44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 16, 2024 11:00AM
- Sep/16/24 12:33:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to extend the same courtesy, we would like to be able to review what the opposition House leader has said and then return back to the House once we have had the opportunity to do so.
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- Sep/16/24 12:33:36 p.m.
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Again, as I indicated to the other hon. member, I appreciate the intervention and I hope that the parliamentary secretary will do so forthwith so that the Speaker would be able to make a determination to the House.
I do not see any members of the Bloc Québécois rising. I would imagine that the Bloc members listened to the speeches in the House.
I hope to share my ruling with the House soon.
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moved that Bill C-71, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, as we return to the House, I want to begin by acknowledging that we are gathering today on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples.
I am honoured to rise in this House today to discuss the proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act. The legislation would provide a clear framework for citizenship by descent with the immediate goal of restoring and granting citizenship to lost Canadians.
Some of us, like me, were fortunate to be citizens by birth. Others come from far and wide, choose Canada to be their home and earn their citizenship through our naturalization process. There are those who are Canadians by descent, who are born outside the country to a parent who is a Canadian citizen.
Regardless of how someone acquires their citizenship, I think we all agree that we appreciate each Canadian just the same in this great nation of ours. Whether one was born Canadian or chose Canada as their new land, we are united by a common set of principles and mutual respect for our communities and our country. We are all proud to be Canadian.
Since the founding of what we now call Canada, people from around the world have made this country their home. Canadians are a welcoming people who help others and one another. We demonstrate our commitment to others within the community and the world over when we support charities, volunteer our time and extend a helping hand to those in need.
Canadians are a diverse group, but we share a set of common values and take pride in who we are and what the country stands for. We are welcoming, inclusive, generous; a country that supports human rights, equality and respect for all people. There is no doubt that Canadian citizenship is highly valued and recognized around the world. We want our citizenship system to be fair and accessible and with clear and transparent rules. That is why, when issues arise around our citizenship laws, it is important that Parliament address them.
Given recent challenges to the first-generation limit that Harper Conservatives unfairly introduced, it was clear that changes were needed to the Citizenship Act to address cohorts excluded from citizenship. This is especially relevant for those born outside Canada to a Canadian parent.
It is important that members understand the history of the Citizenship Act in order to better understand how this problem arose. Canada's first citizenship law was passed in 1947. It contained provisions that could revoke some people's citizenship or prevent others from becoming citizens in the first place. Today we view those provisions as outdated, and they were either removed or amended. Those affected by these provisions who lost their citizenship or never became citizens are referred to as “lost Canadians”.
In the past, Canadians could hand down their citizenship to their descendants born abroad not only in the next generation but also beyond the first generation, so long as they met certain conditions and applied by a certain age.
When a new citizenship statute took effect in 1977, children born abroad to a Canadian parent also born abroad were citizens, but they had to act to preserve their citizenship by age 28, or else they would lose it. This requirement was not well understood, so some people lost their citizenship and became so-called lost Canadians.
To wit, my department generally receives 35 to 40 applications for resumption of citizenship per year because of this problem.
In 2009, several amendments to the Citizenship Act remedied the majority of these older lost Canadian cases by providing or restoring citizenship by their 28th birthday. Since 2009, approximately 20,000 individuals have come forward and have been issued proof of their Canadian citizenship because of these changes.
However, the Harper Conservatives introduced the first-generation limit, which the Ontario Superior Court has deemed unconstitutional on equality and mobility rights. The Leader of the Opposition has suggested he would use the notwithstanding clause if given the chance, and that they are considering taking away people's rights when it suits the Conservatives. What the Conservative Party did here is a concrete example of taking away the rights of Canadians. When Conservatives say that we have nothing to fear, Canadians need to take note of what they have done in the past.
This is a record where Conservatives, with the Leader of the Opposition as one of their members, took people's rights away. This should speak for itself.
The legislative amendments of 2009 also allowed anyone born after the 1977 act who was not yet 28 years old when the changes took effect to retain their status and remain a Canadian citizen.
However, there is still a cohort of people who self-identify as lost Canadians. These are people born abroad to a Canadian parent after 1977 in the second generation or beyond who lost their citizenship before 2009 because of rules since revoked that obliged them to take action to retain their Canadian citizenship before their 28th birthday.
