Marlene Jennings

[Dorval Golf Course, February 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform you that later today, I will be giving the Minister of Transport a petition signed by more than 20,000 individuals from Quebec and elsewhere who want to protect the Dorval golf course. These people are concerned about the Montreal airport's plans for expansion, which they say will lead to the destruction of the golf course green space.

As the member of Parliament for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, a riding which includes Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport and the city of Dorval, I would urge the Minister of Transport to give due consideration to this issue and to respond to this petition in a timely manner.

[Court Challenges Program, February 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Minister of Justice misunderstood my question on the fact that this government cut the court challenges program. Today, the highest court called for changes to the legislation on security certificates. In 2006, the Prime Minister wrote to the Canadian Arab Foundation and promised to change this legislation.

Why did the Prime Minister go back on his promise? Why is he refusing to respect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, unless the courts require him to?

[Court Challenges Program, February 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the court challenges program played an important role in preventing the government from violating the Constitution. It allowed minority groups, such as the Canadian Arab Foundation, to intervene in key matters such as that of the security certificates. This Conservative government cut this program and believes that only the rich should be heard at the Supreme Court.

Does the government recognize that it is putting women and minority communities at a disadvantage?

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, possibly the member's microphone was not working properly, because I stated at the outset when I began speaking about the issue of lost Canadians that when my party was in power we did not address the issue and, therefore, my party as a government was not blameless in this matter.

However, we have another government that calls itself the new government and has now been in place for 14 months. Had this issue been a priority, the government had more than ample time to correct this. The member himself talks about band-aid solutions that the minister has put into place. He himself used the terms. One was a hotline. He said the government will do everything it can if someone loses their citizenship to try to help get it back. However, he himself called these solutions short term, band-aid solutions.

My point is that if this issue were an important priority to the Conservative government, it would have given this priority in its own policy agenda and legislative agenda. It would have brought forth amendments and, at that point, would have had it sent to committee at first reading. That is where the solutions could have been made.

The party in government, which calls itself the new Conservative government, and pats itself on the back, bears as much responsibility, I believe, if not more, because more has come to light over the succeeding 14 or 15 months. The Conservative government definitely bears at least as much responsibility as my own party does, and as I and all of my colleagues did when we were sitting on the opposite side. I simply say, in the spirit of integrity and basic decency, that the governing party should admit that it bears responsibility and that it has not given the kind of priority to this issue that it should have.

[Business of Supply, February 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the Liberal Party's motion. As my Liberal colleague already said, our party's motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, immigrants to Canada and persons seeking Canadian citizenship are poorly served by this government.

Before directly addressing this motion, I think it brings up the issue that persons seeking Canadian citizenship are poorly served by this government. I would also like to explain how this government serves Canadian citizens poorly as well. First of all, there is the matter of lost Canadians. These are people who had Canadian citizenship and who lost it through no fault of their own under the first Citizenship Act, which was passed in 1947 and remained in force until February 1977.

I stand before you as a Canadian who spent a month trying to confirm her Canadian citizenship, and who has had to live with the potential consequences of losing it. Fortunately, the registrar of Canadian citizenship finally informed me today that I do in fact have citizenship, and that I have never lost my citizenship in my 55 years of life.

The issue is that the current government has the power to fix this problem for hundreds and thousands of Canadians. The minister says there are only 450 cases—I believe that is the number she gave—but that only includes the cases she and her officials have identified. There are thousands of people who had every reason to believe they had their citizenship, but now with all the media attention they realize that this act, which was in force from 1947 to 1977, might have put their citizenship in jeopardy.

These people are afraid to contact Citizenship and Immigration Canada. They are afraid they might be informed that they have lost their citizenship through no fault of their own, having never desired to lose or renounce it.

There are other cases like that. Take Joe Taylor, for example, who is the son of a Canadian veteran. Because his biological mother was not a citizen and because his father and mother were not married when he was born, under the Citizenship Act of 1947, Joe Taylor was not entitled to Canadian citizenship. He only found out about this as an adult. When he asked that his citizenship be recognized, the government—and I must admit that my party was in power at the time—refused. He went to the Federal Court, which ruled in his favour and ordered the government to grant him citizenship.

Now the Conservatives are in power. Last September, they filed a motion with the Federal Court asking that the order to grant Joe Taylor citizenship be stayed so that the government could appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Many Canadians are in the same position as Joe Taylor.

The people behind the 450 cases the minister referred to are those who took the courageous step of formally inquiring whether they have Canadian citizenship. If the answer was no, they asked the minister to use her extraordinary powers to grant it to them.

But there are hundreds and thousands of Canadians who have every reason to believe that they have lost their citizenship through no fault of their own or deliberate decision on their part. They are not registering, because they know that if they do, the government will tell them that they are not Canadian citizens.

