Leon Benoit

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to finally return to my presentation. I must say that I am impressed with your knowledge of the rules, more impressed than I could state.

I started by making some general comments on the issue of the revocation of citizenship. I will get to that topic a bit later. Right now I would like to put a bit of background to this citizenship bill.

Bill C-16 was tabled in October 1999, with very few changes from the previous bill, Bill C-63. Bill C-63 was tabled in December 1998 and did not make it back to the House for report stage before parliament was prorogued in the fall.

This legislation will repeal and replace the current Citizenship Act, something which is long overdue. The current Citizenship Act was put in place in 1977 and there are several areas which need change.

In some areas the bill is an improvement. However, as I said before I was interrupted, there are so many problems with this piece of legislation that I cannot support it. I do not believe my Canadian Alliance colleagues would support it. I would be surprised if there were many others who would support the bill.

The legislation makes several changes to the current act, with the intention of providing more clear guidelines in areas such as residency. That is something which is much needed. Unfortunately, the bill falls short in that regard and I will talk a bit about that later.

The proposed bill, as I said, is somewhat of an improvement over the previous bill, but not enough of an improvement that I could support it.

The minister received recommendations from the government dominated standing committee in 1994. That was over six years ago. Some excellent proposals were put forth. What we see today does very little to deal with the recommendations put forth by the Liberal dominated committee.

There are some insupportable elements in the bill. There is too much reliance on regulation. This is another one of those bills which are becoming common fare from the government in which there are huge gaps in the legislation so that we really do not know what is the intent.

I do not believe that everything that is included in regulation should necessarily be put into legislation, but at the very minimum, in every area of legislation, it should be made clear what the principles will be that will guide the legislation and its implementation. In this bill there are several areas in which there is too big a gap and it is too hard to really know what are the principles guiding the legislation.

It is important to know that when regulations are presented on legislation they are drafted by civil servants in the department. They need the approval of the minister, but they are never subjected to a vote in the House of Commons. They do not get proper scrutiny. Often they do not get any scrutiny by the House of Commons. How can we allow a piece of legislation to go ahead when so much is left to the regulations and the House of Commons never gets a chance to vote on whether it approves or disapproves of the regulations?

It is becoming a habit of the government to leave those huge holes in its legislation. In the new immigration act there is so much left to regulation that it really is hard to know what the act is intended to do. Because of that, the minister has started to refer to that piece of legislation as a framework act. It is obvious that so much is left to regulation. There is the same problem in this bill.

As well, some very important definitions have been left to regulations. I want to talk about those. They are extremely important definitions which could have a serious impact on the Canadian family.

There are definitions for such things as what constitutes a genuine parent-child relationship. The bill refers to a parent-child relationship in several places. Nowhere is it defined. That will be left to regulation and that is unacceptable.

As well, who can make an application on behalf of a minor is left undefined and unclarified. It is leaving too much to regulation.

What would be in the best interests of the child was something which several Liberal members of the committee saw as a problem. That is left undefined and to regulation.

What fees will be allowed is left to regulation. We know what happens when fees are left to the government. We have seen a head tax of $950 plus other fees put on every single person coming into the country either as an independent or economic immigrant or as a refugee. Under pressure from the official opposition in committee a motion by my colleague which I supported was rejected by the government, but it has at least stated that the head tax or landing fee on refugees will be removed. That is an important step but it has not happened yet.

I cannot trust the government to make the fees fair. How do we know what kind of fee could be put on the processing or administration of the citizenship act? There is nothing to say we could not have a $1,000 fee put on this process which is unacceptable. Too much is left to regulation.

The second area I would like to talk about is that of patronage appointments, something which has been talked about by all the opposition parties and even by government members. They have said that there are too many patronage appointments and that it is time we hired people based on merit. There should be a hiring process similar to that of the civil service. Yet in this bill the government has opened up more opportunities for people to be appointed based on the favours they do for the party rather than on merit.

The citizenship commissioners are examples of this. That is particularly disappointing. The commissioners will replace the citizenship judges and most of their job will be given to people in the department in the civil service to do. Yet the patronage appointments continue. That is hard to explain.

The role of the commissioners will be minimal, mainly ceremonial. It makes no sense to leave these patronage positions in place. The government has done it so it can reward MPs who will not win in the next election, or maybe other friends who make substantial political contributions and that type of thing. That is unacceptable. It is something we all agree has to end, but it is still here in the new citizenship act.

I will now deal with what is probably the most important flaw in the citizenship act. I have to give credit to the member for Kitchener—Waterloo for his role in making it clear that this flaw is too important to ignore. I have been told that the member for Kitchener—Waterloo feels it is important enough that he resigned as parliamentary secretary because the government did not listen to his proposals on the issue of revocation of citizenship.

Revocation of citizenship is something that everyone in the House should treat as extremely important. Every witness who commented on revocation of citizenship said that the power to revoke citizenship should be taken away from the minister and cabinet and should be given to the courts with at least leave to appeal to the supreme court if need be. It is an important issue.

