44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 4, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by giving a shout out to my constituents in Trois-Rivières, whom I will be visiting all next week in my riding.
When I talk to people on the street, privacy is a topic that comes up a lot. They know that I sit on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, and privacy comes up often. People tell me that it is important, that we must do our best to rise to the challenge. Today, we have the opportunity to debate that very subject.
Society is a human construct. It is a reflection of how we organize our lives together. It reflects our vision of the world, the role of a citizen, the role of the state. In a democratic society where elected officials are chosen by the people to represent them, our laws must reflect our desires and the desires of our fellow citizens, as well as the way in which their visions can be realized. In other words, a society and its laws are eminently cultural constructs.
When we compare the legislation passed in the House of Commons with that of the Quebec National Assembly, the difference is striking. Ottawa tends to emphasize the enforcement mechanism, whereas in Quebec, the emphasis is on the legislator's intent. Ottawa wants to arbitrate, while Quebec wants to prescribe and guide.
When it comes to privacy, this is especially true in the digital age: the difference is dramatic.
At one end of the spectrum, so to speak, is the United States. In the United States, laws are primarily intended to arbitrate disputes rather than to shape how the digital economy operates. Laws are based on the good faith of the players and on voluntary codes. As one might imagine, this has its limits. Ultimately, if someone is wronged, they can get redress through the common law.
At the other end of the spectrum is the European Union. The legislation there prescribes clear obligations. I am referring to the General Data Protection Regulation, better known by the acronym GDPR.
In between is Canada, a hybrid creature whose intentions on privacy oscillate between the European and American extremes. This may seem like an academic debate, but there are practical implications that bring us to Bill C-27.
When it comes to privacy, European law is the most prescriptive in the world. It is based on a clear principle, namely that our personal information belongs to us and us alone, and no one can use it or benefit from it without our free, informed and explicit consent.
Once the government set out that principle or objective, it then provided a mechanism for achieving it. That mechanism is the GDPR. The GDPR is becoming the standard to follow when it comes to privacy, because it is the legal standard with the clearest objectives and the most binding application. Simply put, the GDPR does a good job of protecting privacy. That is one reason why it is the standard we should be emulating; the other is that the EU is projecting its standard-making power beyond its borders.
In order to protect the personal information of European citizens, the European Union will soon prohibit European businesses from sharing this information with foreign businesses that do not offer comparable protection. This does not affect us yet, but next year, the EU will be reviewing Canada's laws to see if they offer sufficient protection.
The existing legislation on personal electronic information protection dates back to 2000. That was 22 years ago. We were in the dinosaur era, the pre-digital era, an era we barely remember now. Also, it is far from clear whether Canada passes the comparable protection test required under the GDPR.
Information exchanges between Canadian businesses and their European partners could become more complicated. This is particularly true in areas that deal with more sensitive information, such as the financial sector. It is therefore absolutely necessary to redraft the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which is completely outdated. It has not kept pace with technological change and the data economy, where we are both the consumer and the product. It has not kept pace with the legal environment, where Canada is a dinosaur compared to Europe, as I was just saying.
Nevertheless, my colleagues will have figured out that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of Bill C‑27. Nevertheless, I would like to make a general comment about Bill C‑27. For some reason, the government has put into one bill two laws with completely different objectives. The bill would enact the consumer privacy protection act and also the artificial intelligence and data act. Although there is a logical link between these two acts, they could be stand-alone bills. Their objectives are different, their logic is different and they could be studied separately.
I have a suggestion for the government. It should split Bill C‑27 into two bills. We could create what I would call the traditional Bill C‑27, which would deal with personal information and the tribunal. Then, what I would call Bill C‑27 B would address artificial intelligence. As I was saying, there are logical reasons for that, but there are also practical reasons. Let me be frank and say that the artificial intelligence act being proposed is more of a draft than a law. The government has a clear idea about the mechanism for applying it, but, clearly, it has not yet wrapped its head around the objectives to be achieved and the requirements to be codified.
The mechanism is there, the bureaucratic framework is there, but the requirements to be complied with are not. Apart from a few generalities, the law relies essentially on self-regulation and the good faith of the industry. I have often faced these situations, and I can say that the industry's good faith is not the first thing I would count on.
Apart from a few generalities, this relies on good faith, but that is not a good way to protect rights. I am not convinced that this bill should be passed as written; I think it needs to be amended. Bill C‑27 probably deserves the same fate that Bill C‑11, its predecessor, encountered in the last Parliament. The government introduced it, debate got under way, criticism was fierce, and the government let it die on the Order Paper so it could keep working on it and come back with a better version. I think that is exactly what should happen to the artificial intelligence act.
The government has launched a healthy discussion, but this is not a finished product. If we decide that the government needs to keep working on it and come back with a new version, we will also be delaying the modernization of privacy and personal information legislation. Given the European legislation, which I talked about earlier, that is not what the government wants to do. That is why I would cordially advise the government to split Bill C‑27.
I am going to focus primarily on personal information protection because that is the part of Bill C‑27 that is ready to go and has the most practical applications. As I said before, Bill C‑27 is an improved version of Bill C‑11, which was introduced in the fall of 2020.
However, Bill C-27 still does not establish privacy as a fundamental right. Bill C-11 was strong on mechanics, but weak on protection. The principles were also weak and consent was unclear. It was tough on large corporations and much less so on small businesses. When it comes to privacy, however, it is the sensitivity of the data that should dictate the level of protection, not the size of the company.
