Debates of Oct. 28th, 2025

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

The member's notice is duly noted.

The House resumed from October 27 consideration of Bill C‑3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Citizenship Act

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak in support of Bill C‑3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, and to reaffirm the importance of the requirement for a substantial three-year connection. This measure is central to our vision of a strong, vibrant, and equitable Canadian citizenship.

Every time we talk about citizenship, we talk about what it means to be Canadian. Not only is it a legal status, but it is an identity based on participation, respect, and responsibility.

The question that arises from this bill is, why three years? Since second reading, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration has conducted a thorough study of Bill C‑3. The witnesses were very clear: Being physically present for three consecutive years is the fairest and most realistic way to demonstrating a genuine connection to Canada.

This standard is based on an already well-established principle. To apply for citizenship, a permanent resident must have spent 1,095 days in Canada in the last five years. It takes three years to get to know and respect our institutions, to understand our values and to integrate into Canadian life.

For Canadians born abroad, this same requirement strikes a balance. It keeps citizenship open to the world without removing it from its national roots. We want citizenship to remain a meaningful commitment, not merely an administrative legacy. Three years is proof of a real connection, a connection with lived experiences and an emotional connection in particular. It is a flexible and modern model, recognizing that the international context is always changing.

Canadians travel, study and work abroad. They are researchers at other universities, diplomats, entrepreneurs, artists and teachers. Bill C‑3 recognizes this reality and takes it into consideration. It allows Canadians living abroad to maintain genuine ties to Canada while ensuring that every generation has also spent a meaningful part of their life here in Canada.

The bill calls for the parent born abroad to have spent at least a total of three years in Canada before the birth or adoption of their child. These years may be non-consecutive. They may be the result of education, employment, a family commitment or community involvement. It is a modern, flexible and, above all, inclusive approach that respects life journeys while preserving the integrity of citizenship.

I will now address the issue of intergenerational ties, which must remain strong. Canadian citizenship is a living legacy. This bill ensures that, from generation to generation, the connection to the country remains practical and meaningful. By making citizenship by descent possible beyond the first generation, but requiring this substantial three-year connection, we are creating a balance between openness and responsibility. We are not closing the door. We are firmly anchoring it in Canadian soil. We are telling every family that its citizenship is a right, but also a commitment to the community, to our democracy and to our shared values.

This is a fair and lasting response to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. This reform is in response to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which ruled in 2023 that the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent is unconstitutional. Bill C‑3 expands access, but in a balanced way. It ensures that the children born abroad to Canadian parents inherit not only a status, but also a real Canadian experience.

Three years is how long it takes to integrate, work, study, establish friendships and contribute to Canadian society. It is how long it takes to love one's country, Canada, not from afar, but from within.

That is why we say that it is not about living in Canada. It is about experiencing Canada, with its culture, its art and its values, while respecting its institutions, of course. It is a citizenship that is lived, not just inherited. This three-year substantial connection is not a barrier; it is evidence of attachment.

Canadian citizenship is not a passport that someone just happens to get. It is a commitment to a country that is known for its openness, diversity and justice. This bill reminds us that citizenship is passed down not just through blood or paper, but also through experience, contribution and solidarity.

There also needs to be a balance between fairness and consistency. The three-year threshold applies consistently to all Canadians born or adopted abroad. It aligns citizenship by descent with the naturalization criteria, which ensures complete consistency and fairness. This will reinforce a simple idea: Citizenship in Canada is based on meaningful participation in the life of the nation. It is a shared responsibility, a shared bond and a pride to be nurtured.

In conclusion, this citizenship is worthy of our country, our values and humanity most of all. Bill C‑3 is not a simple administrative update. It is a statement of principle on what it means to be Canadian in 2025.

We live in a world of mobility, diversity and complexity. This bill does not restrict; it brings people together. It does not close doors; it ensures that the human thread connecting every citizen in Canada remains alive and sincere. Indeed, being Canadian is more than just a status. It is a sense of belonging, a bond of the heart and the memory. It is the pride of a country that is built by the people who live in it, contribute to it and choose it.