Every new immigrant who has moved to this country should be looking at this. They should be asking themselves why the Liberal government refused to give the power to revoke citizenship to the courts. Why has it kept that power in the hands of the minister and cabinet? Every single new immigrant should ask that. On a political whim of the government, his or her citizenship could be revoked. I am not saying the government is going to do that.

This is an issue which was pointed out by many witnesses. It was pointed out by myself and my colleagues in the official opposition. It was pointed out by members of other opposition parties. It was pointed out, as I said, by the member for Kitchener—Waterloo, the parliamentary secretary to the minister. This is wrong. The power should be left to the courts. Any political connection should be taken out of revocation of citizenship. There are too many potential problems as a result of that remaining.

I think we all gave the government several opportunities to change that. I put forth a motion in committee to change that. The committee members voted like puppets and shot it down. I do not believe that they did it based on what they believed; it is because they were whipped to do so.

The House voted yesterday on the motions I put forth. They had been originally put forth by a Liberal member and I co-signed. I thought they were good motions. The person from the government party who originally signed the motions did not move them but I did as the co-signer. It was the right thing to do. The parliamentary secretary believed strongly enough that it was the right thing to do that he resigned his position as parliamentary secretary because his government did not act on this extremely important issue.

I would like to point out that the member for Kitchener—Waterloo is an immigrant. He immigrated to this country many years ago. He can understand, as can some of the other government members who voted against the bill yesterday, that it is wrong to have the power to remove citizenship concentrated in the hands of cabinet. He was willing to take a very strong stand by resigning as parliamentary secretary. I give him credit for that. It is not an easy thing to do but the issue is that important.

Why did other government members not decide to finally take a stand and take the power away from cabinet and put it in the courts? At least give people the leave to appeal to the supreme court as a final appeal process.

I have a press release from B'nai Brith Canada which shows full support for the motions which were voted on yesterday in the House. It states:

Simply put, the amendments, designated as Motions 4 and 5 (Group 2) at Report Stage, make the Bill more just. They would modernize, simplify and expedite the process of revoking (or not revoking) a person's citizenship on an allegation that the citizenship was attained by “false representation or fraud or knowingly concealing material circumstances”.

That is from the B'nai Brith on these important motions. I think they have correctly analyzed this situation and their lawyers agree with that. Mr. David Matas, a well known immigration lawyer, has tendered that position which has been presented on behalf of B'nai Brith.

The German-Canadian Congress sent a letter as well. I will quote one paragraph. I do not want to get into all of what is in the letter. The last paragraph reads:

The German-Canadian Congress strongly believes that revoking Canadian citizenship should be a decision of the courts and not be decided by politicians. In addition, a proper process for appeal must be in place and be followed.

To be more specific, it also says:

We strongly urge you to vote in favour of adopting Motions 4 and 5 (Group 2) as proposed at Report Stage in Bill C-16.

There are other groups. I spoke with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress before the bill came to report stage. I can safely say that it would fully support these motions based on what it said in committee and what was said to me in personal meetings. We would find that many others, as they came to understand what a serious issue this is, would support those motions. They would call for a change in the legislation so that only the courts upon leave of appeal to the supreme court would have the final say on revocation of citizenship.

It seems quite reasonable. The witnesses certainly thought so. Many of the groups that monitor this type of issue think so. Several members of the government party thought so and I give them credit. They believed enough in that position that they stood and voted against the whip vote on the issue. That takes some courage and I give them credit.

This issue alone is important enough to cause me to not vote in favour of the legislation. There are several other issues and I will brush over some of them because my time is limited.

This issue demonstrates very well that clearly too much power has been left in the hands of government on issues of citizenship without proper scrutiny, without proper review by the House or even by committee. I put forth 20 some motions to improve the bill. In some of my motions all I call for is scrutiny by the appropriate committee. Were those motions supported by the government? No. It was something the opposition parties supported but the government refused to support it.

There are several areas which demonstrate very well that the government has kept too much power in its hands in a way which it is not accountable for in the bill. We are not talking about a bill that deals with a minor issue; we are talking about a bill that deals with an issue which is extremely important to Canadians, the issue of Canadian citizenship.

I have another concern which I am not sure is shared by all of my colleagues. It is shared by some members across the floor and by others in other opposition parties. It is the issue of citizenship at birth and citizenship being granted automatically to any child born in Canada. That is wrong. The position of the reform party, which was the main political party at least which initiated the birth of the Canadian Alliance, is that a child born in Canada should not automatically obtain Canadian citizenship.

We said exactly the same as a parliamentary committee on which the government has a majority of members said back in 1994. It said that children born in Canada should not automatically obtain Canadian citizenship. They should only obtain Canadian citizenship if at least one parent is either a permanent resident or a citizen.

That seems to be a fair position to take. It is the position that parliamentary committee took six years ago, again a government dominated committee. The thing to do is to make sure a child born in Canada automatically receives Canadian citizenship if he or she is born to at least one parent who is a citizen or a landed immigrant.

