House of Commons Hansard #116 of the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was immigrants.

Topics

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:40 p.m.

Souris—Moose Mountain Saskatchewan

Conservative

Ed Komarnicki ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has vast experience in this area and I thank him for his various suggestions about being non-partisan. I know he has laboured hard and has seen many years go by during which the Citizenship Act never did go through for a variety of reasons. RAD, which was to have been implemented in 2002, also has not been done. He has pointed out that there were some anomalies in the Citizenship Act that originated as a result of an act in 1947 and one in 1977, anomalies that have been festering and posing some problems, and that have come to light perhaps to a greater degree more recently.

I would like him to indicate whether he is in agreement with the fact that, at least on an interim basis, the minister has added additional staff to the case processing centre. She has implemented a direct referral line to the call centre for anyone who may have any questions. She has assured that there would be no benefits lost in the interim. She has increased coordination between the departments.

Also, when she appeared before the committee, she invited the committee members to, in a non-partisan way, have a review of the anomalies specifically. She was not talking about a major revamping of the Citizenship Act but specifically about whether we could even proceed in a non-partisan way in a small area dealing with the anomalies. She has invited the committee and that particular member to see if they could put forward some constructive suggestions.

I ask the member if he is prepared to proceed, to take her up on that suggestion and to deal in a non-partisan way with this particular area that we are talking about, the lost Canadians, as he refers to them.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will say only that when the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development became Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, I gave her the reports from the committee. I made her an offer and said, “Let us work together on a new Citizenship Act”.

There is only one problem and I think the member is going to take a while to realize it. I am hoping that when the hearings are over members will realize that we are dealing not with a few hundred cases, 450 cases, but with tens of thousands of cases. We cannot have any minister or politician stamping tens of thousands of the special permits to let the people in the 5(4) cases come in.

I threw out the challenge. I said that the Citizenship Act is 60 years old and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is 25 years old, and all I am asking from the Conservative government is that it do what all its critics said when they were in opposition. I am going to hold them to it, because I took them at their word. I fought for it with my government. I am going to fight the Conservative government just as hard as I fought my government to make sure that it will happen.

Had the election not occurred when it did and had we had a few more months, then some parts of the Citizenship Act would have been fixed, although not all of it. Had we had another year, I really believe that the recommendations of the committee would have been implemented and we would have a new Citizenship Act.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:40 p.m.

NDP

Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kitchener—Waterloo for his speech and his ongoing work in this area. He is passionate about citizenship issues. I am sure that everybody watching appreciates that passion this afternoon.

The member has just alluded to the controversy about the numbers of people who might be involved in this as lost Canadians. The minister reported that there were 450 cases being considered currently. The member has just outlined the fact that he thinks there are many more people who are directly affected by this.

I wonder if he could comment on one of the groups that is affected: the children born to Canadian military personnel who were serving overseas during the cold war period, serving on Canadian military bases in France. One of the things we have discovered about those folks is that often they were issued Department of National Defence birth certificates, which now have been determined not to be acceptable proof of their birth to Canadian parents overseas. When some of these people apply for a passport now, they are finding out that this identification, which has been acceptable in the past, is no longer acceptable. Could he comment on that situation?

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:40 p.m.

Liberal

Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Mr. Speaker, I totally agree with my colleague. Those people should be getting automatic citizenship. All we have to do is fix the legislation to make it happen. It is an embarrassment for us that people who served for this country overseas do not have citizenship and are having their citizenship disputed.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:45 p.m.

Haldimand—Norfolk Ontario

Conservative

Diane Finley ConservativeMinister of Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Speaker, as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration I am proud to rise today to discuss our government's record on citizenship and immigration.

This debate is my first opportunity to address the House as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

While I am proud of our government's record, I am quite frankly surprised that the Liberal critic has chosen to give us an opportunity to highlight his own party's dismal record on these issues, especially since his party has one of the worst records on immigration in Canadian history.

Let us just take a look at the Liberal legacy on immigration. The LIberals imposed a $975 head tax on immigrants. They promised to cut it and then did not. They allowed the application backlog, that is, people who want to come to Canada, to grow from 50,000 to the staggering number of 800,000 people. The Liberals froze settlement funding for new immigration for over a decade and then had the audacity to vote against us providing $307 million in new settlement funding for newcomers to our great country.

That is right. The Liberals voted against funding that will help new immigrants learn to read and write in one of Canada's official languages. They voted against providing new immigrants with funding that will assist them to integrate and become productive members of Canadian society.

To sum up the Liberal legacy on immigration, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party himself said, “I have to admit...that we didn't get it done on immigration”. I hate to admit this, but for once I have to agree with the hon. member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore.

The deputy leader of the Liberal Party is not the only Liberal who has been critical of the Liberal record, but here is what the Liberal member for Etobicoke Centre had to say about his party's neglect of the immigration system:

I'm almost reaching the point where I believe that our whole immigration system has become dysfunctional. That in fact it's at the point of being broken.

He said this on CBC, according to CBC.ca, on September 14, 2004.

These are not Conservative criticisms of the Liberals. They are actually from Liberals criticizing the Liberal record on immigration.

While the Liberals stood idly by for 13 long years, we, Canada's new government, are taking real action to address the needs of immigrants. We have cut the permanent resident fee in half, from $975 to $490, because we want to reduce the barriers to newcomers so they can have a good head start for their new lives in Canada.

We are providing $307 million in additional settlement funding to new immigrants, funding that is critical to help newcomers adapt and integrate into the Canadian way of life, funding that is vital to enhancing the lives of people who are new to Canada.

We are committed to establishing an office that would help qualified foreign trained professionals understand what they need and the paths they must follow to become accredited so they can practise in their chosen fields in Canada sooner than ever before.

The 2006 federal budget set aside $18 million over two years to take the first steps toward establishing this entity. Advantage Canada reaffirmed that the government will do more and move forward on this commitment. Improved labour market integration is critical so that Canada can continue attracting and retaining the skilled immigrants that we need.

