Jinny Sims

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for a very impassioned speech. It was very well researched, with lots of literary references. I really appreciated that, being an English teacher.

Most of all, I wanted to say to him how much I appreciated that he shared his personal story on the difficulties he experienced. We have seen those reflected from coast to coast to coast, almost every one of us.

I live in Surrey in Newton—North Delta, one of the most diverse communities. My office often feels like the local hospital, where we do triage on immigration issues, and then we send people away feeling very frustrated. I actually have constituents who have been waiting 30 months, or four years, or as long as five years to get their spouses over. Sometimes the child, even after DNA tests are passed, is in kindergarten and grade 1 before the families are united.

However, what we are here to discuss today is really two-tiered citizenship, which my colleagues across the way have done everything they can to avoid talking about.

My question is very simple. If people are born in Canada or become naturalized and become Canadian citizens, under this legislation, could they have their citizenship stripped from them?

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, under this legislation, could someone born in Canada have their citizenship taken away from them?

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have a fairly straightforward question for my colleague. Does she believe that the state has the right to take citizenship away from somebody who is born in Canada? Let me give her an example.

Let us say that she has people living in her riding from countries that Canada has a dual citizenship relationship with. There are two Canadian citizens, both born in her riding, one has dual citizenship but the other does not. Does she think it is fair that one should have his or her citizenship taken away because of this unjust legislation that targets and differentiates between citizens?

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it has been very difficult to sit through that diatribe and to stop myself from heckling because I do not like to do anything like that. I want to be able to hear the points that are made.

However, one thing that absolutely fascinated me today was the minister's assertion that we have had days and nights of debate on this bill.

I want to put on record that the bill was last debated on February 27, for all of two hours. That is 120 minutes. Today we started debating at around 6:44 p.m. I do not see how that can be portrayed as days and nights of debate.

We have a bill that is fundamentally flawed because, despite the protestations otherwise, it would create two levels of Canadian citizenship. Those born in Canada could be treated totally differently from other people born in Canada who just happen to have dual citizenship through their parents or grandparents, and this from a country that actually accepts dual citizenship.

Who has the minister been debating the bill with? It certainly has not been in this Parliament.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is one of our most hard working members of Parliament in this assembly.

What we have here is, as another colleague summed it up, a solution in search of a problem. This is what the government wants to do and then it has gone backwards and asks how it can justify it. I do not see where the justification is.

Right now there is a mechanism to remove permanent residents because they are not Canadian citizens yet. There is a mechanism for a Canadian citizen who has achieved that through fraud, once proven, to have that citizenship taken away.

What are we saying when we tell people who were born in Canada or who have become citizens through naturalization that they will now be held to a different standard than another person who was born in Canada or another person who becomes a naturalized Canadian? What is it saying? It is creating a two-tiered citizenship. That is fundamentally wrong. It is the responsibility of the state. The state owes some responsibility to citizens as well.

In this case, I feel that what the minister and the government want to do is shunt that individual off somewhere, when that individual is a Canadian citizen.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the original private member's bill would have led to statelessness because it did not specify where there was dual citizenship.

In this bill, it could happen. In many cases people who are thought to have dual citizenship may not.

I have heard my Conservative colleagues yell across the way that it is all about holding people to account for treachery or treasonous activities. Nobody in the NDP has said that wayward or treasonous citizens must not be held to account. Absolutely, they must be held to account.

We still believe in the judicial system. Even the most egregious crime, no matter what it is, demands fair and equal treatment under the law. This legislation would confer different levels of citizenship on different citizens. Individuals born in Canada could find themselves being removed from Canada after they have lost their citizenship. To me, that just seems bizarre. Somebody else who is born in Canada would not be facing the same kind of double jeopardy.

This just seems wrong. It does not even pass the common sense test.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I were at the immigration committee last year when we dealt with the precursor of parts of this bill. I could see that there was some real danger in the direction the government was going. I stand by my words that some of the power we have seen being delegated to ministers is causing me major concern. It is allowing major changes to be made to immigration and, in this case, even to take away citizenship on a suspicion, so to speak.

I do not think we want to have that kind of despotic power put into the hands of ministers. We live in a parliamentary democracy, and we need to be debating issues right here. It is time that the immigration committee got back to looking at immigration policies that would be nation building, not ones based on the fear that everybody is a terrorist.

We are getting to the stage where we are not doing Canadians any favours.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I wish my colleagues would learn to listen. I am a Canadian. I am a proud Canadian, and in this country it is the law of this land that allows one to hold dual citizenship.

However, what the government is trying to do with the bill would actually change what citizenship is, because even for someone born in Canada, the government would give the minister the ability to take that citizenship away. I think it behooves each and every one of us to pay very special attention to this provision, because we are talking about potentially taking away citizenship from people who may never have been to another country, who were born here, and who have lived here all their lives.