I believe that is a fair position. I have a lot of information on that issue. I feel I have to go into it to some extent. I certainly will not present all of it, but I want to say what the minister said in this regard.

When minister was speaking about that issue before the bill was tabled she said she left in the clause regaqrding automatic citizenship at birth because there had not been enough research done to see how it impacted on Canada. Even though the committee had recommended that it be changed, the minister said she would leave it the same because there just was not enough evidence. Yet it was six years ago that the committee made the recommendation to change it. Certainly the opposition has been calling for this change to be made for the last six years.

After six years it is the responsibility of the government and of the citizenship and immigration minister to have done the research if they felt it was necessary to do so. Perhaps the minister did not know whether or not automatic citizenship was a problem, but she certainly knows, as do I suggest most members of the opposition, that it is abused terribly in the country. This is no secret.

This is something that has been brought forward again and again and again. There are people who deliberately come to Canada to have a child, knowing that the child will automatically become a Canadian citizen. They may come as visitors or in various ways. As a result of the court ruling on the Mavis Baker case, we now have a court saying that we have to take into account the citizenship of a child before removing a parent who would otherwise be removed from the country.

We have the government leaving in automatic citizenship. We have the court saying in the Baker case that we have to take into account the fact that the child was born in Canada and automatically is a Canadian citizen, and what kind of hardship it might cause if the mother or father were removed from the country and chose to take the child as well.

It is clearly an issue where the government's lack of action has led to serious abuse. The department seems unable to deal with the abuse. The minister shuns the responsibility by saying that we do not have evidence of just how much abuse there is or how much of a problem it is so we will leave it the same. It is an odd way to make law. I do not think it is what Canadians are looking for.

I want to speak about a couple of more important issues in the legislation. The next issue is the issue of physical presence. In the current citizenship act there are some problems, no doubt, with the definition of residency. In fact the courts ruled that people can be residents if they have bank accounts in Canada. The court ruled that even if people never lived in Canada they can be residents if they pay taxes in Canada, if they are here now and again or if they have a business in Canada.

There was need for change. Clearly the current law on residency is not working. It was never intended, as the courts ruled, that anyone who pays taxes or has a bank account in the country would be considered a resident of Canada. In the act a person has to be a resident for a certain length of time before he or she can obtain citizenship. That is the issue. I think most people would consider that to be reasonable.

The current definition is not working so what did the government do? It made an improvement by saying that residency will be defined by physical presence in the country, that a person had to be physically present in the country three years out of six, basically. I have no problem with that. I think that is probably a pretty reasonable kind of compromise which was made as a result of hearing from witnesses, from the opposition and from government members in the committee which dealt with Bill C-63, the predecessor to this bill. It is probably reasonable that there be 1,095 days or three years of physical presence out of six years.

There is a problem. Let us look at what the minister, the deputy minister, the ADM, and other department officials have said about physical presence. I talked about this issue at committee and said that it sounded good, but I asked how we would know whether people had been physically present in Canada.

Officials from the department made it very clear that they had no way, or at least not a suitable way, to determine that. They said it was not a big problem because they would only refer to actual physical presence in cases where they felt they wanted to do so. They are saying they will apply the law only when they see a particular reason to apply it.

I do not believe we should have laws that we cannot enforce. This is a law we cannot enforce. Before the legislation was brought to the House there should have been an explanation by the minister of how she would enforce physical presence, but it did not happen. While it is an improvement it is one of those laws that just is not enforceable. For that reason I think it should be rejected by the House. It is another reason to reject the bill.

I will skip over a lot of things I wanted to say about physical presence and go to the issue of retroactivity on which we have some interesting comments from government members. Subclause 55(1) states that proceedings in relation to an application pending on the day on which the act comes into force must be dealt with under the act. However subclause 55(2) stipulates that if the application is being considered by a citizenship judge at the time, the application will be considered under the old act.

There is an issue of retroactivity. The department claims that it takes about eight to twelve months to process a citizenship claim. However it seems like the more realistic figure is seventeen months. If a citizenship judge has been taking longer than another judge, we are saying that a particular case could be dealt with under the new act because it has not actually been considered or is not being considered by the citizenship judge.

This is a case of retroactivity and is an unacceptable form of retroactivity. There should not be two different paths for applications to follow depending on how efficiently or expeditiously an official has or has not been dealing with someone's application. That is all wrong and has to be changed in the act.

Is it just me or is it just the Canadian Alliance that has been saying these things? No. In fact the member for Scarborough Southwest made some sense when he stated in committee on April 28, 1999:

I take a position on the traditional, historical pattern of the Liberal Party of not having retroactive legislation. If this citizenship law passes as is, as I understand it, notwithstanding that someone has been making his plans in anticipation of the law as it currently exists, he/she will have to wait, for no apparent reason other than a change in law...to apply for Canadian citizenship.

The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest went on to say:

That to me is retroactivity. That to me is taking away from people who have relied on an existing law, and that is un-Liberal...I'd like to know why immigration department officials recommended that to a Liberal immigration minister...retroactivity is, generally speaking, anathema to the Liberal Party.

