Chris Alexander

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is very unfortunate to see the member opposite putting himself in this position. He is not a member of the committee. Obviously, his colleagues on the NDP side have misled him about what the committee actually did.

The committee prestudied the bill. It heard 25 witnesses with views from across the spectrum, on all sides of the bill. It was a useful study. It contributed to our understanding and Canadians' understanding of the bill.

The New Democrats are the ones who should apologize. Citizenship in this country involves an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. It involves loyalty to our institutions, to our political system, and to all of the benefits that citizenship brings us.

That is one of the important points in this bill, which may be the only substantial point that the NDP has returned to time and time again. That is why we think that dual nationals who have committed acts of terrorism, espionage, or treason should no longer enjoy citizenship. They have forfeited and violated their allegiance to this country. The NDP differs with us on that, and it is offside with most Canadians in that same respect.

This bill would speed up processing. It would underline and deepen the value of Canadian citizenship, as never before. It would reward those who serve Canada at home and abroad, and it would send the clear message that gross acts of disloyalty, when they are committed by dual nationals, would lead to revocation of citizenship.

These are all measures that are hugely popular with the citizens of this country, and we look forward to celebrating them with Canadians on July 1.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member is wrong. There were 25 witnesses who were heard in committee on the bill. It is a bill that was absolutely made public and available to all members of the citizenship and immigration committee. It was prestudied. It was studied in clause by clause. It was prestudied because we considered it important to have that debate in committee as early as possible.

How can members opposite claim that no witnesses were heard? How are those 25 people who made the trip to Ottawa, who prepared for their testimony, going to react to being told by the NDP that they did not exist?

The NDP has repeated itself. Those members have gone around in circles. We have heard the same speech many times, not just on this subject, but on many subjects. That lessens the effectiveness of this place. That bothers Canadians. They want us to add value every time we stand up in the House of Commons to discuss legislation. They do not want stonewalling, by any political party . We have a strong mandate to govern, and we have a strong mandate to bring this legislation up to date. The bill has not been reformed in 37 years. The NDP would have us go years more, perhaps another decade, before any updates are made, with all of the terrible consequences we know that would bring.

The real issue, and it is passing strange that the NDP has not raised it this afternoon, is that we and the NDP have a fundamental difference of opinion about the one issue that some in the bar association and in the BC Civil Liberties Association have raised. The NDP is also of that view. Those members think that terrorists, spies, and traitors, even if they are dual nationals, should stay—

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, fortunately, we have not yet had the opportunity to hear every member of the NDP repeat the same speech.

However, many of them have said the same thing, and it is doing them more harm than good. Canadians have heard them and are now saying to themselves that the NDP has nothing substantial to say about this bill.

If we read the debates about the Citizenship Act from 1946 or 1914, no member of the House repeated himself or said the same thing. Generally speaking, members act responsibly in the House. They try to avoid wasting the House's time and to bring forward new perspectives and add to the debate. However, that is not what the NDP is doing.

The NDP wanted to put an end to this debate and postpone the reform of our Citizenship Act until the end of February. We are moving forward because the process is working fairly well. Over 100,000 Canadians have already received their citizenship this year, and the measures set out in this bill will ensure that the number of successful citizenship applicants continues to rise.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, why did the NDP, on February 27, in the person of my colleague, the immigration critic for the NDP, move to end debate on Bill C-24, to discontinue debate at that early stage? Was that a positive co-operative expression of faith in the democratic process? We do not think so, nor did we think so in the three days of debate allocated to second reading. We heard the same speech time and time again from the NDP, citing the same inaccurate information, often from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association or a small section of the Canadian Bar Association. They do not speak for Canadians across the board. They do not even speak for lawyers across the board. That is what we have heard from the much broader feedback that we have had, from a much broader group of people.

I spoke to people last week who signed the petition, which contains thousands of names, as many online petitions do. After a five-minute discussion, they said they would be taking their names off the petition. They had not understood what they were actually expressing their opposition to. They had not understood the benefits of the bill. They had not understood how processing would become faster. They had not understood how the value of Canadian citizenship would be strengthened by a four-year residency requirement. It would ensure that we are not moving in the direction, as Richard Gwyn regretted some years ago, of turning Canadian citizenship into “the unbearable lightness of being Canadian”.

We want people to have a substantial understanding of this country, its laws, its traditions, its system of government. That is what the “Discover Canada” guide does; that is what our reforms today have done; that is what the bill will do, and that is why it is popular with Canadians.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, make it harder to become a citizen? Waiting times of eight years?

