Debates of June 9th, 2014

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is not the only example of its kind. When I talked to groups of immigrants in Montreal, they gave me this example: a person gets a scholarship to Oxford or Harvard and has to leave for a period of months or years but fully intends to return to Canada and live as a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

These are opportunities our citizens should have. They should not be punished for wanting a chance to live or work elsewhere for a period of time. This bill goes way too far. Clearly, the Conservative government really did not do its homework on this one.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for letting me ask my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles a question. She spent a few seconds, possibly a minute, talking about wait times, which have gone up considerably in the past few years. Nowadays, it can take 31 months for a person to get citizenship. The government boasted that this bill would reduce wait times.

Does my colleague think that any of the measures in this bill will really tackle this problem effectively? Perhaps the government is saying this just for the sake of argument when ultimately, there is really nothing here that will reduce wait times. Why is it important to tackle wait times in this system? I will not answer the question; I will let my colleague answer it.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question. I imagine that in his riding office he must also provide services to people who are waiting to get their citizenship.

Since the Conservatives came to power, wait times have doubled and today, 320,000 people in Canada are still waiting for their application to be processed.

Of course, humanitarian cases have to be processed as quickly as possible. My colleague from Halifax mentioned the case of a mother who was waiting to sponsor her children. For the months she had to wait, she lost track of her children who were in her home country. The wait times are unreasonable. They penalize people who live in Canada, who want to be good citizens and contribute to our country. For humanitarian reasons, we have to address the processing times problem.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to have a few minutes to speak to Bill C-24. As an interesting coincidence, I was recently reading the latest issue of Novyi Shliakh, or the New Pathway, a Ukrainian newspaper published here in Canada. On page 6 of the May 15 edition, there was an article by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, and the very fact that this article appeared in the New Pathway to me is a clear indication that there is a concern about Bill C-24 in the Ukrainian Canadian community and, I would venture to say, in many immigrant communities. Readers of the article who had concerns were asked to contact their local member of Parliament.

This article states:

This new law changes core aspects of Canadian citizenship as we know it.

If passed, Bill C-24 will make it more difficult for new immigrants to get Canadian citizenship and easier for many Canadians to lose it, especially if they have dual citizenship. Most Canadians do not understand the ways in which Bill C-24 will undermine their fundamental right to be a citizen of Canada. The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers has provided a summary of the most important changes to the Citizenship Act.

It goes on later in the same article to say:

In Canada, citizenship has always been secure. Whether native-born or immigrant, once you are granted Canadian citizenship, you are secure. Under the current system, you cannot lose your citizenship unless you obtained it by fraud, and even then, a Federal Court judge must make that decision after a full court hearing. Under the current system, if you do not agree with the judge, you have a right of appeal. Under the new law, there will be several ways to lose your citizenship. As well, the decision as to whether you lose your citizenship will be made by a government bureaucrat who will inform you in writing with no opportunity for a live hearing to defend yourself.

Why will citizenship be harder to get?

New immigrants will have to wait longer before they can apply for citizenship. Older and younger people will now have to pass language and knowledge tests to qualify for citizenship. The citizenship application fees have been tripled. There will be no right of appeal for those who are refused.

Everyone recognizes the considerable value of Canadian citizenship, but we do not want to politicize this issue. We have seen that approach far too often since the current government came to power.

As far as the bill is concerned, it is high time that we resolve the issue of lost Canadians. This is an unfair situation that has been going on for far too long.

Other parts of the bill raise concerns. For example, the revocation of citizenship gives cause for major legal concerns. We are always worried about proposals to concentrate power in the hands of the minister.

Since March 2008, more than 25 major changes have been made to the methods, rules, laws and regulations related to immigration. More and more changes have been made since the Conservatives formed a majority government, changes such as a moratorium on sponsoring parents and grandparents, fewer family reunifications, punishing vulnerable refugees and increasing the number of temporary foreign workers in order to meet the needs of corporations.

The considerable changes the Conservatives have made to Canada's immigration system have not helped improve the efficiency or fairness of the system.