A new start-up that develops an app that aggregates all of our banking data, for example, may have only two employees, but it still possesses and handles extraordinarily sensitive information that must be protected as much as possible. I cannot help but think of the ArriveCAN app, which was developed by just a few people but has a large impact on the data that is stored.
Finally, Bill C-11 did not provide for any harmonization with provincial legislation, such as Quebec's privacy legislation. The Bloc Québécois was quite insistent on that. A Quebec company subject to Quebec law would also have been subject to federal law as soon as the data left Quebec. It would have been subject to two laws that do not say the same thing and have two different rationales. This would mean duplication and uncertainty. It was quite a mess. Passing Bill C-11 would have diminished, in Quebec at least, the legal clarity that is needed to ensure that personal information is protected.
Here is what Daniel Therrien, the then privacy commissioner, told the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, of which I am honoured to be a member. He said, and I quote, “I believe that C-11 represents a step back overall from our current law and needs significant changes if confidence in the digital economy is to be restored.”
He proposed a series of amendments that would make major changes to the bill. I want to commend the government here. It listened to the criticism. It is rare for this government to listen, but it did so in this case. It buried Bill C-11. We never debated it again in the House and it died on the Order Paper. It reappeared only after being improved.
Bill C-27 shows more respect for the various jurisdictions and avoids the legal mess I was talking about earlier.
Our personal information is private and it belongs to us. However, property and civil rights fall exclusively under provincial jurisdiction under subsection 92(13) of the Constitution of 1867.
What is more, privacy basically falls under provincial jurisdiction. That is particularly important in the case of Quebec, where our civil law tradition leads us to pass laws that are much more prescriptive.
Last spring, Quebec's National Assembly passed Bill 25, an in-depth reform of Quebec's privacy legislation. Our law, largely inspired by European laws, given that we share a legal tradition, is the most advanced in North America. As we speak, it is clear that Quebec has exceeded the European requirements and that our companies are protected from any hiccups in data circulation.
Our principles are clear: Our personal information belongs to us. It does not belong to the party who collected it or the party who stores it. The implication is clear. No one can dispose of, use, disclose or resell our personal information without our free, informed and express consent. Bill C-11 challenged this legal clarity but Bill C-27, at the very least, corrects that.
Under clause 122(2) of Bill C‑27, the government may, by order, “if satisfied that legislation of a province that is substantially similar to this Act applies to an organization, a class of organizations, an activity or a class of activities, exempt the organization, activity or class from the application of this Act in respect of the collection, use or disclosure of personal information that occurs within that province;”.
In other words, if Quebec's legislation is superior, then Quebec's legislation will apply in Quebec.
When I met with the minister's office earlier this week, I asked for some clarification just in case. Will a Quebec business be fully exempt from Bill C‑27, even if the information leaves Quebec? The answer is yes. Will it be exempt for all of its activities? The answer is yes.
There is still some grey area, though. I am thinking about businesses outside Quebec that collect personal information in Quebec. In Europe, it is clear. It is the citizen's place of residence that determines the applicable legislation. The same is true under Quebec's legislation.
It is not as clear in Bill C‑27. Since the bill relies on the general regulation powers for trade and commerce as granted by the Constitution, it focuses more on overseeing the industry than on protecting citizens. That is the sort of thing we will have to examine and fix in committee. I look forward to Bill C‑27 being studied in committee so we can debate the substance of the bill.
I have to say that I sense the openness and good faith of the government. In that regard, I would like to tell the member for Kingston and the Islands to take note that, for once, I feel he is working in good faith.
Bill C‑27 will have a much greater impact outside Quebec than within it, because it is better drafted than Bill C-11. That is not the only aspect that was improved. The fundamental principles of the bill are clearer. Consent is more clearly stated. The more sensitive data must be handled in a more rigorous manner, no matter the size of the entity holding them. That is also more clear.
If the principles are clear, the act will better stand the test of time and adjust to the evolving technologies without becoming meaningless.
We will support it at second reading after a serious debate, but without unnecessary delays. However, we believe and insist that the real work must be done in committee. Bill C-27 is complex. Good principles do not necessarily make good laws. Before we can judge whether Bill C-27 is indeed a good law, we will need to hear from witnesses from all walks of life.
When it comes to privacy, it only takes one tiny flaw to bring down the whole structure. This requires attention to detail and surgical precision. The stakes are high and involve the most intimate part of our lives: our privacy.
For a long time, all we had to do to maintain our privacy was buy curtains. That is how it used to be. It kept us safe from swindlers. Then organizations started collecting data for their records. Bankers collected financial information, the government collected tax information and doctors collected medical records. This sensitive information had to be protected, but it was fairly simple, since it was written on paper.
Today, we live in a different world. Whereas personal information used to be a prerequisite for another activity, such as caring for a patient or getting a loan from a bank, it has become the core business of many companies. Information has become the core business of many companies, which are also large companies.
Computerization enables the storage and processing of astronomical volumes of data, also known as big data. Networking that data on the Internet increases the amount of available data exponentially and circulates it around the globe constantly, sometimes in perpetuity, unfortunately.
