Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Calgary West asked a question about how the interpreter fits into the equation of adequate knowledge of official languages. That is just one question of many to come.
The bill simply says that an applicant must have an adequate knowledge of one of the official languages of Canada. The flaw is that it does not provide any provision on how it is to be judged, by whom, on what criteria, or anything else.
My hon. colleague for Calgary West asks a very astute question. What does this mean? There are no criteria. It is all deferred to the bureaucracy, whoever is sitting in the chair that day, and whatever the interpreter is allowed to do. A person could effectively come into Canada, get Canadian citizenship, and not be able to speak, read, write or understand a word of French or English. That is a problem. It needs to be much more clearly defined in the bill, and they have missed it by a country mile.