44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 17, 2024 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, the previous member who spoke, the member for London West, made a point, so I want to make a point to the parliamentary secretary. I want to just congratulate him on the multi-meeting filibuster he conducted on the draft report on Afghanistan. He was able to make it last from May well into September, and it ended only yesterday. He did quite the job on it. It is unusual to have a draft report debated in public. I invite members of the public to go watch that particular filibuster.
The member mentioned the court ruling, so I want to draw his attention to paragraph 265 of the judge's ruling. In it, she said that of the errors in processing in the sample size she looked at, 50% were the fault of the department. The department was unable to provide accurate information. In one case, the department sent the proof of citizenship document with the wrong date on it. In another case, it sent the wrong document. It had the wrong person's name, and it was not even the name of another family member.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Tom Kmiec: Madam Speaker, I hear the member for Waterloo heckling me, as she did yesterday.
I had asked the minister a question earlier in the debate, and I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary: How many persons who are abroad currently would be eligible for the provisions in Bill C-71?
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be here to speak to Bill C-71. We have worked on this issue at many meetings of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I hope we can move the agenda forward and get the legislation passed so we can bring lost Canadians home.
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- Sep/17/24 5:42:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for speaking to this very important issue and the real impacts on Canadians and those who are denied their citizenship as a result of the outdated rules that were put into place by the Harper government.
I have an interesting point. I was given a response by the leader of the Conservative Party to a family that was asking about his stance on this exact legislation. His response, which I find is interesting, was this: “Conservatives will help preserve what it means to be a citizen of this country and fundamentally what it means to be Canadian. Please be assured that they will continue to support and advocate for this legislation to reach its third reading in the House of Commons.”
We know this is blatantly false. We know that the bill has been stalled, basically, eight times since last October by the Conservatives to prevent it from reaching third reading. Can the member please speak to why he believes the leader of the Conservative Party is misleading families that deserve to have their basic human rights met?
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to stand here to say that we, as the government, would love to work with the Bloc and the NDP to pass the legislation. I understand that the Conservatives are filibustering everything and trying to change everything around. I am very committed to getting Bill C-71 passed because it affects constituents in my riding. They are also lost Canadians, and they are waiting for the bill to pass so that we can make everyone a Canadian.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Sep/17/24 5:44:32 p.m.
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I remind the hon. member for Thornhill and the hon. member for Waterloo that someone was speaking and we should respect that right.
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- Sep/17/24 5:44:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about children born abroad and adopted, whose parent passed away, and who were denied citizenship.
Why do the Conservatives think that these children, who have already gone through the pain of losing a parent and being born into difficult conditions, should be excluded from the citizenship process?
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Madam Speaker, we as a government want to pass the proposed legislation so we can bring all Canadians here, all the lost Canadians, so we can make them Canadian citizens. I am so happy to work with the members from the Bloc and from the NDP, and we are hoping to make Bill C-71 legislation.
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today in the House, the day after by-elections in two provinces in Canada. There are some commonalities in these two outcomes. In both ridings, the Conservative vote went up by 50% from the last general election. In addition, as in the election in June, when a Conservative was elected in Toronto—St. Paul's, another safe Liberal riding turned out to be not so safe at the end of the day. Something has to happen for people to start listening to what Canadians are thinking. For those across the aisle who are still pretending there is not a problem, that Canadians do not see a problem in the way the country is being run, I ask them to start paying attention and change their direction.
Canadians see clearly how badly government is being run and how they are being marginalized and divided; they are demanding change as soon as possible. One indication of the pure government incompetence is the way the Liberals have managed immigration. One year ago, I was directed to serve on the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. It is not a strength I had before, but my office in Calgary Centre has an immigration caseload that is quite large.
Let me take a moment here to thank my staff in Calgary, Shaney Pap and Laura Wlodarczyk, because they do a fantastic job for Canadians, new Canadians, visitors and families that are navigating the maze of Canada's immigration process. It is a complex enough program, and it has been grossly mismanaged over the past four years.
How do we deal with a backlog of 2.6 million files? We should expedite 1.2 million files per year for two years in a system that previously managed about 320,000 files per year. They increased the workforce by 50%, from 9,200 employees in 2020 to 13,685 in 2023. It was a big increase in government, but corners were cut; we see the consequences of that with the recent arrests that are happening in Canada.
