding the judges politically accountable.
When someone's rights are involved it should not be a popularity contest because justice is blind. That is how the law is applied. It is not how powerful one is, how weak one is, but we try to treat everyone equally as much as possible.
Every legal group that came before us, including the B'nai Brith, including Mr. Narvey from the coalition of synagogues from Montreal, concerned about war crimes, crimes against humanity and the Holocaust, said that there should be a right to appeal. Is my friend saying to me that he is going to tell Canadians by choice that they do not have a right to appeal the judicial decision? That is exactly what he is saying. If he does not know the difference between judicial appeal and the review of that decision, then he has a problem.
There is a memo in my friend's office from Mr. Kenneth Narvey taking the six reasons that have been given by the government and debunking each one of them.
Surely to God the member does not want to deny the due process of law and the charter of rights protection to people who are citizens by choice. If he does, let me tell him I will debate with him in his riding.