Debates of April 24th, 2023

Citizenship and Immigration

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

We have a point of order from the member for Perth—Wellington.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe quorum has been lost.

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

We will start counting.

And the count having been taken:

We have quorum now. I will wait until everybody has come to order, and then we can start up again.

The hon. Parliament Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to wrap up my comments, I will share the last thoughts of the stakeholder who wrote to the committee. She said:

If you can see us as the Canadians we are then I believe this issue can be dealt with more clearly. This cannot be an issue where members let their views, beliefs or desires regarding immigration cloud an issue that is very clearly about citizenship policy....

We are Canadians since birth looking to return home, not immigrants desiring to move to a new country. We may be lost, but we are proud and hopeful.

See us for who we are so that you may help us. Kindest Regards, Jennifer Johnnes.

I think the words speak for themselves and show how deeply painful the subject of lost Canadians is and how traumatic it is for them. I would add that the amendments in 2009, in essentially creating a situation where families would be separated, where they could not be reunited and where almost a two-tier system of who is Canadian has been created, is something we should be addressing.

While Senator Yonah Martin may have put this bill forward with one intention, I think it is a unique opportunity for us to correct the path to make sure everyone who is eligible for Canadian citizenship by birthright, by the right of their parents and by the right of their families to raise their children here or their desire as Canadians to raise their children here is contemplated. We must take this up with the utmost urgency.

I humbly ask members of the House to consider the importance of expanding Bill S-245 so that it can be improved and ultimately better meet its objective of addressing more lost Canadians.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a specific question for the member. It is more of a commentary on what I heard her read to the House to provide the perspective of her party.

I will mention to those listening at home that the member is a parliamentary secretary. The government has known for almost eight years that there were these different groups of lost Canadians. There is always the ability to table government legislation, and I think we will find that a lot of members of this House are willing to consider plugging holes in legislation.

That is exactly what Senator Yonah Martin has been doing in two Parliaments. She was able to convince the Senate to move Bill S-230 through the Senate with one committee hearing to consider the exact same bill we have today, Bill S-245. She was able to do so because she is widely considered to be a non-partisan member and widely considered to be well informed on the subject of the Citizenship Act. Members at that committee voted against my amendment to suggest, if we are going to go beyond the scope, that we give ourselves more time to consider what groups of lost Canadians we could consider and what different situations lost Canadians might find themselves in. I will tell the parliamentary secretary that the Liberal benches voted against my amendment to the motion that brings us here today to debate this concurrence report.

This is about process. We do not know when the next election will come in a minority Parliament, and it very well could be that lost Canadians will have to wait again for another Parliament before this particular group of lost Canadians will have their citizenship restored to them, as it should be.

This is not a question about whether it is the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. It is about process. We have a bill and an opportunity to fix something for a particular group of Canadians. We all agree on that, and by doing this, the bill will be sent back to the Senate, and the Senate will thereafter make further considerations and call more witnesses to the committee. That is simply the legislative process.

I know that is difficult for the government to understand. I know it is difficult to have such a thin legislative agenda. However, this situation could have been avoided.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will share with the member that I am quite familiar with the process, having successfully passed with my colleagues Keira's law, Bill C-233, and understanding the immense value of unanimous consent and when members work across party lines because issues are so important.

I do not think any of this is partisan. I think this issue affects many families, including my own, and many constituents in my riding of York Centre. As a matter of fact, the member for Thornhill would attest to that as well, as we share similar constituency demographics in that sense. She is a member on his benches, and I would encourage him to perhaps speak to her about the many families in similar situations.

There is always an opportunity to work collaboratively, and I certainly hope the member will consider it.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, a situation with the cut-off rule for first-generation born Canadians has been in place for 14 years now, and many families have suffered during this period. It is true that the government could have brought in legislation to make that change, but that has not happened. With that being said, we now have an opportunity before us through a Senate bill, Bill S-245, to fix the lost Canadian rules once and for all.

If we all care about this issue as we say we do, should we not then seize this opportunity to expand the scope of the bill, fix the lost Canadian community that has not been addressed in this bill and fix those issues once and for all?

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

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, can the member provide her thoughts regarding the importance of Canadian citizenship and—

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

There is a point of order by the hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I asked a question, but the parliamentary secretary did not have a chance to respond. We then went to another government member's question. Somehow, I think we had a gap in the situation here.