Why is the legislation before us? In December 2023, Ontario's Superior Court declared the first-generation cut-off rule in the Citizenship Act unconstitutional. That ruling was a damning indictment of the Liberal-run citizenship department. The court found a staggering 50% error rate in the processing of citizenship applications. This means that half of all applicants were mishandled, leading to abnormally long processing times and widespread malpractice. Such a high error rate is unacceptable and speaks volumes about incompetence and mismanagement in the current administration. That is the rationale for finding the previous law unconstitutional.
I might suggest that fixing the problem would make the whole issue less unconstitutional, but Bill C-71 proposes to grant citizenship to individuals born abroad with at least one Canadian parent having spent 1,095 days in Canada, the equivalent of three years. At the same time, it fails to require these days to be consecutive and lacks provisions for criminal record checks. This approach is deeply flawed and undermines the very essence of what it means to be a Canadian citizen.
Citizenship is not just a legal status. It is a commitment to our values, our laws and our way of life. By lowering the standards for obtaining citizenship, the NDP-Liberals are devaluing this precious status and putting our national security at risk. The world looks at a Canadian passport as being a very important document.
I forgot to mention at the beginning of my speech that I am splitting my time with the member of Parliament for Thornhill.
Let us compare Canada's rules with rules around the world. The requirement is three years in Canada, according to the proposed bill, and five years in most other democracies. This would be five years of real connection, not just 1,095 days sporadically spread out over a quarter century of a person's life. Bill C-71 would remove the 2009 limit that only allows citizenship for the first generation born abroad.
Under the bill, children born abroad to a Canadian parent, even if the parent was also born abroad, can gain citizenship as long as the parent meets a weak substantial connection test. The parent only needs to show 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada at any point in their life. Since the days do not need to be consecutive, people from multiple generations living abroad, with limited and sporadic ties to Canada, can still claim citizenship for their children. This weakens the substantial connection requirement and risks creating a class of citizens with minimal ties to this country.
Moreover, the government has not provided any analysis of how many new Canadians will be created by Bill C-71. Despite the potential for tens of thousands of new applicants, especially with the removal of the first-generation limit, the Liberals have failed to disclose how many people will gain citizenship through the legislation. This lack of transparency, a common thread, is concerning and prevents us from fully understanding the impact of the proposed bill. Bill C-71 would add thousands of new applications to an already overburdened system.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is already struggling with delays and errors in processing citizenship applications. Adding a significant volume of new applications from abroad would overwhelm the department, exacerbating the existing backlogs. This would lead to an even longer processing time and further erode trust in our citizenship process. The bill does not require individuals granted citizenship to undergo criminal background checks. This poses a potential security risk and undermines Canada's standards of who can become a citizen. Ensuring that new citizens are of good character and pose no threat to our society is a common-sense measure that should not be overlooked.
We do support parts of the bill. While we have significant concerns, there are aspects that we support. Conservatives support the restoration of citizenship to individuals who lost it because of non-application or rejected applications under section 8 of the former Citizenship Act . This primarily includes people born between February 15, 1977, and April 16, 1981, who were affected by the old rule that required them to apply to retain their citizenship before turning 28 years old. This was part of the original content of Senator Yonah Martin's Senate public bill, Bill S-245, which aimed to address these issues more directly.
We also support the extension of equal treatment to adopted children born abroad. Under the proposed changes, adopted children would be treated the same as biological children of Canadian citizens for the purposes of passing on citizenship. This was supported by Conservative members during the Bill S-245 clause-by-clause committee review, and it is consistent with our party's long-standing position on equal treatment for adopted children.
Conservatives are committed to fixing the broken citizenship system that the Liberals have neglected. We will enforce a more robust substantial connection requirement, streamline processes and address backlogs to ensure timely handling of citizenship applications.
Our approach will restore integrity and trust in the system, ensuring that Canadian citizenship remains a privilege earned through genuine connection and commitment to our great nation. After nine years under the government, Canadians have endured enough chaos and incompetence. It is time for a change. Only common-sense Conservatives will put an end to the Prime Minister's reckless mismanagement and fix our broken immigration and citizenship process. We will restore integrity, trust and efficiency to it, ensuring that Canadian citizenship remains a privilege earned through genuine connection and commitment to this great nation.