That is what is troubling. All these proposed changes are not necessarily going to make the system more efficient. In a sense, we can understand why the system cannot be more efficient. If we cut people who are working, the numbers of public servants, increase their hours, and make it more difficult for them, obviously the system will not get more efficient.

I would like to argue as an aside that maybe a good way to improve our immigration system is to make it more efficient by hiring more people so we can get the job done and process all the immigrants that we have today.

However, I will return to my speaking notes. Bill C-24, as I said earlier on, gives the minister many new powers including the authority to grant or revoke the citizenship of dual citizens.

As we know, the government has a pretty strong tendency to develop legislation that concentrates more power in the hands of ministers. Obviously if we have ministers who understand the situation and I would hope they do, things could work okay, but there are people who do not. We on this side condemn this practice. We cannot trust the Conservatives or any government by giving a minister new powers because we open the door to arbitrary politically motivated decisions.

I guess we all should know that there are politically motivated decisions in any government. What we as parliamentarians have to do is to ensure that we take those politically motivated decisions away from people making decisions.

Let us look at revocation of citizenship. The very idea of giving the minister the power to revoke citizenship raises serious questions and it is on this principle that we should be looking at the bill. Canadian law already has established mechanisms by which we can punish individuals who commit unlawful acts. It should not be the job of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to make these judgments.

Another problem with revoking the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens is that it creates a two-tier citizenship where some Canadians could have their citizenship revoked, while others would be punished by the criminal system for the same offence.

As an aside, let me say a few words about dual citizens. We have already seen discrimination by the government against Canadians who are subject to U.S. tax laws. My colleague, the MP for Victoria, has raised the issue of FACTA and the problems it poses for U.S. dual citizens and family members of dual citizens. I would say that once a person is a Canadian citizen, he or she should have the full protection of our government. It does not matter if one is born here or somewhere else, once one is a Canadian citizen, we should all be on the same level playing field.

There should be no question, for example, of the U.S. government obtaining banking information or for a Canadian citizen to file unnecessary U.S. tax forms when a person already pays taxes here in Canada and fills out the forms. We have had that debate earlier on in this session.

Coming back to this bill, under the provisions of the bill the minister may revoke citizenship if he or she, or any staffer he or she authorized, is satisfied in the balance of probabilities that a person has obtained citizenship by fraud. Until now, such cases have all typically gone through the courts and cabinet, which makes sense. It will not be the case anymore. This aspect poses serious issues to the extent that the minister would have the power to revoke a person's citizenship solely on the basis of suspicion without an independent tribunal to rule on the veracity of the allegations. This is not the case in the United States where that person has the legal right to have the issue resolved in a court of law.

In closing, the bill, although it has some good provisions in it, is another slow erosion of our rights as democratic citizens and for this reason we should oppose the bill in its current form.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my hon. colleague is aware, but currently many permanent residents wait for four years to make a decision. I have met many people at citizenship ceremonies for whom it was 20 or 30 years before they made that decision. Choosing to become a citizen of Canada is a very important decision and people learn to feel an attachment to the country.

Does the hon. member really believe that people with little or no connection to Canada, who have spent very little time in Canada, should really be handed Canadian citizenship? Sometimes it is through fraudulent means. Is he objecting to having some time limits around people getting to know us before they make those decisions?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that we have a system in place that works. The overwhelming majority of people who apply for citizenship and become citizens under our current system become good Canadian citizens. My parents are immigrants. Many of us here have family members who have immigrated. The current timeline in place is a workable timeline, and I do not really see why we need to change the system. What we need is to ensure it becomes more efficient, and that implies hiring a few more people to increase the efficiency so that we can process more immigrants at a faster pace.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech on Bill C-24. He mentioned some of our concerns about this bill.

I would like to hear him talk more about the constitutional aspect of this bill, given that the government has been told three or four times to change course, if I may use that expression, or go back to the drawing board. A number of bills have already been rejected in part by the Supreme Court.