Some of these people born abroad were raised in Canada and were unaware that they needed to take steps to retain their Canadian citizenship. We know that the number of people in this cohort is rather small. We know this because the only people affected are those who were born abroad in the second generation or beyond between 1977 and 1981; in other words, only Canadians who had already reached the age of 28 and lost their citizenship before the passage of the 2009 act, which revoked the requirement. As we can see, this is a complicated issue.
Senator Martin of British Columbia introduced public bill S-245 in an effort to address the issue. The goal of the bill and the amendments adopted by the members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration is to restore the citizenship of this cohort, of these lost Canadians affected by the age 28 rule.
When Bill S-245 was studied by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, the bill was amended to include not only a mechanism to restore the citizenship of this cohort but also a mechanism to allow some people born in the second or subsequent generation to be born a Canadian citizen by descent if their Canadian parent could demonstrate that they held a substantial connection to Canada. That is, if a child's Canadian parent had been in Canada for three years before the child was born, they could pass on their citizenship to that child. Bill S-245 also proposes that children born abroad and adopted by a Canadian could also access citizenship. The process for adopted children is a grant of citizenship.
What has changed since we began the review of Bill S-245 is a key decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that determined that the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent was unconstitutional. It is clear that the House must now take immediate action to address the issues the court noted.
Since Bill S-245 went through a number of changes and improvements based on feedback from experts and those impacted, the Conservative Party continues to delay the progress of this bill. Not only that, but Conservatives filibustered Bill S-245 for nearly 30 hours during the actual study. It is obvious, again, that there is little care for Canadians' rights.
During that time, the member of Parliament for Calgary Forest Lawn, who sponsored Senate Bill S-245, as well as the former Conservative immigration critic, recommended the introduction of a private member's bill or a government bill to address the remaining cohort of lost Canadians.
We have a government bill in front of us to do just that. Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, 2024, establishes a revised framework governing citizenship by descent and restores citizenship to lost Canadians and their descendants. This revised regime would also address issues raised by the recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling by providing a pathway to citizenship for those born or adopted abroad. Similar to what is proposed by Bill S-245, this bill expands access to citizenship by descent, but in a more comprehensive and inclusive way.
Like Bill S-245, it would restore citizenship to the last cohort of lost Canadians, but it also proposes that all individuals born outside Canada to a Canadian parent before coming into force in this legislation would also be citizens by descent, including those previously excluded by the first-generation limit.
For those born outside our borders, beyond the first generation, or after the legislation comes into force, they would be citizens from birth if their Canadian parent can demonstrate their own substantial connection to Canada. That means that the parent was in Canada for three years, cumulative, and it does not need to be consecutive, before the child was born.
Any child born abroad and adopted by a Canadian parent before this bill's coming-into-force date would have access to the direct grant of citizenship for adoptees, and that includes those previously excluded by the first-generation limit. Today, we are dealing with fundamental issues of fairness for people who should be Canadian citizens.
When the legislation comes into force, the same substantial connection to Canada test will apply for Canadian adoptive parents who are also born outside the country to access a grant of citizenship. If the adoptive parent was physically in Canada for 1,095 days or three years prior to the adoption, their child could access the adoption grant of citizenship.
Finally, as with previous changes to the Citizenship Act that helped other lost Canadians, this bill would confer automatic citizenship on some people born outside Canada who may not wish to be citizens.
In many countries, dual citizenship is not permitted in certain jobs, including in government, military and national security positions. In some countries, having citizenship in another country can present legal, professional or other barriers, including restricting access to benefits. That is why this bill will provide access to the same simplified renunciation process as the one established in 2009.
Most people who would automatically become citizens when the bill comes into force but may not wish to hold citizenship will be able to use the simplified renunciation process. This mechanism has a few requirements. These individuals must not reside in Canada; they also must not become stateless by renouncing their Canadian citizenship. That is an important point. In addition, people must apply to renounce the citizenship granted to them through the—
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- Sep/16/24 12:47:13 p.m.
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One moment, please. The hon. minister can start his last sentence over. I believe the hon. minister's phone is on his desk, and that is causing problems for the interpreters. I would ask him to move his phone, if that is indeed the issue.
The hon. minister can repeat the sentence he was saying before I interrupted him.
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- Sep/16/24 12:47:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, please let me know if the problem persists because my phones were rather far away.
I will go back to what I was saying about the statutory mechanism allowing those who do not want to become Canadian to renounce their citizenship. A few requirements need to be met. The person must not be a resident of Canada; they must not become stateless as a result of renouncing their Canadian citizenship; and they must request the renunciation of the citizenship that was conferred on them through the ministerial process.