For many corporations, including web giants, personal data is crucial to the business model. Citizen-consumers are now the product they are marketing. To quote Daniel Therrien once again, we are now in the era of surveillance capitalism. Speaking of which, The Great Hack on Netflix is worth seeing. This is troubling.
Furthermore, for our youngest citizens, the virtual world and the real world have merged. Their lives are an open book on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. They think they are communicating with the people who matter to them, but they are in fact feeding the databases that transform them into a marketable, marketed product. We absolutely have to protect them. We need to give them back control over their personal information, which is why it is so important to amend and modernize our laws.
I would like to close my speech with an appeal to the government. Bill C‑27 does a lot, but there are also many things it does not do, or does not do properly. Consent is all well and good, but what happens when our data is compromised, when it has been stolen, when it is in the hands of criminals? These people operate outside the law and therefore are not governed by the law. All the consent-related protocols we can think of go out the window. To avoid fraud and identity theft, we will have to clarify the measures to be taken to ensure that anyone requesting a transaction is who they say they are. This really is a new dynamic. In that respect, we are somewhat in the dark, even though, curiously, this is a growing problem.
There is another gap to fill. Bill C‑27 provides a framework for the handling of personal information in the private sector, but not in the public sector. The government is still governed by the same old legislation, which dates back to the pre-digital era. The legislation is outdated, as we saw with the fraud related to the Canada emergency response benefit. The controls are also outdated. I therefore call on the government to get to work and to do so quickly. We will collaborate.
Finally, there is another thing the government needs to work on and fast. We addressed this issue in committee when we were looking at the geolocation of data. Bill C‑27 indicates what we need to do with personal data, nominative data. However, with artificial intelligence and cross-tabulation of data, it is possible to recreate an individual based on anonymous information. As no personal information was collected at the outset, Bill C‑27 is ineffective in these cases. However, we started by recreating the profile of a person with all their personal information. It is not science fiction. It is already happening. Nevertheless, this is missing from Bill C‑27, both in the part on information and the part on artificial intelligence.
I am not bringing this up as a way of opposing Bill C‑27. As I said, we will support it. However, we have to be aware of the fact that it is incomplete. As legislators, we still have some work to do. The time has come to treat privacy as a fundamental right.
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Madam Speaker, I have spent a lot of time on the ethics committee with the member for Trois-Rivières, and we have dealt with a lot of this material. It has been fantastic.
He spoke about Quebec being a model for Canada, as Quebec has some of the strongest privacy laws in place at the moment. I am wondering if he could expand on two things. One, what does Quebec have that we could implement through Bill C-27 that works really well? Two, does Quebec mention privacy as a fundamental human right for Canadians?
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Madam Speaker, to reassure my colleague, Quebec does indeed mention that the right to privacy is a fundamental right.
What is most important is that the Quebec act protects the data, no matter where it is used. It is protected based on the location of the individual. The laws apply in that place. At the same time, we do not only consider the size of the entity, but also the source of the data.
These are minor differences, but they are important at a time when data is shared around the world.
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Uqaqtittiji, it is good to hear that the Bloc is willing to support this bill. I share the same concerns about the provisions for protecting minors, and the bill right now as it is does not provide very good guidance on sensitive information.
I wonder if the member agrees that this bill could be enhanced by providing more guidance on how to handle sensitive information in relation to protecting minors.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague's comments.
Bill C‑27 is a good bill, but it is incomplete. We need to go further with respect to protecting the rights of minors, in particular. Today, minors are vulnerable, but they are the ones sharing the most data without it being protected. They will have to live with that for their entire lives. Therefore, I completely agree.
I hope that in committee we will be able to propose amendments that are accepted by the government in order to protect minors.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my eloquent colleague for his speech. We always learn a lot when we listen to him. It is always enjoyable.
I would like to hear what he has to say about what will happen in committee. I understand that there is a massive amount of work to do to make this bill acceptable since it currently contains many flaws. Often, the contributions of expert witnesses are what support us in committee.
I would like to know what kind of experts he thinks it would be useful to hear from. Perhaps computer scientists, ethicists or legal experts? Generally speaking, who would he like to see testify in committee?
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Madam Speaker, for a bill like this one that will have such a major impact on society, I think that we need to invite a rather broad range of witnesses, whether it be anthropologists, philosophers, ethicists, demographers or futurists. We will invite a computer scientist to appear at the end. The idea is that we need to think about the world of tomorrow and beyond.
I think that we should invite witnesses from all backgrounds and that we need to have the legislative maturity to listen, even when what we are hearing may be unpleasant. When exploring every angle of an issue, we need to hear all points of view and I am willing to do that.
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Madam Speaker, one thing that is a bit concerning for me in this bill is how broad and complex it is. It brings a lot of things into one place, and that can sometimes be a lot. It is important for us to have a process to look through that very closely to make sure that nothing is left out, and that does concern me.
One thing in particular that I have reviewed is the personal information and data protection tribunal. I asked a question of the minister earlier today and the minister was very clear: He felt this is a normal process and no one should worry. However, I am concerned, because this tribunal would have the ability to overrule the new enforcement actions and fines imposed by the Privacy Commissioner. Unfortunately, the vagueness of the membership of the tribunal is a concern, with many of its members appointed by the government. Today, we know it is very important that we not have any conflict or any perception of conflict. Both of those things are important.