Does he think that the same thing could happen to this bill? That is obviously a hypothetical question. A number of experts have already commented on this. Does my colleague have the same concerns as the experts who appeared before the committee and said that they were concerned that the Conservative government is again passing a bill that will very likely be challenged, with good reason, before the different courts?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention to my colleague from Sherbrooke that I attended the graduation ceremony at a high school in my riding. I mentioned that he is the youngest MP to ever be elected to Parliament. I told the graduates to follow his example. My colleague was 19 years old when elected and they could become MPs as well.

I am very pleased that he has asked this question. Yes, I do have some concerns. On a number of occasions we have seen the government trying to go down a particular path too quickly without having really thought about the consequences. If people have concerns like the ones I just mentioned in my speech, that means that there are problems.

I hope that this government will nevertheless try to improve this bill. As we have already mentioned, it does have some good elements. There are some things in this bill that work well. Let us try to improve it and make it into a bill that serves all Canadians.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to participate in this broad discussion on Bill C-24, introduced by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I want to commend my colleague, the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard and the official opposition's critic on this file, for her excellent work.

Unfortunately, once again, the Conservatives have failed to follow the rules and do the right thing, as serious parliamentarians should do. There was no real study of this bill in committee, even though this bill could have some potentially serious consequences. I will talk about those later on.

I do not understand why the government did not take the time to listen to the experts in committee. My guess is that it was because the Conservatives knew that the expects would probably disagree with them. That is the impression we got from the testimony during the pre-study and afterwards. People are very worried about this bill, which affects something very basic—citizenship and the minister's power to grant or revoke citizenship.

I think it is rather absurd and even shameful that the Conservatives decided to extend our evening debates in the House of Commons—which is something I am very comfortable with; I am pleased to be here tonight—but they do not show up, do not do their job and do not speak to their own bills. Since the Conservatives decided to extend our evening debates, they have missed 67 shifts. They have turned down 67 opportunities to speak, often on their own bills. That is an insult to people's intelligence. The Conservatives are flouting the rules of Parliament.

This bill is extremely serious because previously, a person's citizenship could be revoked only in cases where it could be demonstrated that fraud had occurred and the person had become a citizen through fraudulent means. Even though that was the only case where a person's citizenship could be revoked, the person could still appeal to the Federal Court so that his or her case could be heard properly. Today, that is no longer true. The government is lengthening the list of reasons why a person's citizenship can be revoked and, at the same time, concentrating a huge amount of arbitrary, discretionary power in the hands of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration alone. That is very risky and hangs a sword of Damocles over the heads of millions of individuals in our country.

I want to begin this speech by quoting some people who are somehow involved in the conversation about this bill and the type of status the government wants to give Canadian citizens.

A French writer, Amin Maalouf, had this to say, not about the bill specifically, but in general:

It is first up to your country to keep a certain number of commitments to you: that you be considered a full-fledged citizen and that you suffer no oppression, discrimination or undue hardship. Your country and its leaders have the obligation to make sure that is the case. If not, you own them nothing.

Here is another quote about the bill from Thomas Walkom, a columnist for the Toronto Star. He said:

The federal government’s new citizenship bill is a Trojan horse. It is presented as an attempt to reduce fraud and rationalize the process of becoming a Canadian citizen, both of which are sensible aims.

But it would also give [the] Prime Minister['s] Conservative government unprecedented authority to strip Canadians—including thousands born in this country—of their citizenship.

The more we read about the bill that is before us this evening, the more reasons we have to be concerned. It seems we are at a point where citizenship is like the prize in a box of Cracker Jack. Citizenship can be given or taken away on a whim or based on the minister's goodwill.

Last year, I had the opportunity to attend my first official citizenship ceremony in my riding, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I must say that the people who were there were deeply moved and very pleased to officially become citizens. I cannot imagine having to explain to them that now a minister can choose to take that citizenship away from them, and this is actually part of the legislation, if they have dual citizenship, meaning that they are citizens of another country as well.