All levels of government have a role to play in integrating immigrants into Canadian society and into the economy. My colleague, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, and I are engaging our partners as we move forward, including provinces, territories, the 440 regulatory bodies, each of which is provincially or territorially regulated, post-secondary institutions, sector councils and employers right across this country. We look forward to making future announcements about our progress in the coming weeks.

We are making it easier for international students to stay in Canada and work off campus. In this regard, we have granted over 11,000 off campus work permits to international students. These students are young, they are motivated and they have a good feel for our country. Why not give them some Canadian work experience and do our best to have them stay after their student visas have expired to use their new skills and knowledge in our country?

We have set the highest target for immigration in 12 years. We are processing a record number of temporary foreign worker applications. In fact, just last year we took in over 100,000 temporary foreign workers. We have opened new temporary foreign worker units in Calgary and Vancouver to better serve those high demand areas. We have created regional lists of jobs where there are clearly identified worker shortages. We have made it faster and simpler for employers to hire a foreign worker for an occupation that is on one of those lists.

We welcomed some 32,000 refugees in the last year. I was at an event in London just a short time ago to announce that Canada will be accepting an additional 2,000 Karen refugees. This is further to the 800 we announced last summer.

We have also issued over 8,900 permanent resident permits based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

We have introduced legislation, Bill C-14, to make it easier for foreign-born children adopted by Canadian parents to become Canadian citizens once the adoption is finalized.

After years and years of Liberal neglect, we are getting things done for immigrants and for all Canadians.

With respect to citizenship, Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds. Just this week, they attempted to blame our government for 13 long years of their former government's inaction on the Citizenship Act. They had the audacity to suggest that if only they had been left in power they would have passed a new citizenship act.

I will remind members of this House that it was the Liberal Party that chose to call an early election. In fact, there were several of them. Not one but three citizenship acts died as a result of that. If the Liberals were truly serious about amending the Citizenship Act, they could have done it. After all, they had 13 years, six ministers, four mandates, and three majority governments to do so, and they chose not to.

For the Liberals to claim the moral high ground on this issue of citizenship when they did absolutely nothing for 13 years is, once again, the height of hypocrisy.

I will remind members opposite that while the Liberals were in power it was the Conservative Party that introduced Bill S-2, the only citizenship legislation to receive royal assent.

The Liberals can fearmonger all they want with respect to Canadians losing their citizenship, but as I said earlier this week at committee, some context is desperately needed with respect to the current situation.

Recently, the media have reported on a number of people who have been affected by the loss of Canadian citizenship.

Let me be clear. This problem and those who are affected by it has been taken very seriously by myself as minister and by the government. I have directed my department to deploy whatever resources are necessary to look after the individuals affected. However, while the problem is real and deserves immediate attention, there is little evidence to suggest that it is as massive as it has been reported in the media or portrayed by some members opposite. These reports have mentioned thousands, hundreds of thousands and even possibly over a million people being affected.

To repeat my comments from earlier this week to put things in perspective, we are talking about approximately 450 individuals whose cases have come to our attention and who merit further consideration. Now despite all the attention on this issue, that number has not grown significantly lately. In fact, many of the calls that we have received have been about Canadians who have simply lost their documents. These Canadians have not lost their citizenship. They have lost their proof of citizenship and have needed to replace it, much the same way as anyone who loses a birth certificate has to apply to replace it.

I understand that this may be a frustrating step for someone who needs that proof to apply for a passport, for example, but in this age of heightened security concerns, it is important that we take steps to verify identity and check for potential fraudulent applications.

To address this issue in the short term, my focus is on the 450 cases. This includes people who, by law, had to take steps to retain their citizenship but did not do so, people who never became citizens and people who could have registered as citizens but did not.

For the interest of all concerned, I will outline some of the actions that I have recently taken to address the issues discussed since becoming minister last month.

As I mentioned earlier, I am using the powers available to me as minister under the Citizenship Act and moving to resolve cases just as quickly as possible. I have recently obtained approval through the governor in council for a special grant of citizenship for 33 of the affected individuals. With respect to the outstanding cases, I have made it a priority for my department to review each case on an individual basis. We have assigned additional staff and created a dedicated unit in our call centre for people with questions about their citizenship. Where appropriate, a program officer is being assigned to each case individually.

We are working with our partners to ensure that, while cases are under review, nobody is removed from the country and benefits such as health care and old age security are continued for those individuals. We are working with the Passport Office to refer people to our call centre to speak directly with our citizenship agents.

Finally, we are helping to expedite the process for people who have not lost their citizenship, but rather have lost the proof of their citizenship and need to apply to replace it.

We did not cause this problem. It arises out of the 1947 and 1977 acts, but we will fix it in the short term and the long term for the benefit of all Canadians.

To give additional context, up until the end of last week, we received 692 calls on our dedicated line. These calls were about the possible loss of citizenship. Of the 692 calls, in 675 of those cases their citizenship has been confirmed and no further action is required. Of the remaining 17, 7 have been invited to apply for a discretionary grant of citizenship, another 3 have been identified as permanent residents and have been asked to apply for a regular grant of citizenship, 2 more have been asked to apply for permanent residence and 5 require further examination. That is out of 692. That is a far cry from the hundreds of thousands, indeed, the millions of cases that we have been hearing about in public as well as in the House.

In the longer term, to address the issues, I am open to considering appropriate amendments to the Citizenship Act. That said, my immediate focus is on helping people caught up in this situation right now.

Legislative change could take quite some time. I believe that affected individuals should not have to wait infinitely for the Citizenship Act to be amended and passed. They should be helped right now.

I look forward to the standing committee's recommendations and to hearing from the various witnesses who will be presenting on this subject over the next few weeks. It is my hope that these hearings will provide viable options for consideration in looking at the most effective ways to address these issues over the long term.

I would like to say to all those involved that I will carefully examine all the options, legislative or not, so that we can create a system that is fair for everyone.

