44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 16, 2024 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for bringing Bill C-71 to the floor. The New Democrats have fought for this ever since John McCallum. It has been more than a decade, at least for me, in this fight.
With Bill C-71, the minister touched on the issue around royal assent. In the bill, there is the commencement provision which confers discretion on the Governor in Council, meaning the cabinet, to determine when to proclaim the act into force, but does not set a specific date.
Could the minister advise the House, and families that are waiting to have their rights restored, how long it will take for the bill to become law. Would it be a proclamation and royal assent?
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Madam Speaker, the truth of the matter is that the Conservatives actually filibustered Bill S-245 for 30 hours at committee. Even after it had gone through the committee and had been referred back to the House at third reading, they traded down that bill in the order of precedence eight times so that we would not get to debate it at third reading in the House and vote on it.
The leader of the official opposition's office wrote to family members who were concerned about their rights being taken away and about their constitutional rights being violated stating, “Conservatives will...preserve what it means to be a citizen of this country and fundamentally what it means to be a Canadian. Please be assured we will continue to support and advocate for this legislation to reach its third reading in the House of Commons.” That is in reference to Bill S-245. This is blatantly false. If that is the case, why did the member for Calgary Forest Lawn trade the bill on the order of precedence eight times so that it cannot come to the House for a third reading debate?
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his collaboration and co-operation at committee on Bill S-245. I was delighted to work with him and to see that he supported the NDP amendments. That is the right thing to do, to restore the rights of Canadians, the rights that the Conservatives took away.
I want to ask the member a question. He may not have been elected at that time, and neither was I, but to my understanding and to the knowledge of Don Chapman, who is an extremely knowledgeable guy on the lost Canadian file, when the Harper government brought in Bill C-37, it actually put forward an edict for all the parties that, if they did not support it in its entirety, it would take away the bill. That meant that the Conservatives were able to put a poison pill in that bill with the first-generation cut-off rule.
Would the member agree that is the wrong thing to do on an issue as important as people's basic fundamental rights?
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to enter this debate on Bill C-71. Because the House will be getting ready for statements and question period, I will be interrupted in my speech, so I am going to put a few things on the public record.
To the member from the Bloc's point that this is not about partisanship, I think it is important to put on the public record the history of what happened with respect to lost Canadians. Members will know that, 15 years ago, the Conservatives brought in Bill C-37 for an act that was supposed to fix a lot of the lost Canadian issues. It did fix some of those issues, but in that process, the Conservatives also put a poisoned pill in the bill, which was the first-generation cut-off rule deeming those of the second generation who were born abroad would not be able to receive their citizenship from their parents. That was incorporated into Bill C-37.
At the time, I was not here, but those who watched that debate saw what happened. The Harper government was clear to say that, unless Bill C-37 passed in its entirety, the bill would die. They would get rid of it and kill it. That is information from Don Chapman, who is the king of experts on lost Canadian issues because he has dedicated his life to addressing this injustice. That is the knowledge that he brings to this floor by sharing with me what happened. That is why the NDP and the Liberals had to vote for it.
They voted for it because they had no choice. If they had not, what would it have meant? It would have meant that thousands upon thousands of Canadian World War II vets, along with tens of thousands of Canadian war brides and their children, would have gone to their graves disenfranchised from their own country. A 20-year-old war bride in 1946 would be 98 years old today. Most of the Canadian brides and their World War II soldier husbands are now dead. If they had not accepted the first generation cut-off limit under Bill C-37, all these folks would have died without citizenship, all because Harper would have killed Bill C-37.
That is the reality. That is why people were jammed to do that. Despite that, the critic for the NDP at the time, Olivia Chow, put this on the public record: “We could get this bill done very quickly and accommodate this element by doing something very simple, by just amending subclause 2(2), or actually taking it out of the bill, because right now it limits citizenship to the first generation born to, or adopted by, Canadian parents.”
The NDP tried to raise the issue, and Olivia said that we should get rid of the first-generation rule that the Conservatives brought in, but that was not allowed to take place because it was the poison pill that the Conservatives put in the bill. Otherwise, they would have taken away all of those rights for war veterans and the war brides. That is the reason, and that is the history.
Is this partisan politics? No, it is not, but it is an important part of the history to know what happened, where the lost Canadian issue stems from, why we are here and why the Superior Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to take away those rights.
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- Sep/16/24 3:47:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to re-enter into debate on Bill C-71.
What is this bill about? It is about a group of Canadians whose constitutional rights were stripped by the Conservatives 15 years ago. Bill C-37 was brought in by the Harper administration. Through that process, the government tried to fix some of the issues of lost Canadians, which Bill C-37 did in part.
However, in that process, the Conservatives also created a brand-new class of lost Canadians. That is, they brought in a provision that took away the rights of first-generation Canadians born abroad to pass on their citizenship to their children who are also born abroad. By doing that, the Conservatives essentially indicated that some Canadians are more equal than others. Second-generation Canadians born abroad did not have the right to become citizens.
