Mr. Speaker, I am honoured and very pleased to stand in the House today in March of 2016 to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act.
I want to start by congratulating the government on bringing forward this legislation. It is long overdue. It is thoughtful and very important to Canadians. It undoes what every thoughtful Canadian and, more importantly, most new Canadians in the country regarded as regressive changes made to citizenship by the previous Conservative government.
I find that we often do not support each other enough across the aisle in the House when legislation or proposals are introduced that are helpful. We tend to criticize each other and find fault, but while the bill is not perfect—and I will speak to a few items that I hope the government would be open to amending—I want to congratulate it on tabling the legislation and say that the vast majority of Canadians will receive this legislation very well.
I want to talk about citizenship for a moment, broadly speaking. Citizenship is extremely important to Canadians. I do not think there is a person in the country who does not deeply value and profoundly treasure the fact that we are lucky enough to be Canadian citizens in this world. This citizenship is cherished not only by those fortunate enough to be born on Canadian soil but also equally by those who have come to Canada, who may have been born in another nation.
In my riding of Vancouver Kingsway I have one of the most multicultural ridings in Canada. We are home to one of the highest percentages of new Canadians of any riding in the country. Whether people came from Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, China, or anywhere else in the world, when they reside in Vancouver Kingsway, and I would dare say in all of my colleagues' ridings in the country, they are incredibly proud of the citizenship they have been permitted to acquire in our country.
I must say as well that Canada does not have an unblemished record when it comes to citizenship. In fact, the record on citizenship in our country has been checkered with discrimination, racism, and sexism. Last week, I was fortunate enough to tour the Canadian Chinese military museum. I saw artifacts of soldiers of Chinese descent who fought in World War II. They were born in our country, fought for our country, and had certificates issued to them at birth that said they were not considered Canadian citizens because of their race.
Prior to 1947, children born to Canadian fathers and non-Canadian mothers were treated better and differently than children born to Canadian mothers and foreign-born fathers. There was gender discrimination in that as well.
Citizenship has long been precarious. In fairness, this applies equally to Liberal governments of the past as well as Conservative governments. For the Liberals, between 1947 and 1976, citizenship could be revoked for issues like treason or acts of war. Then of course the Conservatives brought in their infamous citizenship legislation that once again made citizenship precarious for Canadians, where it could be revoked for treason or terrorism. Both parties have introduced measures in the past that made citizenship revocable in our country, based on the medieval concept of banishment. That is something I am very happy to see the bill remove from the legislation.
Before I go further, there has been a litany of issues since 1947. There were problems with citizenship that still exist to this day that we need to address. The legislation goes a long way in addressing and fixing these problems.
Citizenship, of course, raises important considerations. What criteria ought to exist in order to acquire it? Are there any circumstances in which it is appropriate for a citizen, once granted citizenship, to lose it? These are important considerations that engage every member of the House. I will talk about this in a moment.
I want to talk about the legislation introduced by the previous Conservative government, which this legislation very properly attempts to fix. The Conservatives essentially made citizenship harder to acquire and easier to lose. They increased the language requirements for people coming here.