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- Sep/17/24 5:55:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to say how happy I am to see my colleague come back; he sits on the immigration committee with me.
I find it really interesting that he is complaining about the Liberals taking too much time to fix something that the Conservatives broke.
This is something that his Harper government, the same government that the current Leader of the Opposition sat in, did to leave Canadians behind and to create second-class citizens. Can the member opposite talk about that and why he thinks it is a Liberal problem when it is a problem that they created themselves?
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- Sep/17/24 5:56:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, nine years would be a long time for a problem to exist, but somebody should have fixed something in nine years if that problem actually occurred nine years ago. If it was created nine years ago, I would ask this of my colleague on that side: Why did her party support the party that brought it to the House and voted, every one of them, for the same motion.
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- Sep/17/24 5:56:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, obviously this is not about creating revolving doors in this context, but about righting historic wrongs. I would like to know what my colleague from Calgary Centre would say to Canadian women who married a non-Canadian before 1947, who are nearly 100 years old now and who, because of the Conservatives' filibustering, may never see their most basic rights upheld before they die.
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- Sep/17/24 5:57:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is something I am not too familiar with, but does the member have an example we could discuss? I am on board with discussing this with him. Maybe there are many examples of situations to draw from. We could look at a certain situation, but here we are developing a policy for all immigrants in Canada. I would be happy to look at this with my friend.
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- Sep/17/24 5:57:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it has been clear since day one, since June 2023, that the Conservatives do not want to rectify the unconstitutional second-generation cut-off rule for lost Canadians and their families. They voted against provisions that would have rectified the unconstitutional amendments. They filibustered the bill for 30 hours at committee, and they stalled reading debate for the bill eight times. One thing that I know is that actions speak louder than words, and their actions have been really clear.
Why are the Conservatives misleading family members with their fake commitments?
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- Sep/17/24 5:58:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that actions speak louder than words, so let us talk about actions here. Let us talk about how we are actually dealing with Canadians. Let us talk about the substantive test that made this ruling unconstitutional. That was the action of the Liberal government, which has been unable to deliver any efficiency in getting people through the immigration process.
A 50% failure rate because of mistakes is what makes this unconstitutional. That should be fixed forthwith. That would address the ruling of unconstitutionality that came with this.
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- Sep/17/24 5:59:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned the difference in the tests of someone's connection to Canada. Could he offer a few comments on the value of citizenship—
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- Sep/17/24 5:59:45 p.m.
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I apologize. The hon. member is not sitting in his seat.
The hon. member for Calgary Shepard.
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- Sep/17/24 5:59:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, sometimes it is hard to notice. Standing Order 16 was a great standing order when it was suspended temporarily, so we could sit at any place and actually speak. That way, we could represent our constituents from anywhere in here. I think benches were a great solution.
The member for Calgary Centre heard, as I did during the debate on a previous private member's bill that dealt with the same question, when I was asked the following many times: How many Canadians would be affected by this? How many persons who are outside the country would be affected by it?
We, on the Conservative side, obviously agree with the adoption provisions. We want adopted children to be treated exactly the same way as Canadians born or naturalized in Canada. Could the member tell me if he knows how many Canadians would be affected by it? The minister could not answer the question.
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- Sep/17/24 6:00:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly one of the concerns we have. How many people are we dealing with this actual opening up of the immigration system in Canada? We have asked the question of the minister. We have asked the question of the department. Nobody knows. So there is—
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- Sep/17/24 6:00:54 p.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for Thornhill.
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Madam Speaker, “broken, broken, broken” has been the refrain this summer, a summer that showed Canadians once again that the Prime Minister and the Liberal government are just not worth the cost. I suspect that was the refrain the Liberals felt last night after a brutal loss in a safe riding in Montreal, where Canadians sent the Prime Minister yet another message to say that his plan is not working. Nowhere is that truer than in our immigration system and citizenship system.
