Mr. Speaker, my comment and question are for the member for Abbotsford. The reality is that the problem has to a large extent been solved and there are quite a few problems with this proposal.
However, since the member is from Abbotsford, let me say that dealing with issues like this really takes oxygen and the time of the House away from issues such as those he should have some concerns about given his moralistic stance.
This relates to the Mennonites. Approximately 50,000 Mennonites went from Canada to Mexico. The position of his government on this particular issue, which I hope he has a chance to influence, is that the Mennonites who went to Mexico had religious marriages and church weddings. Many of the Mennonites did not have a civil ceremony in Mexico. The situation is that derivative citizenship, which affects tens of thousands of them, is not passed on to the offspring of Mennonites who had a church wedding but failed to have a civil ceremony.
The Conservative government has indicated that it is going to be dealing with issues related to lost Canadians. Mennonites fall into a category, but the government has said that in dealing with the problem of lost Canadians it is not going to deal with the problems of Mennonites who lose derivative citizenship because they did not have a civil ceremony while they had a religious ceremony.
I know that the member comes from an area that has a fair number of Mennonites. I would like to ask him what is he going to do to get his government, supposedly the champion of religious institutions, to stop discriminating against religious marriages, which affects approximately 50,000 Mennonites with regard to their derivative citizenship.