Mr. Speaker, as this is almost certainly my last time speaking in the House before the summer recess, I want to join others in thanking the many hard-working staff around this place, including security, pages, table staff, local officers, committee clerks, etc. I thank them for facilitating the operations of Parliament.
This has been, I think, a short, but significant session. We are starting to get a sense of the character of the government and that it is a kind of chicken dance government. It is elbows up, elbows back down, elbows up, elbows back down, without a lot of consistency in its defence of Canada or in really anything else, but we are going to continue to prosecute the case against the government for the failures it has been responsible for over the last 10 years, and the continuing challenges this country faces as a result of its policies.
By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
I want to wish members well as they prepare for the summer. I have discovered, in the last 24 hours, just how seriously Liberal members take their desire for a summer vacation. Parliament did not sit at all this year until May 26. It is going on recess again at the end of this week.
At the HUMA committee, because we are facing a student unemployment crisis with more than one in five returning students unemployed this summer, Conservatives put forward a motion to have a summer study of student unemployment. We think parliamentarians should be prepared to get to work at committee so that students can get to work. I proposed five committee meetings, which is not a lot of work. It is 10 hours of hearings that could take place over the course of the summer. Liberals said initially they were interested in this. They put forward an amendment to change timelines. Then they voted against the study, killing it. Sadly, the HUMA committee will not be able to get to work this summer on the vital issue of student unemployment because Liberals care more about having the summer they want than giving students the summer they need finding summer jobs in order to get back to work. I hope the students who are struggling with unemployment will hold their Liberal MPs accountable for their decision to vote against a summer study on student unemployment, a study I think we desperately need when one in five returning students are out of work.
We are debating today Bill C-3. This is a bill that makes various changes to the citizenship rules in this country. I will go through the mechanics of it for those who are just joining the debate or those watching at home.
Right now, if a Canadian citizen has a child while abroad, that child is a Canadian citizen as well, but if that child born abroad has a child abroad there is a generation cut-off. Those are the present rules, that one cannot infinitely pass on Canadian citizenship through a family that is living outside of Canada.
I listened to the previous Liberal speaker describe this as arbitrary, that people are being arbitrarily excluded from Canadian citizenship. Actually, this is the opposite of arbitrary. Arbitrary would be if somebody was deciding whether or not they like us or whether or not a person would get citizenship based on the discretion of some bureaucrat or some indeterminate process. This is the opposite of arbitrary. It is a clear rule that is designed to limit Canadian citizenship to those who have ongoing clear connections to Canada.
The new bill would allow Canadian citizenship to be infinitely passed on through a family that, generation after generation, does not live in Canada. It requires, effectively, visits to Canada in order to be able to pass on that citizenship, but it does not require, at any point in that infinite generational passing on of citizenship, for that family to be residents in this country. The obvious problem with that is that citizenship is a compact between a nation of people and an individual. If one is a citizen, one assumes certain rights and responsibilities. I think we need to recognize and affirm the value of citizenship, including both its rights and responsibilities.
I am so grateful to live in a country where our citizenship is defined by shared civic values and a recognition of rights and responsibilities, not by some ethnocultural tie. My ancestors come from various places. Both of my wife's parents were born in Pakistan. I have heritage from all over the world in my family, as I think members all over the House do. We are a great nation because we are defined by shared civic values.
We are defined as one political nation, as one of our founders put it. The significance of that is that it involves rights and responsibilities. A person who is living abroad continues to enjoy all the rights of citizenship, likely desires well for Canada and thinks about ways they can contribute to Canada in the context of their situation. However, a family that lives abroad generation after generation is not paying taxes to Canada or able to be actively involved in Canadian civic life in the way that a person naturally is if they are here in Canada, yet they continue to have the rights of citizenship.
Under this new proposed citizenship law, we could have someone who has never been a resident of Canada, and their parents or grandparents had not been residents of Canada, yet they could come back to Canada for certain vital public services, which are rights that have become, at the point from which their family has not been in Canada, disconnected from the responsibilities that are also supposed to be associated with citizenship.
It is on that basis that Conservatives oppose this bill. We think it weakens Canadian citizenship and the recognition that Canada is an idea, a people and a place. We recognize that there has to be some constraints on citizenship to ensure a continuing connection with this place and an assumption of the rights and responsibilities associated with the common good of Canada.
The rules as they presently exist are not arbitrary. They are clear, fair and they affirm an understanding of citizenship that includes rights and responsibilities. Moreover, I think it is incredibly irresponsible that the government is putting forward legislation to expand and weaken Canadian citizenship without any sense of the potential cost implications. Canadian citizens have certain rights. People whose families have been outside the country for generations assuming the rights of citizenship entails responsibilities for the country. It also entails potential costs for the country, including assistance in emergency situations and a provision of social services, if that person returns to the country. All of these are realities that have to be assumed by Canadian taxpayers.
The government could make a case that it is legitimate and argue for it, but it should do so on the basis of clear numbers. The Liberals should be able to come before the House to say, “We are going to expand citizenship, and it is going to include a certain number of people and these are going to be the cost implications.” However, it is clear from the response I received to my previous question for a government member that there is no desire or attempt to provide that costing.
We have a significant problem in this country with unemployment, pressure on our social services and demands on our country. We need to have a plan to address those demands. In the midst of all of these pressures, for the government to say that it is going to potentially dramatically increase the number of citizens but it does not know how many people that would affect and what the cost associated with that would be, is a major problem.
Canadian citizenship is a great and valuable thing. It is something Canadians have regardless of where they came from or their family background. It entails rights and responsibilities and has to involve a connection and a commitment to this place we love.