The member for Scarborough Southwest is agreeing with the position we take on the issue. This type of retroactivity can unfairly penalize someone due to an official not dealing with the issue of citizenship properly. It is all wrong. It is another reason I certainly will not support the bill. It leads me to believe that most of my colleagues and others in the House will not support it.

I want to talk a bit more about another issue which I touched on earlier, the concept of having citizenship judges maintaining their position and salary which allow them to deal with citizenship when they will no longer have those responsibilities. The responsibility of actually dealing with who is a citizen and who is not, or who should be and who should not be, will go to departmental officials to determine who is eligible for citizenship and who is not.

In spite of that change where most of the responsibility of citizenship judges is taken away, the act will allow those people to maintain their patronage appointments. It will allow people in the future to be named as commissioners. The salary has not been named, but it sounds like it will be at least the same salary or maybe higher when the responsibilities are primarily ceremonial.

I think everyone would agree that it is time to end this type of patronage appointment. This is not something that is acceptable any longer. It is time to end those patronage appointments and to hire people who are being put into positions of such importance, even if they are ceremonial, based on merit much as any public servant would be hired.

I will not talk a great deal about this point, but I recognized in a motion that it made sense to allow the government to appoint the top commissioner. It is important that a government has its views reflected in that function in the department. In the case of citizenship, therefore, I believe the top position will determine the general principles to be considered in areas of discretion. It makes sense to have the person appointed to that position by government.

We have called for that position to be approved by the Leader of the Opposition and leaders of other opposition parties. At the very least it should be approved by the appropriate committee of the House. That is something which I think is only reasonable but unfortunately is not in the bill.

I have talked to some extent about the importance of removing some of the discretion which will be put in place through regulation. The bill has been in the process as Bill C-63 and now as Bill C-16 for two years. I would think by that time regulation would be developed. Why is the committee not looking at the regulation and saying that too much has been left to regulation which can be easily changed by the government without putting it through the House.

Let us put that in legislation. Let us put at least the guiding principles in this area clearly in legislation. That is what legislation should do. It should leave less to regulation, something which is generally supported by members of the committee. Yet it does not show up here.

They voted down the motions I put forward to amend that in the act. It is difficult to understand why when we hear many members supporting it in their speeches. However, when a committee comes to a vote or there is a vote in the House they vote against something they support.

I am talking about regulation that sets fees, that defines what “in the best interests of the child” means, that defines what a genuine parent-child relationship is, something that could be very important. It would define these important things.

The last thing I will talk about this afternoon are the penalties laid out in the bill for people who break the law under this legislation. I believe that the penalties are much too light.

I want to make a comparison. We have heard a lot of talk lately about people coming to our country illegally with the help of people smugglers and people traffickers. We have heard that these people often pay as much as $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 to have a smuggler or trafficker, someone involved in organized crime, help them.

At the same time, under the Citizenship Act, someone who falsifies a document, maybe after taking a bribe, faces relatively minor penalties. I am sure my colleagues will talk about these penalties in their presentations.

We have people who come to our country illegally, paying $60,000 or $70,000 to do so, when they could buy a citizenship for a couple of thousand dollars, and the person who would break the law to sell them the citizenship would be subject to relatively light penalties.

What makes it even worse is that when there is someone in a position of trust, someone in the department or someone who is responsible for issuing Canadian citizenship documents, who accepts a bribe to falsify documents, that person receives the same penalty as anyone else who falsely issues citizenship documents.

For much less money people could become actual citizens through the use of false documents, which probably would allow them to act and live as citizens in most cases, and yet the penalties issued are very minor indeed. And the same penalties would apply to people in a position of trust, people in the department, who are responsible for issuing these citizenship documents.

I put a motion yesterday which would increase the penalties to department officials and others who issue citizenship documents. It was rejected by the government.

There is much more that I would like to say about this bill, but my time is up. I would encourage all members of the House, especially members of the governing party who voted against the important motion on the revocation of citizenship, to vote against Bill C-16. Let us improve it and bring it back as a bill which would adequately deal with the important issue of people obtaining citizenship in our country. That is what I ask. I think that is reasonable and I look forward to that kind of support so that we can do it right.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill which would replace the current citizenship act with a new act. I listened to the minister and she said a lot of nice things. If the bill delivered on some of the things she said, I would support it, but in fact it does not.

I am going to point out in my presentation some of the shortfalls of the bill that make it a piece of legislation which I and the Canadian Alliance cannot support. It is very unfortunate because citizenship is a very touching issue. New Canadians feel pride in obtaining Canadian citizenship. Certainly members of parliament who have attended citizenship ceremonies share that sense of pride new citizens feel when they obtain citizenship.

As a member of parliament I feel pride in being a Canadian citizen. I was fortunate enough to have been born as a Canadian citizen and did not have to come to our country and go through the process to obtain citizenship. It is a very positive issue and it would be very difficult to place a value on it. It is just too important.

