Debates of April 24th, 2023

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #302

Committees of the House

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I declare the motion defeated.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for us to recognize, at the end of the day, what we are really talking about.

I can imagine two Canadians going abroad, maybe it is work-related, and they have a child. Now, they come back to Canada, and that child could completely grow up here in Canada. If that child were to go abroad, get married and have a child, that child would not be deemed Canadian. What is being suggested here, from what I understand, is that the sponsor of the legislation was supportive of the changes. I am wondering if the member can provide his thoughts on the principle of what it is I have said about the changing of the scope.

Does the member support the idea of that particular child I just described being allowed to be considered a Canadian citizen?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member misunderstood what the sponsor of the Senate bill had suggested at committee, which was that, while the principle is a good one and should be investigated further, there are different ways to regain Canadian citizenship. Someone could have a grant of citizenship; they could have citizenship by birth in Canada; and they could have citizenship passed on because they have a substantive connection to Canada, like parents or grandparents who are Canadian.

There are situations in the Citizenship Act, because there are multiple versions of the Citizenship Act that have been changed over many decades. Every time we think we have plugged a hole, we usually create new exceptions, but the mover and sponsor of this Senate bill is very specific in that she was okay with changing the wording in her bill, and the current group of lost Canadians would be addressed. However, any new lost Canadians would have to be addressed in new legislation.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, on the substance of the issue that is in question, the Conservative members keep saying that we cannot do this because it is going to take too long. Of course, it has been 14 years since the Conservatives passed the legislation to strip the rights of second-generation-born Canadians to pass on their citizenship to their children. By doing this, we now have an opportunity to fix that, 14 years later, to make those families whole, so that they do not have to be separated from their loved ones.

If the Conservatives say they support fixing this problem, why would they not seize this opportunity instead of actually just putting it further down the road?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, of course, that is not what the member is talking about here. The member is talking about going procedurally against the wishes of the mover of a piece of legislation that has wide support in the Senate and that has broad support in the Conservative caucus as well. If she wanted to fix it 14 years ago, that particular member has had ample time to propose a private member's bill to address those issues or to convince the government, which she belongs to and is in the same caucus basically as a coalition, to do so. She could have done that at any time in the last decade-plus.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind members, if they have supplementary questions, to wait for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to take the floor to let my hon. friend from Calgary Shepard know that the hon. member for Vancouver East did in fact bring in a private member's bill to that effect and has been vigilant on this point. I certainly want to associate myself with her comments. Also, I have been honoured to work with Don Chapman, who has been a leading champion to resolve the injustices that affect lost Canadians.

How would the hon. member suggest that we take this to a vote, that we get it on the record, that we make sure we are improving the situation and not letting Canadians keep falling through the cracks of increasingly Byzantine errors and gaps?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is the matter. That is the question. Senator Yonah Martin has been working with the particular gentleman the member referred to on this piece of legislation to address a particular group of lost Canadians who, we can all agree, have a very legitimate case for having their citizenship restored so they can regain their citizenship. As the member said, using exactly the right term, the Citizenship Act, because of the way it has been drafted over many decades, has become a Byzantine piece of legislation.

Every single change that we make, dates that are changed or moved from one decade to the next, has a big impact. The first-generation rule that was introduced was meant to address a particular policy issue that existed at the time. I think we have to be mindful, when we make quick changes to legislation as important as the Citizenship Act, that it should be primarily done through government legislation. What we are talking about here is a small group of lost Canadians who need to have their citizenship restored quickly.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, the debate that is happening here today, to me, seems to be a repeat of the debate that happened at the immigration committee on a motion that went through the immigration committee. It is also happening on a day when the budget is being debated and I am wondering if my colleague thinks that the reason this is happening is because the Liberal-NDP coalition actually does not want to debate its big budget deficit spending item. Maybe it is cutting down—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Calgary Shepard.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I entirely agree with the member. They are delaying debate on the budget implementation act, which is supposed to be the keynote piece of legislation of any government. It has all of its spending and policy measures in it. I would be embarrassed too if I was tabling a $40-billion deficit after promising $30 billion, which should be embarrassing as well, but is now $40 billion more, deficits as far as the eye can see, and now we have this concurrence debate that was started just as the immigration committee was sitting down to consider a report that is now going to be delaying further the debate of the budget implementation act.