When the legislation comes into force, the same substantial connection to Canada test will apply for Canadian adoptive parents who were also born outside the country to access a grant of citizenship. If the adoptive parent was physically in Canada for that 1,095-day period or three years prior to the adoption, the child can access the adoption grant to citizenship.
Finally, as with previous changes to the Citizenship Act to help other lost Canadians, this bill would confer automatic citizenship on some people born outside of Canada who may not wish to be citizens, and we will remediate that as the case may be.
This bill introduces changes to make the necessary improvements, to restore citizenship to those who lost it and to expand eligibility beyond the first generation to people who have proven that they have a substantial connection to Canada. These legislative changes address the concerns raised in the recent decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which calls on the federal government to act.
Don Chapman, a long-time advocate for lost Canadians, who has met many members of Parliament in fighting for this noble cause, has said, “This bill will be the first time in Canadian history that women achieve the same rights as men in the Citizenship Act.” It will be the first time that the Citizenship Act is actually charter compliant.
There is urgency in this matter. It is crucial that we establish an updated framework as soon as possible. I would hope, given the cross-party support from the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party to restore citizenship, that we are positioned to move the legislation forward quickly.
I look forward to working with members and senators to move this bill forward without delay with the appropriate considerations and reviews.
Canadian citizenship is integral to who we are, uniting us through shared values of democracy, equality and inclusion. Through this legislation, we are working to provide a more inclusive Citizenship Act and ensure that those who are rightfully Canadian are seen as such under the law.
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Madam Speaker, coming back from the summer recess, I was hoping the minister would not start by being so partisan on the bill before us.
I want to remind the minister, because he mentioned it several times, about the Harper government. In the session of Parliament on February 7, 2008, the Liberal Party voted for the first generation limit and then proceeded to vote again for it at third reading. This original ruling, this decision in legislation to introduce a first generation limit, was supported by the Liberal Party at the time.
However, I missed the part today where the minister said how many people would be impacted by the legislation in its multiple parts, which is the key criteria here. It is reckless to continue to forward legislation when government officials have told us at committee repeatedly that they do not know how many people would then be eligible for citizenship by descent.
How many people would be eligible for citizenship by descent through Bill C-71?
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- Sep/16/24 12:51:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what the member opposite fails to note is that this is a question the rights of Canadians, people to have the right to be Canadian, the right that was denied to them by the Harper government. He wants to talk about numbers, and perhaps that is important from a logistical planning perspective, I do not deny that, but please do not continue to deny the rights of Canadians who duly should be Canadian today.
On the 2009 amendments, as an indicative matter and as I mentioned in my speech, about 20,000 people were affected and became Canadians. We routinely, as a matter of people who apply to our department, have about 40 to 45 people per year who ask us for the restoration of their rights.
There will be more to this, and we will need an organized way to do this. This is why we are responding in an organized fashion to a ruling of the Ontario Superior Court. If the member opposite is concerned with numbers, he will take heart in the fact that we will have a three-year naturalization limit for people to prove that substantive connection to Canada.
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- Sep/16/24 12:52:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to wish everyone a warm welcome back to Parliament.
The Bloc Québécois will support the bill in principle so that it can be studied in committee. We understand that the bill's ultimate aim is to right a wrong. Of course, that is no easy matter. I have the same question as my Conservative colleague. How many people does the government estimate are involved? I understand that the aim is not to put quantity ahead of quality. Still, the numbers matter.
When you decided not to appeal the decision, you also said that the people likely to be affected would have a lot of questions about what it means for them personally and their families, and that you would take the time to explain the process.
Would the minister tell us how he intends to explain this situation?
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- Sep/16/24 12:53:50 p.m.
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The hon. member used the word “you” several times while addressing the government directly. I would remind her to kindly address her comments to the Chair.
The hon. minister.
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- Sep/16/24 12:54:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the Bloc Québécois members for their support. They are not necessarily the biggest advocates of Canadian citizenship, but they are supporting us in correcting an injustice related to Canadian citizenship. This is a fundamental matter of justice and rights, as they so clearly said, and I thank them for their support.
The first step will be to pass the bill and get royal assent. Then, we will have to implement an internal process, which, obviously, we have started doing, because we have to respond to several questions from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice regarding the process and the mechanism for ensuring that these individuals can obtain Canadian citizenship within a reasonable time frame. Obviously, several tests will be required, as set out in the bill. I would be happy to talk more about this in committee or in person.