Unfortunately the bill does not deal with obtaining citizenship and retaining citizenship in a satisfactory way. I am going to talk later about one particular area which has caused some very serious problems in committee and in the House. Many witnesses pointed to the revocation of citizenship as being an extremely important issue. The government refused to support amendments to the bill and in the first place refused to put in the bill that the ultimate responsibility for revoking citizenship would go to the courts with leave to appeal to the supreme court if necessary.

[Petitions, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of constituents from the Lakeland constituency.

The petitioners point out that taxes have increased each and every year for the past six years, and they are ready for some tax relief. In their petition they call for a 25% reduction in federal tax, which is something that makes sense.

[Committees Of The House, May 16th, 2000]

It is well worth waiting for. They are sitting on the edges of their chairs.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to these motions, all of which have been presented by the Canadian Alliance party. They deal with the issue of appropriate punishment for dealing with crimes committed under the citizenship act.

My general feeling is that the penalties are extremely weak, particularly in a situation where a citizenship official breaks the law, takes bribes and so on under the citizenship act. I will speak a bit more about that later but that is the general problem.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration says often that citizenship is something to be valued, but she does not have penalties which reflect this when it comes to people who fraudulently trade in citizenship and that type of thing. That is regrettable.

The chair of the committee and other government members told me to bring my amendments to the bill forward at committee rather than at report stage. I did that with this group of motions. They did even not listen. They shot them down automatically. So much for committee functioning. I brought them back at report stage to show the Canadian public what was rejected by the Liberal members at committee. It is important that they know. It demonstrates to the Canadian public just how the government views breaches which allow people to become Canadian citizens through fraud and how weak the punishment is that it puts in place in that regard. That is what this whole group of motions is about, but they are dealing with slightly different things.

First, Motions Nos. 10 and 11 deal with clause 39 which deals with various offences regarding the obtaining of citizenship. They include making false representation, committing fraud or knowingly concealing material circumstances. They include obtaining or using another person's certificate. They include knowingly permitting one's certificate to be used by someone else so the person will be identified as a Canadian citizen. We can all understand the kinds of problems that would cause. They include offences of trafficking and offering to traffic in citizenship documents.

These are extremely serious offences. Yet what types of punishment has the government put forth in its legislation to deal with these offences? It has put in place fines of not more than $10,000 and/or five years in jail. Hon. members will know that the maximum penalty is five years in jail. We can certainly see with sentences handed out under the immigration act and under the citizenship act that the penalty which is usually imposed by the courts is very weak and often includes no prison time and a very minor fine.

It is extremely important to increase the penalties which could be imposed to demonstrate clearly that it is a serious offence when one traffics in documents, falsifies documents or gets into the country fraudulently in some way and is recognized as a citizen of Canada fraudulently. Yet the government does not take it seriously enough to put in place appropriate punishments.

One area in particular that I find really offensive is the area of citizenship officials, people who are put into a position of trust in the citizenship department and break citizenship laws by doing things like issuing false documents or false statements that apply to citizenship issues, or commit offences like accepting bribes or encouraging someone else to accept a bribe so that citizenship can be obtained falsely and fraudulently.

Offences such as contravening various provisions of the act by dealing with people who try to bribe citizenship officials and those who impersonate citizenship officials are dealt with in Motions Nos. 13 and 14. I find it surprising that under the bill, the way the government has presented it, that it would impose exactly the same penalty, no more, for departmental officials in that position of trust who break the law as it does for anyone else who is not in a position of trust and is breaking the law. I cannot understand the reasoning of a government that thinks like that. It is completely beyond me.

If we want to deter people who are in a position which lends itself to making a lot of money accepting bribes and handing out citizenship falsely and fraudulently, we have to put in place very serious penalties. They certainly should be more serious than the penalties given to anyone else for the same type of activity. Yet that is not what has happened. I believe what is proposed in here is unacceptable.

Let us think of this in terms of the way the real world is operating right now and in terms of people wanting to enter Canada illegally. If people wanting to enter our country illegally pay to obtain the services of a people smuggler or a people trafficker, they will have to pay between $20,000 and $70,000 to do that. It is a lot of money. That is the going rate for people, depending from which country they are coming, to come into our country illegally with the help of people smugglers or people traffickers. Yet because of the way the government has dealt with that in this law, for a few thousand dollars a person can bribe an official, get a false citizenship document and not only be allowed to come into the country, but become a citizen of the country in the eyes of the officials, if it is done properly, because the person will have the appropriate citizenship documents to be recognized as a citizen.

In any government department, in any business, there will be those people who, for some reason or another, are willing to break the law to make money. There are usually not very many. I would suggest that in the citizenship and immigration departments there would be very few people who would be willing to do that, but they are there.

If given the opportunity, and if the penalties are weak, then the temptation increases. For people so inclined, I believe that a weak penalty would encourage them to become involved in this illicit activity whereby people would become recognized as Canadian citizens by obtaining false documents.

For that reason my motion calls for increasing the fines. The government is proposing a maximum fine of $10,000 and/or not more than five years in jail. What a joke that is. A person could make $10,000 in a good day's work of issuing a couple of false documents.

