Andrew Telegdi

[Committees of the House, June 7th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on citizenship issues entitled “Citizenship Revocation: A Question of Due Process and Respecting Charter Rights”.

The current Citizenship Act was enacted in 1977, prior to the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that came into force April 17, 1982.

The major reasons that previous attempts to enact a new Citizenship Act in the 36th and 37th Parliaments failed was the lack of agreement on the proposed changes to citizenship revocation. It is for this reason that the committee has dedicated a report that deals exclusively with this contentious issue.

Under the current Citizenship Act, citizenship can be revoked when a person obtains citizenship or permanent residence by false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances.

Following a review in the federal court, where a judge must simply agree that it is more likely than not that the person improperly obtained citizenship, the federal cabinet becomes responsible for making the revocation order.

Currently, an appeal is not even allowed with respect to a federal court judge's decision that on a mere balance of probabilities an individual fraudulently obtained citizenship.

The committee is recommending some fairly radical changes to the existing revocation process. The committee has recommended a fully judicial process and a higher standard of proof. We determined that the potential loss of citizenship is of such fundamental significance to the person concerned that fraud should be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court.

Committee members from all four parties agreed that the current revocation process is unacceptable and we must move to a system that requires the government to respect due process and the legal sections 7 to 14 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We have recommended that there be a full appeal process and that the legal protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply; the same rights a person fighting a shoplifting charge would enjoy.

These recommendations regarding changes to the current Citizenship Act are consistent with the government's commitment in the Speech from the Throne of October 2004, “to defend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to be a steadfast advocate of inclusion”.

The previous minister said that she would table new citizenship legislation in February 2005. That obviously did not happen and we are calling on the government to live up to its previous commitments, including those outlined in the throne speech, and table a new citizenship bill that properly reflects the value Canadians place on the their citizenship.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the way to fix regularization is to also fix the point system, so that the people the economy needs can come here legally. I think that is very important. We have too many professionals, too many degrees, but not enough people with trades. In many areas we are dying for trades.

The minister did not answer my question regarding visas and I would like to have an answer to that question. If we have people who are going to come here, live here and become Canadians, they have a right to have their relatives come and visit them.

Let me say to the minister that we will be looking forward to him coming to committee with his able deputy minister. We will be looking for answers on how to improve the visa situation.

The other issue that the minister did not touch on is the whole issue with citizenship which is really my passion. I am sick and tired of being a second class Canadian and essentially under the Citizenship Act that is exactly what we are. If we were not born in Canada, when it comes to revocation, we should forget the charter because it does not apply right now. I want to see that bill come before the committee. The committee made it its number one priority. We were promised that by the government when it said it was going to modernize the Citizenship Act. We were promised by the previous minister back in February. We are now in May and we need that bill.

I and the committee look forward to working with the minister because we have a good system, but I think we can make it better. Everything is not perfect in the system, but we can improve it and we can do a better job.

[Supply, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, even though this is a nice and comfortable informal atmosphere, I prefer sitting back at my desk.

The minister has done some good things since he came into office, certainly with parents, grandparents and out of status spouses. However, I am not going to paint a totally rosy picture. We have many good policies in this government. Interest rates for housing are at a 50-year low for mortgages. Yes, I acknowledge that. However, immigration is the lifeblood of the country. It has been in the past and it will be in the future.

The previous minister from York West said that we had some problems. It is incumbent upon us to recognize those problems. If we do not recognize those problems, we will be unable to solve them. I welcome Madam Charette, a relatively new deputy minister who is with us today. I look forward to working with her and I think the Committee on Citizenship and Immigration looks forward to working with her.

However, one of the problems I want to point to initially is this. We have, and we do not know how many, hundreds of thousands of people in the underground economy. Why are these people unable to find their way through the system to get in here?

Let me give an example. A couple of weeks ago I was back in my riding and I talked to a very unhappy constituent. He was an engineer from Pakistan. He came here about two years ago. He left a good job in Pakistan. He had a nice house. He had a nice job. He had a chauffeur. Life was good. However, he thought he could do better in Canada. He is here in Canada. He cannot find a job as an engineer because he has trouble with accreditation.

Quite frankly, we have a lot of engineers in Canada. We have to be very upfront when we attract people here because the point system we have set in place is way too high to allow people in the trades, to allow people who find a way into the underground economy. That has to be revisited. We have to look at whether there is a match between the needs and the people who are coming here. We do nobody any favours getting professionals from other countries if they cannot work here. Unless there is a demand for those kinds of positions, we are always going to have that problem. We must give much greater points to jobs that are needed. That is one.

