Andrew Telegdi

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I very much wish the amendments would have been part of the main motion.

First, it is really important what language we use when we deal with citizenship and immigration. It is okay to refer to the landing fee as a bad public policy, but we should never call it a head tax because that ends up diminishing the suffering resulting from a very racist piece of legislation. I am sure my colleague would agree that the landing fee is not racist, but it might be a policy with which he disagrees.

The member mentioned the new Citizenship Act, and I know his thoughts on the issue; it is wrong for politicians to take away citizenship without right to appeal and outside of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. My thought is that it is just as wrong to wholesale give people citizenship by a stamp of the minister. What is the criteria for making that decision?

We will be going through a process where tens of thousands of people, who should be Canadian citizens but because of sexist and anti-charter policies, have lost their citizenship. When we return those citizenships, it should be done by legislation, so it does not depend on the goodwill of a minister, but by law, a law on which we have all agreed.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to mention to my colleague that if the Prime Minister wants to stand up and make the suggestion that we override the jurisdictions of the charter in Alberta and other places, I would applaud that. I hope the suggestion is made to the Prime Minister in that regard.

I have a question for my colleague, and I think it is an important consideration because she has seen a number of ministers come and go. In the case of the Liberals, it was one every two years. In the case of the Conservatives, it is one every six months. That is the average we have and that is the problem we have.

One of the problems we have in the department is that we need to split the citizenship and immigration parts because they are totally different. Citizenship has the mandate for all Canadians and naturalized Canadians should never be looked upon as graduate immigrants. Immigration has a totally different set of challenges.

We need to somehow depoliticize the Department of Citizenship and Immigration as much as possible. The challenges are there for all parties, all Canadians and certainly all governments when they get into office. One of the ways we could do that is to have longer term membership on the committee and appoint ministers who understand the portfolio.

In the case of the last Parliament, we had a critic over there who had been a critic for about four years. She had two cross-Canada tours and was by far the most knowledgeable person on the Conservative side to deal with the file. We also had the member--

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

I will tell you later.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with an issue that should be non-partisan because it affects all people in our country and the country as a whole.

My greatest disappoint with the Conservative government was the ministers and the members it put on the committee. Citizenship and immigration is a very complex issue and will always be a challenge for any government. The Conservative government put the former minister in the position and he had absolutely no experience in the portfolio. He stayed there for less than a year. The government then switched him and put in a minister who again did not have any experience in the portfolio. We also ended up with a parliamentary secretary who had no experience in the portfolio.

The Department of Citizenship and Immigration is in great need of an overhaul. This can only happen with political direction from the top.

I chaired the committee in the last Parliament. We had experienced members from the government side who could have offered that leadership. I dare say members of the committee tended to work in a non-partisan manner within the committee itself.

Could the member tell me why the government did not appoint the most knowledgeable individual, the member for Calgary—Nose Hill, who actually knows the portfolio? She was the critic of the portfolio for about four years and—

[Canadian Citizenship Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Citizenship Act and the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Today's special celebration of Canadian citizenship at the Supreme Court of Canada would have been greatly enhanced had the Conservative government kept is word and enacted a new Citizenship Act that was compliant with the charter.

The 1947 and 1977 Citizenship Acts contain many discriminatory sections that are in contravention of the charter. These outdated sections discriminate against religious marriages, deny many people born out of wedlock their citizenship rights, treat wives and children as chattels and deny the birthrights of children born to Canadian soldiers who fought for our freedoms in the second world war.

Had the previous Liberal government not been defeated, Canada would have a new Citizenship Act that embodied, in word and spirit, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I call upon the Conservative government to keep its promise and table a new Citizenship Act that ends discriminatory practices and to use as its guide the unanimous 12th report of the citizenship and immigration committee from the last Parliament entitled, “Updating Canada's Citizenship Laws: It's Time”.

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty obvious from the commentary coming from the Conservatives that their way of fighting terrorism is the George Bush way of fighting terrorism, where they go into Iraq, terrorize the people, create terrorists where none exist. That is an action they have supported and it is a neo-conservative position. They like to call themselves new Conservatives, the new government. They are neo-conservatives. I am not surprised that we differ on the question.

