Andrew Telegdi

[Citizenship and Immigration, October 5th, 2006]

Rubbish, Mr. Speaker.

On September 1, Federal Court Justice Martineau ruled sections of the Citizenship Act unconstitutional and ordered the minister to restore Mr. Taylor's citizenship. The minister is appealing the decision.

Defending one's charter rights is an expensive process. Mr. Taylor does not have the financial resources to fight the government. Has the government eliminated the court challenges program to deny people like Mr. Taylor their charter rights?

We, as Liberals, had a court challenges program.

[Citizenship and Immigration, October 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Joe Taylor, the son of a second world war Canadian soldier, was born in England in 1945. He and his mother became Canadian citizens when they landed in Halifax in 1946. When the marriage failed, he and his mother returned to England.

When Mr. Taylor moved back to Canada several years ago, he was denied citizenship rights because he was born out of wedlock.

Does the minister really believe it is justifiable in this day and age to discriminate against children born out of wedlock?

[Research and Development, October 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, on September 21 at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was named the global personality of the year for 2006 by the prestigious London based Foreign Direct Investment business magazine. This was the first time this award ceremony was held in the Americas and it was held in Waterloo.

The magazine chose Premier McGuinty, who is also the minister of research and innovation, because of Ontario's string of successes in attracting foreign investment in recent years and his initiatives for boosting research and innovation.

Liberals understand that R and D and innovation are crucial for Canada's economic future. Liberals believe in investing in our students. In contrast, the Conservatives and the Prime Minister have slashed funding for R and D and innovation, and student assistance.

When are the Conservatives going to get their heads out of the oil barrel and invest in Canada's most important natural resource, our young people and the brainpower of all Canadians?

[Freedom's Fury, September 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, tonight at the National Gallery of Canada is the Canadian premiere of Freedom's Fury, a historical documentary in tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution. It is the work of the brother and sister writing and directing team of Colin Keith Gray and Megan Raney Aarons.

In late November 1956, the water polo teams from Hungary and the Soviet Union met in an Olympic semi-final match. Just weeks before, the Hungarian people had engaged in the first popular revolution ever staged against Soviet power. The match, called “the bloodiest game in Olympic history”, signalled the end of Hungary's brush with freedom.

“It was far more than just a sporting event”, Ervin Zador of the 1956 Hungarian Olympic Team notes. “It was a battle for the spirit, for our freedom, for democracy. We won at the Olympics, we lost in the streets”.

Congratulations to Colin and Megan for a film well done.

[Petitions, June 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition on the issue of child care.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to work together to provide the provinces and territories with annual funds of at least $1.2 billion a year to build a high quality, accessible, affordable, and community based child care system. This petition is from my region, the Regional Municipality of Waterloo. Most of the petitioners are from the riding of Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Committees of the House, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, titled “Striking a Blow for Democracy: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution”.

As a refugee from that era, when I read the November 26, 1956 issue of Hansard it really brought back memories of the country I left.

The response of Canada was incredibly exemplary. On a per capita basis, Canada took in the highest proportion of the 200,000 Hungarian refugees who fled after the revolution. Canada took in 37,000 people.

Beyond this, the treatment of the Hungarian refugees also signalled that paradigm shift in the policy of the government in dealing with refugees. We saw examples of that in the African, eastern European, Indochina refugee movements. Clearly, we very much are at the forefront in dealing with refugees.

The minister of immigration of the day, Jack Pickersgill, is held with great love by all Hungarians for the efforts he put forth in securing their passage here.

Beyond the revolution itself, it really started to represent the first crack in the iron curtain, seeing the freedoms in the revolutions in eastern Europe, and the coming down of the Berlin wall. It is something that really strikes at the very basic desires of all people, that is, democracy and freedom.

This will be a year of commemoration and celebration and of giving thanks to Canada by Hungarians and their children for the hospitality Canadians have shown us.

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions with all parties and I think if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for concurrence in the report.