Our new government is getting things done on citizenship and immigration. To paraphrase the deputy leader of the Liberal Party, the Liberals just did not get it done.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Liberal

Andrew Telegdi Liberal Kitchener—Waterloo, ON

Mr. Speaker, let me express my profound disappointment with the minister's incredibly partisan comments. Instead of trying to do something to make the situation better to improve the Citizenship Act, she is reading a speech prepared for her by her bureaucrats. She does not know what she is talking about.

A Conservative cabinet minister, who is the President of Treasury Board now, said in an electronic copy of Macleans magazine that the issue literally affected thousands of people in his Manitoba riding alone, which borders the United States.

I am profoundly disappointed that the minister would not talk to some of her own people. This has been the problem with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. While the Liberals had a new minister every two years, the Conservatives have had a new minister every six months. Had the member for Calgary—Nose Hill, who actually knows something about citizenship and immigration, been the minister, we could have been working on reforming the citizenship and immigration department.

Let me quote John Reynolds, a former member from Sunshine Coast and the co-chair of the last election campaign. He said, “That's one department that needs a massive cleanup and we've got to straighten that mess out”. Another thing he said was, “Now it's happening. We don't know how many people there are, but maybe its up 100,000”. Here is another quote, “I remember one of the bureaucrats telling us in committee there could be as many as 200,000 of these people”.

The minister mentioned the figure of millions. I stood in the House often and said that every Canadian who was a naturalized Canadian under the Citizenship Act had their citizenship at risk. There are six million naturalized Canadians, and I am one of them. There are 40 members in the House who are naturalized Canadians. We will hear from the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, who will tell members her experience with this department.

Let us cut out the rhetoric. Let us stop pointing fingers. Let us get to work to solve this problem in a non-partisan fashion. What does she have to say about the quote from her colleague from Treasury Board, speaking about thousands in his riding alone?

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, we can see that the issue obviously is one that concerns a lot of people, and rightly so. However, when people talk about not pointing fingers but use their fingers to emphasize that point, I have a problem with how partisan they are trying not to be.

Perhaps the microphones were not working properly, but what I said, and I said the same thing at committee, is approximately 450 cases have been identified, cases that have been confirmed. They are not “maybe” cases and not “possibly” cases, but cases that have been identified as needing further investigation. We are working on those.

To give the House an example of the hyperbole that is going on these days, yesterday the member for Scarborough—Agincourt said in the House, and he said the same thing in committee, that Statistics Canada figures showed that the number was as high as 50,000. He challenged me on how deeply I believed in Statistics Canada's numbers because he swore they were true. I also received correspondence yesterday and I will read this into the record. It says:

I would like to clarify an error appearing yesterday February 20 in various media articles with regard to the concept of lost citizens. Statistics Canada does not collect or publish any information on lost citizens.

That is signed by Rosemary Bender, the director general, Social and Demographic Statistics at Statistics Canada.

The member forScarborough—Agincourt owes the House an apology for misrepresenting the numbers and misrepresenting Statistics Canada just for his hyperbole.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the minister. I appreciate that she has taken the time to speak on this motion.

My first question is also one of great interest to the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam. Is the minister or the government prepared to institute a special program to receive refugees from North Korea? We know of the very difficult circumstances the North Korean people find themselves in, both with regard to human rights and social conditions in that country. Often they escape to China. Would the Government of Canada be prepared to take special measures to ensure they can leave China and come to Canada and receive sanctuary here?

My second question is around settlement funding. I acknowledge the Conservatives have increased settlement funding to match the agreement that was made with Ontario by the previous government. That is good news for provinces like British Columbia, which was far behind other provinces in the level of settlement funding they receive.

However, one of the problems is the Government of British Columbia takes that money and puts half of it into general revenue. It says that money goes for fee for service ESL training, which in my understanding is a violation of the agreement between Canada and British Columbia on settlement and ESL.

Is the minister prepared to take action to ensure that all the money transferred from the federal government to British Columbia for settlement work and for ESL goes into those kinds of programs, and that half of it is not skimmed off by the Government of British Columbia and put into general revenue?

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, we realize that many people in North Korea are suffering and living in some deplorable conditions, and that is very unfortunate. Canada works very closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to alleviate the plight of as many refugees as possible each year. We work with that organization and establish our priorities with it. It is dealing on a world-wide basis and we try to help it. When it looks at countries and their priorities, it has a wide range of considerations, including where to resettle refugees as close to their original home as possible.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Provencher Manitoba

Conservative

Vic Toews ConservativePresident of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of clarification in respect of some of the comments that we have been hearing back and forth, I recognize that the minister has said that she has identified 450 cases, and that I think is accurate. The comments I made did not speak to those who were identified, but potentially.

For example, from southern Manitoba, and it was not from my riding, the article got it a little wrong, approximately 7,000 Mennonites went to Mexico in the 1920s. The marriages of many of those individuals of course were not recognized by the state, only recognized by the church. The consequence of that is that the citizenship may not have flowed to the children because the children were then deemed illegitimate.

Many of the descendants of those Mennonites have come back to Canada. In one case that I had been working on, a set of twins claimed citizenship. The woman was recognized as a Canadian citizenship, but her twin brother was denied Canadian citizenship when he tried to come back to Canada. Yet, his sister had received a passport. That was under the prior Liberal government, so the mess has been around a long time.

I want to commend the minister for the very prompt action that she has been taking on this file. My constituents appreciate not only her work but the prior minister's for actually dealing with an issue that was evident for so many years. After so many years of asking a minister to act, this minister and her immediate predecessor, my Conservative colleague, also acted on this file.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, we inherited a very broken system where the backlog grew from 50,000 to 800,000. We cannot fix that overnight. I would like to extend an invitation to all hon. members in the House, as I did Tuesday, that if they are aware of any possible cases, to please contact our hotline regarding citizenship anomalies. We would love to help fix it.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:10 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House of Commons and support the Liberal opposition motion. It states:

That, in the opinion of the House, immigrants to Canada and persons seeking Canadian citizenship are poorly served by this government.