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

I apologize.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I believe there is room for further discussion and expansion. I share the member's deep concerns in terms of lost Canadians. I read into the record the letter of Wednesday Coulter, who submitted her thoughts to committee as an indigenous woman and her story of being excluded from Canada, being denied the ability to be with her mom as she ages in Haida Gwaii. This is one of many heartbreaking stories that we need to address through the contemplation of the work that the committee is engaged in right now.

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

Mr. Speaker, Canadian citizenship is undoubtedly one of the most important things we have here in Canada. It is held with a great amount of pride, and there are all sorts of benefits to it.

More and more, the world is becoming a smaller community, with people working abroad. Some people have concerns regarding whether they should return to Canada to give birth and ensure the baby is born a Canadian. Two Canadian parents who go abroad, especially on a short-term basis, should not be obligated to come back to Canada for the birth of their child. Could the parliamentary secretary provide her general thoughts on issues of that nature?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my comments today, I was a mother faced with that exact dilemma with the birth of my eldest daughter abroad. There was much discussion in my household as to what to do and how to do it, as well as checking things and concerns about how to ensure that my daughter would hold the same Canadian citizenship that I was and still am so proud of holding. A pregnant woman can only travel up to a certain number of weeks, especially on flights. To me, it is not acceptable to contemplate putting a mother and potentially a pregnancy at risk in order to hold on to something that is a right for Canadian citizens to have and pass on to their children.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could perhaps answer the following question: Since we know that Bill S-230 passed in the previous Parliament and was debated at Senate committee, where witnesses came forward from a government department, why has the government not acted on this?

It has been over two years that it has known there are several groups of lost Canadians affected. Why has the government not tabled government legislation through the House of Commons, or starting in the Senate, that would have closed up all these different situations for them? The government did not act when it should have; instead, it waited for a senator on the Conservative benches to fix a problem that the Liberals admit exists. Why did this occur?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will simply say to the member that there are many “why?” questions, but I do not see a lot of talk on working collaboratively for the sake of lost Canadians, and that is really what we are engaged with here today. We could bring up a lot of “whataboutisms”, but we are engaged in the issue right now. We are being asked to do this work on behalf of lost Canadians. I would simply ask the member this: Why would he or his benches be unwilling to do that work right now?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to build on that last question. Here we have the Conservatives, who say that they want to fix this problem once and for all. We know that the Bloc is very sympathetic and wants to ensure that people's dignity is recognized. The NDP wants to address this issue, and I have been wanting to do so ever since I was elected as a member of Parliament. The government side wants to do this as well.

We have a unique opportunity, at least in words, where all parties are saying they want to address this issue. Should we not actually be seizing the opportunity, supporting the expansion of the scope and addressing the lost Canadians issue once and for all?

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will reiterate what I have said time and time again during the precious time that I have in this debate. This is the power of collaborative work when it is done. I have seen it in my own work on Bill C-233, and I know that when there is the will of members of the House to get good work done on behalf of Canadians, lost Canadians in this case, it can be done.

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

Before we continue, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for North Island—Powell River, Seniors; the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, Persons with Disabilities; the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Ethics.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be joining the debate on this bill. I want to begin by thanking my constituents again for returning me to Parliament to serve them, to speak on their behalf and to bring the voice of Calgarians here to Ottawa, to our national Parliament. Every day, I think about how lucky each and every one of us is, all 338 of us, to be able to represent constituents in the House of Commons and work on their behalf.

I also want to start by saying that I am a Canadian who was born overseas; I happen to be one of those who were naturalized back in 1989. I was able to share that story when I was doing outreach activities on the Island of Montreal. I also talked to many new Canadians about their experiences of coming to Canada. I reminded them all the time that anyone could become a member of Parliament if they make the effort, tell the truth and have the work ethic and dedication. Representing people in this country in a legislative body is a great privilege, and we should never forget that.

I want to go over a few points very quickly, just to give an outline of the trouble I have with what is happening today with this concurrence of a report coming out of the immigration committee. There is the issue of timing and how we have come to this point, where the vote would now be necessary. I want to talk about the mover of this Senate bill, Senator Yonah Martin of British Columbia. I want to talk about Senate Bill S-230, the original piece of legislation, and how Bill S-245 is basically the exact same bill.