The minister is giving himself the power to take away their Canadian citizenship in a number of situations, simply because they already have another nationality or another official citizenship. We already heard the former immigration minister say that it was too bad that Canada has to fulfill its obligations under international treaties because the government cannot create statelessness. I get the feeling that if the Conservatives had the opportunity to do so and if it did not contravene the treaties that Canada has already signed, they would not hesitate.

Barbara Jackman of the Canadian Bar Association said this in April:

Taking away citizenship from someone born in Canada because they may have dual citizenship and have committed an offence proscribed by the act is new. That's a fundamental change. For people who are born here and who have grown up here, it can result in banishment or exile. It's a step backwards, a huge step backwards—and it's a huge step being taken without any real national debate or discussion about whether Canadians want their citizenship amended in that way...

That's a fundamentally different concept of citizenship that needs to be addressed. It needs to be discussed and debated. We think that it could raise serious human rights concerns. It does raise serious human rights concerns. It may well contravene the Charter. The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled in the past that we can't exile Canadians. By redefining who a Canadian is, you achieve exile. That's not right. It's against the Charter.

We have good reason to be very worried about this government's apparent desire to resurrect a situation that, for all practical purposes, has not been seen since the Middle Ages: forcing one of its citizens into exile, kicking a citizen out of the country. If a person has another nationality—be it French, Algerian or Burmese—and if that is enough to strip him of Canadian citizenship, that is very serious because that means condemning him to exile and forcing him to leave the country, banishing him. I do not think that is what Canadians and Quebeckers want or are prepared to accept, particularly not in the overall scheme of this bill, which, as we will see, gives tremendous powers to the minister.

In May of this year, Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and an expert on the subject of ministerial discretionary power, which she was concerned about, had this to say:

Finally, the bill grants the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the discretion to revoke citizenship in too many cases. Currently, as written, the bill would give the minister discretion to revoke citizenship in cases of fraud, but there is no requirement—as there was in the previous bill, or as currently enacted now—for a court to evaluate if fraud in fact did occur. If the revocation provisions are kept, every such decision must be considered by, or appealable to, a court, even in cases where citizenship is revoked under suspicion of fraudulent applications. This is for at least two reasons. First, some forms of apparent misrepresentation are made for legitimate reasons—that is, to escape genuine and real harm. Second, judicial proceedings provide the only mechanism to protect against the otherwise inevitable suspicion that the minister is using fraud as a reason to revoke citizenship of people who are suspected of aiming to harm Canada where the proof doesn't exist.

Like many people, I am very concerned about the fact that we will kick people out and force them into exile. We will revoke the citizenship of those who should keep it. If someone commits a crime, there is a penal system for that. We must use that system to ensure that people pay for their crimes. There is nothing wrong with that.

I do not see why we have to do something as radical as revoke someone's citizenship, especially when these convictions could be handed down in foreign countries, including those for terrorism, which could give rise to concerns about the legitimacy of certain convictions. Just look at Burma, North Korea or Syria. I do not think we should rely on the justice systems of those countries to decide whether or not someone should keep their Canadian citizenship.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his speech.

My colleague knows what is happening, including this government's way of doing things. We see how it deals with bills. Bill after bill goes against the charter and the Constitution. We saw how the current government disregarded Quebec in the securities commission case. Then, the whole thing went to the Supreme Court. Again, taxpayers had to foot the bill. This bill is not the only example. We see this time after time.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on that and on the approach of this government, which disregards the law, the charter and everyone's opinion.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his pertinent question.

As the English would say, there is a pattern with this majority Conservative government. It is my way or no way, or the bulldozer approach, and too bad if there are judges, laws or courts in the way. All this government wants to do is impose its vision and its views and too bad if scientists contradict it. The government tells itself that it will disregard them, muzzle them and that it will thus be able to act in a very high-handed way.

This bill is unprecedented in that it creates two classes of citizens in Canada. If someone only has single citizenship, such as Canadian citizenship, it cannot be taken away no matter the circumstances. However, if this person has dual citizenship, they do not have the same rights and they could lose their Canadian citizenship. It is unprecedented. I do not believe that the Supreme Court or Parliament will permit it.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite appears to oppose stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists. We are talking about terrorists.