We could substitute that students are poorly served by the government and that the homeless are poorly served by the government. We could substitute low income Canadians, middle income Canadians, farmers, cities and municipalities. I guess the only ones we could leave out are the big oil companies. We could leave them out because they are not being poorly served.

I want to speak specifically to the issue of this particular group that is poorly served. They are persons seeking Canadian citizenship and immigrants.

I am not going to go into all of the various things we have heard today. A lot of my colleagues and others in the House have spoken very eloquently to this issue. I want to focus on two things: first, the issue of process, which is a huge problem in removing backlogs and how we deal with process; and, second, the issue of immigration itself and workforce issues which are directly and completely linked to immigration.

Let me talk a little about processes. How does the government not serve the process well? We know that there have been huge backlogs. When this particular party was in opposition, it brought it to the attention of the Liberals. It said there were backlogs. People were waiting for temporary visitor visas to come to see their children who were having babies or people who were dying, and we needed to speed it up. We talked about students who were here with a desire to get a job. Those were all the things that were brought to us, including refugee claims.

The Liberal government provided $700 million purely for one reason, and that was to target the backlog, to bring in more personnel, and to help the process work so that we could deal with the problem that everybody pinpointed.

I have a question. Where is that $700 million? We cannot find it. The government will not commit to leaving that $700 million to get going on this issue. This is an ongoing question. Where is the money that was put in by the Liberal government? Where is it? Is it gone? Has it disappeared into the ether? Is it helping to increase a surplus that the government has chosen somewhere?

We know there are obvious cuts, if I might add, on the backs of all the vulnerable in our society, but there are some moneys that are not there and then reappear as a brand new program, sometimes with less money, sometimes with the same amount of money. There is a kind of smoke and mirrors thing going on and we still cannot find lots of money that was put into programs by the Liberal government. We do not know where the money is. The $700 million is one example. I want to know where that money has gone.

The Liberal government also provided $20 million to upgrade the Citizenship Act. The Citizenship Act is what we are talking about here. There are huge problems with people obtaining citizenship, people suddenly finding out that they are now required to have a passport, people who thought were citizens and find out they are not. The Liberal government provided $20 million to deal with that. What happened to the money? Where is it?

We see huge lineups for passports all of a sudden. The government knew that it was going to be dealing with the passport issue. The Liberal government fought it, but the Conservative government agreed with the United States that a passport was a good thing. It knew it was doing this. When it decided to do it, surely it could have provided money to speed it up.

There are people working for airlines, crews and flight attendants, whose passports may have expired suddenly and they needed it in 24 hours in order to work, which they cannot do because there is a huge backlog.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

I am talking about the process and I want to know what is happening to it. I also want to talk about probably the single most important thing relating to immigration. Canada is a small country that has 32 million people living in a global economy. We, among many of the OECD countries including the G-8 and G-20 countries, are suddenly finding that we do not have a workforce to allow us to be productive and competitive.

The fact is that we are not having enough babies. The birth rate is falling. The number of seniors is increasing. They are getting out of jobs. We do not have the ability to have people in the workforce. We know that Statistics Canada tells us that by 2011, which is four years from now, we will be dependent for 100% of our net labour force on immigration.

We needed to be able to move this forward. That is why we put $20 million into it, to review the Immigration Act with the provinces and to talk about how we could meet the needs of Canada for a productive workforce. Without a productive workforce in a global 21st century economy, skills, training, intellectual property and education are going to be key to be a competitive nation. We are just not dealing with this.

Are we going to wait until it happens? It is happening. We know that it is happening. We can go anywhere and ask small and medium sized businesses about labour. We do not have a workforce in this country to meet the needs of the trades.

What do we do? We need to be talking about how we deal with that problem. We need to look at our immigration processes, work with the provinces and try to deal with that today. It is key and core to Canada's competitiveness and Canada's ability to be a productive nation, but of course this takes vision.

Vision means that we look forward, that we do not just keep plugging the holes as we see them just for today and hoping that if the next election is four months from now, we will get away with it and nobody will remember. Vision is what a government is tasked to do. A government is tasked to look to the future and ensure that it is on top of the challenges that the country is going to face.

The government has not even considered any of this. This is not on its agenda at all, a vision for Canada's competitiveness and productivity in the 21st century global economy. Key to that is going to be immigration. Key to that is going to be immigration that is done in an ethical manner, so that we are not raiding the developing world of its own brains.

We have to think about how we do this. This is not an easy task, but I would suggest that there are productivity projections out there that show that if we even imagined that we could double our workforce within the next 15 years, that we could suddenly have 64 million people, and the United States to the south doubles its workforce and has 750 million people, and the European Union doubles its workforce and has almost a billion, and China doubles its workforce and has 3 billion, we would still be a tiny little nation. So, we must do something about it.

If we are going to maintain a quality of life and be competitive, we have to do this, and I want to know where the government is on this issue.

We now also know that we have people who are living in Canada, whom we talk about a lot regarding this issue, people who are trained and capable of doing the work. We need to deal with the challenges they face. Those challenges are not simply getting their credentials okayed. Some of them are language challenges. Some of them have to do with experience in the Canadian workforce, for example, until they have a job they cannot get experience, and if they do not have experience, they cannot get a job.

We have a huge number of difficulties. Under the last government, I was tasked with the job of going around this country. I spoke to rural municipalities and provincial people. I spoke to labour, trades councils and the private sector. I spoke to universities, colleges and non-governmental bodies, and we talked about how to come up with an integrated plan.

We started to put money into this. We had the beginnings of a plan. We put $236 million in and we targeted the critical areas first, which were health care professionals, health care providers. There was the IMG task force set up by physicians, which was International Medical Graduates. It made clear recommendations. Our government started to address the issue and was on the way to fully addressing those recommendations.

Where are they? I go to committee and I ask ministers what they are doing about this. Where is the internationally trained worker initiative that our government put forth as a project to be phased in? It was an initiative to help the people who are here, who are looking for work, who are underemployed or unemployed with regard to their training, to get jobs. It was to help those who would come in the future, to be able to get jobs before they get here, to get their credentials updated, and to get their experience and language and all of that updated.