By the way, I am not blaming just the Conservatives. The party at the far end started this trend because it was too chicken to publicly debate the changes it was making to immigration. It vested more power into the hands of the ministers so they could make changes behind closed doors and not have to go out and explain them to Canadians. The scary part is that we have seen the current government, a government on steroids, increase that power in the hands of the ministers, whether it comes to refugee situations or otherwise. In this case the bill asks Parliament to give the minister the power to take away somebody's citizenship, and it would not have to be based upon any sound evidence. It could be based upon suspicion.

There is no judicial hearing or anywhere that a person can go to tackle that. Someone's citizenship can be taken away based on suspicion. It is that scary. What is more scary is that kind of power will be given to some of the ministers I see sitting across the aisle from me. That, I will tell the minister, should scare Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

In Canada we are proud that whether people are naturalized or whether they are born here, once they are Canadian citizens, they have the same rights and the same responsibilities. However, under this legislation we are going to take one group of Canadians and hold them to a totally different bar. They could not only have their citizenship stripped away but would then have to leave the country, based on the whims of whom? It would not be based on any trial or anything like that, but in any case we should not be using citizenship as a tool, as part of a judicial system.

Let me be clear: if anybody gets his or her citizenship in a fraudulent manner, there is already a mechanism to have that person's citizenship taken away. If anybody has lied or deliberately used fraud in order to get citizenship, of course he or she should have his or her citizenship taken away.

We are not talking about that here. We are talking about somebody born in Canada, maybe someone born just down Wellington Street or in my riding at the local hospital in Surrey. I would say that Canadians would suddenly be feeling a bit worried, because what does citizenship mean if the minister can take it away based on suspicion, et cetera?

I read a quote by the new minister of immigration and I kept thinking that a minister would not say that. Here is the quote: “Citizenship is not an inalienable birthright.” If one is born a Canadian citizen, surely that is his or her birthright. That is how people gain their citizenship, unless they have been naturalized, in which case they have the same rights and privileges.

Here is something from the U.S. Our government always likes to quote some of the governments it likes some of the time. This is with respect to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a quote by Lorne Waldman, the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, on February 5, 2014. He states:

The US Supreme Court got it right over 50 years ago when it said that citizenship is not a licence that the government can revoke for misbehaviour. As Canadians, we make our citizenship feeble and fragile if we let government Ministers seize the power to extinguish it.

As I said, there are some parts to this bill that we would be pleased to support if they were separated into different components. On the other hand, there are parts of this bill that give us fundamental concern. I know the government has an allergy to experts and expert opinions, but expert after expert has said that this legislation will be open to constitutional and charter challenges.

It is too late to plead for a more in-depth debate, but when the bill gets to the committee stage, let us at least hope that we will have a wholesome debate and that the Conservatives will accept the amendments we will take to that stage.

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to this motion at second reading, Bill C-24, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Today in this Parliament we witnessed, for the 65th time since I have been a member of Parliament, a government using the hammer of time allocation to shut off debate. I was in this House when the time allocation motion was discussed. I was so shocked to hear the minister say that we had over 30 hours of debate on this particular bill. Let me make it very clear. We have only had two hours of debate on this bill that has many components to it. From regulating immigration and citizenship consultants, to taking away citizenship, to qualifying for citizenship, all of those different components are in this bill, and yet the only time this Parliament will have time to discuss it is this evening. I am wondering what the rush is for the government. Why is it so afraid of legislation being debated? What does it want to hide?

Let me remind the House that there is a small part of this bill that is like déjà vu. It takes me back to last June when we were dealing with a private member's bill, and through it the government tried to bring about fundamental changes to citizenship in Canada. That was outside of the rules. Then it tried to change the rules. Of course it was not able to, because it was outside of the purview and the timing ran out. What has happened here is that two elements of that bill have been taken and thrown in with at least five other elements, and a whole new bill has been produced.

I heard the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration say today that we have spent over 30 hours discussing this. He must have been having discussions in a place other than Parliament, because I have gone back and checked and this bill has only had two hours of debate. Now we are going into an evening session until midnight and then the allocated time will run out and there will be a vote on it sometime tomorrow. Then it will go on to the next stage.

This is what is beginning to worry me. There seems to be a pattern. It is a pattern in which the government is using its majority to bully. It is using bullying tactics to rush through legislation that it does not want Canadians to find out too much about. It does not want Canadians to know what is really in this piece of legislation.

Let me be clear. There are two or three elements in this legislation that I support, but they are buried. That is typical of the Conservative government. It brings in omnibus legislation, which is legislation as thick as the telephone books for many of our communities across this beautiful country, and it has taken things that we know we need to take action on and buried them in with the worst elements of legislation that it knew were not only badly written but would have been open to all kinds of constitutional challenges; and it says it is trying to fix things.

