Citizenship and Immigration committee  First, on the fears that were expressed a little earlier, I think one of the reasons I don't have those fears is because, unlike Europe, which is the place where the most troubles are in terms of the democracies, we already have—look at this table—a lot of new Canadians in elected public positions, nominated public positions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The biggest threat is unconsciousness. In other words, the biggest threat would be to be away out on this cutting edge, which I like and most of us want, but not really to be conscious of it, of how interesting it is what we're doing, how different it is, how original it is and therefore to really be thinking about how we can model it a little bit differently, how can we open more here and firm it up there?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I would just say that we would be very happy, and I know my wife would be very happy, to come back when we've done a little more work, in six months or a year, if you'd like us to. We'd love to come back and chat with you, if it's helpful to you. It would certainly be helpful to us, I'm sure, to hear your ideas.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's right.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If we look at the differences of opinion in Europe on such matters as immigration and culture, we note that they are considerable. These stem in large part from the fact that there is a lack of clarity as to what the relationship is between an immigrant, a term that isn't clearly defined, and a citizen.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, it was not, but again, that might have been that we were basically seeing new citizens, so they were part of this process of 250,000 new Canadians every year. It's such a big area in Canada. That's what they were talking about, and their concerns were things like not being able to work in the area for which they were trained, and loneliness.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was, probably.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You know, I don't really worry too much about that. The danger in a public debate, as you know, being an elected member to Parliament, is when it breaks down into black and white, for and against, the Manichean division. I think that there is a pretty good consensus in the country that our ideas of citizenship are tied to an idea of inclusion in justice, and that's another word, “inclusion”, that I think is really important in our history.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm in no rush, by the way. You may be, but I'm not.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You know, I think that's almost more your domain than mine. I think there are many ways it can be done, and I don't think it needs to be done in a single way. I think that if members of Parliament and senators and people like us started to talk about the ideas of citizenship, and in great numbers, and really started to search for it, we'd begin to see a discussion develop.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's a fascinating point. I had never focused on that. Since you raise it, I think that's part of what I'm talking about. We haven't really had the discussion about citizenship. If we did, many of the things you are struggling with here would fall into place more easily. You'd say, oh, that falls in there.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's right. I agree. When I say “public debate”, we're not caught in this situation that other countries are of people being for and against. We're very lucky. Most Canadians are “for”, so once you have a really big national consensus it becomes so important to say, “What are the roots of this national consensus?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, of course.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Absolutely. As I've already mentioned, my mother was a war bride, so I'm even more fascinated by this.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.