We know how these things work in the immigration department, and I assume it would be the same in the citizenship department. When cases like this come up they are swept under the rug. The person may or may not be dismissed. Seldom will people ever actually end up in court, but when they do the courts view these things lightly. They look at a five year maximum jail sentence and they do not think it really means that. The courts seem to think that means maybe a suspended sentence or some type of probation.

I think it is important, because of all these factors, that the maximum penalty be increased substantially. We are proposing that when it comes to citizenship officials there should be a maximum fine of $150,000, which is a real threat, a maximum jail sentence of 10 years and/or both.

I think a higher maximum penalty would cause officials working in the department to think twice. Of course, that in itself would not solve the problem. I recognize that, but we have to have a department which is administered and managed properly. That is up to the minister to ensure. The minister has failed miserably, as did the previous minister, as did the one before. The three Liberal ministers of immigration have failed miserably in terms of improving management and administration in the departments. It is not me saying that; it is the auditor general.

The auditor general issued, just a couple of weeks ago, the most damning report he has ever issued, to the immigration department. He said that management was absolutely in shambles, that administration was not working and that enforcement was weak. Many people have said it is the most damning report the auditor general has ever issued.

Putting these more serious penalties in place may cause people to think twice about committing the very serious offence of allowing people to become Canadian citizens when the law would not allow it.

It is shameful that the government is so weak in terms of protecting the security of our country.

How do organized crime figures get into this country? They are the first ones who would be willing to bribe officials. They have done it and they will do it again. They are the first ones who would use people smugglers to get into the country. The top individuals of course have other ways to get in, but certainly they would not hesitate to bribe officials. It happens all the time. It is a sad commentary on the government that it takes this issue so lightly.

Through these weak penalties that the government has put in the bill, it is accommodating organized crime and terrorists, and in a way encouraging them to bribe officials to become citizens of our country completely fraudulently.

Before I end my remarks I want to mention that the member for Wentworth—Burlington spoke to his proposal for a new citizenship oath, and although I did speak out against his oath, there is one aspect of the oath that I really did appreciate, and that is including the reference to God in the oath. God of course is the term that many religions, in fact I would suggest all religions, could consider to be pretty much a generic term. Recognizing that supreme being is extremely important. I think that should be in the oath.

I regret that I did not put an amendment forward myself to do that. I talked about this and I have proposed this several times throughout this two year process which the bill has gone through. It is something that I would like to see changed.

I have talked to members from all parties in the House and I would ask for unanimous consent to make a very minor change. I believe it is a typographical error either on my part or on the part of the clerks. I wish to amend Motion No. 15, which now reads:

“(b) subject to alternative resolution of the House of Commons...”

I wish to change “alternative” to “affirmative”. Therefore, I move:

That Bill C-16, in Clause 43, be amended by replacing line 40 on page 21 with the following:

“(b) subject to affirmative resolution of the House of Commons, specifying who may make an applica—”

That is completely consistent with the other motions. Clearly it is a little typographical error. I think, Mr. Speaker, you would find unanimous consent to make that change.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member from Winnipeg for pointing out a typographical error in one of the motions in the last grouping. The word “alternative” appears in the phrase “alternative resolution”. It should read “affirmative resolution”. In all the similar resolutions it was written as “affirmative”.

The way this was organized by the government, report stage was scheduled to come up next week. We found out on Tuesday afternoon, a couple of hours before the deadline for submitting resolutions, that the government had bumped report stage up to Wednesday afternoon. At the same time, the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration was in committee, where many of us expected we could speak to the report stage motions. Because of that rush, we did not see the error. I thank the member for pointing it out. I hope the error can be corrected as it would be consistent with the other motions presented.

We are dealing with only two motions in Group No. 4, Motion No. 9, presented by the Bloc critic, and Motion No. 23, presented by a Liberal member.

The Bloc motion suggests that along with the citizenship certificate given out at the ceremony, there would be some information from the Government of Quebec given out as well. It is really interesting that we have a party, which wants Quebec to separate from Canada and wants more authority given to the Quebec government, that is now asking the federal government to intervene and ensure that it can hand out this information with the certificates.

The province can decide in any way it wants and in any form it wants to hand out this information if it feels it is something its citizens need to have. It really does not make any sense at all having that included in this bill. I know I certainly will not be supporting this motion. It really does not make any sense.

What we are talking about in this bill is Canadian citizenship, something that most Canadians value very deeply. I would also suggest that it is something most Canadians from Quebec value at a very high level. When we have a citizenship ceremony, we should be accepting certificates that we can proudly display indicating that we are citizens of Canada. I therefore cannot support the motion.

Motion No. 23, which was presented by a Liberal MP, calls for a change to the proposed new citizenship oath. I do not have any particular disagreement with the oath that is in the bill. What is really wrong is the process. How many Canadians were ever asked to take part in developing the oath? The minister said that there were some. I would like to ask Canadians if they were asked to take part. I know I was not.

