Andrew Telegdi

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I already dealt with the parliamentary secretary from the official opposition.

I agree totally with the critic for the Bloc, who has done wonderful work in the committee and she is one who fights for human rights and the rights of women to be free from exploitation. What we have to understand is when we are dealing with the whole problem of trafficking, we are committed to working with the international community. The bill does nothing to address that.

I think we will greatly benefit from the paper from the Canadian Council for Refugees on its proposal as to how we might do that. In that sense I hope something will come out of this legislation, which I expect will go to committee.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I wish the parliamentary secretary had heard my whole speech where I essentially said that the problem has largely been solved. It has been quite properly ridiculed in the media for the political nature of what it is trying to do.

As I mentioned, in 2005 the number of strippers coming into Canada was down to 10. It therefore is certainly not the raging problem that the member wants to talk about. If he is looking for a Conservative connection, let me refer him to his previous government, the Conservatives under Barbara McDougall. The problem was much greater but the reality is that the previous Liberal government, for the most part, solved the problem.

As the Council for Refugees would say, the government's focus on strippers betrays a moralistic approach. Instead of passing moral judgment, the government should work on ensuring that non-citizens' rights are protected and that they have the freedom to make informed choices about their lives.

In terms of his reference to the lost Canadians, both the present minister and the previous minister, since they came into office, had no intention of doing anything. The reason they are doing something is because the committee brought in people to talk about their problems and the heat became too much.

I am very pleased that the government has responded but it still falls short and that is what is very important. It falls short in the case of the Mennonites and it falls short in the case of the war brides and their children. The government is dishonouring, by its lack of action, the service that our men and women rendered to this country when they put their lives on the line in the second world war.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if the member were here for the earlier part of my speech he would know that I was talking about some of the important work we have been doing in the committee, how we rank them in priorities and that this legislation would not have made our priority list in terms of what we see as important to get done.

In any event, the government got rid of the court intervenor funding program that allows Canadians to access justice based on the merit of their case and not the size of their pocketbook.

After the government got rid of the program, it turned around and appealed the decision. In appealing the decision, when it asked for an injunction against the court order it also told the court that if it were to lose at the Federal Court of Appeal that it would take it to the Supreme Court.

For the average Canadian to get to the Supreme Court has crippling costs as they relate to having to pay the legal fees. In terms of trying to bring in legislation that has relevance and could unite Canadians, we have a piece of legislation that must have been co-authored by Jimmy Swaggart and plays to a moralistic base.

We will be dealing with this bill before us in committee but I want to alert members on some of the important issues that we are dealing with, and will be dealing with in committee, and that relate to the lost Canadians.

A book entitled Voices of the Left Behind, is a particularly good book dealing with children overseas who are now in their 60s whose fathers were Canadian soldiers. One case that is of particular interest is the case of Mr. Willy Van Ee who is the only status Indian in Holland. He has his recognition as a status Indian but he does not have Canadian citizenship.

If we want to deal with issues pertaining to trafficking in human beings, what we should be doing is taking very seriously the proposals brought out by the Canadian Council for Refugees. If that is the intent of the legislation, it does not do it.

In spite of all the rhetoric that we get from the government side, this legislation does not address those issues. As I read into the record as to what the Canadian Council for Refugees had to say, it will be one of the important groups that will be coming before the committee to give us input on this particular legislation.

In wrapping up I make a plea to the government side to try to bring in legislation that is immediate, that has priority and that has relevance. Also, if the government wants to be moralistic, it should amend the Criminal Code and bring it before the House, instead of trying to do through the back door what it cannot do through the front door.

As I said, the bill will come to committee and, as the parliamentary secretary will attest, the committee works diligently on all bills that are brought before it and we look forward to much relevant legislation coming to our committee where we can make meaningful changes to the operation of both the Canadian Citizenship Act and the Immigration Act because they are very much needed.

We look forward to much relevant legislation coming to our committee and that we can make meaningful changes to the operation of both the Citizenship Act and the Immigration Act because it is very much needed.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join in this debate.

Let me say that at the citizenship and immigration committee there has been a real lack of legislation coming to us from the government.

We recently dealt with Bill C-14, the international adoption bill. Even though the government made a lot of hay about recycling a bill that was before the House under the Liberal government, it has held it up for well over a year. We have very few bills coming before us in committee.The committee, nevertheless, has been spending a great deal of time dealing with very serious issues that need to be addressed.

