Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Willowdale.
I rise to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. Bill C-6 would make specific and targeted changes to legislation passed by the previous government in Bill C-24. The objectives of those targeted changes are twofold.
Before I expand on those two objectives, I wish to state the following. We live in the best country on the planet: Canada, which we share with our first nations and on whose shores generation after generation landed. We are a Canada of first nations, immigrants and refugees, and their progeny. These were and are freedom's shores and the land of opportunity. It is a great privilege and good fortune to be a citizen of our country.
I state this as the son and grandson of refugees. Both of my parents and all four of my grandparents were refugees who arrived from displaced persons camps. My paternal grandmother called Canada freedom's shores, where everyone was equal before the law and where for the first time in her life she had the vote. She had a voice as an equal citizen. It is with this very personal legacy in mind that I speak to Bill C-6.
One of the two objectives of Bill C-6 is to make the journey toward citizenship less onerous and to bring it back to the standards and requirements of a system that worked well previously. There are changes such as reducing the length of time required to be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It would be reverted back to three of five years as opposed to four of six. It would also allow time in Canada before permanent residency to count as half-days toward the physical presence requirement. This would allow people who came here to study or work, or are under protected persons status the comfort of knowing that they are welcome to begin the process toward citizenship. As well, it would amend the age range for language and knowledge requirements from age 14 to 64 back to the previous 18 to 54 age requirement. These are important changes.
However, the most important objective of Bill C-6 is to address the dangerous precedent set by Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizen: first-class citizenship for those who obtained citizenship through birthright; and second-class, revokable citizenship for those became citizens by choice, often by difficult choice and through hard work.
During the last election campaign, our Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada made clear to the millions of Canadians whose citizenship had been denigrated to second-class status and done so retroactively by the previous government's Bill C-24 that we would rescind the offending clauses of that legislation. Simply put, under a Liberal government a Canadian would be a Canadian would be a Canadian once again.
A foundational principle of western liberal democracies is the concept of égalité: that every citizen is equal before the law and is to be treated equally by the law. No citizen has an inherent birthright privilege. This runs counter to historical feudal notions of hierarchical rights granted to different groups based upon birth: caste born into; ethnicity born into; wealth born into; or, in the extreme, the birthright of royalty and the absolute, the divine right of kings. In the liberal democratic west, we are beneficiaries of a system built upon the sacrifices of those who revolted against the injustice of feudal birthright inequality.
The concept of equality was at the core of the French and American revolutions and succinctly put into the American Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, “all men are created equal”. I would with humility paraphrase today that all humans are created equal.
In Canada, the principle is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We live under a system of rule of law. However, all laws must subscribe to the fundamental principles of the Charter of Rights.
When expert witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration during our review of Bill C-6, I asked the panellists, those who both criticized and supported the Conservative Bill C-24, a simple question: “One of the fundamental principles of our justice system is that every citizen is treated equally before the law... Do you subscribe to this principle?” I asked for a simple yes or no.
Surprisingly, both critics and proponents of Bill C-24 responded yes. Only one did not state yes, prevaricating that “For me, it really reflects...the force of that argument, of the position the government has staked out. I still think there are circumstances in which the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy...”.
Even within this prevarication, the only “no” among the witnesses to “should every citizen be treated equally before the law”, one finds an embedded logical disconnect. If the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy, as was stated, should this other remedy, assuming it is a more arduous legal penalty for a fundamental breach, not apply to a Canadian-born terrorist or person engaged in treason, as well?
However, there are other rational disconnects and legal, ethical pitfalls to this section of Bill C-24; for instance, the penalty for a terrorist or treasonous individual who is a dual citizen of a country that is a state sponsor of terror. What would deportation to such a country result in? Would it be a hero's welcome?
On the other end of the spectrum, would we strip Canadian citizenship and deport to a country that subscribes to torture or a country in whose prisons individuals “disappear”?
The question then becomes this. Why did the Conservative government, in the year leading up to an election year, enact a law so deeply flawed; a law that not only offends the fundamental principle of equality before the law; a law that would not stand up to a charter challenge; a law whose penalty in practice could create moral jeopardy or lack of consequence?
Perhaps the answer lies in the observation that it was the same governing group that established a snitch line for barbaric cultural practices during the last federal election campaign—a slightly more camouflaged attempt at the dangerous politics of division and demagoguery that we are currently seeing in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.
However, would a Canadian government knowingly resort to undermining the fundamental principle of equality before the law for electoral gain?
As our Prime Minister pointed out not long ago in this House, it was the same Conservative Party that took away the fundamental right to vote from Canadians in the 2011 election.
During the election campaign, I was proud to be part of a team that pledged to do politics differently; whose leader would not succumb to the temptation of dividing Canadians against themselves; who spoke to our better angels.
As I speak today, I think back to the principles my grandmother imbued me with. She was a hard-working refugee who loved her Canada, who loved our Canada, a country that, for the first time in her life, had given her a voice and the same equal rights of every other citizen. She never missed a vote, and she taught her grandchildren to stand against the injustice of inequality, which had been her lot in life prior to landing on freedom's shores.
Our government, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration worked hard and diligently on this legislation.
It is with pride that, this upcoming Canada Day, we will be able to declare that our Prime Minister and our government have fulfilled their commitment and under the current government, once again, in Canada, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.