Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure, as always, to speak on behalf of the residents of my amazing constituency of Davenport on the third reading of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act.
Before I go further, I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I will spend the next nine minutes or so reminding members about why it is important for us to be passing Bill C-3, which, again, is in third reading. Soon we will be having a vote on it. This will be a nice refresher, because sometimes we go through a lot of things in this House and we can forget about the importance of the bill and why we are moving forward on it.
I am grateful there is broad, cross-party support for the key part of Bill C-3, which is fixing the status for the remaining lost Canadians. The bill would remedy the status of people who, were it not for the first-generation limit imposed in 2009, would have been Canadian citizens by descent from birth. This is largely a cohort of children 16 and under, and also includes the descendants of previously remedied lost Canadians. It would also address a small historical cohort who lost citizenship under outdated provisions of the 1977 Citizenship Act. Only 35 to 40 people came forward annually at first, and numbers have declined in recent years.
I have the privilege of being able to chair the committee, and I want to thank the committee members and witnesses for the collegial work that brought us to this point of consensus. During the committee study, members proposed and adopted several amendments to Bill C-3. The government carefully reviewed each one and appreciates the intent behind them. However, after our review, we remain confident that the original design of Bill C-3 achieves fairness and transparency in the citizenship system and upholds the value of Canadian citizenship.
The framework set out in this bill for citizenship by descent is straightforward. Once enacted, a Canadian parent born abroad may pass on their citizenship to a child also born or adopted abroad only if that parent has at least 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada before the child's birth or adoption. Each generation after the first one must demonstrate their connection to Canada. If a parent does not, citizenship by descent stops with them.
Let me be clear on what this bill is not. It is not about creating a new way to immigrate to Canada nor about passing on Canadian citizenship in perpetuity while living abroad. It is about allowing the children of Canadians who have a strong connection to our country to access citizenship by descent regardless of where they happen to be born or adopted. It is about protecting the value of Canadian citizenship by requiring these parents to show they have spent meaningful time in Canada, before starting a family, reaffirming their connection to our great country.
The question, then, is how best to measure that connection. For people who move to Canada and seek to become part of its story, we already have a clear way to assess whether they have a substantial connection to this country. Under the Citizenship Act, permanent residents must accumulate at least 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada within a five-year period before they are eligible to apply for naturalization. However, citizenship by descent, which is what this bill is about, is different. It is not about granting citizenship to someone seeking to join Canada but about confirming citizenship at birth based on a parent's connection to Canada prior to their child's birth or adoption. For that reason, the test for connection must be applied differently.
Bill C-3 is built on a cumulative model. For Canadian parents born outside of Canada, this model counts every day they have spent here before starting a family regardless of when those days occurred. This approach recognizes the many ways Canadians maintain deep ties to their country, even when work, study or family responsibilities take them abroad.
Consider a Canadian child born overseas whose family relocates every two years for work. That child could live nearly a decade in Canada before age 18 without ever spending three consecutive years here within a five-year period. When that child grows up, they may start a family abroad or choose to adopt internationally. Under a fixed three-years-in-five time frame, their genuine life experience in Canada may not qualify their child to access citizenship.
However, the cumulative model allows Canadians whose lives span borders to demonstrate their connection to Canada from birth right up until they start a family, rather than expecting them to compress their presence into a narrow window. The 1,095-day cumulative requirement is therefore the fairest and most practical way to uphold the value of Canadian citizenship. Importing the naturalization requirements into citizenship by descent would conflate two distinct policy purposes and risk excluding the children of Canadians whose ties to Canada were built over time.
The integrity of Canadian citizenship depends on applying the right standards in the right context. For people who move to Canada, the naturalization process assesses their readiness to join the Canadian family. It requires—