Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Let's talk about money. If a Canadian passport holder is not in Canada for 10 or 20 years, Canada is not spending money on that person. There's no draw, but the holder has an entitlement to emergency diplomatic services. It's an insurance passport. As a first solution, it's a gro

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The role of the witness is to assist in improving a proposed bill. It's passed in principle. Clearly we're in a transition of philosophy going from making citizenship harder to get and easier to take away, to making citizenship easier to get and harder to take away. In that conte

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have two points. The proposed amendment to section 5 of the act has a titanic-sized loophole. The second point is the strategic design flaw in the proposed bill. First, before I begin, I express deep pleasure at the honour and privilege of again being before this standing comm

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I appreciate that. You see, unless something is done, the world will see that the immigration department, the immigration department officials, and our visa system are proxies for the RCMP. What you say to immigration, you are sending to the RCMP. Good or bad, that's

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The witness was careful with—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The witness was careful in the choice of words and guarded the comments with something to the effect of not being yet advised by the minister, so the parameters were laid down prior to testimony. The collection of personal information is delicate. DFATD correctly has illuminate

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's not about preventing crime as much as it is about preventing the entry of criminals to Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's the way of the future, biometrics, and I could think of no more efficient method to monitor, at the port of entry prior to embarkation, an individual and an individual's ability to conform with the regulations regarding admissibility to Canada. It may not be the best system,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I still have confidence in the committee. In the past, I've noticed that, somehow, proposed amendments— would appear in the final version. So, in my view, the glass is half full. Nevertheless, I would say this. I carefully considered the concerns expressed by many regard

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I did some consultations with external stakeholders in the U.K. and the United States. I wanted to see whether objections similar to those expressed by stakeholders at the time of the introduction of the American system would take hold in Canada. The answer is no. Fortunately, th

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. What took so long is the reaction. It is a good move. It does facilitate and reduce the cost of the enforcement of program integrity. Also, it gets good people moving faster and it makes it more difficult for bad people. It's the right move.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I remember the author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the late John Humphrey, explaining to me at the time that the reason that document and similar UN documents included freedom of thought was that the technology of the day couldn't attack it. Intent still remains,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Oh my, thank you, sir.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I do. The conclusion is this. I'd just like to read in a proposed revision, “(d) the retention, use, disclosure and disposal by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of biometric information, any related personal information that is collected under this Act at the same time, a