In the sixties I worked in the construction industry in Toronto. The minister would know about that because there were a lot of ethnic people working in the construction industry in Toronto, Italians, Portuguese, name it. None of them could qualify to come into the country today. I dare say 90% of the immigrants who have come to the country would never qualify under the present point system.

The other problem we have is the whole issue of visas. We have people who come to Canada. Six million Canadians were not born in here. That is a pretty big number. Guess what? These people have brothers, sisters, parents, other relatives and even friends who might want to come and visit. In 1997-98, 70,000 people were turned down. In 2003-04, 150,000-plus people were turned down on visas.

How is this in my constituency office? About a year ago, I had a young couple who came from India. They were in their early thirties. They had two children. The wife found out she had inoperable brain cancer. She had a very short time to live. All this information was provided to the immigration officials. All she wanted was for her mother and her sister to come over. These people did not have an extended family here, but this was a reasonable request. She was a Canadian, she was dying, surely to God she could get her mother and sister over. They did not come. She died about 28 days after we sent the letter.

Just last week, the mother of three brothers, who are from Pakistan, died here. They have an older brother in Pakistan. They wanted him to come here for the funeral. It would have been nice to have him come to Canada. He did not come.

These are the things we are talking about when say people are being turned down for visas. When people are in Canada surely to God it does not mean they are exiled from their family. Surely they can come and visit them in their home. Something has to be done.

I have another issue which you, Mr. Chair, are aware of as is the minister. It has to do with the whole issue of citizenship.

Back in 2000, when I was parliamentary secretary to the minister of immigration, I discovered that my citizenship, because of the section on revocation of citizenship, first, made me a second class Canadian. Second, if anybody comes after my citizenship, it is more of a political decision than a judicial one. It is a decision that is open to lobbying of politicians and ministers by different ethnic groups. We have all received letters in that regard.

What did I want to do? I said the Citizenship Act preceded the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 and the act of 1977. I said that the legal section of the charter should be applied. Coming from a communist dictatorship, I know the importance of a judicial system versus a political one. I said in the House that if somebody was ever going to revoke my citizenship, I wanted it done by due process of law, by the courts, according to standards in the Criminal Code. I would not want it done by a political decision that is open to lobbying by different groups. This is incredibly important.

Members on the citizenship committee were promised by the previous minister that a citizenship act would be tabled with us early in February. We still do not have the bill. We spent the month of April going across the country, and we still do not have the promised bill.

What are we going to do to improve dealing with visa refusals? What are we going to do to make our system less political? What are we going to do to regulate the people who are now working in the underground economy, which is very important because they have families and children and they are helping our economy? What are we going to do about getting a citizenship act before committee?

I look forward to the minister's response.

[Committees of the House, May 12th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has made many inputs in front of the citizenship and immigration committee. He has made a contribution to our work and we all appreciate it.

Our committee is very non-partisan. We leave our partisanship at the door when we go into committee. It does cause me a bit of pain to see what is happening today. We are ready to table yet another report, but we cannot conclude that report because committees do not have quorum. Unfortunately, the two parties opposite are not coming forward. It is really sad because we have had hundreds of people come to us from across the country to give input.

The whole issue on citizenship revocation is an historic wrong that has never been corrected. The Citizenship Act precedes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It goes back to 1977. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms came in on April 17, 1982. Unfortunately, the act does not have the benefit of that act.

On segregation and integration, I think we all strive to ensure that we maintain distinct identities of a multicultural nation. We also are very inclusive. The whole struggle is really about that.

[Committees of the House, May 12th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, citizenship is really a vital part of who we are, our identity as a person. When people go abroad and somebody asks them where they come from, they say that they are from Canada, that they are Canadian. This is a visceral kind of reaction. To be a citizen of Canada means that we have come from all corners of the world and that together we have built one of the most prosperous nations in the world. We also have built one of the most inclusive nations in the world. That is what Canada means to me and that is what Canada means to most Canadians.

[Committees of the House, May 12th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented to the House on Thursday, November 30, 2004, be concurred in.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Laval—Les Îles.

On November 30 we tabled this document from the citizenship and immigration committee. Let me say that the issues we at the committee tried to address are issues that have been longstanding concerns in front of this House.

One of the main issues that I was certainly very much interested in was the whole issue of revocation of citizenship for those who were not born in Canada. Under our current Citizenship Act, revocation of citizenship for naturalized Canadians does not conform to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I was delighted to see in the throne speech what the government laid out in saying that we are going to modernize our Citizenship Act. I was also glad to see that in the throne speech the government laid out that one of the founding principles by which it would govern was based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The issue we are talking about on revocation of citizenship pertains to all those Canadians who were not born in Canada. We are talking about nearly 6 million Canadians. We have close to 50 members of this House who were not born in Canada. This would apply directly to them.