This has caused untold harm, pain and suffering to Canadian families. I have met lost Canadian families whose children, as a result of this unconstitutional law, were born stateless. I have family members who have faced deportation as a result of this unconstitutional law. I have met families who were separated, the parent torn away from their children, as a result of this unconstitutional law. This law went on for 15 years.
I joined the House of Commons back in 2015. One of the first things I did was to draft a private member's bill in an attempt to fix this problem. The then minister John McCallum was a minister who, while in opposition, said this needed to be fixed. Successive Liberal ministers have failed to do so until now.
I will grant the minister some recognition for bringing this bill forward. It was not without a fight, because I do not think the government was going to do it. As the NDP critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship, I had to lobby, endlessly, successive Liberal ministers to get us where we are today.
There was an opening to get this dealt with when Senator Yonah Martin brought in a private member's bill, Bill S-245, in the Senate. The bill would fix only a very small portion of the lost Canadians issue, what they call the age 28 rule. I will not go into all of the details around that, because most people already know what it is. That bill, in my view, and I said this to the senator at the time, was deficient because it did not deal with a variety of other lost Canadians resulting from the Harper Conservatives' punitive bill, Bill C-37. I had every intention to move amendments to her private member's bill to fix it.
Most notably, I wanted it to ensure that the new class of lost Canadians the Conservatives created, the second-generation Canadians born abroad, would have the right to citizenship, albeit subject to a substantial connections test. They have the right to be recognized as Canadians and their children have that right. We went through this whole process at committee.
Some 30 hours later, the vast majority of the NDP amendments I negotiated with the government were adopted. Where the government supported my amendments, they were passed. However, the Conservatives filibustered that committee for 30 hours over 12 committee meetings. I have to say that committee meetings are precious because we only get two a week. Sometimes we lose them, depending on the calendar day; it could be a stat holiday or whatever the case may be. It is precious time and an important time to get work done.
The Conservatives filibustered that bill for 30 hours. Even then, we persisted and managed to get it through. The amendments were adopted and the report was tabled in this House with a wrong recommendation. Then what happened? The sponsor of the bill from the House was a Conservative member, because Yonah Martin is a Conservative senator. The member for Calgary Forest Lawn was the sponsor of the private member's bill, Bill S-245, which was supposed to be brought back to the House of Commons for third reading debate more than a year ago.
Then what happened? The Conservatives traded the order of precedence for the bill to be brought back into this House eight times. They traded it over and over again to delay the bill from coming back to the House for third reading debate and a vote. To this day, it has not been debated. When I saw that indication, it was as clear as day that the Conservatives had zero intention of doing what is right, despite the court ruling, by the way, that the provision was unconstitutional. Even then, they would not do the right thing.
Then I approached the current Minister of Immigration to say that the government must bring forward a government bill because Bill S-245 would never come back to the House of Commons, as the Conservatives would continue to use delay tactics. After much discussion, the minister agreed and we worked together to bring Bill C-71 here. That is how we got here.
Just to be clear, what did the courts say? I want to put this on the public record. The court decision by the Ontario Superior Court, in a 55-page ruling, found that the second-generation cut-off rule violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it "treats Canadians who became Canadians at birth because they were born in Canada differently from those Canadians who obtained their citizenship by descent on their birth outside of Canada.” The ruling went on to say that “the latter group holds a lesser class of citizenship because, unlike Canadian-born citizens, they are unable to pass on Canadian citizenship by descent to their children born abroad.”
The second-generation cut-off rule denies the first generation born abroad the ability to automatically pass on citizenship to their children if they are also born outside of Canada. In her decision, the judge accepted claims that women are particularly impacted because the second-generation cut-off rule discriminates on the basis of gender, forcing women in their reproductive years to choose between travel, study and career opportunities abroad or passing citizenship to their children.
One family member, who was one of the appellants in the case, was actually told by officials that all she had to do was go back to Canada to give birth. That was during COVID, by the way, when travel was not safe, and she had no family doctor here to follow the pregnancy. She would have had no health insurance and, of course, no family support because her husband was abroad, continuing to work. That means she would have had to give birth by herself here. She would have had to seek an extended leave from work to facilitate that. It makes zero sense to even suggest such a thing, yet there we have it. Her child was born stateless.
That is the reality of what we are talking about. Those are the impacts, real impacts, on the lives of Canadian families. I am so happy the court made this ruling and made things clear. I urged the government at the time not to appeal the ruling, and I am also grateful the government did not.
We heard the Conservatives say earlier they would have appealed the court ruling. Of course they would have. They were the ones who brought in the unconstitutional law to begin with 15 years ago. We also heard from the Conservative member for Calgary Shepard, who said they would apply a criminality test to this issue. Are the Conservatives going to apply a criminality test to Canadians who are born here? It is absolutely absurd to make these suggestions and to hold true to the idea that some Canadians have more rights than others.