Three years is not much time to learn to love a country, but it is enough time to never want to leave it again, as was the case in my experience. After three years of immigration, I loved this country. I found it really hard to distance myself from this beautiful country of Canada.

I invite my esteemed colleagues to support this bill, which is fair, balanced and deeply human, so that Canadian citizenship remains a living promise, the promise of a united, open Canada that is proud of its citizens around the world.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would be curious whether the hon. member across the way supports a basic background check before automatic citizenship is granted to a Canadian born abroad who gains citizenship by descent, because as the Liberal bill was drafted, it would provide automatic citizenship without any kind of security check. Conservatives brought forward an amendment at committee to fix that. What is the member's position on the Conservative amendment?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises a good question. All I can say is that this bill will take national security, stability and verifications into account.

I nevertheless invite my colleague to introduce the amendment. Our way of working, as a government, is to collaborate, coordinate and find some way to co-operate on all aspects, particularly on public safety.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to the question that was just asked.

It is interesting; there was a committee report that came out when the Conservatives were in government. The CIMM committee report done at the time of the Harper government made this recommendation: “Background checks are only appropriate for candidates seeking a grant of citizenship as opposed to those for whom citizenship is a birthright.” The current debate is on birthright citizenship, so the Conservative Party has forgotten about that part, even though the leader of the Conservative Party was around at that time, and it has taken the reverse position.

I wonder if the member would agree that the Conservative Party needs to be more consistent with public policy.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to agree when it comes to consistency.

I also find it unacceptable that this descent issue, which was rejected by the Conservatives at the time, is now being reintroduced.

However, we also have to be careful. If immigration is always associated with security issues, there is a risk of creating stigma. Security issues do not only involve immigrants; they affect the entire population, including people who were born here, who grew up here and who are unfortunately sometimes referred to as “old stock”.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we debated a committee report here in the House. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons stood up and told us the debate had no place here in the House. He said that the committees would handle this, that they were capable of doing their job and that, when the committee in question completes its work, the government would take note of its recommendations here, in the House. In summary, he told us we were wasting our time debating this topic in the House.

Today we are debating Bill C‑3, which has come back to us at report stage with amendments. The committee did its job: It heard witnesses, it reached a consensus and amendments were adopted. The Parliamentary Budget Officer appeared before the committee, as did the minister, who did not even know the statistics. Now today, just a day later, we are being told that the House is the place to revisit amendments adopted in committee and simply dismiss the work that has been done.

Which Liberals are we to believe? Are we to believe the ones from yesterday or the ones from today?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by answering the question asked by my hon. colleague. Who should we trust? We need to trust all Liberals who were selected by Canadians across the country.

I want to make another point. Proposing amendments is one thing, but distorting a bill is quite another. When amendments alter the spirit of a bill, things get problematic. This is no longer committee work. This is an attempt to destroy or distort something that was designed for the good of people we want to welcome to this country, whether they are adopted, naturalized or immigrants.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, brought forward by the Liberal government.

The bill would eliminate the first-generation limit for the granting of citizenship by descent and would drastically expand the granting of citizenship to persons born abroad who have little to no connection to Canada. In short, the bill is radical and reckless, and it would significantly undermine confidence in our immigration system.

Then again, it should come as no surprise that we have this awful piece of legislation brought forward by the Liberals across the way, because after all, they subscribe to a radical, globalist, postnationalist ideology. Justin Trudeau infamously said that Canada is a postnational state with “no core identity”. It follows that if Canada has no core identity, then Canadian identity means nothing and Canadian citizenship means nothing. That is the vision of the Liberal Party for this country: Canada's being a postnational state.

With respect to background, the bill technically arose following a decision of an Ontario Superior Court judge to strike down the first-generation limit passed by the Harper government. I emphasize that it was technically arising from that court decision.