The situation could have been avoided. The parliamentary secretary who spoke in the House before me mentioned that we should work collaboratively. That is what we are looking forward to doing, but it did not happen because of the governing party.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to go back to the comment about Don Chapman. Don Chapman came to committee and said very clearly that he wanted to see the scope of Bill S-245 be expanded to incorporate amendments for lost Canadians and the first-generation cut-off rule the Conservatives brought in be rectified so that the families of lost Canadians would not be lost anymore and be supported through this process.

The Conservatives say they support what Don Chapman would like to see done. Would they then pass this expansion of scope request in this House and not filibuster the work that needs to be done at committee?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member knows that when the committee was considering this particular motion that has now been brought to the House, I offered an amendment that would have given about two and a half more weeks for new amendments to be tabled before the committee, those amendments that would be out of scope. I will remind the member that she voted against my motion when we could have had those extra amendments that were out of scope to be considered. The NDP did not want to see what other potential amendments there would be.

Conservatives had no amendments because we agree with the substance of this piece of legislation, with the words that were introduced by the Conservative member in the Senate, Senator Yonah Martin, who had worked with Don Chapman on this particular group of lost Canadians. She is saying accurately that Don Chapman would like it to be expanded to others, and that could be done in government legislation, in private members' bills or in other Senate bills.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, we have heard a number of examples of those who have been impacted by this long-standing gap in Canada's citizenship legislation. Could this member specifically articulate how that affects especially members of the military who may have had children abroad over the course of the last number of decades and how the bill could fix some of those gaps that currently exist?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands mentioned before how Byzantine parts of the Citizenship Act can be. It is difficult for me to answer that question from the member for Battle River—Crowfoot because it is just that complicated.

There are so many exceptions, going back to 1977, of how different groups of Canadians are treated with respect to whether they can pass on their citizenship or they cannot pass it on and how we treat members in the military but also how we treat diplomats who work in the foreign service on behalf of Canadians. This is where we run into a great risk that this bill will not pass in this Parliament and it will be dropped off the Order Paper again because there will be another federal election called.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I do want to remind members that if they want to have conversations, especially those across the way from each other, to please take them out to the lobbies or to the hallway in order not to interrupt those who are speaking.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by letting you know that I am going to be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill.

I am here to talk about Bill S-245. It is not something I planned to do today, and I am sure most members in the House had not planned on doing this, but here we are, and I want to make sure that people are clear on what it is we are talking about.

This is a private member's bill that has come from the other place, the Senate. Senators, just like members of Parliament, are able to produce legislation called private members' bills, so this is the legislation that has come from Senator Yonah Martin from the other place. It is her intention and her idea. It is something that she wants to see done. That is what we are talking about here. It is now in the House and we are working with it.

The subject of this is the “lost Canadians”. We have heard many different explanations of this, but many people may not quite understand what that is. Essentially, our Citizenship Act has some flaws in it that cause certain people to either lose their citizenship or to not get it in the first place. They create these little categories of people who, through no fault of their own, do not have access to Canadian citizenship.

There have been attempts over the years to fix some of these problems. Many of them have been fixed over the years, but there are still some groups of people who are still considered lost Canadians and are not being treated the way they should be, as they are unable to receive Canadian citizenship status. Over the years, there have been bills brought attempting to plug those holes and fix those gaps to ensure that those people who deserve to be Canadian citizens are, and this bill is one of them. There is a particular group of people, a fairly clearly defined group of people, that it seeks to remedy. It is not trying to fix everybody, and that was part of the point initially.