I also want to speak briefly to process. This is not an issue related to the substance. I think many people agree on the substance; of course, Conservatives agree because this is a Conservative legislative initiative. It is very simple to understand why Conservatives, for example, would not do something like move amendments to a bill being proposed by a Conservative. It is because we all agree with it. We went before our caucus. We had a presentation. Of course we agree with it; it is a Conservative senator proposing a Conservative idea. That idea is the rightful restoration of Canadian citizenship to a particular group of Canadians, and we are talking about a small group that is affected.

The bill is very simple. It is all on one page. It is a simple idea that would address a specific group. This does not mean that others do not have a case for it to be restored. There is a legislative case for it to be done. However, this particular bill has been in the works in two minority Parliaments now to try to fix it. As we know, minority Parliaments are unpredictable, despite there being an NDP-Liberal coalition. Here, we have a government and an opposition party, and we do not know where one begins and the other one ends. We do not know when there could be an election; that would wipe out all the legislative initiatives being considered by the House and by the Senate.

That is exactly what happened to Bill S-230. When the election was called on August 15, 2021, it wiped out all the legislative initiatives that were under way back then. Bill S-230, dealing with these lost Canadians, had already gone through the Senate. It had one meeting of consideration, with expert testimony being provided by government officials; this was useful in understanding that the contents of the legislation were correct and would in fact fix the situation that we are facing. We heard new testimony and new consideration on Bill S-245.

The timing is the issue that I am hung up on. I do not know when an election could come. I want to expedite a bill like this, with no changes, in order to consider new legislation. The House is always free to do that. Any member of the House or any senator could table a private member's bill. In fact, senators can now legislate faster than we can, which I think is wrong. I hope some government members would agree with me on that. It is a separate legislative idea. Maybe there could be changes to the Standing Orders someday.

I know there is at least one member from Winnipeg who would agree with me that members of the House of Commons should be the ones legislating the most often, and senators should not do so as often or as quickly. Now we have a lottery system, and the Speaker drew the numbers. I am going to remind the Deputy Speaker of this, because I think I drew third from last when he was doing the draw. I really think there should have been a recount. I see another member from Montreal, from one of my alma maters, Concordia, saying that she drew a much better number than I did.

Timing is an issue in this matter. This is a group of lost Canadians who could have their citizenship restored. They would be made whole. If we made no amendments to the bill, once passed through the House of Commons, it would receive royal assent from the Governor General and be made law.

Any amendments we make at committee would then return to the House, and any report stage amendments would delay the passage of the bill. The bill could then go again for another set of reviews. I am sure that senators, when they agreed to pass this bill on an expeditious basis, were passing the original bill, Bill S-230. They were passing a bill they had already considered and debated.

They are going to consider the debate that took place in the House. They are going to review why, for example, government officials before the committee in the House of Commons provided different information than some other government officials, though some of them were the same, at the Senate committee two years ago. They will wonder why the advice was slightly different and why they now have a problem with some of the wording in Bill S-245. They say it does not address the issue as well.

When I looked at the titles of these government officials, they are the exact same positions. Some people have been promoted and some have moved to different positions.

I am sure senators will review the bill. That would be months of extra waiting. As the Senate considers the bill, it will have more witnesses come before the Senate committee, and then with whatever potential amendments the Senate might have, it will send the bill back to the House of Commons. I know I am supposed to call it “the other place”, but I feel Canadians at home should know that this might delay and potentially kill the bill. The bill may not become law if this does not get done.

How did we get to this particular situation? We have a terrific vice-chair on the immigration committee, the member for Saskatoon West, who has been negotiating with the other parties in good faith. It is what I hope the government is doing during the public service strike by PSAC and at their negotiations at the table. The member has been negotiating in good faith and providing information to other parties, such as what our voting position is, what our concerns are and what type of subamendments we would consider.

We were considering some amendments that would strengthen some of the ideas we had heard and had talked about before the committee. The motion that was passed at committee, over our objections, broadens the scope beyond section 8 amendments to Bill S-245. The way I interpreted the motion was that it would mean anything in Bill S-245, the Citizenship Act, and that would be concurred in on a vote in the House of Commons. This sounds to me like a statutory review of Bill S-245, so anything in the Citizenship Act could be done.