I am wondering if the member could talk about whether this could be perceived or actually implemented in such a way that it allowed the government to use it as a political tool for the government to overrule decisions that it simply does not like.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that excellent question. At this point, we do need some parameters we can use to define the tribunal's role and the Privacy Commissioner's role. I think the commissioner should have a little more power.
I am usually on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, but this time around, I will be on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology because I want to make sure this work gets done. I will make sure that we do this work rigorously, that we take a non-partisan approach to assessing this bill and that we get everyone on board with the bill.
Let me reiterate that this bill will have an impact on people's lives in the future. That is why we cannot let it become a political tool. I do not think it is one at this point, but I want to make sure it never becomes one. We will have to clearly define the roles of the tribunal and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, as well as those of the higher courts, which may want to rule on these matters. There is some confusion about these roles that needs to be cleared up.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his very perceptive speech on this act. I wonder if he shares the concern I have, which is that whatever good provisions are here, a lot of my constituents do things every day online that put their privacy at risk. They do not understand the implications of the things that have become routine. When I read through the bill and I look at this, I wonder how we are going to deal with that problem in the future, because this is very complex material. Ordinary consumers are giving up their privacy rights, not willingly, but because of the complexity of the issues they do not really understand the implications of with respect to their privacy.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
When we reviewed the geolocation project at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we realized that someone with a Telus phone had not consented to their data being shared. It is very clear.
There is already an education component in the Privacy Commissioner's mandate, but I think it needs to be exercised more, because right now, when people click on “I agree”, most of them do not know what they are agreeing to.
As part of a recent committee mandate, we recommended that it should be possible to continue without accepting. I think there needs to be good privacy education in schools and at home. However, I also think that the Privacy Commissioner should be doing more on the prevention side of things. Right now, we are basically left to our own devices. Once we click “I agree”, it is too late.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Trois-Rivières for his interesting speech.
The French magazine L'Express ran a story this week in connection with what the member was referring to. It said that it can take five, six or nearly seven hours to read the terms of service on Internet sites. That is what we are asked to do before clicking “I agree”.
Does the member believe we should set limits for this type of practice?
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Madam Speaker, yes, I do. I believe that even the legal team who wrote the conditions we have to read before we agree to use Apple, for example, has not read all the conditions because it is too complex. Obviously, this needs to be put in layman's terms and simplified. When we sign a contract, it is advantageous to the drafter of the contract. When we are required to sign the contract, as in the case of an Apple iPhone, it is a problem.
In past meetings of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we voiced our desire to simplify this and draw inspiration from Europe's General Data Protection Regulation to determine if it is possible to move forward without accepting the conditions.
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Madam Speaker, since we are talking about the rights of citizens, I would like to ask a question that is timely and urgent.
Does my colleague agree that a government should use the notwithstanding clause to take away workers' right to strike?
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
I was speaking on Bill C-27 this morning. I am not an expert on the notwithstanding clause. Unfortunately, I will not be able to answer his question because I do not have the legal background to do so.
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Madam Speaker, since these are the last speeches before we go spend a week in our ridings and many members have already left the House to go be with their families and constituents, I would like to commend all those stalwart members who are sticking it out to the end. There are not very many of us, judging by the number of empty spaces there were in the parking lot this morning and by how easily I was able to find an EV charging station. There are very few of us here this Friday, but I would say that what we are lacking in numbers, we are making up for in quality.
The last thing we are talking about today before leaving for our last week in our ridings before Christmas is Bill S‑245. I do not really have any kind of an inside scoop to share since my colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean already announced just two weeks ago that the Bloc Québécois would be supporting this bill. I like to contradict my colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean from time to time just to tease him, but I will limit my teasing to his clothing choices rather than a bill that has such a significant impact on some people's lives. In short, I will also be supporting Bill S‑245.
I think my colleagues have already realized that the Bloc Québécois does not tend to be overly partisan. If a bill is good for Quebec, we vote for it, no matter who introduced it. If it is not good for Quebec, we vote against it. We always explain the reasons for our decision.
Bill S-245 does not really fit in that framework. It is about Canadian citizenship. It affects people who may live in Quebec, our constituents, but it also affects people who may live elsewhere in Canada or even elsewhere in the world. This bill is fundamentally connected to a person's right to Canadian citizenship. While it may seem a little counterintuitive for a Bloc member to defend Canadian citizenship, the principle I am defending today in supporting Bill S‑245 is that no one should have their citizenship arbitrarily taken away just because they have reached the not particularly venerable age of 28.
I would like to start by outlining the contents of this bill and its purpose, but I also want to offer two brief editorial comments about this bill's predecessor, Bill S‑230, and the immigration file in general because no bill should ever be analyzed in a vacuum without context and broader considerations. If we take too narrow a view of this bill in debate, we are likely to miss opportunities to improve not only this bill but also future bills.
Now back to Bill S‑245. What is this bill all about? Bill S‑245 seeks to close a gap, a loophole in the Citizenship Act. The bill concerns a small group of Canadians who lost their Canadian citizenship or have actually become stateless due to government policy changes over time. This small group of Canadians is called “lost Canadians”, and there are about 100 to 200 of them.
Here is a little background information. The federal Parliament passed its first citizenship legislation in 1947, but it was flawed from the beginning. Citizenship was not considered a guaranteed right at the time, but rather a discretionary power of Parliament. For instance, although it was set out that the children of a Canadian parent would also be Canadian, under this system, when the responsible parent took the citizenship of another country, his or her children lost their Canadian citizenship.
