Debates of March 10th, 2016

Presence in Gallery

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

On a different point of order, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour.

Public Accounts of Canada, 2007

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a different point of order.

I have a document from the Department of Finance, from the 2006-07 year-end budget, that identifies a $13.8 billion surplus under the last Liberal government, which the Conservative government turned into a $150—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

It is always good to see everyone so united. This is really debate, but I will ask if there is unanimous consent to table the document.

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to table the document?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it does require unanimous consent for a member of Parliament to table a document, unless that member of Parliament happens to be a minister. The Minister of Finance does not need unanimous consent. He could table his own department's report right now.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I thank the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who has great knowledge of the rules of order and who knows that is more debate than a point of order.

I will now turn to him for the Thursday question.

Business of the House

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the government House leader could inform the House as to the business of the House for the remainder of this week and for the week after we return from our hard-working constituency week.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps there might be consent for me to table this very incisive statement that members are about to hear.

Today, we will continue our second reading debate of Bill C-6 on citizenship. Tomorrow, we will continue to discuss Bill C-2 on the middle-class tax cut. There have been discussions among several members, and I believe we will be able to conclude second reading debate tomorrow. Next week, as my colleague mentioned, we will be working very hard in our constituencies.

Monday, March 21 will be the final opposition day in this supply cycle.

On Tuesday, we will take up debate again on Bill C-6, until 4 p.m. I know that members on all sides are looking forward with great enthusiasm to the Minister of Finance presenting his budget at that time.

On Wednesday and Thursday of the week we are back, the House will have the two first days of the budget debate.

Finally, on a serious note, there have been discussions among the parties, and I believe if you seek it you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, one minister of the Crown be permitted to make a statement pursuant to Standing Order 31 on Friday, March 11, 2016.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. minister have unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Citizenship Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

When the House last left the question, the hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City had six minutes remaining in the time for his remarks, and of course the usual five minutes for questions and comments afterward.

The hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to reiterate, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel.

Bill C-6 also contains provisions to repeal the current intent to reside requirement for citizenship. The previous government's legislation required adult applicants to formally declare that they intend to continue to reside in Canada after being granted citizenship. This has created great concern among some new Canadians. They fear that their citizenship could be revoked if they move outside of Canada, regardless of the rationale for moving. In light of today's global economy, we require flexibility in the movement of our citizens around the globe, without the threat of losing the highly desired Canadian citizenship that we all cherish.

This government respects this right to move outside of Canada, which is guaranteed under section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is something that all Canadians should be allowed to do without fear or repercussion.

Another proposed change in this bill is the provision to help immigrants achieve citizenship more quickly. Currently, the Citizenship Act requires applicants to be physically present in Canada for four of the six years immediately prior to applying for citizenship. Our government is proposing to reduce this time. Prior to submitting an application for citizenship, an applicant would be required to be physically present for three out of the preceding five years. Essentially, applicants could apply one year sooner than they can now. This would offer more flexibility for immigrants who may need to travel outside of Canada for personal or work reasons.

Furthermore, since the first Citizenship Act of 1947, citizenship applicants have been required to have a reasonable knowledge of English or French and an understanding of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship. However, the previous government's changes to the Citizenship Act expanded the age range of applicants who must meet the language and knowledge requirements from those aged 18 to 54 to ages 14 to 64. This added an additional 14 years to the age range affected by this language requirement.

Our government is proposing to reinstate the former age requirement, eliminating a potential barrier to citizenship. For younger applicants, learning English or French and having an adequate knowledge of Canada can be achieved through schooling. For those applicants in the older age group, language skills and information about Canada are offered through our wide range of integration and community services. All applicants between the ages of 18 and 54 would still be required to provide evidence of their ability to understand and converse in English or French. Similarly, they would continue to be required to pass a knowledge test about Canada. That requires applicants to have a firm understanding of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, with a slightly lesser focus on the War of 1812 than currently exists.

I heard over and over again from immigrants who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s that they do not consider themselves to be hyphenated Canadians. They consider themselves Canadians, as do I. They were horrified and terrified that they could be targeted for deportation by their own government. This government wants that to change. A Canadian is a Canadian and will always be a Canadian under the changes proposed in this bill.

Our government is proposing to make it easier for immigrants to build successful lives in Canada, reunite families, and help strengthen the economic foundation to the benefit of all Canadians. Bill C-6 would credit time spent as a non-permanent resident toward the new three-year physical presence requirement for citizenship, for up to one year. This proposed change would allow any person authorized to be in Canada as a temporary resident or a protected person to count a day spent in Canada as a half day towards meeting the physical presence requirement for citizenship.