What is the first-generation limit? All it provides for is that only the first generation of children born abroad can acquire citizenship by descent. It was implemented for good reason: to end what amounted to abuses of citizenship by so-called Canadians of convenience, persons who have little or no connection to Canada, who have not been born in Canada, who have never set foot in Canada in some cases, who have not paid taxes in Canada and who have made no significant or any contributions to Canadian society, but who hold a Canadian passport. Invariably, when there would be a crisis in their respective country, they would demand that the Canadian government come to their rescue and bring them to Canada.

We saw this in 2006, during the crisis in Lebanon, when the Government of Canada was effectively forced to rescue 15,000 people with next to no connection to Canada, almost all of whom returned to Lebanon when the crisis ended, at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million. The people of course would then claim the right to health care, housing and other benefits afforded to Canadian citizens. That is what the first-generation limit sought to prevent.

The Liberals will tell us not to blame them, because they had no choice, due to the decision of the Ontario Superior Court. They did have a choice. They could have appealed the decision. That is what would be done in the normal course. After all, it was a lower-court decision rendered by one judge's striking down a law duly passed by Parliament. Of course the Liberals did not appeal the decision, because they are motivated by their postnationalist ideology.

Instead what the Liberals did was use the lower-court decision as a pretext to bringing forward the radical bill now before the House. It is a bill that has been accurately characterized as a chain migration bill, a bill that would open the floodgates to the ability to acquire Canadian citizenship by people who are generations removed from any meaningful connection to Canada.

It is important to note that, while the lower court judge struck down the first-generation limit, the judge provided that it would be reasonable for Parliament to impose a substantial connection test. In other words, the judge said it is permissible for Parliament to require that someone born abroad who is applying for citizenship by descent to establish that they have some meaningful connection to Canada. What did the Liberals do in the face of that pronouncement? They ignored the judge.

They hide behind the decision, but they introduced a bill with absolutely no substantial connection test. Instead, what this bill provides for is that someone born abroad would be able to acquire Canadian citizenship if only one of their parents had spent a grand total 1,095 days in Canada, and that need not be over a specific period or over a consecutive period of time. It could be a few weeks here and a few months there over the span of decades, so long as one parent had spent 1,095 days in Canada before that child was born, and then that child could extend automatic Canadian citizenship to their child if they also spent a grand total of 1,095 days over their lifetime.

On and on it could go, generation after generation. Make no mistake about it that the bill would facilitate intergenerational chain migration. It would provide automatic citizenship to persons with virtually no substantial connection to Canada, and without so much as a background check. That is right. Persons with criminal records, who might pose a threat to national security, if they were to meet the very wide parameters provided for in the bill, would be granted automatic Canadian citizenship. It is just crazy.

There is a small glimmer of light coming out of committee, and that is because Conservatives brought forward a number of amendments to fix the most problematic aspects of the bill. The Bloc Québécois worked with us, and those amendments were adopted at committee. Among the most significant of amendments adopted at committee was that to establish an actual substantial connection test, as provided for in the judgment of the Ontario Superior Court, which the Liberals ignored, and it would provide for a proper background check. Again, that is common sense.

However, the Liberals, subscribing to a postnationalist ideology, have signalled that they intend to strip the bill of these common-sense Conservative amendments, and as a consequence, we would be left with the same bill the Liberals initially put before the House, a bill that would weaken what it means to be a Canadian.

Citizenship ought to be more than a legal status. It ought to be more than having a passport. It is about our shared values interwoven through the history of this great country, including a commitment to freedom, democracy, pluralism and human rights, as well as our shared responsibilities, because citizenship is more than a right. With citizenship comes responsibilities.

The bill, unamended, would significantly weaken what it means to be a Canadian citizen, and it is not supportable.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague had an excellent speech. He talked about the consequences of the bill. One of the consequences of the bill would be that people who get Canadian citizenship because their parents were here at one time, and who do not live in Canada, would then be able to vote in Canadian elections. Elections Canada allows people to choose which riding they want their vote to count in, and I can see how that might be very problematic from an interference point of view.

