Madam Speaker, it would appear that we are having the real debate on this legislation when it is too late to make substantial changes, at least in the House of Commons.
I congratulate the hon. member on his speech. He pointed out some very important things with respect to the bill. He also touched very briefly on the oath of citizenship and the fact that the amended version of the oath in the legislation was created by the minister herself or some bureaucrat in her ministry. However, he made an error in his presentation. He said that there had been no public debate about the content that a new oath of citizenship could take. He is wrong about that.
The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration considered the citizenship bill in 1993 and 1994. I was part of that committee at that time. We heard extensively from citizens and new Canadians who wanted to talk about how wonderful it was to come to this country and become a Canadian, and how they felt very strongly that there should be some kind of declaration of citizenship which expressed the values of being a Canadian and the values of Canada in some manner that was more eloquent than what exists in the present oath. They talked of values like democracy, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity and the rule of law, things that do not exist their countries.
What has happened, despite all that input, is that we now have in Bill C-16 a revised oath and none of us know who wrote it or where it comes from.
Would the hon. member opposite not feel awkward, as I will feel awkward, to see new Canadians taking a new oath of citizenship for which this parliament has had no debate? There has been no debate in the standing committee about the content of the oath of citizenship that is now before the House and to which new Canadians will be required to swear.
What kind of country is it that would leave something so important and so sacred as the oath of citizenship to some unidentifiable bureaucrat and not have the courage to stand up in the House and create a version of the oath of citizenship that belongs to this House and this nation, and not to some contracted out, invisible person?