I believe that the member is not aware of Bill C-24's revocation process. It would start only after a terrorist had been convicted. Once a terrorist was found guilty of terrorism, that person would have the right to appeal up to the Supreme Court of Canada about the conviction, if that person believed it was a false conviction.

I would like the member opposite to tell Canadians whether he believes that under any circumstances a convicted terrorist should have his or her citizenship revoked.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if a person is accused of committing terrorist acts, they must be tried and, if found guilty, they must be imprisoned in the interest of public safety. It is as simple as that. It has nothing to do with their citizenship.

One of the problems with this bill is that it does not distinguish between democratic countries that have a reliable justice system and authoritarian countries or dictatorships that will convict their political opponents of terrorism.

Can my colleague really tell Canadians whether the people opposed to the political regime in Syria are all terrorists?

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand one aspect of the question from the member for Calgary Northeast. Does he realize that if we committed the same offence, he could be treated differently than I would be because of his background?

Would my colleague like to comment on that?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the intent behind the question, but I cannot answer for my colleague from Calgary Northeast.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Ask me.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I cannot do that. I would like to take this opportunity to say that this bill does not fix some serious problems.

Wait times and processing times have doubled under the Conservatives. The average processing time of 31 months could skyrocket to six, seven or eight years. That is not a respectful or dignified way to treat people who want to become Canadian citizens.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-24 on citizenship and immigration.

It is no secret that I was born here to parents of Vietnamese origin. Immigration issues hit close to home and are often close to my heart.

This is not the first time that I have been disappointed in the government's actions, but I am particularly disappointed here. The government is not fixing the existing problem. There is a problem with wait times, and that is obvious. Since I was elected, one of the biggest files my constituency office has dealt with is immigration, whether we are talking about visas or citizenship applications.

I represent a very multicultural riding that works very well. My riding includes the city of Brossard, which is incredibly multicultural. On the weekend I watched a high school graduation ceremony. There were people from all over. It is extraordinary to see.

I would like to come back to the bill we are debating today, and I am going to start by talking about an aspect of the bill that is a bit more technical. My colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who spoke before me, mentioned it. In our opinion, it is a very good example of how this government operates.

First of all, the government comes up with a bill that is unconstitutional and goes against the charter. That is not surprising coming from this government. I am talking more specifically about the fact that the government wants to be able to revoke citizenship in certain cases.

The government is giving the minister the power to revoke citizenship. Of course, we are talking about cases where the person in question has dual citizenship. The minister can revoke that individual's citizenship by saying that the person committed fraud or wrongdoing or that other situations warrant it.

The question is not whether the government can revoke citizenship or not, but the reasons for which it can do so. To be more specific, we are wondering how the government came up with the idea of revoking people's citizenship.

The fundamental problem is that the government is creating two classes of citizens: those who have dual citizenship and those who have only Canadian citizenship. For example, the government will not be able to revoke the citizenship of a person who does not have dual citizenship, but will be able to revoke the citizenship of someone who does.

In this case, what is worse is that the minister could say, based on a preponderance of evidence, that he is of the opinion that a person's citizenship should be revoked for such and such a reason. The problem is that there is no appeal process. There is no process whereby the courts can verify that decision at the federal level. The government is putting that power into the hands of the minister. This could lead to an excessive abuse of power. In fact, experts, lawyers and the Canadian Bar Association are opposed to this bill.

Earlier in the debate, the minister said that some people were opposed to this measure but that it was only a small group of lawyers. The minister dismissed the Canadian Bar Association out of hand. This clearly shows that the Conservatives believe that everyone who opposes their opinions is useless. The way the government treats the Supreme Court, among others, has become truly disgraceful.

I am going to come back to how this government operates, instead of solving a problem. There is the problem of the ever-growing wait times and the fact that the government decided to make cuts to immigration. Clearly, immigration is not a priority for this government.