We had a portal that we had launched that was going to be doing that. Where is that portal? I keep asking the questions. This is a whole initiative that disappeared into a hole in the ground somewhere. No one can answer this question for me and yet, we hear the government talking about how much it cares about this issue.

What has been the government's answer to date? It says that it will set up some kiosks around the country where people can get information. That does not address the complexity of this issue, nor does it address the $20 million we put into expanded language training. It does not address the projects that we had set up with universities to move forward to help people to get language and competence--

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau

I regret to interrupt the member but if she had looked at the Chair, I could have given her signals.

It is time now for questions and comments and I recognize the hon. member for Prince Albert.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the Liberals' supply day motion today and their constant talk about all the great things they have done for citizenship in this country, as if they have a monopoly on it. I wish they could have been more fair-minded on these things. I just want to set the record straight on a few things.

I know they will hoot and holler about this but it is factual. In the second world war a ship carrying Jewish refugees from Germany landed in Canada seeking refuge. We sent them back to the death camps. The Liberal government during the second world war interned Japanese Canadian citizens and deprived them of their most fundamental rights.

The only time soldiers ever walked through the streets of cities with their guns pointed at citizens and hauling people off to jail during peace time was when the Liberal government brought in the War Measures Act in the 1970s.

The government that gave aboriginal people the right to vote, one of the most fundamental things in this country, was John Diefenbaker's Conservative government.

When the member for Kitchener—Waterloo went through all the things on citizenship and the rights of citizenship, he forgot one person in that list. He forgot John Diefenbaker who introduced the first bill of rights to protect and defend fundamental human rights in this country. It was something that was long overdue even though the Liberals had many opportunities.

Just recently there were two incidents, the first one being the Air-India inquiry, a great tragedy in the history of Canada and a great violation of civil rights of Canadian citizens. The Liberals did nothing to speak of on that inquiry. We set up an inquiry to get to the root of the incident and, from what I can see, the Liberals are taking steps to make it difficult to get to the bottom of the truth on this matter.

We also dealt with the Chinese head tax, which was the creation of the Liberal Party and a black day in the history of this country.

I am just trying to set the record straight here. The Liberals certainly do not have a monopoly on civil rights and citizenship rights in this country. In many cases, they have been a real threat to those things.

If the member wants to respond to my comments she is welcome to do so.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to respond to that.

We, as a Liberal government, have stood in the House and recognized that those injustices were done in our own memory by people whose parents are still alive. As a result of those injustices, we brought forward the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We wanted to ensure those injustices would never happen again. Inherent in the Charter of Rights is minority rights, section 15. The political party that now forms the government forgot there were minorities in this country who were supposed to be kept safe under those rights. Every time we brought forward sexual orientation issues on a minority group, the Conservatives voted against them.

Let us not talk about rights. We know that happened and we have decried our past every time it happened. We set in place structures, such as the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, the Official Languages Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to deal with all those things so they will not happen again.

We could go back as far as the founding of Canada, if we wish, but I am speaking about a vision for today and a vision for the future. I am speaking about the challenges that we currently face and that we will be facing in the next 10 years.

We put moneys into these things and we set up structures to deal with them. Where are they? I would like an accounting of them.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question about the refugee appeal process. We know this was an issue that previous governments tried to solve. Over the years, some refugees who have come to this country have tried to appeal to the government and, for reasons that we could spend a whole day debating, have had barriers put in front of them.

The member's government had a process but it languished and now we have a process that is not in place. Could the member comment on where the refugee appeal process is and where she would like it to be?

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, when we were the government, the citizenship and immigration committee was in the process of looking at the Immigration and Refugee Act and at the changes that needed to be made to bring it up to date. However, the NDP helped to bring down the government and so that did not happen.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Liberal Party's motion. As my Liberal colleague already said, our party's motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, immigrants to Canada and persons seeking Canadian citizenship are poorly served by this government.

Before directly addressing this motion, I think it brings up the issue that persons seeking Canadian citizenship are poorly served by this government. I would also like to explain how this government serves Canadian citizens poorly as well. First of all, there is the matter of lost Canadians. These are people who had Canadian citizenship and who lost it through no fault of their own under the first Citizenship Act, which was passed in 1947 and remained in force until February 1977.

I stand before you as a Canadian who spent a month trying to confirm her Canadian citizenship, and who has had to live with the potential consequences of losing it. Fortunately, the registrar of Canadian citizenship finally informed me today that I do in fact have citizenship, and that I have never lost my citizenship in my 55 years of life.

The issue is that the current government has the power to fix this problem for hundreds and thousands of Canadians. The minister says there are only 450 cases—I believe that is the number she gave—but that only includes the cases she and her officials have identified. There are thousands of people who had every reason to believe they had their citizenship, but now with all the media attention they realize that this act, which was in force from 1947 to 1977, might have put their citizenship in jeopardy.

These people are afraid to contact Citizenship and Immigration Canada. They are afraid they might be informed that they have lost their citizenship through no fault of their own, having never desired to lose or renounce it.

There are other cases like that. Take Joe Taylor, for example, who is the son of a Canadian veteran. Because his biological mother was not a citizen and because his father and mother were not married when he was born, under the Citizenship Act of 1947, Joe Taylor was not entitled to Canadian citizenship. He only found out about this as an adult. When he asked that his citizenship be recognized, the government—and I must admit that my party was in power at the time—refused. He went to the Federal Court, which ruled in his favour and ordered the government to grant him citizenship.

Now the Conservatives are in power. Last September, they filed a motion with the Federal Court asking that the order to grant Joe Taylor citizenship be stayed so that the government could appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Many Canadians are in the same position as Joe Taylor.

The people behind the 450 cases the minister referred to are those who took the courageous step of formally inquiring whether they have Canadian citizenship. If the answer was no, they asked the minister to use her extraordinary powers to grant it to them.

But there are hundreds and thousands of Canadians who have every reason to believe that they have lost their citizenship through no fault of their own or deliberate decision on their part. They are not registering, because they know that if they do, the government will tell them that they are not Canadian citizens.