Does the member have any comment on a solution that should be applied to fix that problem?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the solution would be to keep the Conservative amendments, which were adopted at committee, in the bill. That would harmonize the requirements for applicants for citizenship by way of descent with those of applicants who are applying for citizenship through the process of harmonization.

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

Mr. Speaker, we were supposed to be debating this yesterday, but for political reasons, that did not occur to the extent that it should have.

With respect to Bill C-3, there is, as the member referenced, a superior court decision. There is a timeline of November 20. I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts. Does he sense any obligation of the House to meet that timeline?

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in my response to the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, I said “process of harmonization”. I meant the process of naturalization.

With respect to the question posed by the parliamentary secretary, this is what the Liberals do all the time. They get a lower court decision that they happen to like for ideological reasons. They do not fulfill their responsibility, which is to defend laws passed by Parliament, and appeal the decision. Then they say, “We are in a bind. We have no choice. We have to move ahead with legislation.”

It is part of a consistent pattern, and the bottom line is that the government should have appealed the decision. It did not. It brought in a radical badly drafted bill. We have worked to fix it. Let us keep the amendments in the bill, and we can move forward on that basis.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in his previous speech, the member for Bourassa was once again a bit theatrical when he said that the amendments adopted in committee would distort the bill. This shows that he is both incompetent and disingenuous.

Why do I say “incompetent”? The member knows full well that the amendments were accepted by the Chair. This means that they do not change the nature of the bill.

The member is being disingenuous, because he knows full well that the judge's ruling left it up to Parliament to decide what constituted a substantial connection to Canada that would allow certain children born abroad to qualify for Canadian citizenship.

These amendments are exactly and precisely what the courts have asked for. They are also entirely consistent with the nature and purpose of the bill.

I would like to know whether my colleague shares my interpretation of events and whether he thinks that what the Liberals did earlier today in this debate is simply disinformation to mislead Canadians for partisan purposes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what the Liberals did not do was respect the ruling because, as the member pointed out, the judge provided for a substantial connection test. That is absent from the bill.

What the Liberals did do was create a two-tier system for applying for citizenship. One tier is for those who are applying through naturalization, whereby they have to get a language test, go for a background check and spend a certain period of time in Canada within five years. The Liberals, on the other hand, for those who meet the wide criteria that they have set out, would give automatic citizenship to persons who have no meaningful connection to Canada.

These amendments would harmonize the process to end a two-tier immigration process and respect the ruling of the Ontario Superior Court judge, a ruling that the Liberal government should have appealed in the first place.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to once again be on my feet to talk about some of the government's latest legislation. As a refresher from high school civics, the bill is now at third reading. This means it has been introduced in the House, debated, sent to a committee, amended and is now being debated a final time before we vote on whether to pass it. At every stage of this process, Conservatives have stood up to make the legislation better, to fix many of the glaring flaws in the bill and to be the voices of the people who sent us here. At every stage, it has also been made stunningly clear just how much the Liberal government has broken our immigration system after only 10 years in power.

Let us look at the facts. We know that immigration levels were too high for too many years in this country. We know that senior public servants in Ottawa knew that, too. We know they told the then immigration minister, who has also been the housing minister and is now the Attorney General. We know the Liberal government continued with the unsustainable, out-of-control immigration numbers anyway. It let in over a million people in just one year.

There are many reasons the Liberals and their bureaucrats would want to continue with high levels of immigration. Maybe it is to cover up for a declining GDP per capita, for cheap temporary labour or for other reasons, but the Liberal government did not pay the price for its bad decision-making. That has been paid by people in communities such as Cambridge.

In the last few years, Cambridge has been growing so quickly that it now feels like a metropolis instead of the small town we still see ourselves as. The demand for housing increased so quickly, and the prices went up so fast, that many people cannot afford a home in the neighbourhoods where they grew up. Our schools are bursting at the seams, and good luck trying to find a family doctor or getting into the ER if needed. Crime in the community is also rising. We know repeat violent offenders are often the culprits, but multinational gangs and criminals are also to blame.

