Mr. Speaker, I hear “nonsense” coming from the Conservatives. They should read their own legislation. I will give them an example.
It used to be that someone coming to this country had to pass a language test if they were between the ages of 18 and 54. The Conservatives extended that and said that people wanting to get citizenship in this country would have to pass a language test between the ages of 14 and 17 and between the ages of 55 and 65, making it harder for young people and seniors, many of whom were the parents of their sponsors in this country, to acquire citizenship purely because they might not have been able to speak English or French. The Conservatives did that.
They made Canadians wait longer, in fact between four and six years after being a permanent resident to acquire citizenship. They made it easier to strip citizens of citizenship and, in fact, in some cases even without a hearing. The Conservatives created two tiers of citizens, where someone born in this country who had dual citizenship could be deported and stripped of their citizenship for committing a crime, but a Canadian who was born here and did not have dual citizenship could not. The result was two tiers of citizens.
The Conservatives brought in a medieval concept of banishment in which if someone committed a crime, albeit a very serious crime, the Conservatives' response, like that of a medieval king, was that “You're banished from the kingdom, away with you”, instead of the modern notion of a democratic state in which, if someone commits a serious crime, we deal with them in the justice system properly and not by taking away their citizenship.
The Conservatives increased the cost of citizenship, in some cases making it cost a family of four more than $1,000 to apply for citizenship.
These were the Conservative notions of citizenship.
When listening to the former immigration minister in the House last night talk about things like democracy, I thought there is no government in Canada over the last decades that I can remember that did more to damage democracy in this country than the previous Conservative one. They prorogued Parliament to avoid votes they knew they would lose. Talk about disrespecting democracy. They brought in closure to limit debate in the House a record number of times, more than any other government in the history of Canada. They changed the Elections Act to restrict Canadians' access to exercise their vote. Therefore, to hear the former minister of immigration lecture members on democracy was the height of irony. He talked about extremism. Again, in my lifetime of watching Parliament in this place, the Conservative government did more to foster extremism, division, and regional enmity than any other government in history.
I am really happy to see the current government make changes that I think restore the notion of citizenship that the vast majority of Canadians have come to cherish in this land.
I want to talk about what the bill does. It removes the ability to revoke citizenship on national interest grounds. I think that is important. If a Canadian citizen commits treason, or spies on Canada, or fights for a different armed forces across country, no Canadian and no member in this chamber would countenance that. The proper penalty for that, though, is to send them to a Canadian jail and make them pay their price to Canada, but do not strip their citizenship and create two tiers of citizens.
The bill also removes the obligation for a new citizen to declare their intent to reside in Canada. The former Conservative minister of immigration made a big deal out of that too. Canadians have the right to move and live where they want in this world. In the modern global world, that is what Canadians do.
The bill would restore the length of time that a permanent resident must actually be present in Canada. It restores the counting of pre-Canada time before someone is a permanent resident for the purpose of their acquiring citizenship. It removes the language and knowledge examinations and puts those back to between the ages of 18 and 55, as they should be.
This legislation is good because it respects citizenship and makes it easier for Canadians to acquire that citizenship they care so deeply about. It brings back fair process for Canadians. I am proud to stand in the House and congratulate the government for moving bill, and I will probably vote for this legislation.