The Liberal motion talks about this government, this new Conservative government that so proudly proclaims itself Canada's new government. But this new government is doing a poor job of serving not only the people who would like to have Canadian citizenship, but also the people who had every reason to believe they were Canadian citizens yet have lost that citizenship.

This government is doing a poor job of serving them. A simple amendment to the current Citizenship Act is all it would take to retroactively restore citizenship to all the people who have involuntarily lost it.

I cannot speak more passionately on this issue, having lived the ups and downs over the last month when questions of my own citizenship came to light. They initially came to light because people believed that because my father was a non-citizen, albeit I was born in Canada and my parents were legally wed at the time of my birth, that I did not have citizenship. However, it has been clarified that I am a citizen.

Doubts and questioning began. People believed that a provision in the 1947 Citizenship Act, which stated that anyone born in Canada but of a non-citizen at the time that act was in force who did not make a formal declaration of permanent domicile in Canada by their 28th birthday was not a Canadian citizen, applied to me.

I had to verify that. After some hesitation I was told that provision did not apply to me and that I was a citizen. Then the question of my dual citizenship began to solicit doubts on the part of third parties. In 1974, I married a permanent resident of Canada who had Italian citizenship. Under Italian citizenship law, I automatically gained Italian citizenship. I checked with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and I was told that I was not. I was then asked if I had renounced my Canadian citizenship and if had I put on an act to get that Italian citizen? I told them no. I was then told that by virtue of my marriage I was a citizen. I was then asked if I had ever applied for an Italian passport. Obviously, by asking that question it then put into doubt whether or not I was a citizen.

I had to ask the Italian consulate to search its archival material to determine the date that I had applied for an Italian passport. It was the only passport I ever had and it has been expired for a long time. That was January 17, 1977. I then had to call the registrar back and inform him of this. He then asked me if I had ever formally renounced my Canadian citizenship. I told him that I had not and that I never would. I told him that I was a Canadian first and foremost. He then informed me that he had just signed off on the letter confirming that I was a Canadian citizen and that I had never lost my citizenship.

However, even with that assurance, until I have the physical letter in my hand there will still be a certain level of anxiety. I can just imagine those thousands of Canadians who are now wondering if there is some arcane provision that existed in the 1947 Citizenship Act that may have removed their citizenship without their knowledge.

The Conservative government is not serving immigrants. It is not serving people who--

[Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, a taxi costs $3 per kilometre.

On September 7, 2006, just before she went to a festival, she made an announcement in Toronto about social housing. Again, she spent $1,000 of taxpayers' money on limousines for two days and $300 to go from Pearson Airport to downtown Toronto.

How can this government justify the image of injustice projected by this waste of public funds?

[Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, February 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that is not all. To arrive in style at a country fair last September, the very same minister rented yet another limo, spending $862 so she could take in the sights for four hours.

The minister spent more on one four hour limo ride than her Conservative government gives to parents in one year. How does she justify that?

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I love the question that was just asked. It allows me to straighten out the facts.

The fact is that it was a Conservative government that abolished and scrapped all of the early learning and child care agreements signed with the provinces. Is that not interesting?

I would assume that members from Saskatchewan in the Conservative Party who are sitting in the House would have been protesting their own government because that meant cancelling the full universal pre-school program for all four-year-olds in the province of Saskatchewan.

The program was there. The money was there. The spaces were going to open in September 2006. It was because the Conservative government scrapped the agreement with Saskatchewan that those spaces did not materialize.

Let us talk about Alberta. We want to talk about choices for families. Yes, there are families that choose, if there are two parents, one parent chooses to stay at home. Many of those families and parents also wish their children, notwithstanding that one of the primary caregivers is at home, have access to early learning. Early learning is given at community centres, for instance. If the mom wishes and if she is the parent at home, she can get instruction, and share with other parents her experiences and benefits from it. The children are provided with early learning development.

Alberta was focusing primarily on training. Why? It was because almost 80% of early learning and child care is done in the private sector. Guess what? The operators who provide that early learning and child care in the private sector were welcomed. The Liberal government's agreement with the Government of Alberta would have meant that the operators of schools would have access to funds in order to be able to go back to school and receive training. Then they could qualify themselves as regulated child care space operators. There would be the understanding, yes, that parents have much more confidence in a place that knows public health requirements and such things like exercise, nutrition and the training of those workers.

No, there was no typo and is no typo in the official opposition's motion. It is that Conservative government that destroyed Kelowna, that destroyed the early learning and child care agreements, and that is destroying the independence and impartiality of our judicial system. The next thing is the Conservatives will have elected judges. Would that not be a nice sight?

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged to be able to discuss this motion introduced by the official opposition. To my mind, the points and themes raised in the motion are subjects at the heart of our society and our Canadian values.

With respect to judicial selection committees, my colleague for Etobicoke—Lakeshore spoke of changes the Conservative government has made that enable it to put in place the only plan it has managed to develop.

