Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented to the House on Thursday, November 30, 2004, be concurred in.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Laval—Les Îles.
On November 30 we tabled this document from the citizenship and immigration committee. Let me say that the issues we at the committee tried to address are issues that have been longstanding concerns in front of this House.
One of the main issues that I was certainly very much interested in was the whole issue of revocation of citizenship for those who were not born in Canada. Under our current Citizenship Act, revocation of citizenship for naturalized Canadians does not conform to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I was delighted to see in the throne speech what the government laid out in saying that we are going to modernize our Citizenship Act. I was also glad to see that in the throne speech the government laid out that one of the founding principles by which it would govern was based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The issue we are talking about on revocation of citizenship pertains to all those Canadians who were not born in Canada. We are talking about nearly 6 million Canadians. We have close to 50 members of this House who were not born in Canada. This would apply directly to them.
We have been trying to deal with a new Citizenship Act since 1996. The first Citizenship Act that was considered in debate was Bill C-63, which was followed by Bill C-16, at which point in time I was parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship and immigration. As parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship and immigration, I could not at that time support the contents of Bill C-16 as it pertained to the revocation of citizenship.
I could not support Bill C-16 because I believe that something as important as citizenship, which strikes at the very identity of the 6 million Canadians who were born elsewhere, is of great importance and should be covered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
At this time, I am sad to say, citizenship is not covered by the charter. Therefore, I had looked forward to sitting on the citizenship committee, whereby we could correct a longstanding injustice.
Madam Speaker, I may say that this situation applies to you as well, not having been born in Canada, and many other members of this House.
My battle has been to make sure that for something as valuable as citizenship rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies and applies also if the government wants to challenge the legitimacy of any naturalized Canadian's citizenship.
It is not often that a parliamentary secretary opposes a government initiative or, as a matter of fact, votes against the government's legislation and resigns over it, but that was one of those occasions, so when I returned in the last Parliament I decided to sit on the citizenship and immigration committee to address this issue in particular.
I am very pleased that the committee, acting in a very non-partisan fashion and with the good of Canadians in mind, went through the Citizenship Act and made a number of recommendations in our report. We recommended that the government table a new Citizenship Act.
First, those recommendations included one that there must be equal treatment of Canadian born and naturalized citizens. We cannot change the fact that some of us were born in Canada and some of us were born elsewhere, but we are all citizens. What we have in common besides our love for this country is the fact that our rights, and a right as important as citizenship, should be protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The committee made that recommendation in the report and it is worth emphasizing again: there must be equal treatment of Canadian born and naturalized citizens.
Second, referring to Bill C-18, there should be no probationary citizenship status.
Third, the legislation should enhance English and French as the official languages of Canada.
Fourth, for those who qualify, citizenship should be seen as right rather than a privilege. I think that is a very important concept, because there were those who said that citizenship is a privilege that can be revoked at a whim of the government. That is wrong. The committee unanimously agreed that it is wrong. I regret that some of the former ministers of citizenship did not see that point.
The next point was that no one should be denied or deprived of Canadian citizenship if doing so would render them stateless. This is important because we are signatories to international conventions in which we fight against statelessness. For us to be signatories to those conventions and then turn around and do this is wrong.
Another main point is that all determinations under the act should be made by an independent decision maker in a judicial process free from political interference. This point strikes at the very heart of our judicial system. It means that no politician, even a prime minister, should be able to deprive individuals of their liberties. That can only be done by the due process of law under the legal section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Another issue we talked about was that while we get rights with citizenship, we also have responsibilities. That is an important concept. We often talk about rights but we do not talk about responsibilities, those responsibilities including people partaking in the democratic process and in the life of their community.
One of the very interesting things about this report is that we toured across Canada. During most of April, the citizenship and immigration committee went from coast to coast. We visited every provincial capital. We also visited Vancouver and Montreal, and for the very first time in its history, we visited the Waterloo region. The outpouring of support for the principles enunciated in this report was overwhelming.
This is a very important document that strikes at the very heart of what it means to be Canadian. I hope we can get legislation to incorporate both this report as well as all presentations to be heard from coast to coast.