This has been struck down by the courts. It is time to do not only what is morally right but also what is legally required by the courts.
The amendments I put through in committee on Bill S-245 essentially call for a substantial connections test for parents who are the first generation born abroad to be in Canada for at least 1,095 days. That would mean the connections test would be extended to the second generation born abroad and subsequent generations.
My amendments also restored those impacted since the second-generation cut-off rule was enacted in 2009, and we would also apply the same amendment to adoptee families. It took some work, a lot of work, to negotiate and get to where we are today with this bill. It took at least 10 years of my time, but that is nothing in comparison with people like Don Chapman, who has dedicated his entire life to this. He was deemed a lost Canadian. He has fought for this and helped so many families regain their citizenship and other families who have suffered, those who have been lost because this law was never fixed.
We have to do what is right, and I hope Conservative members will not filibuster. They said to the family members that they will support this provision, but actions speak louder than words, and all of the actions to date indicate otherwise. I am going to give them another chance now to do what is right, because we have to get this passed. We have to make this law, according to the courts, and because it is the morally right thing to do.
At this juncture, I ask for unanimous consent for the following motion: That notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, be deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
I am asking for this because it would expedite the bill, get it to committee so we can hear witnesses, make this law and do what is necessary and what is right for the people of Canada.
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- Sep/16/24 4:03:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the heart of the question is this. Bill C-71 would effectively make Canada's immigration law, particularly for the class of what we call lost Canadians, charter-compliant. It would mean that family members who have not been able to pass their citizenship to their children because their children were second generation and born abroad would have those rights restored.
These are not new rights. These are citizens who should never have lost those rights, per the Superior Court of Ontario. We are not creating a new class of citizens. We are restoring this class of citizens, who were unjustly and unconstitutionally penalized. It would mean that children would not be born stateless. It would mean that families would not be separated. It would mean that people would not face deportation because of this unconstitutional law.
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- Sep/16/24 4:04:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the very member who said no to my motion has asked this question. This very member was part of the Conservatives who created this unconstitutional law, which said that some Canadians are less Canadian than others. They are the very same Conservatives who had been told by the courts that their law was unjust.
It is time for the government and all parliamentarians to bring in a law that is charter-compliant. That is where I stand.
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- Sep/16/24 4:06:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is shameful, because justice delayed is justice denied. It has been 15 years already. Canadian families have suffered from this punitive, unconstitutional law created by the Conservatives, and now they want to delay it even further. We have debated this ad nauseam. I have lost count of how many times I have made speeches on lost Canadians.
It is time to act, and it is shameful that the Conservatives will not do what is necessary and what is right.
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- Sep/16/24 4:08:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Greens, Bloc members and the Liberals. We all stood together to say that we have to do this in a non-partisan way. Let us make sure that we restore the rights of Canadians. The only party standing in the way of that right now is the Conservative Party.
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- Sep/16/24 4:09:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the simple answer is that the Conservatives want to mislead families. In fact, the leader of the official opposition, in a reply to family members urging them to take action to fix this injustice, said that the Conservatives supported passing Bill S-245. However, what did they do? They did everything they could to delay and obstruct its passage, to the point that they are even refusing to have the bill come before the House for a third reading debate and vote.
They are misleading Canadian families. They are pretending that they stand for justice. They are pretending that they stand for the rights of Canadians and treating all Canadians equally. They do not. It is the very opposite of what they say and who they claim they are.
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- Sep/16/24 4:11:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would also like to acknowledge Don Chapman, and, of course, the family members who took the matter to court and the legal team that fought this issue so we can now have this rectified.
The Conservatives, on eight occasions, moved the debate for third reading on Bill S-245. They did it in 2023 on October 16, October 25 and November 6, and then in 2024 on January 29, February 15, March 22, April 10 and May 1. That is their record. They moved it eight times. What does that tell us? It tells us that they do not support ensuring that Canada ends the practice of having two classes of citizens.
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- Sep/16/24 11:01:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is also my first opportunity to make an intervention.
I heard the member's speech. The reality is this: He can rattle off some dollars and then say that the government is doing something. The truth is that it is not doing enough. The truth is that the action is not yielding the results. In fact, there has been very little action. We already know that the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls for action is a failure. We also know that this is the case with the calls for justice for the missing, murdered and indigenous women and girls, to the point where people are now asking, “What is the point?” The government is not taking the necessary actions, and we see death, such as what we are seeing right now, in just two weeks, the last 15 days. This is the reality that indigenous people are faced with.
My question for the member is this: Instead of saying that we should send this for study at a committee, can he tell us what the government is doing to implement all of the TRC's recommendations, and what timeline will it give for that implementation?
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