There are many things I have heard in my travels across Canada in meeting with both new Canadians and people from families that have lived in Canada for generations. They have issues with the Citizenship Act, such as how citizenship ceremonies are organized, and whether they are done in person or virtually, at a click. Some of those are also around the rules of specific lost Canadians. Is it right to put citizenship ceremonies on certain holidays, which were maybe not as major 40 years ago? Those are all issues that members should be mindful of.

When reading this motion, and I am not burdened by a legal education so I read it like a layman would read it, with the words as they are, and it says that it would go beyond section 8, which means that anything else in the Citizenship Act should be eligible for an amendment. We have an opportunity to help lost Canadians. We also have an opportunity to ensure there are no future lost Canadians, who might have missed a citizenship ceremony because of a holiday, travel or any number of other reasons.

We have come here because other parties have not been forthcoming in explaining their position. At committee, I moved a very reasonable amendment that would have provided more time for to consider new out-of-scope amendments. We have no in-scope amendments because we agreed with the contents of the bill.

It would have been good to have more time on out-of-scope amendments, and then we could have provided the amendments. We could have all had time to consider them within our caucuses. That is what our side does. We have a fulsome debate in our caucus where our members of Parliament and senators come to an agreement on different amendments that we might consider, especially if they are major amendments, such as this seems to be, a statutory review of the Citizenship Act.

We can now take a moment to talk about the mover of this bill, Senator Yonah Martin. I think many members of the House of Commons, and I hope of the other place, the Senate, would say that she is a very non-partisan member, a member who is able to work with all members, regardless of political affiliations, on any number of issues.

She has a big heart for the Korean-Canadian community and for the battle of Kapyong. She is mindful to remind us of the battle of Kapyong and how important it is to Canadians of Korean heritage every single year. She has been of huge assistance not only to Conservatives, but also to Canadians of Korean heritage all over Canada, by connecting them with their civic officials, with Canadian political and civic life, and with community organizations.

She has a bill, which she successfully negotiated through the Senate with no amendments. That is unusual. For many of us, when we put together private members' bills or motions, there is always that potential for amendments to come forward that we were not aware of, or were not considering.

This is a member who, at committee, specifically asked that we not make amendments because of the timing issue I mentioned right at the beginning. This is why I want to bring it up. She specifically said, when asked, that she did not want an expansion of the scope of the bill if it would delay the bill. That is what would happen here. There would be a delay of the bill.

She offered a solution, which was new pieces of legislation. The government can always table government legislation to help these Canadians, which they have identified through our witness process, through the submissions the committee received. That would be entirely okay. We could consider the merits.

The House of Commons has expedited bills in the past. We just did it last week. Portions of the budget were expedited through the House of Commons. It is possible to do these things, especially when there is consensus and we work collaboratively, which I heard a parliamentary secretary talk about.

Many members on that committee will agree that our vice-chair and the Conservatives work collaboratively. We were doing that when this was moved. We were working on a draft report in a committee, and at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration no less. We are more than happy to do that. The immigration committee has done a lot of work exactly in that manner, collaboratively, by everybody being upfront about the positions they will be taking and the concerns we have with amendments and different policy issues, as well as where we are coming from. That is another one.

I wanted to make sure I brought up Bill S-230, which was the original version of the bill, in the previous Parliament, because I want to highlight the fact that, the committee on Bill S-230 in the Senate had one meeting to consider the details of the bill. We are going to be adding on basically new sections on lost Canadians. What I have found about the Citizenship Act, and I know many members will agree, especially those on the immigration committee, is how complicated it is. It is easy to make a mistake on dates, years, months, days and specific words, where we could have individuals lose their ability to pass on their citizenship to their children or grandchildren or not be able to retain it in cases of marriage.

I was born in Communist Poland, a country I always say does not exist anymore. It is a footnote in history. As a Canadian who was not born here, I know that the Citizenship Act is something to be mindful of. All my kids were born in Calgary, so they are not affected directly for things like the first generation rule, but others are. I absolutely recognize that, but there is an opportunity to legislate.

Another senator could put forward another Senate bill to address individuals, and we could again have an expedited debate to push it through the House if we could get to the terms and the words we all agree on. Like I said, in Bill S-245, there were government officials who came before the committee in a previous Parliament to say that this wording is the exact wording to address the issue the senator is concerned about. The same government officials, at least with the same titles from the same department, said it actually needs to be changed because it might not do what one says it would do.