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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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- Sep/16/24 12:56:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would expect that to be the case.
Again, I want to thank the New Democrats for their support. This was a modification that we made relatively recently, simply to ensure that the court did not feel like it was constrained to a certain number of days by our legislative process. We have told the court time and again that we plan to put this into force as quickly as possible. Otherwise, it is a bit more of an open application process where I would have the discretion to grant citizenship.
I would implore Parliament to move quickly if members do not feel that my discretion should not be fettered by Parliament. It absolutely should in this case and there should be a number of reasons and concrete bases for people to get their citizenship. The naturalization test is a perfect point.
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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking members in other parties, and in particular the Minister of Immigration for bringing Bill C-71 forward.
The hon. member for Vancouver East has been tireless, as have many citizen champions, including, as mentioned by the minister, Don Chapman. The work to restore the rights to lost Canadians is urgent.
With all due respect to the minister, I would like to repeat the question from the member for Vancouver East. When might we see this pass into law? It is obviously urgent that it be done as expeditiously as possible, through the House and the Senate.
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- Sep/16/24 12:57:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is probably a question best—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Sep/16/24 12:57:45 p.m.
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The hon. minister has the floor. I would ask members to please hold their thoughts.
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- Sep/16/24 12:57:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as soon as possible, obviously.
This question is best answered by the Conservative Party. A lot of us in the House would like to see it approved at all stages and get it enforced, so we can get these rights recognized by Canadians who are waiting, and have waited for a hell of a long time, to become citizens.
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- Sep/16/24 12:58:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I did shout out to the minister, because there seems to be a will to see this legislation advanced. I was yelling out to say that we should call the question.
What is clear from the official opposition is that for the Conservative Party of Canada, whether under the current leader or under Prime Minister Harper, there has always been two classes of Canadians and a change that they made left certain Canadians behind. One of the reasons I ran for office was that the Conservatives never wanted people like myself to have their voices heard.
I would ask the minister the following. What is it about the legislation and the constitutionality? We know that there have been a couple of rulings. On the comments of Don Chapman, I worked for the Hon. Andrew Telegdi when Don Chapman was leading this charge to ensure that their rights and their abilities were also advanced. It was important that it happen then but it did not, and here we are today. What is the importance of this legislation and is there a willingness to have the question called so we can see the legislation advance as quickly as possible?
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- Sep/16/24 12:59:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is fundamentally about rights. The court case that generated this is a pretty short one. I would invite members to take a quick read of it.
One of the telling statements by the judge in the case was to highlight the fact that women, in particular, were unduly burdened as to where they would have to decide to have their child, failure of which to have them in Canada would result in the the individuals in question losing their citizenship. These are not faraway examples. My children were not born in Canada. Their next generation could possibly have been in jeopardy. Therefore, it hits home in a lot of ways.
It is not about people who have never been to Canada. Obviously, this is about Canadian citizenship; it is not for all. There are tests to become a Canadian citizen. We know, or at least I and my department know, how important it is to ensure there are rigorous rules to decide who becomes a Canadian citizen or not.
This is a question of rights, and the court case in question is about women's rights. As Don Chapman said, and as the court said, this will perhaps be the first time where the Citizenship Act is charter compliant when it comes to women.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be the first member of the official opposition to rise for Bill C-71. After hearing the minister speak, it tells me that he came here unprepared to deal with the substance of the legislation that he himself tabled in this House.
First of all, I will debunk a bunch of things that were said that are incorrect. They are not true. If we look at the record, as I said in my question, on February 15 and February 7, 2008, in the original debate on Bill C-37 on the first-generation limit that introduced the rules that existed between 2009 and the end of 2023, when the Ontario Superior Court ruled that there were two charter violations, the Liberals voted for it, supporting a motion to move forward with the legislation at the next stage. They did not do that once such that we could perhaps say they were not paying attention, but they did it twice. They accepted the logic of it.
Not only did they accept the logic of it, but there is a report from the 2005 immigration committee that recommended putting something like a first-generation limit rule in legislation. In 2005, former prime minister Paul Martin was in charge, which means there was a minority government and a majority on the committee decided to push forward that recommendation. It was then adopted in 2007 by Diane Finley, the immigration minister at the time.