I do not believe the oath is the real issue. The member is proposing an alternative oath but I do not think it is any better. In fact, it is less acceptable and does not fix the problem. The government thinks it can present an oath that has had no support or input from Canadians. I think the member is taking the same position. He, as a government member, seems to think he knows better than Canadians what should be in the oath. It really is the process that is at issue here. I certainly will not be supporting this motion. I do not think it improves the oath nor does it improve the process.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 11th, 2000]

Which of the groups the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration consulted with during the period from February 27, 1998, through March 11, 1998 inclusive regarding the legislative review ministerial consultations, have received government issued grants and/or subsidies, and of those: ( a ) what was the total grant/subsidy; ( b ) the reason for the grant/subsidy; and ( c ) which government department issued the grant/subsidy?

[Petitions, May 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to present a petition on behalf of hundreds of people from the Lakeland constituency, mostly from the Cold Lake area.

The petitioners are extremely upset with the inaction of the government regarding child pornography. They ask that parliament deal with the issue of pornography by using section 33 of the charter of rights and freedoms to invoke the notwithstanding clause to override the B.C. court decision which legalized pornography.

I fully support this petition.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motions in Group No. 2. I want to talk about what has been happening with regard to the government and its management of the House.

We have the citizenship bill in report stage before the House today and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is in committee at exactly the same time. Also at the same time the government makes an announcement that it has finally managed to deport a small portion of the 600 people who arrived illegally by boat this year.

That is the way the government seems to manage. It cannot co-ordinate things even in the House. The minister cannot co-ordinate her own time. She should be here. She is the minister responsible for citizenship. I will not say whether or not she is here but she should be. The minister should be taking part in this debate and listening to this debate. Her time management and the way she manages herself and her department are so poor that she has three things going on at the same time. That is completely unacceptable. Many members who would like to be taking part in the report stage debate of Bill C-16 are at committee. That is unacceptable.

Motion No. 6 deals with consultations between the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of any party recognized in the House, in other words any party with over 12 members, on the issue of appointing a retired judge who in certain cases will take the place of the security review committee. This would be done on very serious issues, usually security issues. The minister would be asked to appoint a retired judge to preside over the hearing. For some reason the government does not want the security review committee to do that. To add some measure of protection in the act, it has said that the minister must consult with all party leaders. This motion would require the minister to get agreement from all party leaders that this judge is an acceptable person and that he or she will be able to deal with security issues or a very touchy issues. I do not think that is too much to ask.

I do not believe any of the party leaders, current or in the future, would let partisan politics stand in the way of such an important appointment when dealing with the security of our country and an issue that affects human beings in such a serious way. I do not understand why the government would reject Motion No. 6, and I hope it will not.

Motion No. 7 points out that in this legislation there are no provisions preventing the appointment of a citizenship commissioner who has been found guilty of an offence under clause 39 or 40 of this bill. I will run that by members again, because it is important to take careful note. The government has put no protection in this proposed new citizenship act against appointing someone as a citizenship commissioner who has a criminal record as a result of breaching this proposed new act. It is unbelievable that would be the case.

I pointed this out in committee on several occasions and yet the government insists that it wants the minister to decide on the appointment. It is an unacceptable process. The minister is willing to allow someone who has breached the new citizenship act, the very serious clauses 39 and 40, to be appointed to the position of citizenship commissioner in spite of having committed these serious crimes. One has to wonder why.

Is the government suggesting that it has political friends whom it would like to appoint to these positions? Everyone in this group is a political appointment. That is why they are grouped together and that is why I have brought forward these motions. The government seems to be so concerned that it cannot find enough of its political friends, who have not breached the citizenship act, to appoint to this position of commissioner that it has to open it up to those who have broken the law under the very bill we are debating today. It is unbelievable. Any other government would turn red-faced or maybe white-faced at this type of thing going on and someone pointing out that it should be changed. I would hope that the government members would support this motion but I doubt very much that they will.

Motion No. 8 deals with another instance of patronage. It is the same type of thing. The Canadian Alliance understands that the government wants to ensure that the senior citizenship judge who is appointed reflects the government's principles and way of thinking. I am talking about only the top dog here, and I understand that. I am not saying that there should not be a political appointment at the top. I am saying that in this position the government naturally would want someone who reflects its values.

All we are asking for is that the appointment be at least monitored and scrutinized by the appropriate standing committee of the House. Does that not make sense?

When the Canadian Alliance forms the government in a year or a year and a half, which I hope and believe it will as there is a good chance of it, we will take this act and completely overhaul it. The person who ultimately will be responsible for the granting of citizenship will reflect the principles of the party. All other members will not be patronage appointments. This government has left dozens and dozens of patronage appointments in this citizenship act so it can give its political friends these lucrative jobs. That is unacceptable.

We are saying that it is okay for the top person to reflect the values of the government, but that a House of Commons standing committee should scrutinize the appointment. That is all Motion No. 8 does. It is completely reasonable. We will see whether the government supports the motion or not, although I doubt it. It just does not seem to want to support anything that comes from anyone other than itself. If it steals the idea from someone else and passes it that is okay but if it misses that opportunity, which it often does, and an idea is brought forth by someone else, then it is not a good idea. That is not the way government will be when we are in power, which will not be that far from now.