The bill that is before us today is probably the least serious of something like over a dozen issues that we have identified as a priority. We are disappointed that we are essentially dealing with a bill, the political theatrics of which tries to delve into a problem that for the most part has been solved. We are also concerned about the moralistic tone it takes on.

If the government wants to speak in code to its supporters and say it is against strippers, I would suggest that it introduce a bill in the House to amend the Criminal Code and put forward that amendment. It should not try to be moralistic with back door bills to try to solve a problem which, for the most part, has been solved as far as it pertains to strippers being able to come into this country.

I want talk about some of the other issues that we have been dealing with. We have been dealing with undocumented workers. This has been raised in debate. It is a problem that has been before the government and the government has chosen to ignore it.

When we deal with the issue of undocumented workers, instead of 10 visas that might have been granted in 2005 for strippers, exotic dancers coming into the country, we are talking between 200,00 and 500,000 people who are working in the underground economy because of the dysfunctional nature of our current points system that determines who gets to come to Canada.

I say it is dysfunctional. We need people in the building trades. They cannot get in under the points system. There are many other occupations in which we have a shortage right across the country, and those people cannot come to Canada under the points system.

We heard talk about agricultural workers. It was not too long ago, up around Abbotsford, where the previous speaker comes from, where we heard about members of the Indo-Canadian community getting killed, not on the work site but getting to the work site. It shows us to the extent that agricultural foreign workers are not protected.

We heard about the challenges for live-in caregivers, their working conditions, and how they are virtually indentured to work for an employer. We do not have regulators. We do not have inspectors checking out their working conditions.

We hear about employers being charged every once in a while in very spectacular cases, but the reality is that we are not doing enough to ensure that those people are protected.

Getting back to this bill and getting back to my challenge in terms of talking about stopping strippers coming into this country and using the Criminal Code to outlaw stripping, if it is unacceptable for foreign workers, surely it would be unacceptable to Canadian workers. I do not think the government really has addressed that.

Luckily, I have checked the media and this bill received the kind of coverage that it deserved. For the most part, most major media have dealt with the bill as a political bill, a moralistic bill, and really quite a joke.

The Canadian Council for Refugees says the bill does not address the issue of dealing with trafficking in human beings. As a matter of fact, it falls far short. It essentially says:

The government’s focus on “strippers” betrays a moralistic approach. Instead of passing moral judgment, the government should work on ensuring that non-citizens’ rights are protected and that they have the freedom to make informed choices about their own lives.

The bill fails to address the root problem of the existence in Canada of jobs that humiliate and degrade workers. Work permits can only be issued by visa officers after the employer’s job offer has been validated by Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC). Why is such work available in Canada if it humiliates and degrades workers?

If Conservatives really believe what they are trying to do, I say to them to pick up my challenge and come in with a bill that addresses that particular industry.

I mentioned there are many issues we have been dealing with at committee and one of the issues was lost Canadians. I drew particular attention to what is happening to the Mennonites in terms of their derivative citizenship. I find it rather sad that a party opposite which has the member for Abbotsford, who is a Mennonite, the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park as well as the President of the Treasury Board, that they have not brought the plight of the Mennonites to their caucus. They have not had their government make any changes that are so very necessary.

As I said before, the basis of denying derivative citizenship to Mennonites who move from Canada to Mexico is solely on the fact that these folks, with a church wedding, failed to have a civil wedding. Can members believe that? People get married in a church in Mexico and their marriages are not recognized by the government and we deem their offspring to be born out of wedlock.

That is a terrible smear to put on the Mennonites. I really hope that those members, who I have named, will speak up in their caucus and make this a priority issue because it is having an impact, not just on one, two, three or 10 families, but it is having an impact on thousands of people in this country as well as tens of thousands of people who are being denied their rightful derivative citizenship in Mexico. They have ties to Canada but they are told they were born out of wedlock and therefore, they are not entitled to Canadian citizenship.

The other group we dealt with, a group that is of great concern to me, particularly when the government talks about supporting our troops, was a group of war brides and their children. For those who do not know who they are, they are the wives our Canadian soldiers met overseas in Holland, England or someplace in Europe when they were fighting for this country in the second world war. We had just under 70,000 war brides and their children's citizenship is at risk, particularly if a child was born out of wedlock.

