Mr. Speaker, what a mess. What we are dealing with today is an abject mess. I have to explain to the people who might be watching what has happened and what we are dealing with today.
The Liberals had a court ruling. There was a court ruling at a lower court that said the first-generation limit of citizenship by descent could go on indefinitely. The previous Conservative government had put in place a rule that said that, if somebody is going to pass down their citizenship to a child born abroad, they could only do that for one generation, and that somebody who obtains citizenship by descent has to have a substantive connection to Canada. This was done in the late aughts to prevent something called citizenship of convenience, as we saw cases in the 2000s where Canada was called on to evacuate people who had never paid taxes and who had Canadian citizenship, but who had never really been in Canada. They had acquired citizenship through descent. When Canada evacuated some of these people, most of them just went back. That is why the first-generation limit was put in place. Rather than challenge the court ruling, the Liberals said, “Yeah, okay, we'll just agree with the court”.
I cannot believe this, but one of my colleagues asked why the government would challenge a court ruling. Why would we do that? It is because Parliament is supreme. In fact, the correct answer from the government on that, which I cannot believe members did not know, is that, per section 91(25) of the Constitution Act, Parliament has the authority to amend the Citizenship Act to impose new restrictions on how citizenship is acquired in our country.
Why does Parliament have the right to do that? Why does Parliament have the imperative to do that? It is because Canadian citizenship has value. It should not be appointed judges who can do that. It should not be anybody other than duly elected representatives talking about what restrictions we place on how somebody obtains Canadian citizenship. That is why we have the Citizenship Act. There are limits and rules for how people can acquire Canadian citizenship.
About a decade ago, the Liberals came into power. A lot of the far left principles that we see in the NDP espouse something called postnationalism. This is an ideological belief. The former prime minister actually said there is no national identity in Canada. There is no national identity. There is now a minister of national identity in the Liberal Party who said there is not one way to be Canadian. Then the new Prime Minister, during the election campaign, when asked what it means to be Canadian, said it is to be not American.
We are at a juncture in the country right now. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. This should concern all parliamentarians. The social fabric of our country is breaking down because of a decade of what we have seen from federal leaders in this country. It is that concept of postnationalism, where there is no national identity, there is no value to our citizenship and we can just eliminate first-generation rules to allow people to obtain citizenship by descent in a way that is easier than it is for people who have naturalized to this country.
This is why Conservatives worked with the Bloc Québécois to amend this disastrous chain migration bill at committee. Conservatives put forward some very common-sense amendments to try to ensure that people who are obtaining citizenship by descent through this chain migration bill would have to go through the same processes as somebody who is obtaining citizenship through naturalization, so that at the very least, we are not creating a two-tier citizenship acquisition system in this country.
I want to thank my Bloc colleagues for working with us and passing these amendments. The amendments we put forward were very common sense. We sought to harmonize the residency requirements that somebody has to have to obtain citizenship through naturalization with citizenship by descent, so they have to live here at least three out of five years to have the provisions in this bill apply to their descendants. That seems reasonable to me. It is a reasonable amendment.
The second thing Conservatives did was amend the bill to have a language acquisition requirement, the same language acquisition requirement that is there for people who want to obtain citizenship through naturalization. It is the exact wording that is already in the Citizenship Act. We said this is reasonable. Why is it reasonable? It is because language is a unifier, and language is part of our national identity.
There are two official languages in Canada. They are very important to what it means to be Canadian. They are integral and core, especially in Quebec and other parts of the country where there is a whole concept of national identity that is firmly entrenched and attached to language. We made that amendment. It is common sense. It is the same that is already in the Citizenship Act.
We also said maybe somebody should have to take a citizenship test. It is the same requirement of somebody who wants to naturalize to Canada to take a citizenship test. They have to read the citizenship guide and have a basic understanding of what Canada is and what our rules are. Our national identity needs to be rooted in the fact that we all have a duty for not just the privileges associated with citizenship but also the responsibilities. These are things taken right from the citizenship guide. For example, there is a requirement to abandon violent and extreme ideology upon coming to Canada. Anybody who is or wants to be Canadian must abandon violent and extreme ideology. It is right in the citizenship guide. Conservatives amended the legislation to have a citizenship test. This is the same as it is for somebody who wants to obtain citizenship through naturalization.
As my Bloc colleague raised in a question earlier, Conservatives wanted a report to Parliament on how many people have been given citizenship by descent because of the fact that the Liberals did not challenge this ruling. They could have challenged this ruling, but they chose not to. They chose unlimited citizenship by descent with residency requirements that are weaker than what people who naturalize to this country have.
The reason I am so fired up is that I have watched, through a decade of Liberal postnationalism, which they have not just said but have also operationalized, the eroding of our democratic institutions. We have seen their catch-and-release bail policies over the last year and the crime that has wrought on our streets. It is the erosion of the justice system. We have seen the censorship bills they have put in place and the erosion of free speech. While we might not agree on certain types of policy or how to get to certain types of outcomes, if those democratic institutions are eroded through a postnational ideology, and we tell the world that our citizenship does not have value by gutting a common-sense amendment like this, it would further erode the social fabric of our country.
What is the outcome of that? It would erode Canada's pluralism. The only way that pluralism and multiculturalism can exist is through a democracy that has strong respect for the rule of law, for institutions such as freedom of speech and unifying things such as language. Mark my words, the Liberals continuing their far left postnationalism by gutting common-sense amendments on things like language requirements will only further degrade Canada's pluralism.
We are at a moment in history when we have to start restoring the value of Canadian citizenship, not further degrading it. I beg colleagues to ensure the amendments that were passed in a multipartisan way at committee are kept so that we can keep the value of Canadian citizenship and reverse the decade of damage that the far left Liberal postnational ideology has done to the value of Canadian citizenship and our pride in national identity.