Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House this evening.
So far, I have found that all of this has been too complicated. Citizenship is a universal human value. It is a right in all civilized countries. Citizenship is a fundamental human right. We often send our troops to defend that right, to protect a country's citizens and their citizenship, as in Ukraine, for example. Some Ukrainians are going to find themselves with Russian passports without having asked for them.
Citizenship is part of our identity. Citizens of every country, wherever they may be in the world, know that they have a country they can depend on to help them and support them in difficult times. They know that that is an inalienable right.
There are a few exceptions. Some countries have unfair systems. For example, there are people who have been living in Switzerland for five generations who have not been able to obtain their citizenship. A public referendum is required to obtain Swiss citizenship. That is completely unfair.
The Poles have known the greatest suffering that can be inflicted on a people. They have been passed from hand to hand many times since the Middle Ages and have spent time as part of East Prussia, Russia and Ukraine. The borders were extremely fluid, which caused major problems for the Polish people.
There is the case of the Ukrainians, who lived under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some of them came to Canada with Austro-Hungarian passports and were interned in camps during the Second World War because they were citizens of an enemy power. However, that enemy power no longer even existed because the empire had been dissolved. Canada was unable to sign a peace treaty with that country. These people, who were law-abiding citizens, were interned and forced to work under terrible conditions.
There is also the case of the Kurds in Syria. For 30 years, the Syrian government has refused to issue them identity papers and give them passports and travel documents. These people do not exist.
Our citizenship should be much simpler than that. We should meet the conditions for becoming a citizen and commit to obeying the rules for a certain time for confirmation. If all goes well, then we become a citizen. This should be irrevocable. If we commit a crime, then we should face the same punishment as other Canadian citizens. I do not see why there would be two categories.
Where there are arbitrary decisions, there is always injustice. Crime has to be dealt with by the justice system and the courts. That is what we make laws for. If we decide to punish someone by revoking their citizenship, we are adding extra punishment. That is where we start to violate section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, by imposing the equivalent of extra punishment because we do not consider these people will already have been sentenced by the justice system.
On top of that, they have to go back to a country they once fled, usually for their own safety.
When we think of people convicted abroad for crimes punishable in Canada, that means we may be putting our trust in countries that are not governed by the rule of law. For example, in China, the Uyghur have been beaten, tortured and persecuted by the Chinese government for decades. They end up in prison for completely frivolous reasons. Many have criminal records. They might suffer as a result of such a measure. We must not create more victims. There are already too many in Canada, such as the Italian and Japanese citizens who suffered during World War II.
By making arbitrary decisions and creating a very complex maze, we are making things complicated for people for no good reason. Citizenship is not just a privilege that we give to someone. For example, a British lord who renounced his British citizenship and his Canadian citizenship can become a Canadian citizen again, even when he gets out of a U.S. prison. There are limits. We have to look at whether we are giving the same value to human life and the same rights to everyone, without making distinctions or creating categories.
As for the slow-moving immigration system—and all of my colleagues will likely agree with this—the majority of the work being done in my offices consists of dealing with endless immigration cases, which go on forever. I have seen only one satisfied person in three years. That was last month. He was able to bring his wife of eight years to Canada. He was happy that day because it was the culmination of eight years of working to bring his wife to Canada.
There are plenty of little traps and arbitrary things in this bill. There is a lot of information that is to be kept secret, but that kind of thing should be left to the KGB or its modern-day equivalent. We are not in that kind of country or, at least, we never used to be and we never want to be.
I hope that my colleagues opposite will think things through. It is a waste of time to pass a bill that will very likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. Winning a vote and then screaming like a band of Vikings bursting into a church in the Middle Ages does not lend legitimacy to the bill or the process. It takes frank and honest discussion to create a legitimate law that offers a solution to a problem. The government should not be trying to set traps.
There may be some good ideas in the bill, but the Conservatives usually find the wrong way to do the right thing.
There are still some flaws. For example, it is good that the government is taking action against the fraudsters who exploit immigrants and use extortion. There are some good measures, but we need to discuss all of the other points more seriously.