The fact of the matter is we have laws in Canada. It is very simple. The police have reasons for their suspicion. They have evidence to base it on. They go to court and they make their case. At the same time, those people who are accused have the right to defend themselves. Otherwise all we would need is for somebody to make an accusation. In the paranoia of the post 9/11 world, that is what we have. We are operating on suspicion and paranoia. We are driving wedges between sections of the Canadian community.

I have always said that yes, we fight terror, but one has to prove one's case. One cannot act on mere suspicion. That is not upheld in the court of law that we have, a court of law which took centuries to evolve. I believe everybody has a right to his or her day in court, even though the Conservatives do not, because they just say, “Hey, you are a terrorist”. It does not work that way.

There were societies, the Soviet Union with its gulags, and the Nazis with their concentration camps, who believed in that.

We learned from that and we learned from our own history of what we have done. We have learned from our own history some very painful lessons. That is why we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so that our basic human rights are protected. None of that protection is being afforded to these people.

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, what is so imperative is that these people are detainees and are under a terrible and horrible burden. They are here in custody forever unless they want to go back to Syria, in the case of one of the detainees, or Egypt. We know what would happen to them.

As for members on the Conservative side of the House who stand up and say that these people have a choice, that they can just leave, how many people would walk into a situation of torture? How many people would walk into a situation where they can be killed? That is the option that is left to them.

Unlike prisoners and convicts, who have a set release date, these folks are being held indefinitely. The obligation is on us, since we are violating their fundamental rights under the charter, to ensure that their stay is as reasonable and as humane as possible. To deny them things like an ombudsperson, which convicted offenders have, does not make any sense. It makes sense only if we believe that if we make it miserable enough for them, then they will go back to Syria, and perhaps be killed, and then the embarrassment would be over for Canada because we would have eliminated a very real problem that now exists in the Kingston holding cells.

The request for an ombudsperson is incredibly reasonable. Clifford Olson has an ombudsperson. He was convicted through due process with his charter rights intact. Yet these people are being held without that benefit. It does not make any sense.

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Scarborough—Agincourt.

I want to commend both the critic for the Bloc and the critic for the NDP for their very steadfast support in this case of these three men, but also for their position of being defenders of human rights, civil liberties and standing up for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There is no question that members in the Conservative Party have to understand that these folks, these detainees, these prisoners, are being held on mere suspicion. The decision to hold them was signed off on by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the Minister of Public Safety, neither of whom have the judicial competence to do so.

There is no question in my mind that the government and the officials holding these people are now at the point where they are embarrassed, because what they would like is to see these detainees leave the country and disappear. Is that really fundamentally good for the security of our country?

We should think about it for a minute. Let us suppose that we had Osama bin Laden in detention. Would it make Canada safer if we released him and sent him back to the caves in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever? Of course not, because Mr. Osama bin Laden could come back here quickly. I dare say that with Mr. Osama bin Laden the government would not be using a security certificate. We use a security certificate only when we are dealing with a matter of suspicion.

All of us in this House know that we just finished apologizing for the Chinese head tax. We have apologized to the Japanese for unlawful internment. We have done the same for the Ukrainian community, and there are many communities to come. It is because of the history that we have as a nation and the draconian laws that we had as a nation that I think we collectively came together as a nation on April 17, 1982, when we established the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I am going to talk about security certificates and the charter because I think this is so fundamental to this question. As for saying that a judge has decided, at the citizenship and immigration committee we heard evidence that the security certificate process the way it is set up is not workable.

We heard that from Justice Roger Salhany, who wrote the book on evidence. He explained to the committee the nature of the legal system we have. For any judge in Canada to make a determination, he has to hear both sides of the story. He has to hear from the lawyer for the defence. He has to hear from the prosecutor. From that, he will make a judgment.

The way one of these security certificates works is that a person is charged and it is applied against him. No case is proven, but suspicions are told to a judge in the presence of the prosecutor and the investigative officers. There is no defence attorney present. The constitutionality of the security certificate as it stands right now is before the Supreme Court. I dare say, and I believe, that the Supreme Court is going to amend our security certificate process.

When the security certificate process was first established, it was established for people with no status in Canada. In 2002, the security certificate process was extended to people who had status in Canada, who were immigrants but not yet citizens.