I would like to remind all of my colleagues opposite, none of whom are likely to be listening, that Canada was created by immigration.

This is a personal issue for me because I am from an immigrant family. Thanks to family reunification, my family and I integrated well and now I am an MP. Family reunification is therefore very important to us. However, I heard comments from people on the other side of the House about how grandparents were a burden on society. There is a disconnect over there. They are losing sight of the human side of things. That scares me because this majority government does whatever it wants.

Even though we made recommendations and proposed amendments in committee, we do agree with some aspects of the bill. For example, we agree that some people, such as middlemen, are abusing the system and should be punished. However, in general, the Conservative government does not really want immigrants to feel welcome in Canada. It has made all kinds of promises about improving the system, but the truth is that it is bringing in temporary foreign workers. That is exactly why its management of this file has been criticized.

My family, my NDP colleagues and I all understand the importance of Canadian citizenship, and it is something that is quite obvious when we attend citizenship ceremonies. Having attended many of them, I know that the new citizens in my riding are very proud. However, the Conservatives prefer to give priority to temporary foreign workers, to the detriment of immigration and families who want to settle here and become part of society.

I would like to sincerely thank the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, our critic, and the hon. member for Saint-Lambert for their hard work on this. It shows how important we feel the human element is. The NDP is making this much effort perhaps because our caucus is made up of many nationalities and cultures, so we are very open-minded.

I know that some of my Conservative and Liberal colleagues understand because they also come from immigrant families. This is an important debate, yet those members are allowing the government to take this sort of action and push family reunification aside.

Processing times have nearly doubled. That is incredible. People are not advancing through the system. I have seen processing times increase with my own eyes since I was elected, and that was only three years ago. When we want to serve our constituents, we are sometimes faced with a system that is overloaded. The government is choosing not to find solutions or invest to integrate immigrants better and work with them better so that they settle here with their family and participate in Canada's economy as well.

When my parents came here, it really helped to have their family here, their brothers and sisters, who took care of us. It helped my parents find a job, get settled and move forward. I am disappointed that my Conservative colleagues are not on the right track.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I have found it a little unusual tonight, in terms of some of the comments that members of the NDP have been making throughout their speeches. On the one hand, we often hear from them how they do not have enough time to debate. We are giving them plenty of opportunity to put up speakers to put their views forward, yet they are complaining because we are not using some of our time. I think it is very bizarre that on the one hand they complain about not having enough time to debate, and then on the other hand are saying that they should not have to speak so often.

Having said that, we heard the member talk about his parents who came here, raised a family, and stayed here. They made a very strong commitment to this country, and it sounds like they took great pride in their decision to become Canadian citizens. Does the member not believe that four years provides the opportunity for a permanent resident to come here, to understand the country and make that very important decision? Is four years a good time in terms of making those important decisions about how they are going to spend their lives and where they want their citizenship to be?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour for asking a question.

There are two parts to her question. In response to the first part, I just wanted to explain that we want a debate. The fact that my colleague asked a question is a step in the right direction. We also want answers. Why do we not hear anything about the government's vision? That is what we call having a debate. Unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing today.

In response to the second part of the question, the thing that is important to me is really the way we deal with the system. The problems I mentioned are the fact that things are delayed, the government does not invest enough, and the wait times keep getting longer. All that slows down the system. As I was explaining to my colleague, citizenship is very important to me. People here are struggling to get it, but when I ask why the system takes so long and why there are no solutions, I unfortunately do not get the answers I want.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He reiterated, as other NDP speakers have, that we want a fair, efficient, transparent and accountable immigration system. Obviously, we completely reject the measures in Bill C-24, which will result in a restrictive immigration system based on arbitrary decisions made in secret.

Could my colleague comment on a quote from the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Lorne Waldman? He said:

The US Supreme Court got it right over 50 years ago when it said that citizenship is not a licence that the government can revoke for misbehaviour. As Canadians, we make our citizenship feeble and fragile if we let government Ministers seize the power to extinguish it.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question that we can indeed debate. I am quite pleased, as the objective is to have another vision.

