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.