Rathika Sitsabaiesan

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is a parliamentary secretary, and he is on the immigration committee. He has heard, just as I have, time after time and hour after hour, from witnesses who are experts in the community, including lawyers and front-line service agents as well as individuals who came to the committee who said the exact opposite. They said that processing would actually increase, and it would actually make it harder for people to become Canadian citizens.

The first piece is that people would now have to wait longer to qualify. The residency questionnaire that would be a new introduction would also make it more difficult for people to get their citizenship and it would take longer.

We know that the wait time for some people is already almost five years. Some people have been waiting almost five years for their citizenship applications to be processed under the Conservative government with its backlog.

The Canadian Council for Refugees says it would make people wait longer. That would undermine Canada's stated commitment to integrate newcomers into this country. That is what the government is trying to do. It is trying to undermine newcomers to this country in integrating well into our community.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am really grateful that I have the opportunity to speak to the bill before us today in the House because there are so many other bills that I wanted to speak to. The government consistently forced the ending of debate, whether it was through closure or time allocation. Its record now stands at 60. Even on this bill we are speaking under time allocation. I really wanted to do a full 20-minute speech, but now I do not have the time to do this.

In February, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration tabled Bill C-24. He stated that the bill and the changes within it are meant to actually reduce citizenship fraud, increase efficiency of the system, and reduce backlogs. He said that it would “protect the value of Canadian citizenship for those who have it while creating a faster and more efficient process for those applying to get it”, yet the bill is not actually doing much of any of that.

I personally value my Canadian citizenship very much and I am sure everyone agrees overall that Canadian citizenship is something of enormous value to everyone. All Canadians value it very much. I do not want to see changes to our system at citizenship and immigration that play partisan politics with something that is so fundamentally important to so many.

I welcome some of the changes in the bill as it does address some long overdue deficiencies in our current system. However, many of the other changes proposed in the bill cause much concern and need significant amendments to ensure the protection of our valued Canadian citizenship.

In the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, of which I am a member, we have been doing a pre-study on the subject matter of the bill. We have had presentations and witnesses, but we have many more write to the committee hoping that they would be able to appear at committee when the bill is sent back to committee for actual study. Considering the fact that the Conservatives have now moved time allocation in the House on the debate, I am scared and nervous that we are not going to do a full study of the bill when it is sent to committee and that we are not going to be able to hear from more witnesses.

I want to list a couple of the organizations that have sent in requests to appear. These are not individual Canadians. Individual Canadians who want to make a presentation at committee should be able to. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wants to make a presentation, but will not be able to. Amnesty International wants to make a presentation, but will probably not be able to. These are expert witnesses who want to speak at committee about the bill, but I am scared that we will not be able to do a proper study of the bill when it gets to committee.

A positive element of the bill is the issue of the lost Canadians. It is high time that this issue is addressed. It is an unfair situation that has gone on for far too long. We heard from the Canadian Council for Refugees and a couple of other witnesses who welcomed the measures to address the unfair exclusions from citizenship that have been allowed to go on for decades. They are, of course, the lost Canadians who are pre-1947 cases.

However, the council said that it regrets that there are no measures to address the unfair situations created by the 2009 amendments by the government to deny citizenship to the second generation born abroad. Canada is now creating a new set of lost Canadians and making some children who were born to Canadians stateless. We are signatories to the UN convention for the prevention of statelessness and this is what is happening.

Even though I said I am going to be speaking about good things, there is a sprinkle of bad even in the good.

Another good item in the bill is expedited citizenship for permanent residents who are currently serving in the Canadian Forces. When we did another study in the citizenship committee, I remember that a representative from the forces gave us actual statistics. He said it is about 15 people on average. What it would do is shorten the residency requirements from the new four-year requirement to three years for permanent residents who are serving in the armed forces. It is a great way to thank those people who are serving in the forces.

A third good thing is stricter rules for fraudulent immigration consultants. It is high time we finally regulated these immigration consultants. The NDP has been calling for the regulation of immigration consultants. We do not tolerate or condone any form of immigration fraud. We have pushed the government to develop tough legislation to crack down on the crooked immigration consultants. We have been supportive of anti-fraud measures. We would like to see increased resources for the RCMP and CBSA to continue to identify these fraudsters who are hurting a lot of citizens in Canada and are increasing the work in many of our MPs' offices, to be honest.

Now I am going to move on to the negative aspects of this bill. I do not have enough time left to go through the many bad things in this bill.