I also want to mention that often times when we think about people who are not citizens of Canada, we immediately think of immigrants. This does not necessarily mean immigrants. There are in fact many people who would not consider themselves immigrants who fit into these categories of lost Canadians. They are just Canadians who do not have their citizenship. There are different categories of these. Part of the point here is that trying to catch them all, and fix all of the holes in the legislation in one shot, is very difficult. It has been attempted over the years and, so far, it has been unsuccessful. We believe that a better approach is to target a very specific area, a specific group of people who are lost, and at least fix those, and then if there are more holes, we would fix those holes, rather than trying to do everything at once. This is a simple bill to fix one of those groups.

This is the same as Bill S-230. In a previous Parliament, the bill was studied in the Senate. It went to committee, was looked at carefully, and was sent here to the House to be worked on. Then an election happened, so that legislation never saw the light of day. Therefore, the attempt to rectify the citizenship situation of those lost Canadians failed. It failed because it did not get through the process in time before an election was called. That is very significant because right now we are in another minority Parliament, which means an election can happen at any time, so we do not have a lot of time. Time is not our friend in this case; we need to move to pass these bills quickly.

The same senator, Yonah Martin, has now put forward the same bill, Bill S-245, which has also gone through the Senate. This time in the other place it was not reviewed or studied because it was exactly the same as the previous legislation. Therefore, the Senate decided to fast-track it, move it through the other place and then to the House here so that we could deal with it. That is where it is now. It is here in the House and we are dealing with it now.

I just want to mention this with respect to the sponsor of the bill, Senator Yonah Martin. She was able to get it through the last Parliament. It took a lot of work and effort to bring everybody together to agree on things, but she was able to get it as far as it got. Unfortunately, it was not far enough. However, she was able to get it here quicker, which is a testament to her ability to work across party lines and with other people in the Senate, because she knew that time was the enemy and the biggest problem that the bill faced. The assumption that went along with that, as she got it to this House, was that it was the same bill as last time. From the Senate's perspective, this bill is the same one that it studied before and therefore it did not need to study it again. That is important and we should remember that.

Why are we here today? We are studying this bill at committee. We are getting very close to the end. There has been a lot of debate and talk about it. We have heard many witnesses speak to this bill. Indeed, there are many groups of people who represent these groups of lost Canadians, because there are numerous groups of lost Canadians. Everybody wants to solve this problem. The Conservatives want to fix this problem, as do the Liberals and all of the other parties. However, we want to fix it; we do not just want to talk about it. We do not want to study it to death, but fix it. We were able to get a lot of testimony and hear a lot of things to understand what the scope is and how it is going to work.

So people understand, what happened toward the end of this process is this. With respect to private members' bills, we have to stay within the scope of the bill. We cannot add things that go beyond the original intent of what, in this case, Yonah Martin had. There must be some ideas out there to do that, to go beyond the scope of this bill, because the government and the NDP teamed up together to bring this to the House now so that it can authorize the committee to go beyond the scope of the bill. That is what we are here talking about today.

This is really significant, because the originator of the bill, in this case Yonah Martin, had an intent for this bill. She came to committee and spoke about the bill and what her intent was. She was specifically asked if she would allow for amendments to the bill that would expand its scope. She was very clear on that. She said that she was willing to accept amendments that would clarify the bill, but she was not willing to accept amendments that would expand it. The reason she said that was very simple and makes a lot of sense.

Why would she accept amendments to clarify the bill? She wants the bill to be successful. She wants to plug that hole for this group of lost Canadians once and for all, so in her mind, if her words were not quite correct and somebody had a better idea to make those words a bit better, she was all ears and willing to do that. It only makes sense, because we want to get the wording correct. We have an army of lawyers in this place who are able to interpret our laws and statutes who I am sure had ideas and suggestions to clarify those things.

Why did she not want to expand its scope? It is very clear. She knows that if the scope gets expanded it creates a whole new pathway for this bill. First, it goes beyond what she had intended, which makes it more complicated, which means more work and more understanding is required. It goes from a simple one-page bill to a multi-page bill that has implications on all kinds of things. Most significantly, should it come through the House and be amended and expanded in scope, then it ends up back in the other place. Why did it pass through the other place very quickly? Because it was the same bill that had been studied in the previous Parliament. It had been looked at and studied in the Senate. The senators had their chance to talk about it and tweak it. That had all been done. The only reason they expedited it through this time was because it was exactly the same as the last time.

