Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga West.
I am pleased and honoured today to speak to Bill C-16, an act respecting Canadian citizenship. There is a handful of members in the House who could probably share the same life experience as myself and the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo. This issue is very close to me and I would like to share my experience with my hon. colleagues and the nation.
As a young boy in Croatia I dreamed about Canada. I dreamed about a huge country. In 1968, in Vienna, when I applied and went through the process to come to this country, I was honoured and I was privileged. I was only 18 and a half years old at that time.
I chose this country. I came by myself, on my own. Three years later I applied for Canadian citizenship and I received Canadian citizenship two years after that.
In that citizenship courtroom in Waterloo, which was held in an old post office building on King Street, I still remember watching the faces of many people similar to myself, their special feelings and the smiles on their faces.
When I go to citizenship courts today as an elected member of parliament the judge usually asks me to make comments. When I make these comments I tell new Canadians that they are equal members of the greatest society, the Canadian family, and equal to anybody who was born here or those families who came 300 or 400 years before them. Just recently, I found out that I was wrong.
I do not know if I could go again to that same citizenship court and tell new Canadians that they are equal. According to Bill C-16, they are not, which is really sad. It is really sad that I am not as equal a member of Canadian society as my own children. Over five million Canadians are in the same position.
The Canadian government and the Canadian parliament promote equality, especially abroad. Under this legislation there is no equality. Under this legislation I am treated as a second class citizen. In no other department does the minister have the right and the power to overrule the Supreme Court of Canada, but this legislation would provide that power. That is wrong.
I know many new Canadians who probably did not tell the whole truth for many reasons. Perhaps they came from a country where their lives and their freedom was not protected by the laws of that country, so they used every means available to get out and become members of the greatest family.
Canada is a party to the international convention on civil and political rights adopted by the UN general assembly on December 16, 1966. This United Nations covenant says that a person who has lived in Canada for 20 years or more, whether or not he or she is a citizen of Canada, can consider Canada to be his or her own country. For the purposes of articles 12(4) and 13 of the covenant, such a person cannot be expelled from Canada. If the person leaves the country on vacation, he or she cannot be prevented from re-entering. It is clearly stated in these articles that even non-citizens under the UN convention have more rights than what is proposed in Bill C-16.
Let us say that a person, of whatever nationality, somewhere in Moscow, is stepping on the property of the Canadian embassy, and someone else is stepping on the property of the Canadian embassy in Beijing. Those two individuals are protected by the charter of rights. They are not even landed immigrants and they are not even citizens, but Canadian citizens under Bill C-16 are not equal members of Canadian society. That is wrong.
Can we imagine how many different nationalities there are in my riding of Cambridge? I could start with Croatians, Serbians, Portuguese, Indians, Punjabis, English, Irish, Scottish, Hungarians and Poles. All those people came to this country by choice but are not equal members of our society.
I was surprised on listening to the member from Winnipeg this morning to learn that he and the NDP caucus are fully supporting Bill C-16. Let me quote Alistair Stewart, an MP from Winnipeg, a CCF member, in debate on April 3, 1951. The debate was similar to this one today. He said:
The minister has the right to decide, and it is no reflection on the minister when I say that all of us who are elected members of parliament know what it is to be the victim of political pressure and political urges. While I am content to leave this right with the minister, I am not content to leave with him the right to have the last word. We suggest for the earnest consideration of the minister, partly as a safeguard for himself and partly as a safeguard for those who might be accused, that the individual should have a final right of appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada...That court is impartial. Let that court decide whether or not the individual should suffer the most grievous penalty of losing his citizenship. Were we to do that, then I think we would be restoring some of that equality for all which we desire. I hope that the minister will give this suggestion his most earnest consideration.
We are giving that same power to the political side to make that decision instead of to the supreme court in our judicial system which should be and is impartial. That is completely wrong.
It is not right for five million Canadians who by their own choice adopted Canada as their homeland. I am one of them and I am proud of Canadian society. I hope members of the House will realize how dangerous it is to leave that power in the hands of the politicians instead of our judges.
I do not know what my feelings will be next time when I am called to participate in the citizenship courts. I should not say no but I cannot mislead or lie to people. I cannot go over there to congratulate those who just became second class citizens. I do not know how my colleagues will feel about that, but I feel disappointed and dishonoured as the member representing Cambridge riding. I hope my colleagues will do the right thing when we vote at third reading.