The Liberal government literally allowed somebody who appeared in an ISIS video to come to this country. The new immigration minister herself still cannot say if the current process is sufficient or describe any of the steps in the process whatsoever. Those violent terrorists are in addition to the gangsters and gunrunners who have been taking advantage of our lax laws and security for years. These are people like Arjun Sahnan, who came here at just 19 years old, committed drive-by shootings and extortion and got arrested, but he hopped on a plane and fled to India for two years until he felt brave enough to come back to Canada last month when, luckily, he was arrested.

It was so infuriating to see the Liberals propose Bill C-3 in its original form because it was simply a rehashing of the same failed Liberal policies that got us here in the first place. It would allow unlimited chain migration to Canada in amounts that the government could not even properly estimate. It would have let people in with no security screening and without having to demonstrate proper language skills. Almost no substantial connection to Canada would have been required. This is the wrong way to go about fixing our immigration system. It is like leaving the front door of our house wide open and trusting that anybody who walks in is only going to sit down in the living room to watch TV. It just does not work like that, and Canadians know better.

However, the bill in its new form could go much further, and that is thanks to the advocacy and hard work of Conservative MPs here in Ottawa. There are amendments on the table to now include residency requirements, meaning those who want to be a citizen should demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada. That is common sense. There are also amendments to include language requirements, meaning people should be able to fluently speak English or French to become a citizen here. There is also a citizenship test, because everybody who becomes a Canadian should know about our country and its history.

The amendments also include a mandated security screening, so we can make sure that everybody who gets citizenship is somebody we can trust. Finally, there are requirements mandating that the minister reports to Parliament each year about the number of people who get Canadian citizenship. These are the kinds of things that people expect from our immigration system. It should meet our needs, keep us safe and preserve the value and honour of citizenship.

That is the main point of distinction. The Liberal government, frankly, has degraded the value of Canadian citizenship. It has made it easier for people who have committed crimes to stay here in Canada instead of deporting them. It abandoned all sense of restraint or reasonable immigration level targets. It even wanted to let people take their oath of citizenship, a solemn and dignified honour, online. It literally wanted to allow people to get their citizenship with a click of a button.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, want to protect the honour in citizenship and make our system stronger. That is why we put forward these amendments. It is why we worked with advocates and stakeholders to make the bill stronger.

I am noticing a trend in this place. Last week, I got up to speak to a similar bill, Bill C-12, and on that piece of legislation too, it was Conservatives who stood up to make a bad law better. That is exactly what we have done here with Bill C-3, and it is what we are going to do day in and day out with other proposals too.

I am really proud when I can go back to Cambridge every weekend and point to accomplishments like this as proof that our Conservative team is united, strong and working hard for the people we serve. If it was not for us working with other parties and stakeholders, a bad bill would not have just been proposed; it also would have become law by now.

I call on all members of this House to support these amendments. If it is not common sense to perform security screenings, if it is not common sense to have a citizenship test and if it is not common sense to make sure the people we welcome here have a substantial connection to Canada, then I really do not know what it would be.

The Liberals have not even fixed the mess they made of the immigration system over the last 10 years, and they already want to expand it. The Liberals' own ministers have said they cannot account for all the people they have lost in Canada who should not be here. With this many people currently undocumented and lost in Canada, it puts everyone in danger, especially those vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking and exploitation.

This is a widespread modern-day slavery crisis happening right here in Canada. It is well known that just last year, the UN put out a report that referred to Canada's temporary foreign worker program as a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery”. The report came out last year and is entitled “Visit to Canada”. It is only 22 pages long, and I highly recommend that all Canadians, but especially my colleagues across the aisle, read it to properly understand the Liberals' failures, which must be addressed before opening up Canada to even more exploitation.

