Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Winnipeg North—St. Paul for his intervention dealing with the issue of equality.
This should actually be a celebration. I am vice-chair of the committee and sat on the committee when we dealt with the controversial Bill C-63. A lot of people appeared and talked to us about their concerns. All issues were raised and put on the floor. Unfortunately the bill was ready to go as Bill C-63 when the House prorogued and it fell off the agenda. When the House came back the bill was brought back in as Bill C-16.
This should be a celebration of the fact that the committee had tremendous input and impact with the minister and the ministry to convince them that there are some things which should be done to increase the value of Canadian citizenship. Instead of celebrating we find ourselves embroiled in a debate over the issue of supposedly creating two classes of Canadian citizens.
I absolutely respect the passion and the strongly held views of my colleagues, but the danger is that we are sending a message to the new Canadian community, to immigrants. When they stand in a citizenship court along with their families, let us say on Canada Day, not too far in the future, and receive their Canadian citizenship which they believe is of tremendous value, we are sending a message that somehow it is devalued compared to someone like me who was born in this country. It is not fair to send that kind of negative, frightening message to people who look forward to celebrating what is for many a rebirth.
I heard that earlier today statements were made in this place that people cannot know what this is about unless they are immigrants to this country. The implication is that those born in this country do not understand the value of Canadian citizenship.
In a former life I stood as a parliamentary delegate to monitor free elections in Croatia for the first time since the war. I saw people with tears in their eyes lining up on the streets to cast their ballots. I could feel their pain. I could feel their enthusiasm, their excitement. I could feel their fear that somehow by the time they got to the ballot box the right would be stripped away, that Tito would jump down from the picture over the ballot box or that the soldier with a gun would prevent them from casting that ballot. The right to vote is one of the benefits of citizenship. I saw firsthand how important it was to those people who had gone through war and terror and hate. I think I can understand that, even though I happen to have been lucky enough to have been born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.
My wife is an immigrant who came to this country from England. It was not under duress, although she might say she was trying to get away from her parents. She came here to seek a better life. She came here as an 18 year old girl, wide eyed and excited about coming to this great country she had heard about. She became a Canadian citizen by choice. If anything, people who choose this country are more special.
If we want to talk about two classes of citizens, it is a little like the statement parents make to their adopted children when they find out that mom and dad are not their biological mom and dad. The statement is always “We chose you. You are very special”. To new Canadians coming to this country, whether from wartorn societies or from places like the U.K., I say thank you for choosing Canada. It is what has built this country.
The bill says that those who come here under false pretences, those who lie, those who knowingly withhold information to whom we in Canada have given this citizenship right, our appreciation of its acceptance and the help to build our society, if we are deceived we must have a mechanism to take back what we consider to be a document and a place in the world of utmost importance and value. Is that a double standard? As my friend has mentioned, we cannot take away a right of birth. To compare the two is not fair.
There are some horrible people. Think about it. Paul Bernardo is still a Canadian citizen. Who would not want to strip that evil person, if we had the power to do so, of Canadian citizenship? But we cannot because he was born here. There are countless others such as Clifford Olson, and we could go on. There are countless people who are bad people and who remain Canadian citizens.
The only option we have is if someone arrives here who it turns out was a war criminal or had committed crimes against humanity. I can imagine the outcry of the Canadian public if the government were held powerless to revoke that person's citizenship, if the government had to rely on a judge to make the decision instead of the duly elected people who represent the people who bestowed Canadian citizenship on the individual in the first place. Canadians give citizenship. Canadians must have the ability, if they have been cheated, to revoke that citizenship.
The second thing that is unfair and which sends a frightening message to the immigrant community and to those applying for Canadian citizenship is the idea that there is no appeal. Let us be clear. The process has five different steps and provides at least three opportunities to ask the federal court to judicially review the decisions being taken during these steps.
I do not want to play semantics but a judicial review is different from an appeal. Here is how it works. The minister issues a letter because the minister has evidence and is satisfied with that evidence that the person has fraudulently obtained Canadian citizenship. The minister will serve notice on the individual. That individual then has an immediate right to ask the federal court trial division to appeal the minister's letter. That court will call witnesses. That court will listen to evidence. That court will not just look at whether or not the minister has erred in some legal way.
That is the difference. Judicial review tends to look at the process and the specifics of the process, whether or not there was an error in law, whereas one could argue that an appeal basically appeals a decision, making it wide open, introducing new evidence and everything else. Clearly when the federal court trial division holds a judicial review of the minister's letter and notice to the individual, it must and will call witnesses, look at all the evidence and attempt to decide whether or not the decision is a fair one.
This is very interesting because if the court decides that the letter should not have been sent and that there is no problem with the individual, in other words if it finds that the individual did not commit fraud, then the process is over. I hear members opposite and a few on this side saying that is not fair either and that the government should have the right to appeal. We want to walk both sides of the street on this deal. If the government continues to have the right to appeal, there could be a very strong case for harassment.
I just do not understand how one can argue on the one hand that one wants to protect humanitarian rights, and I will come to the humanitarian and compassionate issue, and then on the other hand that we should give the big bad government the right to appeal the decision of a judicial review by the federal court trial division that says there was no fraud. If that happens it is case over, door shut and that person stays as a citizen. It seems to me that is protecting the rights of that individual.
I find it more interesting to have the alliance reform party, or whatever it is called, in opposition to this for these stated reasons. Its members think the power belongs more appropriately in the hands of the judges and not the politicians. We all know that when one wants to denigrate a particular issue the best place to start is by denigrating those who are politicians. We are all a bad lot. We all make decisions with ulterior motives and we cannot be trusted. We hear that.
But I ask those members, what was the position of the opposition in this place when the supreme court in B.C. ruled in favour of that individual who was promoting child pornography? My goodness, how could a judge make such a decision? How could a judge make such a decision? What is their solution? Their solution is simply to invoke the notwithstanding clause, smack the judge over the hand and reverse the decision. By the way, none of us like that decision. In fact we decided to appeal that to the Supreme Court of Canada.
I did not realize I was out of time. I hope we can have further debate on this in a positive, substantive way which will allow for the positive benefits of Bill C-16 to be put forward to the Canadian people.