In a matter affecting all Canadians, the government’s plan is to ensure that our judiciary becomes ideological, that is, that the judiciary share this government’s ideology. I am not alone in saying this; all the members of the Liberal caucus and all the country’s legal experts, the Quebec Bar and the Canadian Bar Association say so, too. The Prime Minister himself has also said so.

Indeed the Prime Minister finally put his cards on the table yesterday during question period. He proudly affirmed that his intention was to appoint judges who shared his intransigent opinions respecting justice.

He clearly stated the reason why he changed the composition of the selection committees created for the first time in 1988, under the leadership of the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney; this gives him full power to ensure that the candidates qualified for appointment to the judiciary share his ideological point of view.

The Prime Minister admitted with great pride that this is a point of view based on law and order, the limitation—indeed, restriction—of judicial discretion, the increase in the crown prosecutor’s discretionary power, and the assurance that all scientific facts pertaining to our Criminal Code and its effectiveness with respect to sentencing should be completely discarded.

The dress has been taken off and we now get to see the ugly face of the Conservative Party which is now in power.

The Prime Minister was very proud to announce that he had changed the composition of the selection committees. What was the composition prior? There were seven members. One member came from the judiciary, three members came from the legal profession, and three members from the community at large appointed by the government. Each of the seven members had a right to vote. The government has now removed the right to vote from the judge who chairs the committee, added on a fourth so-called member from the community, and in so doing ensured that its appointees have the majority vote on the committee.

That was not sufficient. Under the previous system for the selection of judges, the JACs, as I have heard the Minister of Justice refer to them, the judicial advisory committees, were required to evaluate potential candidates and to actually label them as highly recommended, recommended, or not recommended.

The government, I guess, is so afraid that it does not have enough individuals who share its ideological bent who would meet the designation of highly recommended that it has now wiped out those designations and now it is a pass or fail.

This is clearly unconscionable. This is what we call lowering the bar. Our judiciary is heralded throughout the world for its excellence, independence and impartiality. By removing the designations, highly recommended, recommended and not recommended, the Conservative government is ensuring that Canadians will no longer have the guarantee that those appointed to our judiciary are highly recommended. They will not know if a person received one point above the passing grade.

There are parents today who are arguing with their provincial governments in an attempt to change the evaluation and the school marks system of pass or fail because they have no way of judging exactly how well their children are doing. This is happening in Quebec now. Now we are seeing this neo-conservative government lowering the bar. But that is not all.

My colleague from Etobicoke--Lakeshore made the point that the Conservative government is not willing and not interested in governing for all Canadians. It is only interested in governing for those who share its own ideological bent. What better way than to look at what the government has done with programs, plans and agreements that the previous Liberal government had negotiated and signed following widespread consultation, whether it be the Kelowna accord or the early learning and child care agreements with 10 provinces and two of the territorial governments.

Just on that last issue, the government said by scrapping those agreements and by instituting in place of those agreements $100 a month per child under the age of six, which would amount to $1,200 a year, this would provide choice to families who choose to have one of the parents stay at home, and choice to those families who decide to have only one of the parents work full time and the other one possibly work part time.

In fact, as is the case, and the Conservative government has shown it over and over again, it did not tell all of the truth. It did not tell all of the facts to Canadians. That $100 a month, or a total of $1,200 a year, is taxable. The Conservatives neglected to put that in big bold print in those ads they took out in major national newspapers.

They talked about $100 a month per child, and we had to go down to the bottom of the page and in minuscule letters we had to use a magnifying glass in order to determine that it was taxable. Guess who is going to have to give back the most? It is the poorest families, not the richest families.

I ask members, how more ideologically bent can a government get than to design a program that is in fact not to help families have real choice? If we want families to have real choice, then we ensure that families have access to early learning, for instance in play groups. For those individuals who are private providers who wish to upgrade their skills, we ensure that when they are taking care of children in their homes or in the children's homes, they have the proper training and skills. Whether it is just to babysit a couple of hours or not, the spaces must be there. They must be created and that has not been the case.

I will conclude by saying simply that I have rarely seen a government develop all its policies and programs from an ideological point of view that excludes, rather than includes, the most vulnerable.

I am ready to answer questions, if there are any.

[Criminal Code, February 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech made by the parliamentary secretary on Bill C-27.

The Liberals support all efforts, actions and legitimate measures that respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while seeking to protect Canadians and to punish offenders who pose a real threat to our community and our safety.

We Liberals wanted to propose changes to the justice system regarding dangerous offenders. Some very serious concerns were raised by the legal community about the constitutionality of this bill.

Why would the Conservatives bring in legislation that would bring amendments to the dangerous offenders system which have the great potential of being declared unconstitutional and, with such a decision on the part of our courts, could threaten the dangerous offenders system that we have right now?