We have been trying to deal with a new Citizenship Act since 1996. The first Citizenship Act that was considered in debate was Bill C-63, which was followed by Bill C-16, at which point in time I was parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship and immigration. As parliamentary secretary to the minister of citizenship and immigration, I could not at that time support the contents of Bill C-16 as it pertained to the revocation of citizenship.

I could not support Bill C-16 because I believe that something as important as citizenship, which strikes at the very identity of the 6 million Canadians who were born elsewhere, is of great importance and should be covered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

At this time, I am sad to say, citizenship is not covered by the charter. Therefore, I had looked forward to sitting on the citizenship committee, whereby we could correct a longstanding injustice.

Madam Speaker, I may say that this situation applies to you as well, not having been born in Canada, and many other members of this House.

My battle has been to make sure that for something as valuable as citizenship rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies and applies also if the government wants to challenge the legitimacy of any naturalized Canadian's citizenship.

It is not often that a parliamentary secretary opposes a government initiative or, as a matter of fact, votes against the government's legislation and resigns over it, but that was one of those occasions, so when I returned in the last Parliament I decided to sit on the citizenship and immigration committee to address this issue in particular.

I am very pleased that the committee, acting in a very non-partisan fashion and with the good of Canadians in mind, went through the Citizenship Act and made a number of recommendations in our report. We recommended that the government table a new Citizenship Act.

First, those recommendations included one that there must be equal treatment of Canadian born and naturalized citizens. We cannot change the fact that some of us were born in Canada and some of us were born elsewhere, but we are all citizens. What we have in common besides our love for this country is the fact that our rights, and a right as important as citizenship, should be protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The committee made that recommendation in the report and it is worth emphasizing again: there must be equal treatment of Canadian born and naturalized citizens.

Second, referring to Bill C-18, there should be no probationary citizenship status.

Third, the legislation should enhance English and French as the official languages of Canada.

Fourth, for those who qualify, citizenship should be seen as right rather than a privilege. I think that is a very important concept, because there were those who said that citizenship is a privilege that can be revoked at a whim of the government. That is wrong. The committee unanimously agreed that it is wrong. I regret that some of the former ministers of citizenship did not see that point.

The next point was that no one should be denied or deprived of Canadian citizenship if doing so would render them stateless. This is important because we are signatories to international conventions in which we fight against statelessness. For us to be signatories to those conventions and then turn around and do this is wrong.

Another main point is that all determinations under the act should be made by an independent decision maker in a judicial process free from political interference. This point strikes at the very heart of our judicial system. It means that no politician, even a prime minister, should be able to deprive individuals of their liberties. That can only be done by the due process of law under the legal section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Another issue we talked about was that while we get rights with citizenship, we also have responsibilities. That is an important concept. We often talk about rights but we do not talk about responsibilities, those responsibilities including people partaking in the democratic process and in the life of their community.

One of the very interesting things about this report is that we toured across Canada. During most of April, the citizenship and immigration committee went from coast to coast. We visited every provincial capital. We also visited Vancouver and Montreal, and for the very first time in its history, we visited the Waterloo region. The outpouring of support for the principles enunciated in this report was overwhelming.

This is a very important document that strikes at the very heart of what it means to be Canadian. I hope we can get legislation to incorporate both this report as well as all presentations to be heard from coast to coast.

[Petitions, May 4th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present on marriage. The petitioners call upon Parliament to maintain the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.

[War Brides, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, between 1942 and 1948, 49,000 war brides and their over 21,000 children were brought to Canada in an immigrant wave paid for and sponsored by the Canadian government. By Privy Council Order in Council 7318, September 24, 1944, these war brides and their children were given Canadian citizenship upon landing in Canada.

It has slowly come to light that all across Canada war brides and the children they brought with them on the war bride ships are being told that they are not Canadian citizens when they apply for passports. Consequently, they have had to apply for their citizenship. Some have been refused or have given up due to the red tape associated with the search for supporting documents of their arrival in Canada.

As a symbolic gesture to recognize the sacrifices made by our brave soldiers, I believe that awarding citizenship on VE Day to the war brides and their children would--

[Committees of the House, March 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on the remaining 2,000 stateless Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines; the eighth report on the motion regarding temporary resident permits issued by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from January 1, 2003 to the present; and the ninth report on a motion regarding the process for determining immigration targets at overseas missions of visas at each immigration post.

[Parliament of Canada Act, March 23rd, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I wish to be recorded as being against the motion.