The Liberal motion talks about this government, this new Conservative government that so proudly proclaims itself Canada's new government. But this new government is doing a poor job of serving not only the people who would like to have Canadian citizenship, but also the people who had every reason to believe they were Canadian citizens yet have lost that citizenship.

This government is doing a poor job of serving them. A simple amendment to the current Citizenship Act is all it would take to retroactively restore citizenship to all the people who have involuntarily lost it.

I cannot speak more passionately on this issue, having lived the ups and downs over the last month when questions of my own citizenship came to light. They initially came to light because people believed that because my father was a non-citizen, albeit I was born in Canada and my parents were legally wed at the time of my birth, that I did not have citizenship. However, it has been clarified that I am a citizen.

Doubts and questioning began. People believed that a provision in the 1947 Citizenship Act, which stated that anyone born in Canada but of a non-citizen at the time that act was in force who did not make a formal declaration of permanent domicile in Canada by their 28th birthday was not a Canadian citizen, applied to me.

I had to verify that. After some hesitation I was told that provision did not apply to me and that I was a citizen. Then the question of my dual citizenship began to solicit doubts on the part of third parties. In 1974, I married a permanent resident of Canada who had Italian citizenship. Under Italian citizenship law, I automatically gained Italian citizenship. I checked with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and I was told that I was not. I was then asked if I had renounced my Canadian citizenship and if had I put on an act to get that Italian citizen? I told them no. I was then told that by virtue of my marriage I was a citizen. I was then asked if I had ever applied for an Italian passport. Obviously, by asking that question it then put into doubt whether or not I was a citizen.

I had to ask the Italian consulate to search its archival material to determine the date that I had applied for an Italian passport. It was the only passport I ever had and it has been expired for a long time. That was January 17, 1977. I then had to call the registrar back and inform him of this. He then asked me if I had ever formally renounced my Canadian citizenship. I told him that I had not and that I never would. I told him that I was a Canadian first and foremost. He then informed me that he had just signed off on the letter confirming that I was a Canadian citizen and that I had never lost my citizenship.

However, even with that assurance, until I have the physical letter in my hand there will still be a certain level of anxiety. I can just imagine those thousands of Canadians who are now wondering if there is some arcane provision that existed in the 1947 Citizenship Act that may have removed their citizenship without their knowledge.

The Conservative government is not serving immigrants. It is not serving people who--

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Souris—Moose Mountain Saskatchewan

Conservative

Ed Komarnicki ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Mr. Speaker, certainly the member makes an emotional plea, and there is no question that citizenship is an emotional issue and there is great attachment to it, but I would like to remind her that the anomalies that exist in the act existed in 1947 and in 1977. In fact, the Senate bill that was brought before the House and promoted by the member from the Sunshine Coast dealt with this precise issue. She calls it a simple amendment, but it is interesting and remarkable to note that she was in a government that knew of this situation, that knew of the anomalies in the act, but took no action and did not provide an amendment, and of course there was ample opportunity to do that.

I might indicate that this minister, upon becoming aware of the specifics of the case, opened a hotline that could be called by any of those who were concerned. People were assured that they would not lose their benefits, their rights, their social security and their health and medical benefits and so on. She assigned additional staff to look at case by case situations. If someone was concerned, her staff would deal with that and assure those who had a potential connection to Canada that they would not be asked to leave. They were assured their cases would be worked on. The minister appeared before committee and asked the members if they would be non-partisan and look at amending whatever needed amending to ensure these situations were addressed.

It may not be as simple as that member is suggesting. For instance, she was talking about children who were born abroad to Canadian children who were born abroad. There was a committee report, and I do not know if it was in the 35th Parliament or not, that said children who were born outside the country to children who were born outside the country might have to establish some connection. Those kinds of issues need to be looked at.

The committee has been invited to look at the various anomalies and areas and come back to the minister to see if she could do something more than just a band-aid approach and actually look at legislative changes.

Is that member prepared to agree that the actions taken in the short term are reasonable and objectively acceptable? In the long term, the committee has been invited to give input into this very significant issue for Canadians. Is she prepared to consider that an appropriate step? She herself is appearing before the committee, I understand, in due course.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

Mr. Speaker, possibly the member's microphone was not working properly, because I stated at the outset when I began speaking about the issue of lost Canadians that when my party was in power we did not address the issue and, therefore, my party as a government was not blameless in this matter.

However, we have another government that calls itself the new government and has now been in place for 14 months. Had this issue been a priority, the government had more than ample time to correct this. The member himself talks about band-aid solutions that the minister has put into place. He himself used the terms. One was a hotline. He said the government will do everything it can if someone loses their citizenship to try to help get it back. However, he himself called these solutions short term, band-aid solutions.

My point is that if this issue were an important priority to the Conservative government, it would have given this priority in its own policy agenda and legislative agenda. It would have brought forth amendments and, at that point, would have had it sent to committee at first reading. That is where the solutions could have been made.

The party in government, which calls itself the new Conservative government, and pats itself on the back, bears as much responsibility, I believe, if not more, because more has come to light over the succeeding 14 or 15 months. The Conservative government definitely bears at least as much responsibility as my own party does, and as I and all of my colleagues did when we were sitting on the opposite side. I simply say, in the spirit of integrity and basic decency, that the governing party should admit that it bears responsibility and that it has not given the kind of priority to this issue that it should have.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

NDP

Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Ottawa Centre.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the Liberal opposition motion on immigration policy. However, the motion itself is incredibly vague and really does not propose any kind of substantive improvements to immigration policy in Canada. The fact of the matter is that the Liberal Party had three successive majority governments, from 1993 until just last year, and failed miserably to make the really needed improvements to immigration regulations and policy in this country over all those years, when they had an ideal opportunity to do so.

In fact, it was quite the contrary. While the Liberals were in power, immigration and the environment were the two areas that they most savagely cut and slashed funds from. That leaves us in the position where, for new immigrants, the immigration process itself is deeply flawed.