The cheap, inhumane labour that the Liberals refuse to address is also further pricing young Canadians out of their future here in Canada. With the dream of home ownership already taken away by the Liberal housing crisis and so many of our youth struggling to put food on the table and living paycheque to paycheque, they are now having their jobs taken away by the Liberals. With the labour market becoming oversaturated, youth unemployment reached 15% in September according to Statistics Canada.

What future is the government leaving for the next generation when they cannot find jobs, afford food or look for a place to live? If the Liberals cannot even offer a future to current Canadians, what is left to offer new Canadians? Instead of trying to address the problems the Liberal government has made, it is already moving on to find new ways to expand the problem with bills like Bill C-3.

I will close by saying this. Canada is a proud country and we are all proud to be Canadians. This place was built by people who came here from places all around the world to contribute their talents and achieve their dreams. If we did not have immigration, we would not have a country, plain and simple. It is up to us now to make sure that this system and the immigration structure work for everyone. That is what we want to do here in Ottawa, and that is what we will always keep fighting for on Parliament Hill.

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

Mr. Speaker, Don Chapman sent me an email, and he is fairly well recognized as someone who understands and has an appreciation for lost Canadians. In it, he stated that a 1997 Supreme Court decision, Benner v. Canada (Secretary of State), declared background checks for lost Canadians to be unconstitutional. A report also came out in December 2007, when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the Conservatives were in power, that reinforced this Supreme Court statement.

The Conservatives have changed their position on individuals being entitled to citizenship as a birthright. I am wondering if the member can explain why they have changed their position.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal across the way is reflecting on the Liberal soft-on-crime approach. This is consistent with the Liberals.

If the Liberal government wanted to actually clean up the mess it made of the immigration system, it would focus on legislation to do that, not force through Bill C-3, which would expand loopholes and the exploitation it could face.

The Liberals are mocking Canadians by lowering citizenship requirements to something that could be obtained at a drive-through window.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, basically, if we were to accept the Liberal and NDP amendments to the amendments proposed in committee, let us just say that someone could have lived in Canada for three years out of 65, and their children, who never lived in Canada, could automatically apply for Canadian citizenship by descent without a security check, language test or citizenship test.

Why does my colleague think the Liberals want to offer citizenship by descent unconditionally, without any checks?

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that there does not seem to be any common sense here. I am trying to understand the logic, or lack thereof.

That is a tough question to answer. I do not see any logical reason for wanting to push through a bill open to errors, failures and exploitation without addressing any of the problems the Liberals' past attempts have created.

With the Liberals' track record of immigration failures, which I highlighted in my speech, plus the different issues pointed out in all the speeches of my colleagues, I wish the Liberals would try to fix their current mess instead of trying to make it even bigger.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Cambridge for a very well-thought-out speech today.

We have seen repeatedly over the years that the Liberals have debased and destroyed the Canadian consensus on the success of immigration and its value to this country. I would like to ask my colleague to opine on whether she believes devaluing citizenship, as the Liberals are doing in Bill C-3, would help restore Canadians' faith in the government and in our immigration process.

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is definitely a huge concern.

First of all, citizenship and the Canadian identity are the heart and soul of what makes this country so good. I am very honoured to be a proud Canadian citizen. It is a privilege that every family must earn, whether through their ancestors building this country, fighting to defend it or just following the rules and requirements set out for new Canadians to share in this honour. Citizenship should not become as easy to get as a late-night impulse purchase on Amazon.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, your office just grouped all the NDP and Liberal amendments into one vote. In other words, a single vote in the House will decide whether all the work that was done on this bill in committee will be wiped out.

How much respect does the government have for the work of this committee?

[Connie Cody, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there does not seem to be any respect at all. As I said, there are a lot of inconsistencies in this bill. If the Liberal government wanted to actually clean up the mess it made with the immigration system, it would focus on legislation to do that.

This is an overreaching bill that is open to so much exploitation, and the government has failed to address what is happening in our immigration system due to all the Liberal failures.