Furthermore, the legislation provided that children born abroad would receive citizenship only if their parents registered them within two years of their birth. It also included an obligation for these children to be domiciled in Canada on their 24th birthday if they were born to a Canadian parent who was born outside Canada. This meant that many individuals, even if they lived in Canada for part of their lives, may have unknowingly lost their citizenship status.
Finally, the legislation discriminated against certain children based on the circumstances of their birth. In order to have Canadian citizenship under the law, a child had to be born to married parents. The main purpose of the 1977 amendment was to simplify the citizenship regime. Once again, however, the amendments were far from perfect.
Although the new legislation did away with the requirement to file an application for a child within two years of their birth and stopped discriminating between children born to a married couple and those born to a common-law couple, it continued to differentiate between children born to a Canadian parent who was born in Canada and those born to a Canadian parent who was born abroad.
Under the 1977 legislation, Canadians who were second-generation or more and were born to parents who were born abroad were required to submit an application in order to keep and confirm their Canadian citizenship.
The legislation required these Canadians to apply by their 28th birthday or they would automatically lose their Canadian citizenship. One of the problems was that, having repealed the requirement for parents to register their children before they turned two, the government no longer had a list it could use to inform the citizens in question that they needed to confirm their citizenship before their 28th birthday. Some of these people who were born abroad returned to Canada, grew up here, worked here, raised a family here, and paid taxes here, all while oblivious to what they needed to do before their 28th birthday in order to avoid losing their citizenship.
Some criticized the government for not doing enough to publicize this requirement both here and abroad, so that citizens would be aware that their citizenship could be taken away. It is said that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but that does not mean that a citizen must be familiar with all existing laws. Immigration laws are particularly impenetrable.
In short, many people born while the 1947 law or the 1977 law was in force were at risk of losing their citizenship at some point in their lives without even being notified. They might only find out when they applied for a passport. They are the ones who came to be called the lost Canadians.
This situation came to light largely through the efforts of Don Chapman, a former United Airlines pilot who brought their plight to the attention of the public. Don Chapman discovered that he had lost his citizenship when his father had emigrated to the United States. He demonstrated that this problem affected many Canadians, even some as well known as Roméo Dallaire, and forced the government's hand.
If we think about it, these people suffered the same fate as those whose citizenship is revoked, which happens only if someone committed fraud, made a false representation or knowingly concealed information material to an immigration or citizenship application. This same extreme punishment was being meted out to people who had committed no offence whatsoever.
To remedy the situation, Canada adopted a series of legislative reforms in 2005, 2009 and 2015. Those three attempts notwithstanding, some people still slipped through the cracks. Despite being reformed three times, the act still requires people born between February 15, 1977, and April 16, 1981, to reapply for citizenship before they turn 28.
I am confident that this bill will pass unanimously, and at this point I would like to offer my first editorial comment on the bill's background. In the last Parliament, an identical bill, Bill S‑230, was passed unanimously in the Senate, but it did not have time to get to the House because the government called an election in the summer.
When the election was called, what I told my constituents who complained about the cost of the election, which members will recall was estimated at over $600 million, is that there were even more serious but lesser-known costs associated with the election and that was the cost of all the work that was done on a whole pile of bills in the House and committee that ended up being for nothing. Unfortunately, Bill S‑245 is another glaring example of that.
My second editorial comment is about the government's management of immigration in general. As we see here, many reforms were necessary to solve the problem and many citizens have been left in the dark for years. Nothing has changed, and the machine is still broken.
Despite all that, the government is announcing that, because of the labour shortage, it wants to increase the number of newcomers to 500,000 a year, when it is already incapable of managing passports, when applications for permanent residency are piling up and taking forever to be processed, and when it is almost impossible to get a work permit in 12 to 13 months.
When I ask businesses in my riding what would really help them with their workforce issues, the answer is not for the government to add 500,000 people to the waiting list. The answer is for the government to start managing the applications that are already in the pile more effectively.
Simply put, there is no shortage of problems for the immigration department to fix, and Bill S‑245 addresses one of them.
I would like to conclude by humbly inviting the government to finish the work of fixing and improving the immigration department before even considering getting involved in any new project.
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Madam Speaker, today I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill S-245. I want to extend my thanks to my hon. colleague from the Bloc Québécois who just spoke.
The New Democrats vote in favour of policies that are good for Canadians and will, of course, oppose those that do not. This is one of the bills that the New Democrats do stand in favour of.
This bill would fix a very old problem in Canada that has contributed to the pain and suffering of families on a really basic question of who they are and of their identities. It is a shame that our country has done this, and it is now time that we remedy it. However, the bill must go much further.
Indigenous people in Canada have long welcomed folks from other parts of the world so that they may find refuge, peace and prosperity here in our lands. That has been the promise of indigenous people to others for generations. However, that promise is foregone and broken when policies, particularly of this place, break that solemn commitment and force people into the worst states they can imagine. Sometimes they are deported or, worse, pass away.
Today we are talking about those lost Canadians, individuals who have been stripped of their Canadian citizenship because of arcane provisions. That is not to say this bill would fix all of Canada's immigration problems, of which there are many. It is simply a fix for an amendment that took place in 1977.