Therefore, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration be concurred in.

[Citizenship Act, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his input and for his personal experience on this bill. One issue is indirectly related to adoptions. I want to bring it to the attention of the House and maybe get the member's input.

A number of years back, I believe, CBC did a special on a young girl who was adopted from Romania. I believe she was about eight years old. She had parents in Romania, but she was in an orphanage because her mother could not take care of her. This young girl was adopted. Her father was a physician. As soon as she was adopted, she lost her Romanian citizenship because of the legislation that existed in Romania. Within a couple of years, her adoptive parents sent her back to Romania and adopted someone else.

The reason I raise this is once the young girl went back to Romania, because she was no longer a Romanian citizen, she could not go to school. She came from a bad situation, but by coming to Canada, supposedly for a better life, she ended up a lot worse. I believe a lawsuit is going on about this.

I raise this not in the context of this legislation. This legislation has a chance of improving the process, but it raises the question of giving this individual citizenship. Once this young girl was sent back to Romania, she was stateless. She had landed status in Canada, but once she left here, she lost that status and she had not status in Romania.

We probably should look at some kind of legislation separate from this one. In this case, if we had the legislation before us, she would have been a Canadian citizen. She had landed status, but when she left, she was neither a Canadian citizen nor a Romanian citizen. Therefore, this would have addressed the important issue about being stateless.

At some point in time I hope we can perhaps deal with legislation that will address the morality of the issue where this young girl was very much victimized. Has the hon. member heard about that case or if he is familiar with it?

[Citizenship Act, June 13th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his endorsement of this piece of legislation. The proposal for this piece of legislation has been around for a long time. In 1998 we had Bill C-63, which dealt with the Citizenship Act and which also contained this recommendation. In 2000 we had Bill C-16, which also had this recommendation. That bill passed in the House of Commons, but was not dealt with by the Senate prior to the election, so the bill died. In the subsequent Parliament, Bill C-18 dealt with this legislation.

In the last Parliament, we again dealt with a recommendation on this very issue before the committee on citizenship and immigration. Recommendation 5 of the October 2005 report essentially underlined the need to have children who are adopted abroad obtain citizenship. Of course we know that in the last Parliament we had Bill C-76, itself introduced to do exactly the same thing as the bill before us today.

I will just make the point that this bill has been kicking around for a long time and that a number of attempts were made to get it through the House. I am very pleased to see that it will finally be going through.

[Trade, June 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the government is fast tracking a Canada-Korea free trade agreement that it wants signed and in place this year. It is absolutely essential that this agreement contain terms and conditions that protect Canadian industry and Canadian jobs.

We have a huge trade imbalance with Korea, especially in manufactured goods, and particularly in the auto sector, where the ratio of imports to exports is 150 to 1 in its favour. Eliminating tariffs will not give us greater access to Korean markets that are protected by relationships among their government and the manufacturers and banks. It will in fact increase this imbalance and mean the loss of more Canadian jobs.

Our auto industry is facing difficult challenges related to the Canadian dollar and the financial crisis of North American automakers. We have lost 20,000 assembly and parts jobs in the sector since 1998.

We should only proceed with this bill if it includes absolute assurances of equality in both the value and the nature of goods exchanged between Canada and Korea.

[Privilege, May 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege relates to the question and answer period on May 18 where I posed a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration about immigration targets.

The minister stated in the House that the Liberals missed their targets in each of the past 10 years. I asserted that the previous Liberal government in the past six years not only met the targets each year, but exceeded the targets four times.

The information I used is information that is tabled in this chamber each year. The information is on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website. No doubt, because the minister is brand new in his portfolio and has not read his briefing notes yet, he has inadvertently misled the House.

We should either get the correct facts from the minister, or at the very least, change the government website. When a minister gives us an answer in the House that is totally contrary to the facts, then I submit that my privileges as a member have been breached.

Mr. Speaker, should you find that I have a prime facia question of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.