The question raised by my colleague from Saint-Lambert is very important. The bill creates two categories: citizens and citizens with dual citizenship. Citizenship can be removed and revoked for one category, but not for the other. Furthermore, this can undermine the significance of or the confidence that we might have in the system.

At present, we have a system in place that can arrive at solutions or penalties, when necessary, for people who contravene the rules and the law. With the current version of Bill C-24, the government wants to give the minister the power to actually grant or revoke citizenship in an almost haphazard way. That is very problematic. That is why lawyers have objected.

That is deplorable because the minister has simply dismissed the objections. This happens regularly with the Conservatives: they could not care less about the law or about anything coming from the Supreme Court. Then, we will have to deal with it. Who will end up paying? Taxpayers, and that is deplorable.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand in this place to debate legislation, whether members on the other side have a contradictory view or not. That is a decision that those members will make, of course. They decided to have us stay here later because they wanted to debate legislation. However, I am more than happy to fill up the time.

Let me start by offering a few words of encouragement to my friends on the other side because there are a few decent things in Bill C-24.

Heaven knows, we have been asking the Conservatives, for years, to crack down on consultants who victimize residents living in our constituencies. Our constituents come to us, faced with the same dilemma they faced at the beginning of the process when they went to a consultant. Consultants charge individuals thousands of dollars to perhaps fill out a form, but they do not give them any decent advice. In some cases, the consultants steer them in the wrong direction after extracting a great deal of money from them. These people are quite frantic because they are trying to either reunify their family or they are trying to bring loved ones over here. Some of them are trying to expedite their own situation with respect to citizenship. They end up being faced with someone who literally takes the money from their bank accounts.

The government has probably done a decent thing here. We should crack down on illegal consultants because it is time that they be stopped. In my previous life, before I came to the House, I heard about basically the same thing happening with respect to Ontario's compensation system. Consultants would get folks, usually widows in a lot of cases, to sign over a form, giving them 15% to 20% of anything they wanted. They knew full well that the only thing they had to do was to have the individual sign the bottom of the form and send it off because a loved one had died of an occupational disease and they were entitled to some money. The consultants would take a big percentage from what the people received in compensation. Kudos to the government. Conservatives do not hear that from us too often, but I do think they would be doing a decent thing by cracking down on consultants.

My good friend Olivia Chow was a great advocate of cracking down on crooked consultants, who literally bleed immigrants of their financial resources, the limited financial resources that many of them have, in the hope that their family will arrive quickly.

This brings me to the question of why we do not bring their families over here sooner. I had the pleasure of being born somewhere else, but I also have the great pleasure of being a Canadian citizen. I am a dual citizen. People born here are Canadians by birth. Some Canadians, because one of their parents was born in another country, may have dual citizenship of which they are unaware. In some cases, this may work for them. For example, they can go back to where their parents came from and use that citizenship if they so choose. However, some individuals with dual citizenship do not do that. Some believe they are just Canadians.

If this legislation were to pass, citizens with dual citizenship could find themselves in a precarious situation, albeit the crime that is purported to be adjudicated in the bill is a heinous one, I agree. Many of my colleagues in the House are also like me. They were born elsewhere and became Canadian citizens, obviously, because one must be a Canadian citizen to be in this place. That is a requirement of the Parliament of Canada Act. We would not find too many more passionate Canadians than those of us who have acquired our citizenship after coming here from somewhere else.

Many constituents in my area are Slovak, Hungarian, and Italian. They are passionate Canadians. These individuals would be the first to condemn anyone who would dare to slight the Canadian flag or our armed forces or talk negatively about Canada. They are the first ones to defend Canada, long before natural born Canadians. Why is that? It is because they see the seriousness in it. They understand what it means to acquire Canadian citizenship, to work for it. They get that.

They also have a sense of fairness. They believe that one should be adjudicated fairly because many of them came from places where they were not.