The Prime Minister has said, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” However, this is sadly not the reality for lost Canadians. Our laws continue to enforce a tiered approach to citizenship. According to the United Nations, Canada is a leading offender of making citizens stateless, and this is simply unacceptable.
It is long past time for Canada to right these wrongs by fixing our laws so that nobody is forced to once again lose their Canadian citizenship. Bill S-245 is a step in the right direction. It is a step that the New Democrats have called for and fully support. However, this legislation leaves many behind and does not go far enough. What we need is to fix the issue of lost Canadians once and for all.
Bill S-245 seeks to fix the long-standing issue of the age 28 rule. What is the age 28 rule? The age 28 rule was introduced, as I mentioned, in 1977 in the Citizenship Act, and it meant that second-generation Canadians born abroad had to reaffirm their citizenship status before their 28th birthday. It seems simple enough, but here is the catch: The government never published a retention form. It also never instructed those individuals that they had to reaffirm, and those affected were never told a retention requirement even existed, which is a shame.
Imagine someone who has been a Canadian citizen for their entire life. They shop in grocery stores in their community, send their kids to school, go to community plays and do all the things that everyone else in the community is doing. However, terribly enough, they are sent away to a police station and are informed they no longer have citizenship. This in fact happened here in Canada.
In 2015, Pete Giesbrecht of Manitoba was sent to the police and informed that he had just 30 days to leave the country or he would be deported. This caused shock and disbelief. Even when reading the words today I am shocked. He had carried his citizenship for 29 years and had lived in Canada since he was seven years old. However, because he was born in Mexico to Canadian parents who were also born abroad, the age 28 rule applied.
To regain his citizenship, his Canadian-born wife sponsored him and spent thousands of dollars on legal fees. No one should ever have to go through this. However, because of convoluted and arcane provisions in the Canadian immigration laws, people in this country have been unjustly stripped of their citizenship, an injustice that must end.
New Democrats have raised this issue for years, but successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to address the issue. The Conservatives have even managed to make the situation worse. The Conservatives said they were going to fix this issue when they were in government and introduced a bill entitled Bill C-37 over a decade ago. The bill did remove the age 28 rule. That was very good, but it was not applied going forward. Therefore, it did not allow Canadians who had already lost their citizenship to regain it. Those who turned 28 prior to 2009 were simply left behind.
When Bill C-37 was introduced, the Conservatives had an opportunity to help lost Canadians and fix this problem, the problem we are debating here today. However, the bill failed to close the gaps in our laws for thousands. Even worse, it created a two-tier system of citizenship, with second-generation born Canadians losing their ability to pass on citizenship to their children altogether. It was a shame. This is simply discriminatory and wrong.
In fact, today's legislation is the subject of a charter challenge calling on the government to change these discriminatory practices. Bill S-245, as presented, would leave these Canadians behind again. New Democrats will be putting forth amendments to finally address these outstanding issues, and I call on my colleagues and members of the House to look at these amendments and to truly help us fix this system and to stop the second generation cut-off so that second-generation Canadians born abroad can continue to pass on their citizenship to children, a very basic part of their family's identity and reunification.
There are also war heroes who have been left out. The first Governor General of Canada in 1867, right after Confederation, said that they had just created a new nationality called Canadian citizenship, yet according to Canada's immigration laws, Canadian citizenship did not exist prior to January 1, 1947. That means no soldiers who fought and died for Canada in battles like Vimy Ridge or D-Day are Canadian. Bill C-37 failed to fix this. In reference to Bill C-37, Don Chaplain said, on February 7, 2014, “And the government has confirmed they’re leaving out all the war dead [pre-1947]. So, the war dead in Canada were really just British. We might as well just scratch the Maple Leaf off their headstones”. It would be fitting to recognize these hero soldiers as having been Canadian soldiers, especially when, in law, they were.
It is time that we truly address the backlog of over 1.8 million applications. It was just mentioned in this debate that, when we are talking about immigration in Canada, we have to take a sympathetic and compassionate approach to ensure families and communities, and particularly children, are protected. When we talk about making sure our immigration system is robust and strong, it also means looking at and addressing the issues of the past. These hundreds of Canadians who no longer have their citizenship deserve to have the dignity that comes with being Canadian, and that includes the protections of our Constitution and our charter.
To be a Canadian citizen is truly a blessing, and one that indigenous people for generations have fought to ensure is a right that is strong and recognized. This has to be protected for all persons, and particularly those lost Canadians who continue every day to struggle without these basic human rights.
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of the people of my riding of Calgary Shepard, I am pleased to speak to Bill S‑245. It is always a great honour and privilege for me to be able to speak on behalf of Canadian citizens.
I am not like everyone else in the House. Like 23% or 24% of Canadians, I am an immigrant to this country. I was just talking about that with my colleague, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, who was born in Dubai.
As someone born in Poland, Canadian citizenship is extremely important to me. Canada is not only my homeland, but it is also the country that accepted my father, my mother, my brother and me when our country of origin, where I was born, did not want us. My father was a member of Solidarnosc. He was a worker, a labourer, an engineer for the Gdansk shipyards when Poland was communist. My father left Poland in 1983 to come to Canada, and it was Canada that offered him the opportunity to stay. He started working at a shipyard in Sorel. It was in Sorel, where I lived with my father in 1985, that I learned French.