Last week, I spoke with an immigrant about the anticipated changes to the Citizenship Act. This woman has been in Canada for four years, two years as a student and two years on a work permit. She is committed to Canada and to becoming Canadian. She was happy to know that some of her time spent in Canada would now count toward her citizenship requirements. As in the case of this woman, the time credit would encourage skilled individuals to come to Canada to study or work, and would benefit groups like protected persons, and parents and grandparents on visitor visas.

I can also confirm that the changes proposed by Bill C-6 will not compromise the security of Canadians. In fact, there are several provisions in this bill that would strengthen the fair application of the right to become a Canadian citizen and provide protection against abuse of the process to do so. For instance, the Citizenship Act currently prohibits a person under a probation order, on parole, or incarcerated from being granted citizenship, or from counting that time toward meeting the physical presence requirements for citizenship.

However, these current prohibitions do not include conditional sentences served in Canada; that is, sentences served in the community with conditions. As a result, an applicant who is sentenced to a conditional sentence order could conceivably be granted citizenship, or could count that time toward meeting the physical presence requirements. The amendments in the bill would change that for both new applications and those still being processed.

Another provision relates to the requirement to maintain the conditions for citizenship until taking the oath, which I might digress, will respect the court's decision on appropriate attire.

Under provisions of the previous government's Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, applicants were not permitted to take the oath of citizenship if, in between the time the decision to grant citizenship and the time to take the oath, a period that is typically two to three months, they no longer met the requirements.

Let me make one last case. At present, citizenship officers do not have the authority to seize fraudulent documents. Bill C-6 would change that.

I remind the House that one of the most effective tools for achieving successful integration into Canadian life is by achieving Canadian citizenship. The bill would ensure that any and all who become Canadian citizens are treated equally under the law, whether they are born in Canada, naturalized in Canada, or hold a dual citizenship.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the member spoke about hyphenated Canadians. I am an immigrant myself, so I will ask a question on behalf of the immigrant communities that I have been speaking to.

The member talked about the language requirement and how his government is reversing what it used to be. He must know that past Liberal governments, between 1977 and 1984, and between 1993 and 2005, had a language requirement for the aged 55 to 64 bracket. I want to ask him why it was okay then but it is not okay today. I am looking for the reasoning on that.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, governments change and times change. We are committed under this bill to ensuring that Canadians are able to get their citizenship as quickly as possible under the rules that we have established.

We have taken off 14 years under the current legislation. We feel it is important to help those citizens go through the requirements, to meet the new requirements, and then to get their citizenship, so we can move away from the idea of a hyphenated Canadian and have everyone become one class of citizen, a Canadian.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's comments. He articulated a very important issue. The bill does in fact rectify a number of issues that the Conservative government had raised.

The question I would like to ask the member is related to the whole issue of getting one's citizenship. As he has pointed out, it reduces it from four of six years down to three of five years, which is great to see.

There is another aspect that the legislation does not necessarily deal with, but it is an equally important issue. That is the issue of processing times. We saw processing times to get citizenship increase quite dramatically under the Conservatives, from less than a year to over two years. Quite often it would even go to four to five years for someone to get their citizenship. Therefore, under the Conservatives we saw an increase in time for getting citizenship. Someone had to be here for four years, and wait more years to physically get the citizenship because of processing times.

I wonder if the member might want to comment. We have a good bill before us today, worthy of support, but one of the other things we need to do is to look at how we can process citizenship fees in a quicker fashion.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister spoke in the House about the need to improve the processing times. We saw them languish under the previous government. We are committed to helping immigrants attain their citizenship as expeditiously as possible.

The idea of being able to move through the application process will be addressed in some ways through the changes in Bill C-6. There are other administrative changes that our minister has committed to doing. I look forward to seeing those implemented so we can allow immigrants to become Canadian citizens as quickly as possible.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was heartened to hear the member's comments on the balancing act between having folks come in with a knowledge of English and also making sure that those who are older are not prevented from being citizens, or prevented from even attempting to come to Canada. Under the previous Conservative government, my nonno and nonna could not become citizens because they only spoke Italian. I would like to hear the member's comments about how the new legislation would address that issue.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of language is something I have heard about from many of my constituents. By reducing the age requirements, we would be able to allow older family members to come and join their families. We know that they can contribute to the functioning of our society, our families, can help with child care and other tasks, and can learn the language through other means. This will allow those family members to be reunited, to support their families in Canada, and to become functioning members of Canadian society.