I will be the first one to say that the immigration system needs to be reformed. The Liberals allowed long waiting periods, and that created backlogs. Some clarity and updating also needed to be done, but the minister has used that as an excuse and has broken the immigration system. He has taken it from one of nation-building to one of nation-dividing. That is a real concern.

Because of the new changes, family reunification is almost impossible right now. It is taking longer for spouses to get over here. As well, thousands of applications by skilled workers were shredded, even though they played by the rules we made, and now parents and grandparents have been turned into a lottery system. I agree that we do want the young and the brightest, but the young and the brightest have parents. They do not fall out of the sky.

Our immigration policy has gone from a nation-building policy to one in which the government sees itself as agents who provide temporary foreign workers at minimum wage so that big business can make huge profits. Vulnerable workers are being exploited, while Canadians who spend hundreds of hours looking for work cannot find it because the jobs they could do are being given away. The system is broken.

This legislation purports to fix citizenship, specifically the waiting list. I worked at a citizenship ceremony recently. The judge showed me a room full of files and told me it would take him a long time to get to those files. People have to wait over 31 months after their applications are in, and this is after they have met all criteria. During that time, these potential Canadian citizens are being denied their rights as well as access to many of their responsibilities.

There is nothing in this legislation that would expedite citizenship and get rid of the backlog. The government says it has invested extra money into getting rid of the backlog, but the lists have in fact become longer and the time period to obtain citizenship has become longer.

I am pleased to see that regulation of consultants is in the bill. We hear too many stories from coast to coast to coast of unscrupulous agents and consultants who are abusive toward vulnerable people in this situation. People are looking for help, and these unscrupulous agents make all kinds of promises and commitments. Then all kinds of money changes hands, so it is good to see that kind of regulation in the bill.

However, at the same time, this legislation has something in it that I find absolutely unacceptable.

I have to share with the House what citizenship means. I chose Canada to be my home. I came to Canada in 1975 as a young teacher, excited about exploring this beautiful country. I fell in love with it and decided this was where I wanted to stay and have my children and raise them, and I now also have grandchildren.

It was a very proud moment for me when I became a Canadian citizen. I can remember meeting the judge. He asked me a couple of questions. I was a social studies teacher, so he presumed I knew a lot of the background. We talked about what my experiences were like. I stood next to him and we had a lovely photograph taken. I had become a Canadian citizen. It was a very emotional time for me, because I take Canadian citizenship very seriously. I see it as an honour and a privilege.

Citizenship has to mean something. If we attend a citizenship ceremony here in Canada, we see people from all around the world with their eyes filling with tears as citizenship is bestowed on them.

Last Friday, which was May 23, 2014, was a very significant day in Canadian history, although members may not know it. It was the 100-year anniversary of the Komagata Maru. That is the ship that arrived in Vancouver harbour, where the racist policies of the day, passed by Parliament, prevented people from landing in the harbour. They were British subjects, because India was part of the British Empire at that time, but they were turned back. Some died en route. Some were shot once they got to India. Others faced many challenges.

On that day, as we were commemorating the 100-year anniversary, a man asked if he could speak. He went up to the mike and said, “After all these years living in Canada, I got my citizenship today, of all days”. He talked about what that citizenship meant to him. That is somebody who became a naturalized Canadian citizen, just as I am.

In Canada we do not differentiate those who are born in other countries and come to this country and choose to make Canada their home because, as we know, except for our aboriginal people, most of us became Canadian citizens that way.

However, what we are seeing here in this legislation would change what citizenship means, and not just for those who are born overseas and come here and become naturalized citizens. I think it is on this aspect that Canadians need to pay close attention to what the current government is doing. This legislation, if passed as is, would mean that the minister—not the courts, not anybody else—could take away citizenship from somebody who was born in Canada. Their family could have been here for a couple of generations, but they could still have citizenship taken away from them if they have a dual citizenship.

As members know, dual citizenship is not limited to a few people in this country. There are many Canadians who have dual citizenship, and—

[Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, May 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is very hard to sit here and listen to some of the rhetoric I have heard today.

We have a minister who says we have spent 30-plus hours debating a bill that this House has only studied or spoken on for two hours, and even though it has some of the elements of a bill that was previously debated, this bill has many other elements in it.

We have a minister who, instead of having a detailed and thorough debate on something as substantial as taking away somebody's citizenship, is putting more and more power into the hands of ministers, allowing them to become despotic and taking us away from parliamentary democracy.

What we have right now is a government that is using closure or time allocation for the 65th time. After only two hours of discussion on something that is going to fundamentally change what it means to be a citizen in this country, the government has the audacity to say it is now moving time allocation on this issue.

My question for the minister is this: where on earth did he get 30-plus hours of debate on this bill?