While the government promised that it would bring in amendments, those amendments do not apply to these folks. It is not going to apply to Canadian veterans of the second world war who we have been honouring as a nation because the government does not see it as a priority.

At the citizenship and immigration committee we listened to heart-wrenching stories about how people are fighting for their birthrights because they have found out, after living in this country for over 60 years, that they are not citizens and the government refuses to move on that and to change the legislation.

I spoke in the House about Joe Taylor, the son of a Canadian veteran who went to Europe to defend this country and help defend western civilization. He met his girlfriend in England. They were involved and she became pregnant. When Joe Taylor Senior went to his commanding officer to ask for permission to marry, his commanding officer said no because he was going to France to fight and that Canadians did not want to be responsible for widows.

Mr. Joe Taylor Senior went to France and fought but after the war, luckily, he went back to England, married his wife and brought her and their son to Canada. However, because Joe Taylor Junior was born out of wedlock, the government refuses to recognize his citizenship.

Joe Taylor Junior took the refusal of the government to court and, on September 1 of last year, Justice Luc Martineau ordered the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give Mr. Joe Taylor his citizenship. The judge said that the ground cited by the government that he was born out of wedlock contravened section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The fact that there was an obscure regulation that a person had to apply to retain citizenship if born out of the country, violated section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the section on fundamental rights.

What did the government do, the supposed defender of our soldiers? On September 26 the government withdrew the court intervenor program, which the House dealt with.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my comment and question are for the member for Abbotsford. The reality is that the problem has to a large extent been solved and there are quite a few problems with this proposal.

However, since the member is from Abbotsford, let me say that dealing with issues like this really takes oxygen and the time of the House away from issues such as those he should have some concerns about given his moralistic stance.

This relates to the Mennonites. Approximately 50,000 Mennonites went from Canada to Mexico. The position of his government on this particular issue, which I hope he has a chance to influence, is that the Mennonites who went to Mexico had religious marriages and church weddings. Many of the Mennonites did not have a civil ceremony in Mexico. The situation is that derivative citizenship, which affects tens of thousands of them, is not passed on to the offspring of Mennonites who had a church wedding but failed to have a civil ceremony.

The Conservative government has indicated that it is going to be dealing with issues related to lost Canadians. Mennonites fall into a category, but the government has said that in dealing with the problem of lost Canadians it is not going to deal with the problems of Mennonites who lose derivative citizenship because they did not have a civil ceremony while they had a religious ceremony.

I know that the member comes from an area that has a fair number of Mennonites. I would like to ask him what is he going to do to get his government, supposedly the champion of religious institutions, to stop discriminating against religious marriages, which affects approximately 50,000 Mennonites with regard to their derivative citizenship.

[Waterloo, May 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on May 27 the city of Waterloo celebrated its 150th anniversary.

From Mennonite founders, Waterloo has evolved into an international community that reflects the world.

From a tradition of barn raising, we evolved into an insurance capital for Canada. Instead of Conestoga wagons, we now have BlackBerries.

From a one room school, we have become an educational powerhouse, with three excellent post-secondary institutions: Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Waterloo and Conestoga College.

From old time mills, foundries, brewers and distillers, we now have a high tech research park, Advanced Manufacturing, the Centre for International Governance, the Perimeter Institute and we are part of Canada's Technology Triangle and Communitech.

Waterloo has also just been named the top intelligent community in the world. Waterloo is proof that investing in education and training, along with research and development, is the key to Canada's economic prosperity.

Congratulations Waterloo.

[May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think the parliamentary secretary mentioned cases after 1947, but the reality is that we had about 60,000 people come into this country as war brides or children of war brides. Those people do not qualify and it does not make any sense why they do not.

We had children of war brides in front of us who are now in their mid-sixties and they get no relief with this legislation. This is clearly wrong.

It also is clearly wrong for the Conservative government to be discriminating against Mennonite marriages. For the sheer fact that they did not have civil weddings, their offspring are considered to be born out of wedlock. Clearly this is wrong.

The previous government had committed to change the Citizenship Act and had $20 million in the budget to do it. We had three reports from committee that we all agreed on, but this Conservative government came in and cancelled the money for a new Citizenship Act. It is time to correct that injustice.

