Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that it is a great honour to speak today to Bill C-16 and what it means not only for the country but especially people who want to make Canada their country, and certainly those who have been here.
I listened with great interest to the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. He made many valid points. Certainly the one which I wanted to echo was that the committee, having listened to and heard witnesses, has now been able to make decisions which are appropriate to the matter at hand.
Citizenship, as all members of the House and all Canadians know, is of great value to individuals and their families. It bestows upon them great honour and responsibility as well as rights which are inherent under the charter and the constitution of this great country of ours.
I think back to my great-great-grandparents. They came to this country in 1827 via Bucks County, Pennsylvania having first come from Europe. Over the years we have cherished those things which we hold near and dear, that is, being citizens of this great country of ours.
By way of history it is amazing to think that prior to 1947 Canadians were still not Canadians as we know them but rather were British subjects. It is interesting that the Prime Minister himself was 12 years old before he actually had Canadian citizenship given to him. We were British subjects until that point. Having said that, citizenship and all that goes with it is something which Canadians now value greatly in terms of what it means to be a Canadian. It is important that we celebrate and cherish that which we hold near and dear to us. In 1947 the Liberal government of the day under Prime Minister Mackenzie King ensured that Canadians would have a status which we cherish to this day, being a citizen of Canada.
Citizenship is a concept in our culture which goes back to the city states of the ancient Greeks. For them the life of a citizen meant deep involvement in the life of a city. It meant the widest possible rights and privileges. It was also a very restrictive status, something which we no longer have. For example, no woman or newcomer could hope to be a citizen in those days.
While that restrictive status continued over the centuries, it has finally been washed away. In a sense we still see it today in countries which restrict their citizenship and those people who are part of a traditional ethnic group. Unlike Canada there are many countries where citizenship is not an opportunity to welcome people. It is not an opportunity for newcomers to declare that they are ready and willing to become a full part of their communities as citizens.
The point is clear that Canada has been different in that regard. We welcome newcomers. We grant full citizenship to all our people in a manner consistent with the charter and the constitutional prerogatives, as well as the rights that Canadian citizens no matter where they live in this great country of ours have come to expect and deservedly so. It is important that we keep that in mind.
When Canadians travel abroad it becomes apparent how great our citizenship is and what a great country Canada is. It is important that we value and cherish all that goes along with what it means to be Canadian.
Let me be clear in terms of what that 1947 act did. I offer that by way of background because it is important. That act treated men and women differently when it came to issues such as marrying a non-Canadian and keeping Canadian citizenship if they lived abroad, passing citizenship to their children if they lived abroad, and finally, how soon the spouses of men and women could become citizens. That was part and parcel of the 1947 act, yet for all the faults we have seen in retrospect, that act was an important starting point. It set us on the course which had led us to where we are today with Bill C-16.
It is important to note that what has never changed is a sense that citizenship is about joining the Canadian family, and a great family it is. It is about sharing in the values, traditions and institutions which define us as a people and unite us as a nation and which have made us the finest country in the world according to the United Nations Human Development Report for six years in a row. That is no coincidence. It is because of who we are and what we represent and the citizenship of Canadians is part of that greatness that is ours.
When new Canadians take the oath of citizenship outlined in the bill, they will speak about what it means to be Canadian. They will pledge their loyalty and allegiance to Canada and to our Queen. They will promise to respect Canada's rights and freedoms and uphold the constitution. They will vow to uphold the democratic values that allow us to debate some very important issues in the spirit of openness, transparency and accountability which we do in this great democratic system of ours in Canada. They will promise to do what we should do, to observe our laws and fulfil the duties and obligations of what it means to be a true citizen of this country.
These are not just words. Those words get to the heart of what citizenship is all about. They are about agreeing to accept the basic rules of how our society operates. They are about agreeing to play a full role in the life of our society in terms of what it means to help others to care and to share and to use the kinds of values in a meaningful way for Canadians wherever they are in this country. It also means acting at the ballot box, on a jury or just in the day to day debate among fellow citizens. It means ensuring that we vote, that we fulfil our duties as citizens in meaningful and tangible ways and in a way consistent with the values that are part of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, at this point I want to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for Cambridge.
There are countries in the world that essentially sell their citizenship. People in parts of the world actually do that for money. They buy passports which can be used to go elsewhere. Some travel documents might be part of that as well. It is selling hope, false hope in many cases, in volatile parts of the world, and it is most unfortunate. But it will never, never give a person what Canadian citizenship does, and that is what we have here. Those passports of convenience that are sold never announce to the world that a person is part of a great family the way our citizenship does. A person is never linked to the men and women from all over the world who regardless of birth share in the pride of being citizens of this country.
That is what citizenship is all about. That is what it means to be Canadian. That is what it means to have the kinds of values that unite us as a people in that sense and ensure that we carry on in a meaningful way consistent with that which our forefathers and foremothers did, including that which newcomers to this country also add. That is important so we can build on the foundations of the past with vision, insight and foresight. We project into the future with confidence knowing that we have one of the finest, and I would argue the finest, country in the world. We need to celebrate that.
In closing I state simply that Bill C-16 helps to reinforce that which we take for granted so many times in this great country of ours and especially our citizenship. Having said that, I move:
That the question be now put.