Poland let us leave the country, but it did not let us take our passports with us, because the Polish workers at the Gdansk shipyard, the Lenin shipyard, and their families were not allowed to return to that country. As I said, Canadian citizenship represents my homeland as well as the great honour of becoming Canadian in 1989. Now I have the great honour of representing my constituents as a Polish immigrant to this wonderful country that has given us so many opportunities.
I must admit that I did not know a lot about the so-called lost Canadians, the people who lost the Canadian citizenship they had at birth or did not qualify for citizenship even though they should have been entitled to it by virtue of their presence in Canada. That is the result of a whole raft of laws and attitudes, and many MPs have talked about this and debated it since 1945. The laws changed again in the 1970s. Finally, along came Bill C‑37, passed by a Conservative government that wanted to solve the problem for good and reduce the number of lost Canadians as much as possible.
Despite the many bills that have been introduced to reform the legislation in this century and the last, despite the fact that parliamentarians studied this issue and were meant to receive witnesses to explain to them how these things happened, despite the fact that the government has tried to change the legislation several times to ensure that this does not happen, no one noticed that there would be a gap of 50 or so months during which there would still be lost Canadians.
Where are we at today?
I would like to thank Senator Yonah Martin, herself an immigrant from Korea, who sponsored this bill in the Senate. In the House of Commons, it was sponsored by the member for Calgary Forest Lawn. It is Senator Martin who proposed this bill to try to fix this problem for lost Canadians. Apparently, there are hundreds of Canadians in a situation that I would describe as extremely shameful, despite the fact that parts of the legislation have been changed over the past 100 years. Several different governments have tried to fix this legislative problem.
Before, the problem was that Canadians born outside the country to Canadian parents had until their 28th birthday to notify the Canadian government that they wanted to retain their citizenship. However, there was no form or simple way to confirm this with the government. It was not easy to do.
Even within the Conservative caucus, our colleague, the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, would have been one of those lost Canadians, had it not been for his father tipping him off. I do not know how his father knew that Parliament was amending the Citizenship Act, but the amendments could have made him one of those lost Canadians.
In debate, the member for Souris—Moose Mountain said that he would be forever grateful to his parents who made sure to let him know, otherwise he would not have been able to serve in the House of Commons and represent the people of his riding in Saskatchewan.
This is the second time that we have tried to fill this legislative void by introducing Bill S‑245. I greatly admire author Franz Kafka. We have here the perfect example of a Kafkaesque or bureaucratic government that creates problems for ordinary citizens. This great German author who penned The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, The Trial, The Castle and Amerika, spoke about these major organizations that have far too many rules and far too many people trying to enforce them and about how an ordinary citizen can end up before them for making a mistake they were not even aware of.
Many people have lost their citizenship this way. However, those people can be proud because there are many parliamentarians, including Senator Yonah Martin, who are working to ensure this legislative void is filled.
We are now debating this bill to try to correct the error in Bill C‑37, which was introduced and debated in 2009 and 2011, if memory serves.
At the time, Bill C‑37 sought to amend the Citizenship Act to address this legislative gap. The period covered by the bill was approximately 50 months for second-generation Canadians. I am a first-generation Canadian. My children were all born in Calgary and are first-generation Canadians because they were all born in Canada. There was a legislative gap for Canadians who were born abroad to Canadian parents during those 50 months between February 15, 1967, and April 16, 1981. These Canadians were to inform the government before their 28th birthday if they wished to keep their citizenship.
As I said, there is hope, because we all agree that a Canadian is a Canadian and has the right to Canadian citizenship. It is a source of great pride and a great honour and privilege to be able to say that I am Canadian and always will be. In any event, that is my hope, unless the government makes another legislative mistake in the future and something happens to those of us who received their citizenship in 1989. I am hoping it will not happen, but one never knows.
In this bill, I think that Senator Yonah Martin found the right words to legislate on this issue. I have sponsored many bills in the House and I have had to talk to the jurilinguists and lawyers who work in the House to find the right words to achieve a goal. Sometimes, the problem is finding the right words and the right dates in order to ensure that legislative voids are properly filled while addressing the initial problem we sought to solve by introducing legislation in the House.
I thank Senator Yonah Martin, but also all of the other members and senators who worked hard on this bill. I am thinking of the former Speaker of the Senate, Noël Kinsella, and of former senators David Tkachuk and Art Eggleton, who worked hard to ensure that these Canadians get their citizenship.
During debates in the House, I always share a Yiddish proverb. Today's is this: “When you sweep the house, you find everything.” I hope that this legislation will make it possible for us to find all of the lost Canadians so that they can get their citizenship.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy being recognized as the member for Ottawa Centre, because those are the great people who have given me the opportunity to serve them in this place. As always, every single day it is an honour to represent my community.
I am thrilled to speak on Bill S-245. I heard the comments of members who spoke on it and I too speak in support of the bill. I am a proud Canadian and very much like my friend from Calgary Shepard, I was not born in Canada. I came from a country where my parents were also politically persecuted and had to find a new place to live where they could live freely. My family and I came to Canada in 1988 and one of the greatest attractions of Canada was the rights and freedoms that are protected in Canada, especially by virtue of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an incredibly important constitutional document that protects all of our rights.