Some of the issues I would like to address have been addressed very ably by my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas, and I want to pay tribute to him today. He has been in this place for only two and a half years and in that time he has become I think the most well informed member of the House on the whole issue of immigration and refugee policy, and he has been such a strong advocate for new Canadians and for refugees. I want to pay tribute to him today. I am proud to serve with him. I rely on him a great deal for the work he is doing on this file.

The situation of immigrants in Canada today really is very serious. In fact, two of my daughters-in-law are new Canadians. They are immigrants to Canada so I know from a first-hand perspective, through my daughters-in-law, of the difficulties they have faced in coming to Canada and integrating into Canadian society, including the issue of having their credentials not recognized in Canada and the difficulty in finding work. I have seen all of those things through the eyes of my daughters-in-law and have really come to understand, not at just an intellectual level but at a very human level, the difficulties that new immigrants face in Canada.

The situation is a serious one. We know that new immigrants to Canada are 3.2 times more likely to live in poverty than people born here in Canada. That should not be the case. Immigrants, new Canadians, most often come here to try to improve their lot in life, to improve their standard of living, and to make life better for their children and improve their children's opportunities. They should not be coming here and living in poverty. They should have the opportunities they are so desperately seeking.

Our immigration application system gives points to new immigrants for their work experience and for their education. What we are telling them through that process is that their education and their work experience are important and that Canadians value that, but once they are here they find that this really is not the case. Their work experience and their credentials from their country of origin are just not recognized here in Canada.

In my own community of New Westminster—Coquitlam and Port Moody, I have worked with many new Canadians on this issue. One who comes to mind is a fellow named Dr. Daniel Hong, a medical doctor. He practised as a doctor in Korea. He worked in the Korean military as a doctor.

Here in Canada he has been unable to have his credentials recognized or to have any kind of re-certification process so that he is able to practise medicine here in Canada. That is a huge loss for Canadians.

It is also a huge loss for the Korean community in New Westminster—Coquitlam, because there are many people from Korea who have immigrated to Canada and who would like to go to a doctor who speaks their first language when they are discussing their medical condition. It would make it so much more comfortable for them to explain in their first language what their symptoms are and what they are looking for from the medical system. It is impossible for them to find Korean doctors because those doctors have such a difficult time getting the certification.

I think this is a real loss. We have people with such good skills now working as taxi drivers and in convenience stores and restaurants when there is real a shortage of doctors in Canada. I have not yet been able to help Dr. Hong get through all of these barriers to have his credentials recognized, and he is just one of many.

The other issue, of course, is the necessity for a new Canadian Citizenship Act. The Citizenship Act has not been changed since 1977 and really needs to be addressed.

Another issue is that of the lost Canadians. Others have spoken on this issue more eloquently than I can, but again, I have dealt with constituents in my community who were born in Canada, who have always assumed they were Canadian citizens, and who then suddenly found out that because of some quirk in the Citizenship Act, a quirk that has not been updated, they in fact are not considered Canadians. It has been a huge blow to them. We need to make the changes that bring all people who were born in Canada or born to Canadian parents the right of citizenship in Canada. That has to be taken care of quickly.

We should also be looking at the oath of citizenship. It is really hard to believe that today Canada is not mentioned in the oath of citizenship. It is a fundamental thing that should be looked at.

There is also the issue of eliminating fees for a citizenship application. Why would we have financial barriers to immigrants who come to Canada and make the decision that they want to be fully Canadian citizens? I have already spoken about the higher rate of poverty for new immigrants. To put up a financial barrier to them becoming full citizens in our country seems absolutely bizarre. It should be taken care of. No one should have to put off making such a fundamental and big decision like that of becoming a full Canadian citizen because he or she cannot afford the required fees.

I have spoken a bit about the issue of international credentials and the loss of the ability for people to work in the professions and jobs they are trained for, but I also want to indicate what a loss that is to Canada economically. It is a waste of talent and training that could work to the benefit of Canadians and the Canadian economy.

My colleague from Burnaby—Douglas has put forward a seven point specific program about an agency to deal with international credentials, including what it should look like, what its responsibilities should be, and how it should work. He has done that in consultation with the member for Trinity—Spadina. In fact, I think she has put the proposals forward. Those seven points would address the issue of foreign credentials and would take us a big leap forward. I really hope the government will take these proposals seriously and adopt some of them.

Another issue that is facing many immigrants is the issue of how family is defined. Family relationships are evolving all the time. I wish we would address that.

I see that my time is almost up. I have a lot more that I want to say about this issue, but in closing I would again compliment my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas. He has proposed an amendment to this very vacuous proposal by the Liberals. He has proposed an amendment that addresses substantive changes to the citizenship and immigration policy in this country. I urge all members of the House to support his amendment.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her kind words.

Earlier in the debate this afternoon, we heard from the Conservatives that they were making progress, they claimed, on dealing with the backlog of applications and the problems in the immigration system. However, as a member of Parliament from an urban area that has a large immigrant population, I have not noticed that.

I think every urban member of Parliament here has found that their offices are under considerable strain from the sheer volume of casework associated with problems with the immigration and refugee system. We are inundated with immigration casework. In fact in most of our offices, we have had to hire one person to do nothing but immigration casework. For many of us, it feels as though the department has offloaded a lot of the services that it should be offering people who have problems with immigration applications onto MPs' offices. We found this in all parties; it is not just a phenomenon for New Democrat members.

One of the solutions we came up with, in discussing this with my colleague from Hamilton Centre, was to propose the institution of an office of an immigration ombudsperson. It would be modelled on the office of the worker advocate in Ontario, which dealt with a similar situation around worker compensation claims in Ontario. MPPs' offices were inundated with those kinds of casework issues and found that the work they did in their offices was overwhelming, so this was hived off into an advocacy situation in an ombudsperson's office.

I know the member has had experience as a constituency assistant and has an office up and running. I wonder if she could comment on that situation.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC

Mr. Speaker, I know that the heavy casework that members of Parliament are dealing with on immigration cases is not just a problem for New Democrat MPs. It is a problem for every urban member of Parliament in this House, I am sure. The caseload of immigration problems is just horrendous.

