Mr. Speaker, Citizenship Week recognizes the value of citizenship and immigration. This would also be the ideal time for the Liberals to keep their broken promises to modernize the Citizenship Act. The current act still allows the government to strip people of citizenship behind closed doors.
The Prime Minister once said publicly that, “you cannot cherry pick rights”. However, the reality is that his government refuses to ensure that naturalized Canadian citizens are fully protected by charter rights to an open judicial process. Add to this, delays of over a year to process citizenship applications. One provincial capital has not even had a citizenship judge for two years.
This Liberal government needs to do more than pay shallow lip service to the value of citizenship and immigration. It has consistently failed to deliver good service to new citizens and immigrants, in spite of collecting substantial fees. Citizenship Week would be a good time for real improvement.