If we put two and two together, if it goes back to the other place having been changed, what is going to happen? The senators would say that it is not the same bill and would want to know what happened. Senator Martin would have to explain that it has changed and grown in scope and they would say that they need to study the bill and that it is going to committee to be studied.

With the way timelines work around here, we would be adding months to the process. The enemy of this bill is time, so we would clearly be doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing, which is adding time to this bill. We would be adding complexity to it, which means it would have to be studied at committee and looked at again. At the end of the day, there could be an election. We all know that an election could happen at any time. It could happen over this issue today. I heard members saying that might happen, so we never know what could happen. We never know what the day is going to bring. Time is the enemy of this bill, and this process would be adding a lot of time to it. That is the whole point of why Senator Martin wanted this to be done.

As I close, I want to highlight two things. First, we are all in support of fixing these problems for lost Canadians. There are no members on either side of the House who do not want to fix this law and correct the problem there. That is a given.

Second, we oppose the idea of the government taking a private member's bill, expanding it and putting things in there that were never intended to be there by the member who raised the bill. That is something we are very concerned about. We do not want to set a precedent. We do not want to allow the government to come in and pull up someone's bill and do that.

It was great to speak in the House today.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, I just heard the member say again that he is in support of ensuring the lost Canadians issue is addressed. The Conservatives say that, and I hope it is actually true. If it is true, we have an opportunity to do it. It is a rare moment when all the parties in this House say they want to do this, and we can seize this opportunity to make those necessary amendments, through Bill S-245, and also indicate to the Senate that this is the direction we want to go.

I believe Senator Yonah Martin, who has done this work and put this bill before us, would support it if the Conservative members would join the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals to say that we need to go out of scope to address the lost Canadians issue once and for all, particularly because of the first-generation rule cut-off the Conservatives brought in, which hurt so many families and which we need to get rid of.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member and I have a good relationship at the immigration committee and I enjoy working with her. I agree with her, but the problem in what she is saying right now is that I do not believe it is possible. I do not believe it is possible to achieve what she is talking about. We do not have enough time to deal with this. What she is talking about is wishful thinking.

I have wishes and hopes and dreams too. I wish Canadians could afford groceries and I wish we did not have a strike going on right now, but these are not the realities of our life today. We want to be the most pragmatic we can be. We have the opportunity to at least solve this problem for a group, for a subset of these lost Canadians, so we see the opportunity to push it forward and solve that part of the problem.

I would also like to mention that the government and this member have had many opportunities to present legislation on this subject before, so there is no reason we could not see other legislation on this. There is no reason the government could not put forward legislation to plug the rest of the holes that are here.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to bring it back to the simplicity of what we are talking about by using an example. Imagine that a couple living in Canada is requested by their company to go live in, let us say, France. They are in France and they have a child, and that is not a problem. They come back a couple of years later and the child grows up. At 19, the child joins the military, goes abroad and marries someone. The child of that individual would not be classified as a citizen, as a direct result.

Would the member or the Conservative Party support the principle of allowing that child to be a Canadian citizen?

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, as I said before, Conservatives are committed to solving this problem and fixing these gaps. This was actually a very good explanation, and I appreciate it. The member was giving one example, so let us just assume that this is the one we are trying to fix with this legislation. We want to get it through and pass it, and then that person would be a Canadian and the problem would be solved.

Imagine that example, and now add family number two, with a slightly different situation, then family number three with a slightly different situation, family number four, etc. It complicates everything and all of a sudden this simplistic solution becomes a very complex solution.

We are trying exactly that, which is to solve this problem for a group of lost Canadians. We are fully willing to work with the government, the NDP or whoever else wants to put forward legislation to try to fix the rest of them.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Minister of Families]

Madam Speaker, I request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment of the April 25 and April 27 sittings be 12 o'clock midnight, pursuant to the order made Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.