The great disparity in my riding is that I am probably one of the few Scots who actually resides in that riding. When we have heritage week and I ask where the person is who will wear a kilt for the Scottish heritage, the executive director tells me that unless I put one on, there will not be one.

However, there will be Ukrainians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, and Italians, and many of them came at a time when they were oppressed. They are now older, of course. Their kids were born and raised here. In fact, their grandkids are being raised here now.

They are passionate Canadians. They understand when things are taken out of a stream that looks like it is not fair and put in a place where it is not fair, even if that place is going to be fair. “I will judge it fairly”, says the government. If my constituents who came from the other side of the wall at that time were asked, they would say “Oh, not so fast. That is what they used to say too”.

Now, I am not suggesting that the government is anything like the other side of the wall. That would be reprehensible. It would not true either.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

You just did.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

No, not quite, Mr. Speaker.. What I said was that is why one has to make sure it is seen to be fair, and then there would not be a comparison. If it is deemed to be fair, then nobody will make the comparison.

The issue is when it is isolated, when it is put in the hands of a minister who says he is fair, but it is still in the hands of a person not a system. That is part of the problem, when it looks as if it may be in the hands of a person.

What else is good in the bill? The fact that it will expedite citizenship for those who are landed or in the armed forces is a good thing. If they are willing to serve Canada, to go abroad, to put their lives in harm's way, I think there should be a reward for that. Expedited citizenship would be fair.

Then I would ask, on the other side, what about those temporary foreign workers who have been here for 10, 12, 15 years or more? If we decide at some point to put them on a path to citizenship, should we not count the time that they have been here?

I know workers in my area. I come from Niagara where agricultural workers come in. I know employers who have had the same employees for 20-plus years. If we finally grant them the opportunity to work towards citizenship, which I believe they should get, and most of the industry in this country says they should get, whether it is the horticultural industry, the meat-packing facilities, they believe that is the direction it should go.

These workers should be allowed a path to citizenship. Why should we then restart the clock when they have been here for 20 years? They work for 10 or 11 months a year and go home for vacation. They do not work for four months anymore. In the old days, workers used to come to Niagara and pick fruit for four months and then leave. Those days are gone.

There are temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector, which is really not a temporary foreign worker program but a foreign worker program. By and large, it is a 10-month job. They live for ten months in Canada and go home for two months, wherever home happens to be. It is perhaps Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, or Jamaica.

If the government decides in its wisdom, as I think it should, to start that group of folks on a pathway to citizenship, why does the clock have to reset? Why can we not simply say that they have been here for 10 years? We would still have to look at some time and there would be things to work out, and the other requirements would still hold. The language provisions would be there. In most cases, the workers speak one of the two official languages in this country, especially those who have been here for 10 or 20 or more years. We actually would not see any of that.

Clearly, there are opportunities here for some things that work, but there are some things that do not work. I am a passionate Canadian. My father used to call the family five-dollar Canadians. I always used to wonder why. One day, when I was a little older, I asked him why he called us five-dollar Canadians. He said it was because he paid $5 for our cards.

He did not mean that we were only worth $5 or that our citizenship was only worth $5. When we got our citizenship cards, in the 1970s, if we wished to get one with our picture on it, which was a great ID, it cost $5. That is all it cost to get that card. I still have it, albeit I look a little younger in that picture.

Ultimately, it is and always will be about being equal under the law, being equal not only under the law but equal amongst all Canadians. For folks like me who are dual citizens, we take this seriously. It is a personal piece. It is almost a personal affront. I know that was not the intention. It is about making sure that bad folks do not do bad things.

Unfortunately in life bad folks do bad things. That is why we have jails. We lock bad folks up for doing bad things. Why should we discriminate or decide to change the rules for one group versus another group? Why do we not just simply say bad folks are bad folks? If they deserve to go to jail for doing things that are criminal and heinous, we should send them to jail.

However, there is a process for that called “the rule of law”. I know the government always talks about law and order. Let us use the rule of law, in all cases, and apply it equally to all of us, so that for those of us who have dual citizenship, it ends up being what it is.