This is the last chance I have to talk about Motions Nos. 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21. They all deal with the fact that too much is left to regulation in different areas of the bill. This is something this government is guilty of on more occasions than I can say. In fact, the new immigration act, Bill C-31, which was tabled by the minister a few weeks ago, is so full of holes that we could navigate one of those rusty illegal migrant ships through it with no problem.

I had to run out of here today to go to committee in order to take part as the official opposition immigration critic. When I asked the minister some questions about the new act, she said that it was not really a new act, that it was a framework act. She knows that it was so full of holes it will not work.

The Liberals have left everything in Bill C-31 up to regulation which is the same thing they have done with Bill C-16. Too much is left to regulation. In no way should the minister, civil servants or the department be making decisions on such critical issues as who can make an application on behalf of a minor, on how a relationship between a parent and child should be defined, or on what is in the best interests of the child. They are all found within the new act but that have no definition and there are not guidelines.

In no way should this government or any civil servant be left to decide what constitutes adequate language knowledge or other knowledge in order to be eligible for citizenship. However, that is what this new act will do. These proposed motions would say that this cannot all be left to regulation. We will put it in legislation so at least the principle of the new act can be understood. That was not done and that was what we wanted. I encourage the government to support these motions.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, May 10th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as I start my comments on the motions in Group No. 2, I feel I must respond to what the member from the Liberal Party just said.

She said that she does not want to support these motions because they would be making a substantial change to the current citizenship act when in fact the replacement act we are debating today has been in the process for 15 years. I do not understand the logic in that. It seems ludicrous if there is a change that makes sense.

There is a change in a motion which was originally put forth by a Liberal member of parliament. He was not allowed to actually read the motion today so I as a co-signator put it forth. It is a good motion, supported by members of the party opposite. Some have told me they will to support the motion so I will assume they will. The argument this member put forth is that it is just too much of a change to put into the new citizenship act which has been in the process of being amended for 15 years. I cannot understand the argument.

The second issue to which the member spoke was the issue of too much power in the hands of the court. That is interesting in that right now the revocation of citizenship is in the hands of cabinet. We have several members of our party who were not born in Canada. If I, a Canadian Alliance member of parliament, had come from another country and if the cabinet had a political reason for wanting to expel me from the country, the ultimate power is with the cabinet, the way it has been laid out in the new citizenship bill.

That is unacceptable. That is old style. That is something one would expect from the 1920s, perhaps, because democracies were not as well developed then. Back in 1920 is exactly when it was put into the act originally. With modernization of democracy surely it is time to make a change so that it is wrong when someone is threatened with revocation of citizenship, which is an extremely serious thing to have happen, and when the ultimate control is in the hands of cabinet.

I fully support the motion that has been presented. It would give that ultimate power to the courts so that a less partisan body would be making the ultimate decision. That is what the motion is meant to do.

The member will have to answer to her constituents. Many of them will be upset by it. Anyone who has come to our country and is in Canada now should be concerned about it. They should be asking this member and all other members of the government why they did not support a motion which would put that authority in the hands of the court rather than in the hands of cabinet.

I cannot believe the member made this argument. It looked as though she had been given a speech by the minister or by the particular public servant who is responsible for that. She read it, but she should have looked at it first. Some members have already spoken in support of the motion from the government side because it is a good one.

As to the power in the courts, the government for some reason does not have any particular desire to interfere with power given by the courts when it comes to the Singh decision. I do not believe it is a correct interpretation. It leaves a situation where anyone coming to our country who is not a Canadian citizen or a landed immigrant and has no status here is entitled to the full protection of the charter of rights and freedoms, including the complete judicial process.

They seem to be happy with that. It is something that no other country offers. In the new immigration bill that has been proposed they do not even have to be in Canada to be offered charter protection. If they want to apply to come to Canada and are not citizens, have no status and live in another country, they will have access to the protection of our charter.

Yet the government refuses to grant the same protection to people who have become citizens of our country during their lifetime. It is an absurd concept and I expect the government to have to answer that concern, not to me but to citizens in its constituencies.

I have heard from many constituents, as have some of the members opposite. I would be very curious to hear how the hon. member responds to that and how members of the government who brought forth this new Citizenship Act and yet refuse to make this change, which is a good change, can live with themselves when they wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. I really do not understand.

The Citizenship Act is very important. It could lead to individuals being thrown out of our country when they have become citizens. It is all wrong that the ultimate power is going to cabinet.

The two motions in this group both deal with this issue. I encourage the government to reconsider. I believe some members will support them. I encourage them to talk with their colleagues and change their minds. If government members decide to change their minds on this issue between now and when we vote on these motions, I can guarantee that there will not be one bit of heckling from this side of the House. There will not be one negative word from this side of the House.

Instead there will be congratulations because they will have listened to a good idea which has come from the opposition but originated with members of the governing party. I give them credit for that, but they will not let it pass. I encourage them to change their minds and I look forward to their doing exactly that.