There is one person in my constituency office who deals almost exclusively with immigration work. Thank goodness she is very good at her job. Marja does a wonderful job.

Part of the problem is that again the Liberals made big cuts to the immigration department over the years that they were in government. They have not reinstituted money into the department so that the workers can do all the work that is required in immigration.

The idea of an ombudsperson who would advocate for new immigrants and for visitors visas is a good one. A huge number of people come to our offices regarding visitors visas. They may have a family member in Canada who is dying and the family wants to bring a mother or a sister to Canada for a last visit with the dying relative. Those have been refused, or because of the time involved, the workers have not been able to process them in time.

There are so many issues around immigration where an ombudsperson would be an excellent idea. I support that idea entirely.

Opposition Motion—Citizenship and ImmigrationBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will start my comments today by observing that the motion itself is a little light on detail. My colleague from Burnaby—Douglas proposed an amendment that would have added some weight to the motion and would have helped in terms of the debate. I will come back to what his proposition was, which sadly was not adopted. I will take a look at where we are with immigration and settlement in Canada.

My riding of Ottawa Centre is very diverse. In fact, it is one of the most diverse ridings in the entire country. I am very proud of the fact that my riding is a reflection of what the whole country is about.

One of the things that is critical is the support offered to new Canadians and immigrants by many of the community institutions that have been built over many years. Before being elected as a member of Parliament, I had the honour to be on the board of one of those agencies, OCISO, the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization. What it does is very similar to what other organizations across the country do which is to help serve immigrants and new Canadians when they arrive in Canada.

Having been on the board, I can say it is just stunning the amount of work that is done by organizations like OCISO, the Catholic Immigration Centre here in Ottawa, the Jewish Family Services of Ottawa, and many others as well. I am sure every member of Parliament can attest to organizations like those that do extremely good work on behalf of all of us but in particular help immigrants and new Canadians.

A problem I observed as a board member with OCISO is that those organizations are often taken for granted by government. It is very difficult for them to get adequate funding, funding that is going to be there for them and for the people they serve on a regular basis. Often they are nickeled and dimed to the point of utter frustration by yearly audits, when in fact, they are doing their jobs. Service organizations like OCISO, the Catholic Immigration Centre and the Jewish Family Services are among the most accountable operations to be found in the country. Yet, when we should be funding organizations like those, too often the case is that we do not.

Those organizations welcome people upon their arrival in Canada. They are the ones who take care of people's basic needs to ensure that there is adequate and appropriate language training, to make sure that they are welcomed into our wider communities, and to make sure that they have the services they require. For example, recently, refugees who had been in Thai camps for decades arrived here in Ottawa. The people who helped serve them were from some of the agencies I mentioned.

Instead of making sure that the organizations have adequate funding, often they have to go cap in hand to government every year. One of the things we could do is to make sure that there is stable funding for these organizations, to make sure that they will not have to worry about whether or not they can provide the services on a regular basis. To be quite honest about it, we are using these organizations and the people who work for them in a way that we would not put up with if it was our own family. These people are dedicated. They are doing the heavy lifting and they are the kind of people we need to support.

While we have not done it in the past, we should be providing stable funding for service organizations like OCISO, the Catholic Immigration Centre and Jewish Family Services. They are the ones who understand the issues. They are on the ground. They are the grassroots. They are the ones who do the work that is so important in terms of integration and settlement.

Many people who come to Canada have issues around foreign credentials recognition but also about entering our labour market. Just before the holiday break, I held three town halls on this issue. One town hall was with foreign trained doctors, one was with foreign trained engineers, and one was with an amalgam of different professionals. They are having problems having their foreign credentials recognized but also, once their foreign credentials are recognized, they are having problems finding employment.

Before I was elected to Parliament, I had the opportunity to work with teachers who were looking to have their foreign credentials recognized. We were able to get foreign credentials recognition for over 100 teachers fast-tracked because we worked with some of the service organizations that are working with new Canadians. The Ontario College of Teachers and the professional institutions were key here. They need to be brought into the equation and also the universities. In this case it was Queen's University. We were able to fast-track the foreign credentials recognition for these teachers.

One of the problems is what happens after that process, that is, in getting employment after obtaining recognition for foreign credentials.

We had thought that about 10 to 15 doctors would attend the town hall, but there were over 40. What I did not know until that point is how many foreign trained doctors are right here in Ottawa. There are 500. There are approximately 5,000 in the province. This is unbelievable. There is an obvious gap in our system. People who hail from this community know there is a shortage of doctors, not just in the rural areas, but right here in Ottawa. Yet, there are doctors right here in our community and the only barriers are the bureaucratic barriers that we have put in place. There are solutions. I hope the government will listen to the people who came to the town hall meeting and to the suggestions I will be putting forward in a report.

In the area of medicine we can change the situation by looking at what other jurisdictions have done. Other jurisdictions have fast-tracked those who have foreign credentials in the medical profession from another country. Other jurisdictions have made sure that there are not barriers like security clearances, which we have put in place. There are no barriers like having to go through the whole process of re-certification, in essence having to be re-educated.

In other jurisdictions doctors work with other doctors similar to an apprenticeship. They are not tested right at the beginning. They are allowed to integrate into the communities to understand the medical system. This has been done in France and in California. After they have had a certain period of time to understand the medical system, their performance is assessed. Where there are gaps, for instance, if pharmacology is different, they fill the gap. France has been doing this for over a decade. California has been doing it for quite a while.

The people who have gone through these scenarios have the solutions. We know what the problems are, but they have the solutions. It is about time we listened to them, not for their benefit exclusively, which is a solid thing to do, but for our own benefit as well. What is happening presently is that people are leaving our country. In many ways, we are falsely advertising. I will wrap up with the analogy that we have invited them into our home, we have left open the back door, we have turned off the lights, raided the cupboard and said, “Welcome to Canada”. That is not good enough. We need to change that and hopefully, we will.