Mr. Speaker, when we look at legislation in the House and talk about the thoughts or ideas we have about it, there is no better way to look at legislation than through the lens of our work as members of Parliament. We have a lot of opportunities as MPs to talk to people, to hear different things, to meet with experts, people who have studied different issues and done academic work on things. We also talk to front-line workers, the people who experience the front lines of issues and have good feedback about potential impacts of legislation.
We also have the experience of talking to people in community, who will feel the impacts of potential legislation and have to live with the impacts of our legislative decisions. That is some of the work that we do as MPs that gives us a unique perspective.
As MPs, a lot of us also have caseworkers in our offices. The caseworkers help people to navigate through the federal government, get people information about files, or where someone's file is at on a particular issue. MPs having caseworkers has been long standing. Our caseworkers are doing more and more casework since the Conservatives have started whittling away at the basic services that people need to understand the federal government, whether it is applying for employment insurance, a veteran applying for services, someone asking for information about permanent residency, or even student loans. They are confronted with 1-800 numbers, voice mail, or waiting on hold forever. It is hard for them to talk to real people.
Many of us have caseworkers in our offices to help folks navigate these systems. Over the last six years, my office in Halifax has seen a growing wait list for citizenship. Phyllis Larsen does casework in my office, and she is fantastic at it. I have had a lot of assumptions made about the kind of casework that she must do. People think that because it is the east coast, there must be a lot of EI applications or working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Actually, the number one issue in my office is immigration.
Every day that Phyllis works in my community office on Gottingen Street, she sees new residents in Halifax who want to become Canadian citizens. These are people from all walks of life. There are university professors, truck drivers, families working to get the rest of their family to Canada, so family reunification, and there are families looking to adopt children from other countries. It is a whole range of different situations, and it takes a lot of courage, a lot of bravery, and sometimes even desperation to come here. However, lately it takes more skill, more tenacity, and more patience to become a citizen of this country.
Phyllis used to work for my predecessor Alexa McDonough, so she has been doing this kind of work for a long time. It was not that long ago that Phyllis saw routine citizenship applications moving through the system in about a year. Today, thanks to the government, the average processing time on a routine application is about 23 months. That is a routine application. That is not all of the strange things that can happen, like someone coming from Ethiopia whose birth certificate is in the Ethiopian calendar, and the age does not match up. We have seen all kinds of non-routine applications, I can certainly say that. Keep in mind that the option to apply only comes after three years of permanent residency.
Even worse is somebody who is give a residency questionnaire, an RQ. This is a questionnaire that will automatically increase the processing time from 23 months to 37 months. The frequency with which residency questionnaires are being given out is alarming. People who sometimes cannot afford bus fare are now being asked to supply everything, from pay stubs to tax returns to airline tickets, to prove that they meet the residency requirements. It does not make sense to do this. However, the government is continuing to add this extra layer of bureaucracy to an already lengthy process, a process that is fearful for a lot of people and uncertain for everyone.
It is no surprise that these constituents, these individuals and families, are angry, frustrated, and sometimes they feel like giving up hope. They pay their taxes, study, and work. They do all of the things that Canadian citizens are expected to do, yet they are not offered the full rights and benefits of Canadian citizenship.
New Canadians build strong communities and healthier families, and this is key to creating a strong and proud Canada. However, it is becoming harder and harder to do so. We are seeing wait times that are so long that medical and fingerprint tests are expiring. This forces people to resubmit their application, which means increased costs for them. Often it means long perilous journeys to obtain these documents.
This is not an issue addressed by the bill, but we have had reports in my riding, especially from the universities, that there is a systematic denial of visas for international students who come from eastern and southern parts of Africa. There is no accountability when it comes to those missions abroad in how they process and deny visas. Oftentimes we are hearing reports that applicants are refused before their applications are even viewed. Therefore, it is broader than the citizenship piece. It goes to a lot of different things that the immigration office is dealing with. We get these kinds of stories from our constituents.
I want to share a story from a recent case that we are working on. Unfortunately, it is a case that is not unique. It is a case where a family has gone missing.
A mother in Canada is trying to bring her children here under the one-year window program. In December 2013, she travelled to her home country, in Africa, to see her children at the address where she knew they were being cared for by friends. Upon her arrival, she discovered that the children had been taken to an orphanage in the capital city. She went to that orphanage, but she could not find her children.
CIC wait lists are so long that while this woman waited for her children's file to be processed, they went missing and she cannot find her family. Can members imagine what it would be like if their children went missing while they were waiting for paperwork to be processed?
This woman is trying to be reunited with her family, but it is our system that has resulted in her not knowing whether she is ever going to see her kids again. During her time there, someone went through her personal belongings, and the only things that were taken were pictures of her children.
I was hoping that the minister would commit to working with us to bring real improvements to citizenship laws, especially when it comes to this backlog.
I have concentrated on some issues that have not been fixed in the bill, and I do not have a lot of time left. However, I want to talk about a problem that I have with in the bill, and that is the ability to revoke citizenship. I believe that the bill would create two tiers of citizens in this country, and it is reprehensible that a government would do that.
I had hoped to read from a brief by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, or CARL. As members have heard from some of my colleagues, Bill C-24 has not been studied in committee. There was a motion tabled by the Conservatives to study the purpose of the bill, but the bill itself has not been studied. No report on the subject matter of the bill has been tabled.
I have in my hands a copy of a brief that CARL put together. These folks are the experts, and not just legal experts. They are working on the front lines and know what this immigration process is like. They have done a fantastic job of pointing out some of the key problems, especially around the ability to revoke citizenship and the fear that it creates. With the time that I have left, there is one line that I will read. CARL calls it “a way to foster a citizenship of fear”.
I highly recommend the brief to anybody who is interested in this issue. They should read the brief by CARL. The Canadian Bar Association and the BC Civil Liberties Association have done excellent work on this as well. They are giving us advice. They are telling us that the bill is not constitutional. They are telling us it is creating a citizenship of fear. They are saying that this is not the way forward when it comes to reforming our immigration law.