This bill would create far too many new barriers to citizenship. It would create a longer waiting period to qualify for citizenship. It would not actually give any value to pre-PR time spent in this country. UNICEF Canada has sent us a brief that says that we would be in contravention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are a signatory.

There would be increased fees. Fees would double from $200 to $400. The language requirement right now is 18-54 years old for the language test, and Bill C-24 would change it to 14-64 years old.

Let me get into what UNICEF said about these actual changes. I know we do not have enough time for me to go through all the things I would like to say.

Bill C-24 proposes to amend subsection 5(2) of the Citizenship Act.... This shift in age requirements is problematic for immigrant and refugee children for a number of reasons. For instance, language and knowledge testing of children could lead to challenges with reuniting children with their families, and therefore could lead to the deprivation of the child's right to family reunification under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (article 10). This measure does not take into account the added stress that such testing may cause, or the children's ability to be able to be successful in test environments. In some cases, children may be still facing fear of authority, trauma from their home countries, and other experiences—depending on their individual life circumstances and migratory paths—that impair their capacity to successfully take such tests.

They go on.

I did not even touch on the fact that this bill would allow for the revocation of citizenship. The revocation would be based on the creation of two tiers of citizenship in this country.

My understanding is that one is either a Canadian citizen or not. There is no real in between. The government would create that in-between case. One would be a Canadian citizen with only Canadian citizenship or a Canadian citizen who had dual citizenship with another country or who the minister has reason to believe has dual citizenship. If that were the case, whether an individual actually had dual citizenship or wished to have it or if the minister believed the person might have another citizenship, the onus would now be on the individual to prove citizenship to the minister. The minister would have the discretion to revoke somebody's citizenship for committing a crime in another country or jurisdiction.

It just goes to show that there are so many things that are bad in this bill.

I really wish I had more time and that I was not speaking under time allocation so I could get through the other things I would like to talk about. Hopefully my colleagues will ask questions about the limitations and the values of people in Canada who are spending time as pre-permanent residents.

[Employment, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to voice concerns expressed to me by constituents, by Canadians who have lost their jobs, by temporary foreign workers who are arriving in Canada to terrible accommodations and lower wages than they were promised, and by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business on behalf of hundreds of small businesses across the country, including the Saravanaa Bhavan and Jalandhar Meat Shop & Tandoori in my riding. All are suffering because the Conservative government has so badly mismanaged the temporary foreign worker program.

The government has repeatedly failed to address ongoing problems and abuses within the program and now has left many employers, employees, temporary foreign workers, businesses, youth, and unemployed Canadians feeling vulnerable and worried about the future.

Desperately needed changes to this program are linked directly to much-needed changes to our immigration system overall.

Canada brings in thousands of lower-skilled temporary foreign workers each year with no pathway to permanent residence. As I have said many times before, if an individual is good enough to work here, then that individual is good enough to live here.

I urge the Conservative government to stop paying lip service to change and fix this program once and for all.

[Petitions, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this morning I have the honour to present petitions on behalf of people from all over the greater Toronto area who draw the attention of the Minister of Health and the House of Commons to the fact that the federal government needs a national strategy for dementia and the health care of persons afflicted with Alzheimer's disease or other dementia-related diseases.

The petitioners call for the passage of Bill C-356, an act respecting a national strategy for dementia. They outline multiple points, and I would like to read a few of them, if I may, Mr. Speaker.

They call for the initiation of discussions, within 30 days of the act coming into force, with the provincial and territorial ministers to develop a comprehensive national plan to address all aspects of Alzheimer's disease and related dementia, ADRD. Furthermore, they ask for the encouragement of greater investment in ADRD research, discovery, and the development of treatment that would prevent, halt, or reverse ADRD.

[Kidnapping of Girls in Nigeria, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Toronto for her passionate speech tonight. We are pleased to see that members of all sides of the House and the government have condemned the abduction of these young girls. I am happy to hear that our government has provided technical support. I hope this assistance is deployed as soon as possible. We are starting to hear that boots might be hitting the ground soon, which is very good.

It is a huge shock for all of us in Canada and around the world that these young girls have been taken just because they are young girls seeking an education. They were abducted to be enslaved into the sex trade and trafficked just because girls should not have an education. That is how Boko Haram feels.

Today I heard the news that Boko Haram was trying to negotiate. I firmly believe we should not be negotiating with such an organization.

We recognize that there is an urgent need to bring these girls back home safely to their mothers and families. What other steps does my colleague believe Canada should take as global citizens?