I will be honest in saying that I stand here today with a heavy heart as a Canadian citizen, one day after, in my home province of Ontario, those rights were taken away from hard-working education workers by the invocation of the notwithstanding clause in back-to-work legislation by the provincial government, led by Premier Doug Ford. That is not the country my parents wanted to come to, where rights, in such a cavalier manner, could be taken away by the majority members of a Parliament. Rights are sacrosanct. They should always be protected. That is what makes us truly Canadian.
I want to give a big shout-out to all education workers across the province of Ontario who are picketing right now, demanding that their rights be restored so that there can be collective bargaining in a good-faith manner with the government, so that they can be in classrooms and so that all children can be in classrooms getting the best education they deserve from our system.
Bill S-245 is an important bill. As I mentioned earlier, I am supportive of the bill, but it really deals with a very small segment of “lost Canadians”, as has been described by other members, through the age 28 rule. There are many other new classifications of what I would say are lost Canadians as a result of changes that were made to the Citizenship Act in 2009.
The one that is really close to my heart, the one that I have heard about from quite a few constituents, is the rule that says that a child born outside of Canada after April of 2009 to a parent who is a Canadian citizen is not a Canadian citizen at birth if their parent was born outside of Canada and inherited their own citizenship because one of their parents was Canadian at the time of their birth. Imagine that. For example, I was not born in Canada but I became a Canadian citizen. If I became a parent again and that child was born outside of Canada, that child would not be entitled to Canadian citizenship. That creates a whole new set of lost Canadians, and it is something that we need to really look at and consider. That speaks to the first-generation limit that has been created in the Citizenship Act.
I want to tell a quick story, because I think it really brings into perspective what we are talking about. This is a story about somebody I know quite well, a close friend of mine who is a Canadian citizen. Her parents immigrated to Canada, became Canadian citizens, lived here, went to school here, worked here and just before this friend of mine was born, her mother went to her home country of Tunisia so she could have the support of her parents when she gave birth. This friend of mine was born outside of Canada in Tunisia.
However, in a matter of weeks, they came back to Canada, where their home was. Of course, my friend is a Canadian citizen. She lived here, went to law school here in Ottawa, worked here, and then, eventually, as many Canadians do, decided to go and work abroad.
She went to Europe. She went to England, where she got a legal job and where she met her future partner and got married. They live in France now and, in 2013 and, I believe, 2015, she had two daughters.
Unfortunately, although she is a Canadian citizen, she is unable to pass her Canadian citizenship to her two daughters, who were born after April 2009. In my view, that is a lost Canadian generation.
It is a first-generation limit that really needs to be addressed. I am sure that if we looked around in our respective communities, we would find many people in the same position. It is a situation that creates an unequal model of Canadian citizenship. Really, in essence, we are saying that a Canadian is not a Canadian by virtue of where they are born.
It is really of paramount importance, even now, because so many people who become Canadian citizens are immigrants. They are coming from different parts of the world. I am really excited that the Minister of Immigration, just a few days ago, announced that we will be bringing, by 2025, about 500,000 people per year into Canada, which is absolutely necessary. We are a big country with a small population base. We are growing, and we need more people.
All of those people who will come as immigrants to Canada are born somewhere else, and many of them may end up, after becoming Canadian citizens, living somewhere outside Canada. They may have families there and may want, of course, to come back to Canada. We need to make sure those children, who are born of parents who were born outside Canada, remain Canadian citizens.
It is creating an unequal model of Canadian citizenship and Canadian identity that needs to be resolved. It is also, arguably, a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, by virtue of sections 15 and 6 of the charter.
By having this rule in place and not rectifying it, we are also marginalizing women, in particular, who are Canadian citizens who may not have been born in Canada. Many of these women go outside Canada for professional reasons, because they want to work in different parts of the world, which is fantastic, because we Canadians are known to travel the world, to live in other parts of the world and to contribute to the well-being of this great planet that we are part of.
By having this rule, though, we are basically asking these women to put their careers on hold and come back to Canada in order to have children.
I really want to say that Bill S-245 is a step in the right direction, but it is only resolving a very small part of the problem. There are some other glaring holes in the Citizenship Act by virtue of the first-generation limit rule.
We need to look at those rules in a holistic manner so we can truly give expression to the idea that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”, which I fundamentally believe is one of the greatest strengths of Canada. Our diversity and our inclusive society exist because we have this really well-defined pathway to citizenship. When people come to Canada as immigrants, they come fully knowing that if they meet certain rules and requirements, they will have the opportunity to become Canadian citizens and contribute fully to this great country.
We undermine their capacity and we treat them unequally if we have different rules by virtue of, as an immigrant, where they were born. That is something we need to rectify. I look forward to working with members in the chamber to fix these rules so that, truly, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.
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Madam Speaker, I will not take up too much time today. I want to thank all of my colleagues who rose and spoke in favour of Bill S-245. It is a very important bill. Although we all recognize that it pertains to a small number of people who want to become Canadian, it is very important that we get this done.
I want to again thank my Senate colleague, Senator Yonah Martin, as well as Don Chapman and many others, not only for advocating for this bill, but for their hard work and perseverance to get the bill to this stage today.
I want to say that Bill S-245 is very important for the many who were stripped of their citizenship because of administrative errors and government failures from the past, when all they wanted to do was renew their passports, but I will keep it short.
I encourage all my colleagues to support this. Let us get it to committee stage. Let us get it done.
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