I know that the world got shook up by 9/11. I know that members of the House were shook up by 9/11. A terrible tragedy happened. The Anti-terrorism Act was passed, in which we had some very draconian measures. One such measure was investigative hearings, where one was compelled to testify against oneself. Preventative detention was also included in the act. However, we were smart enough, I must say, to put a sunset clause in the act. That sunsetted clause is going to expire. With the exception of the Conservatives, I believe the House is going to vote against it keeping it, because the act itself is very much against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As for the very thought, back in 2004, that security certificates were going to be extended to citizens as well, I say that to Canadians because if they want to say they are Canadians and this does not apply to them, they should just remember that this did not apply to immigrants to this country, who had no status, this applied only to visitors and others, so this could very well apply to everybody.

Constitutionally, what is a security certificate? That question is before the Supreme Court right now. A security certificate is the ability of the government to ignore the legality section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section applies to all Canadian citizens right now, but it does not apply to those people under security certificates.

What are some of the legal rights that today's detainees are denied?

Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. Everyone has the right, on arrest or detention, to be informed properly of the reasons for the arrest. Everyone has the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay. Everyone has the right to have the validity of their detention determined by way of habeas corpus. As well, everyone has the right to be informed without unreasonable delay of the offence. Everyone has the right to be tried within a reasonable time. Everyone has the right “to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing”.

These are just some of the legal rights that we as Canadian citizens enjoy but these detainees are denied.

What is the request before this House? It is not to overturn the Anti-terrorism Act, which we will. I am very pleased to say that it was my most solemn moment in this House when I stood up and voted against that legislation because I believed it so violated the fundamental principles of our justice system. It so violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that I could not support it. I did the same when security certificates were placed in the immigration act.

I do see a sunset coming to that act. I see the House coming to its senses and, as I mentioned, with the exception of the Conservative Party, we will be eliminating the sunset clause. I am looking forward to eliminating the process of security certificates altogether.

There is also a fundamental importance underlying this. In Canada, if we are going to fight terrorism, if we are going to fight for a secure country, then we can never repeat the mistakes of the past, mistakes such as saying to Japanese Canadians that we can treat them differently because they are Japanese Canadians, or saying to the Chinese that we can treat them differently because they are Chinese, or saying to Ukrainians that we can imprison them because they are different.

That is what fundamental human rights are about. We can never set up a situation where it is them and us, because our common security as Canadians is determined by the fact that we are an inclusive nation. We encourage every segment of our community and we expect every segment of our community, instead of feeling isolated, to have a stake in the peace and security of this country. That is what inclusiveness is all about and that is how we fight terror. That is how we fight to make sure that we have a democratic country where everybody is included.

[Committees of the House, February 13th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing basically with two issues. The first issue is the legitimacy of the security certificates. The other issue is the need for us to have reasonable policies on detention.

It is important to note that security certificates apply to people who are legally in Canada. The government has said that these people who have no right to be here, but security certificates apply to people who have every right to be here. This has to be kept in mind.

It would have been fortunate to have the full committee present yesterday, but all opposition members of the committee were there. What I and committee members cannot fathom or understand is how the parliamentary secretary can say that those convicted are there for a definite time and that some people are there forever. We can name those we do not want to see get out, and they will never get out.

The fact is these people have not been charged with any crime. They have been denied their basic human rights under the legal section of the charter. If the parliamentary secretary does not know that, then he should resign from his position. He should not be representing that position in his portfolio, if he does not know the basics of sections 7 to 14, the legal section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While the government can make the case that these circumstances are extraordinary and that it will forgo these rights, we have to be very conscious of the fact that they do not have any of the legal rights that Canadians and everybody else have under the charter.

How can the parliamentary secretary deny that there be a third party investigation on complaints from the inmates? It is such a simple request. How can he justify that?

[February 1st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of hypocrisy, when I was faced with an act that did not conform to the charter, I resigned as parliamentary secretary because I believed the Citizenship Act should conform to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. My friend over there who is now a parliamentary secretary perhaps could learn a lesson from that.

We are going to be holding hearings on this issue. I want the country to know. They will take place on Monday, February 12, Monday, February 19, and Monday, February 26, from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock. They are going to be televised. I encourage people to be engaged with this.

The hypocrisy of the government's position happened just yesterday when it told Mr. Joe Taylor that it will go all the way to the Supreme Court to deny him his citizenship. This man is the son of a Canadian veteran who fought for democracy and freedom. The government eliminated the court challenges program and is trying to bankrupt Mr. Taylor before he can get his citizenship.