The ridiculous claim that we on this side are taking away rights or that rights are being taken away is absolutely false. All Liberals supported it. In fact, even the NDP supported the motion at the time. There are some members sitting here today who were in their seats at the time they supported the Bill C-37 motion, not once but twice. Let us start with that.
Nobody would lose their citizenship through this legislation. That is not what we are talking about. The Conservatives believe that everybody has a right, if they meet the rules, to apply for citizenship, but new rules would be created for citizenship by descent with a substantive connection clause that a judge said was necessary. We disagree with how the substantive connection test is created and what the rules for it are. That is a substantive reason to oppose this legislation at second reading, something that all other parties knew about because, as the minister mentioned, we were going through this during the Bill S-245 debate.
I think I have shown that this is not anything new. Other parties supported the first-generation limit at the time. They were all onside to push through Bill C-37. Our belief is that naturalized Canadians like me are treated exactly the same in the Citizenship Act and the law as Canadians who were born here. My children were born here and I am a naturalized Canadian. We are considered generation zero for the purposes of current legislation.
I am not the only one saying that. It is a judge saying that. In paragraph 9, he said, “gen zero: the applicants belonging to gen zero are Canadian-born citizens who had children abroad, or naturalized Canadian citizens who had children abroad after their naturalization, and whose children acquired Canadian citizenship automatically by descent.” We are really talking about grandkids.
The critical question that government officials have been incapable of answering is about sound logistical planning, the words the minister used just now. As sound logistical planning indicates, when we are passing legislation and proposing it to the House, members in the House should know how many people would be affected by it and how many people would be included, because this is about grandkids who are born abroad to parents who were abroad when they get citizenship by descent. That is the critical question here, and the Liberals have not been able to answer it. They have not been able to answer how many people this would apply to.
With all the benefits we give out to Canadian citizens, which Parliament has voted on, such as transfer payments, the ability to travel on a Canadian passport, one of the strongest passports in the world, and the ability to be evacuated from certain countries when there are issues and problems overseas, as we saw during the pandemic, we would think the government would take the summer to do its homework. However, the minister did not do his homework. Instead, he came here to accuse the Conservatives and anybody who disagreed with him and, frankly, did not even read the record from 2008 to know how his own party voted. The Liberals were in support of the same rule that the Superior Court in Ontario found for two reasons is not charter-compliant. That should have resulted in an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. On a matter as important as the Citizenship Act, I would have liked to see the government appeal it. The minister refused to explain to the House why he did not seek that appeal, why he chose not to go forward with it.
As found later in the ruling, which I am going to read from partially because I think it is important, one of the reasons that the legislation was found not to be charter-compliant is the bureaucratic incompetence at the immigration department. That is entirely on the back of the minister. He is responsible for the logistical planning, which are his words, to make sure there is no backlog, that applications have the correct information in them and that officials are held accountable.
I am going to read from sections 263 to 265 of the ruling, which are different parts. The judge noted:
On cross-examination he testified that his source for this information were various unnamed IRCC case managers. However, the information Mr. Milord obtained from these case managers was replete with inaccuracies. With respect to Ms. Maruyama, these include misidentifying the year Ms. Maruyama’s father was naturalized as a Canadian citizen, Ms. Maruyama’s mother’s citizenship, the reason for rejection of Ms. Maruyama’s children’s application for permanent residency.... There were also errors in Mr. Milord’s evidence about how Mr. Chandler’s child acquired Irish citizenship.
Paragraph 264 states:
I note that in addition to these errors, at the outset of the hearing, I was advised that Mr. Burgess had been told that his child, QR—
This is to hide the identity of minors.
—had been granted permanent residency or citizenship status. However, counsel for Mr. Burgess was unable to confirm exactly what was going on, because in the mail, the Burgess family had received citizenship documents pertaining to someone else entirely, unrelated to the family or this application.
In paragraph 265, the judge found in a very small sampling that there was an error rate of 50% in these particular case files. I think for many of us in our constituency offices in our ridings, about 80% to 90% of the work is immigration case files. I hope members will agree with me that we find them replete with errors time and time again. It was because of errors on the bureaucratic side by the minister and the department he runs and is responsible and accountable for that the judge found there were charter violations. That is not a problem with the original idea that the Liberal Party of Canada supported. I am going to repeat that to them: They supported it not once by accident but twice. They knew exactly what they were doing at the time.