With statements like these from the opposition benches, it is no wonder that some Canadians are confused. They are receiving false information from some in this House. That really is unfortunate, given the importance of the bill.

Here are the facts.

Yes, there are over 300,000 applicants in the system. Yes, waiting times for new applications, as things stand now, are two to three years.

However, with the measures in the bill, which the NDP would see us postpone, delay, et cetera, those waiting times would come down later this year, plummet in 2015, and be under one year by the beginning of 2016.

Moreover, yes, we are extending the knowledge requirement, the language requirement, to a slightly larger age spectrum, down to high school age and up to late working age, the eve of the normal legal age of retirement in this country, 64 years.

However, every time we strengthen the requirements of citizenship, we find it becomes more popular. We find more people apply. We find the naturalization rate goes up.

Therefore, we would not be making it harder to become a citizen of this country. We would actually be making it more meaningful. We would be doing something that Canadians have responded to extremely positively with every form we have brought in. We expect the same positive response this time.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my hon. colleague, she is simply wrong about what she just said. We are speeding up processing times.

It is the NDP that is against processing pending applications more quickly. If the NDP had it their way, debate on this bill, the debate would go on until the end of this session or even until fall. Maybe in 2015, or later, we might have results for those who are patiently waiting for faster processing times.

This government will never accept that kind of approach. We have accepted 1.4 million new citizens. We are proud of new Canadians' commitment to their citizenship. There are certainly some backlogs, but thanks to the measures in this bill we will be able to process files much more quickly. Backlogs will be less of a problem for those who apply for citizenship once this newly reformed legislation comes into effect, and processing times will be much quicker.

I see no reason for the people calling my hon. colleague to be concerned.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there you have it. The government House leader says there has been no study and now the member for Scarborough—Rouge River says there was a pre-study. Once again, the New Democrats are all over the map. Once again, they are the ones confusing an otherwise attentive Canadian audience, which wants the measures in this bill enacted.

We not only studied this bill, we did it in advance of report stage and referral to committee to make sure that all those who had perspectives on this bill, and it is an important one, had the opportunity to express them, and we have heard those views. We heard them in committee, and we saw them in newspapers and media across the country and in correspondence and feedback to our offices and MPs. Let me emphasize that the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

What has not been well received and what reflected a very low quality of work were the amendments proposed by the NDP and Liberals in committee. We were unable to adopt any of them because, to be perfectly honest, they were not up to spec. They did not improve the bill. They would not have made it faster for Canadians to attain citizenship, to which they have a right when they meet the requirements. They would not have reinforced the pride that Canadians take in their citizenship or reinforced the value that so many across this country are talking about. They would have watered down the penalties for disloyalty that we are absolutely adamant be in this bill, because there are limits to the forms of behaviour that are acceptable from Canadian citizens if they are going to retain citizenship when they are dual nationals.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, June 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is a great day for Canadian citizens who have been calling for these changes for years—decades even. This is also a great day for future citizens.

The last time there was a massive overhaul of the Citizenship Act was in 1977, and happily, that era is in the past. The measures in our bill are popular across the country, especially with people who are looking forward to receiving the gift of citizenship and the privileges and responsibilities that go with it.

Yes, this bill is needed. It is needed by those whose applications are in process. It is needed by the record number of immigrants in this country today who are applying for citizenship once they meet the requirements and who are driving our naturalization up from where it already is, the highest in the world, to be even higher with each succeeding year.

Yes, we as a government are taking action to make sure these measures come into force sooner rather than later on the basis of a very full debate. It is just plain wrong for the opposition House leader to say that there has been no discussion in committee. On the contrary, there was 12 hours of study in committee, led by my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and with discussion led by a number of very credible and competent witnesses on all sides of the issue. However, none of that study has changed the fact that across the length and breadth of this country, these measures are popular because Canadians attach value to their citizenship as never before, and they want to see that value fully reflected in legislation.

[Citizenship and Immigration, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, our fair and equitable immigration laws are enforced very professionally. When a person has exhausted all recourse and avenues for appeal available to everyone under our laws, we expect that person to leave the country.

However, we also have ways to assess the situation in the country to which the person is being deported. That is always taken into account.

[Citizenship and Immigration, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has the most generous immigration and refugee determination system in the world. It has been reformed to focus its effort on those most in need of our protection. When the recourse available to those under the law has been exhausted, we expect them to leave the country.