Now we are left with not knowing what types of amendments are going to be brought forward at the committee if this concurrence of the report passes of the motion that came out of the immigration committee. We just do not know. Nobody knows now what amendments will be brought forward, except for the mover of the amendment, who will be at the table behind closed doors, potentially in camera, considering these amendments. It will hopefully all be done in public.

It is important to remember none of the parties will be obliged to provide any new amendments out of scope to be considered. Like I said, there are lots of different situations we could look at.

I always have a Yiddish proverb to share. I was in Montreal at a synagogue on Saturday, a very observant one, and there is a great Yiddish proverb: Hope for miracles, but do not rely on one. It is unpronounceable for me in Yiddish, but it is indeed a good one. I always hope for miracles. I hope we can come to some type of consensus that this bill should be expedited in its current form.

I want to vote for it the way it is right now, and I think those on my benches want to do the same thing. We want to help these lost Canadians and restore, rightfully, their citizenship. There is an opportunity to help others, and that is what I hope this place would be good at. I hope it would be able to come to a consensus on new pieces of legislation that address certain things.

I am serving in my third Parliament, and I think this would set a bad precedent. To go into another member's bill, and over their objections, say that we are going to change their private member's bill or their Senate Bill, the idea they put forward, is a bad precedent.

I know it has happened off and on in the past 10 to 20 years. In those particular cases, the individual members have brought it up to me that it should not have happened that way. I really believe that for members who have an idea that they are bringing forward, we should honour their requests and have a simple up or down vote.

Even Senator Yonah Martin said that, if there are particular technical amendments to the way this legislation is worded that keep the intent and the principle she is trying to address, which is helping this particular group of lost Canadians have their citizenship regained, which is in the summary that is provided for the bill, and it uses the term “regain”, then she was okay with that. However, what we have talked about so far, and what I have heard from the parliamentary secretary and the member of the New Democrats, are things that are potentially far out of the scope of the original intent and principle of the bill. Here I have concerns.

I have expressed those concerns. I have made forceful promises. I intend to keep my forceful promises. I have done so at other committees, which I have been on, whether it be at the PROC committee, where I remember serving with other members to ensure that the intent of motions and bills was retained. Members would have a straight up or down vote on particular subjects, and that made it very clear what we were voting for and against.

Again, I see this as an opportunity. We do not know when the election could come. I do not want to send this back to the Senate. The Senate already has had its say on the matter. It has reviewed this piece of legislation. What I want to do is expedite this bill. I was ready to do that at the first meeting on Bill S-245.

We could have maybe considered some particular amendments that were perhaps on the edge of what would be permissible. Looking to my vice-chair, I think it is fair to say that we were willing to consider them.

We had that conversation with the Liberal benches, and we were forthcoming with what our ideas were, what our concerns were and where we wanted to go. My expectation was that we gave it due consideration. We had received valuable insight, information and ideas from Canadians, both overseas and here, who had expressed concerns with different groups of lost Canadians.

We could have addressed those in other pieces of legislation, and then a senator could take up the case, or a member of any party could take up the case in a private member's bill, although probably not me, because, like I said, the Speaker drew me third from last, I believe. I still remember that, so I will probably not be one of those members.

The House can work collaboratively. I will give another example. On bereavement leave, the Minister of Labour was kind enough to work with me before Christmas, and this was 2021, to insert part of my private members' bill on bereavement leave straight into Bill C-3 and then expedite it through the House.

To the parliamentary secretary's saying that they were hoping we could work collaboratively, well, of course we can. There is even an example where we have done that. It was our shadow minister for labour at the time, the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, who did it. It can be done, when people come in good faith at the negotiating table and we hammer out a deal. That deal was done before Christmas and Canadians in federal jurisdiction had bereavement leave provisions provided to them.

Those types of situations can happen. I call them legislative miracles, getting back to my Yiddish proverb. Legislative miracles can happen when people want to make change. That was a private member's bill that likely would have never passed. It had drawn such a high number that it would not have been able to pass. I would not have been able to have the opportunity to have it debated.

With that said, I have laid out my case of why we should vote down this report, and I move:

That the House proceed to Presenting Petitions.

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

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to defeat this on division.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I have to ask for a recorded division then.

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

Call in the members.