[Petitions, May 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege to present a petition today on behalf of residents all across the greater Toronto area with respect to the Rouge national park. As we know, the current Rouge Park is home to the endangered Carolinian forest, mixed woodland, and plain life zones of Canada, which is home to one-third of the endangered species in Canada and the ancestral home of the Mississauga Huron-Wendat and Seneca First Nations that includes their sacred burial and village sites.

The petitioners are asking the Government of Canada to protect the irreplaceable 100 square kilometres of public land assembly within a healthy and sustainable Rouge national park and to ensure that Rouge national park strengthens and implements the ecological vision, policies, and integrity of the approved Rouge Park plans and other plans that have already been approved for the area, including consultation with the community and local advocacy groups that are active in the community.

[Asian Heritage Month, May 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, May 1 marks the beginning of Asian Heritage Month. To mark the long and rich history of Canadians of Asian heritage, I will be hosting an event in Scarborough at Splendid China this Sunday.

While we celebrate this month, we are reminded that many Canadians of Asian descent have been waiting for years to reunite with their loved ones here in Canada. Family reunification must be a central priority in Canada's immigration system, something we should fix so families can celebrate together next May.

While we celebrate, we will also remember the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru tragedy. This tragedy remains a dark chapter in our collective history. We cannot ignore the mistakes of our past. We cannot ignore the history of discriminatory policies that led to this incident. We believe an apology is long overdue and we hope that this month Canadians will get what they have asked for, an official apology from the Prime Minister and the government for a historic wrong we have all come to know as the Komagata Maru tragedy.

By voting against the NDP motion for an official apology two years ago, justice was denied again by the Conservative government.

[Petitions, April 29th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I join a multitude of my colleagues in presenting a petition this morning on behalf of the iCANdonate campaign. These residents of Canada are calling upon the Government of Canada to review thoroughly and change the policy on blood and organ donation in Canada.

The petitioners are asking that the sexual orientation of people not be an instant refusal of the right to donate. We know that organ, blood, and blood product donations are vitally needed across this country, and every Canadian who wishes to donate should be able to do so. Discrimination against people in same-sex relationships is unconstitutional and goes against Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Petitioners are requesting the Government of Canada to return the rights of any healthy Canadian to give the gift of blood, bone marrow, and organs to those in need. No matter the race, religion, or sexual orientation of a person, the right of any healthy woman or man to give blood or donate organs is universal.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is such an important question. I thank my colleague for this question and the statistics that he pointed out.

The government is making it harder for already underprivileged students who have to rely on the student loan program to get themselves through school, like I did. If I had not had access to the OSAP loans and the vehicle exemption tax credit, I would not have been able to afford to go to school. I would not have been able to afford to get a university degree. That is what the government is trying to do. It is trying to make it so that youth who grow up in families that are not privileged do not go to school. It is trying to make it more difficult for students who grow up in poverty or situations where education is the key for them to leave that cycle of poverty, that cycle of discrimination, whatever it might be.

The government is making it more difficult for people like me to get an education, to serve my community and country, and to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty. That is not fair. We need to make sure that we are looking out for all students and young people in our country, not just the privileged. It does not make sense that the government would cancel the $5,000 vehicle exemption credit because rural and suburban communities need to ensure that their young people are getting educated as well.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister of Labour for the comments and questions she put forward. I wish she would open up the omnibus budget bill so that we could actually debate it, so that we could look at each individual part of it.

As I mentioned, there are some parts of the budget that the NDP supports. From day one, we have always been supportive of creating jobs and taking care of the high level of unemployment in this country and the extremely higher level of underemployment in this country.

A quarter of our university graduates with an undergraduate degree are severely unemployed or underemployed, and it was the Conservative government that was in charge of making that happen. The government has been sitting in the driver's seat while we saw a quarter of our university graduates being severely unemployment or underemployed.

Why do the minister and the government all of a sudden care about the youth in this country and say that they are doing something for the young people in this country? They sat there and watched as a quarter of our university graduates became unemployed or severely underemployed.

I talk to young people in my community every day, and they are hoping that they can have jobs in our community. The government sat there and watched as it sent jobs out of this country. The Conservatives are the ones who allowed the temporary foreign worker program to be abused and allowed jobs to be taken away from our young people and Canadians, and the minister now has the audacity to say that we are not fighting for Canadians and for our young people's jobs. Please, I do not need to repeat myself.