The minister talked about the substantive connection test without referring to it directly, saying that there would be a three-year naturalization limit. That is an incomplete statement. It is an incomplete answer. The suggestion to use the same rule that we have for permanent residency is found in three out of five applications for permanent residency to Canada. I do not think that is enough, and I made that case at the immigration committee during the Bill S-245 debate. The reason I do not believe it is enough is the way it is going to be calculated.
The rule would be applied if the parent of a child can demonstrate 1,095 non-consecutive days in Canada at any time before the birth of the child. If someone is having children later in life, they would have more time to prove the 1,095 days to pass on their citizenship by descent. If they ever travelled back to Canada, they could obviously give birth to their children in Canada. As a Canadian by descent, they could do that here, and they would have birthright citizenship, just as my children did when they were born in Calgary. All four of them were born in Calgary.
For the 1,095 days, we proposed to make them consecutive so that someone could prove a substantial connection to Canada. The Conservatives agreed at committee that three years seemed like a reasonable amount. If someone went through a K-to-12 system or went to school for a few years and then their parents left Canada for whatever reason, such as for work opportunities or take a year off, three years consecutively would be a good demonstration of a substantial connection to Canada.
That was voted down by the Liberals. In fact, they voted down nearly all of our amendments. We proposed over 40 of them, and let it not be said that we are unreasonable. We actually voted with the Liberals on 10 of their amendments. We said that we could see the wisdom of them. There are sections in Bill C-71 that we agree with, like treating adopted children of Canadians equally to those who are naturalized or born Canadians. That seems like a reasonable thing to do. For the faster revocation rules for citizenship, if someone does not want their citizenship and wants to give it up, we agree that there should be a simpler process.
The example the minister gave is incomplete. The best example to give would be members serving in the Australian Parliament, who cannot be dual citizens. That is directly in their constitution. Certain members here might have Canadian citizenship eligibility by descent, and we do not want to make them ineligible. In my case, I am a dual citizen. I am a citizen of Canada by naturalization and a citizen of the Republic of Poland by birth. They would charge me about $565 to give up my citizenship, and I am not giving up one red cent for that. There are still some red cents in circulation, and I will not pay one red cent to the republic to give up my citizenship. The application is entirely in Polish as well. Our rules for individuals to renounce their citizenship if they do not want it would be much simpler. I find it interesting that the minister did not even know that about his own legislation.
We also support another important part, which was in the original Senate bill, Bill S-245. It came from our colleague on the Conservative side, Senator Yonah Martin, who wanted to address 50 months of lost Canadians between 1977 and 1981. We agreed. That is why the legislation came here. At the time, we asked if we could pass it quickly enough to look after the section 8 lost Canadians. We agreed that they should have their citizenship restored because they missed the cut-off date. In fact, one of our members from Saskatchewan almost became one of those lost Canadians. He only found out within a few months that he needed to apply to maintain his citizenship. We agree with the principle that this group of Canadians should have their citizenship restored and protected.
The other changes the government is proposing are not what I would call proper logistical planning, to use the minister's term. Why should we believe that the minister is capable of managing the new applications that would result from people seeking their proof of citizenship documents? That is why I asked how many people there would be and how many resources would be needed to process them. Are they in the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands? Are there more than that? That would be a huge burden on the department.
Back in September 2022, the former minister announced that we would have all digital applications. The claim was made at committee, in both public and private, that it would help to reduce the backlog of immigration applications. It has not done that. We are still at over two million backlogged applications in the system, and some of the wait times are just as long if not longer than they used to be for some of the major PR programs.
I will read a few of the headlines about this from different commentators and immigration consultants. The first one, by Sergio R. Karas, is from Law360 Canada: “Bill C-71 depreciates Canadian citizenship”. Here is another: “First reading: How the Liberals keep dropping the barriers on who can become a Canadian”. This is by Jamie Sarkonak: “Liberals water down citizenship for grandkids of convenience Canadians”. “Government bill will allow Canadians to pass citizenship rights to kids born abroad” is a Canadian Press article. Here is another one, from Brian Lilley: “Trudeau Liberals making moves to cheapen Canadian citizenship”. Another says, “Canada Introduces New Bill to Restore Citizenship by Descent”.
We should go into the provisions on the substantial connection test, about which I have, again, a lot of concerns. At committee, we proposed a change to make it 1,095 consecutive days.
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I am sorry to interrupt the member. The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville is rising on a point of order.
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