[May 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to talk about the issue of lost Canadians about whom we have heard so much.

Today was another heart-rending day. Members of the citizenship and immigration committee heard compelling stories of children of war brides and how their citizenship was unjustly taken away from them.

We had the case of a couple of sisters who were children of a war bride. They came to this country in 1946. One was a baby, just months old, and the other one was three years old. They recently have found out that they are not citizens. The question comes into play whether they are entitled to old age security, the guaranteed annual supplement and whatnot.

Another tragic case is about a mother who came here to be with her daughter's family. Her daughter, who is a member of the Canadian armed forces, is slated to serve in Afghanistan, but she has found out she is not a Canadian. She does not have any proof of ID so she can get a driver's licence that she can use to help the four kids she will be looking after.

We have continually heard stories like this where offspring of war brides and war brides themselves do not have their citizenship recognized. At the other end, they have children that serve in the armed forces. This is so very wrong. The Prime Minister of the country has said that we should be honouring Canadian veterans, the people who have fought for our country, the people fighting for our country now in Afghanistan and the people who fought for our country in the second world war. It is incredibly shameful that we have not addressed this issue.

To its credit, the government came in with a limited proposal today, but this limited proposal would not apply to the people about whom I just talked. It would not apply to people who came here before 1947. Most of the war brides and their children came to Canada in 1946. This is really a shame.

This is another thing that is really a shame. When we look at the composition of the committee from the Conservative side, we really only have one person with any previous experience on the committee. The ministers do not have any experience, and this is the second minister the government has had in less than a year. Also, they come from ridings that do not have much of an immigrant population.

Clearly, if we believe that immigration has been the lifeblood of our country, that immigration is the lifeblood of our country and that immigration will continue to be the lifeblood of our country, clearly, we need a citizenship act that recognizes the modernity of our times and does not discriminate against people born out of wedlock.

Part of the problem now is we have religious marriages that were performed in Mexico, and this relates to offspring of Mennonites who have derivative citizenship rights. If those people had religious marriages but failed to have civil marriages, then their offspring are considered to be born out of wedlock and have no rights. Now—

[Privilege, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my question relates to the same letter dated May 16, 2007 sent to the chair of the committee and copied to all members of the committee.

My question of privilege flows from an attempt by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to intimidate the standing committee on the subject by limiting the testimony of witnesses appearing before it.

The minister's letter dated May 16, 2007 proposes to put in place guidelines and severe limitations on the testimony of witnesses. These proposed limitations are contrary to the law, privileges and customs of Parliament. They amount to a serious breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament and to the privilege of the House itself.

I want to be clear in stating that the committees are entitled to seek information from witnesses through both testimony and evidence. In this context, where public servants are called upon to testify, there must be a way to ensure that committees obtain the information they require while respecting the public servants' professional duty to the crown.

The minister will want to look at the appropriate provisions of the Parliament of Canada Act which specifically authorize committees to swear in witnesses. An attempt to deny that part of the law is an assault on my privilege and those of every member of the committee and of the House.

Furthermore, the language in the minister's letter regarding the style of questioning is nothing short of offensive to the committee and also a breach of my privilege as a member of the committee, in that it claims the committee members harassed, demeaned, belittled, humiliated and embarrassed witnesses. All these qualifiers are grossly exaggerated.

In fact, in part of my presentation to the committee, I commended one of the witnesses, Mr. Davidson, rather than criticize him. I commended Mr. Davidson for pointing out to the committee that the previous Liberal government had budgeted $20 million for producing a new updated Citizenship Act and how the Conservative government withdrew that funding.

The principle at stake is the ability of members of Parliament in a standing committee to carry out their legislative work and to fulfill their duties as members of Parliament, independent of the government of the day.

Upon reviewing the minister's letter and checking the minutes of the standing committee meeting of May 2, 2007, I am sure you will find a prima facie case for breach of privilege, Mr. Speaker.

I will table the letter in question with you, Sir.

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, may I say to my colleague and all members of the House that when I disagreed with a government bill strongly enough, I went with a Reform member and a Liberal member up to the Senate, to the committee dealing with the citizenship issue, and the Conservatives and Liberals all agreed with me on that committee. They would not let the bill come out of committee because they thought it was bad legislation that should be improved. I cannot point to a better example of having a chamber of sober second thought.