Let us go back to 2015, the last time the Conservative government was in charge. We had a consensus in this country, and it was a multi-generational consensus that existed long before 2015. It was a system that worked for our economy, with inflation low and home prices half of what they are today, and a system that kept our nation safe from terrorist attacks and multinational criminals. It was a system that was truly the envy of the world, through which a person could come to this country, welcomed with open arms, in an effort to build a life better than the one they left behind.
However, in just nine short years, none of that is true today. Housing prices keep going up, reaching record highs in cities small and large everywhere. International students are living seven, 10 or 15 to a basement, or even resorting to homeless shelters and food banks. Opportunity keeps slipping away in the face of higher taxes, more expensive groceries and, yes, more and more people in the way. People who came here after being promised a new beginning are instead finding that their hard work does not pay off, and shockingly, they do not want to stay. In fact, they want to leave. It is all made worse by a government that cannot seem to exhibit a single ounce of competence and organization in immigration. That is why the consensus is broken.
The Liberals lost a million people and still cannot tell Canadians where they are. The Minister of Public Safety, just a couple of weeks ago, insisted that the system is working when a terrorist was given citizenship. The member for Kingston and the Islands, who I missed very much over the summer, claims that the Liberals are delivering results for Canadians. However, Canadians keep sending them the same message that this is simply not the case, because nobody with an ounce of common sense can step back and say that things in Canada are working as they should right now. If this is what the Liberals consider delivering results, then I would hate to see what not delivering results looks like. Even when they do not know where people are, the system still does not work and incompetence still reigns supreme.
The government gave citizenship to a terrorist who appeared in an ISIS snuff video and who somehow passed six security checks while plotting an attack in the country's biggest city. It gave a student visa to a guy planning a massacre of Jews on the anniversary of October 7, all while being exposed for not even checking his criminal record, the record check we do for any temporary resident. This was just in the past month. With each successive blow, the confidence among Canadians and our peers abroad in the integrity of our immigration system, in who we grant citizenship to and in the basic ability of government to get anything done is certainly in question.
No one of us should relish the fact that the Canadian immigration system seems to be falling apart right in front of us. I am a child of immigrants. There are many children of immigrants. There are many immigrants among us, many of our colleagues and constituents. We can testify to the power of a necessary immigration system, but a system that lacks integrity just does not work, and Canadians will not trust it. If not for immigration, my family would have never been able to experience the freedom of opportunity that this country gave us. If not for immigration, our communities would never benefit from the skills and expertise of countless doctors, nurses, engineers, tradespeople and the many people who built this country. If not for immigration, our country would never be strengthened by the values and pluralism of our newcomers, who are rooted in their culture, and what that provides for us.
What happened in less than a decade is nothing less than a tragedy, which is why it is even more disappointing to see the Liberal government plowing head-first into more misguided policies like this one rather than taking the time to fix what is wrong, further extending the reach of Canadian citizenship in the same ham-fisted and incompetent way that we have come to expect. The Liberals cannot even tell us how many people will be eligible under this piece of legislation. Surely, they can come up with a model.
The government cannot possibly believe it still has the confidence of anyone in this country when it simply says, “Trust us. We got this.” This bill threatens the integrity and security of the citizenship system. In December 2023, as we have said here in the House, the Ontario Superior Court declared that the first-generation cut-off rule for the Canadian Citizenship Act was unconstitutional. The Ontario Superior Court itself found a 50% error rate in the Liberal-run citizenship department, with abnormally long processing times and malpractice.
The NDP-Liberals took six months to respond to Bill C-71, showing a blatant lack of urgency, which they claim to have found today. This bill proposes to grant citizenship to individuals born abroad to at least one Canadian parent who has spent 1,095 days in Canada. We know that. This is without requiring that these days are consecutive and without provisions for checks in the Criminal Code. We know that other countries require more time and certainly more consecutive time. I do not think it is out of line to ask for a security check given what we have seen in just the last month in this country, with a public safety minister who says that the system is working as it should.
We see in this debate that the Liberal Party voted in favour of Bill C-37. That is the bill that was here prior to this one, which the Liberals seem to have conveniently forgotten about entirely today and certainly have forgotten that they supported not once, but twice. It was passed at first reading and second reading and there was unanimous consent to pass it. The Liberals voted in favour of the very ideas they are attacking in this bill today. This further erodes the lack of consensus I spoke about that exists in our system.
The Liberals are doubling down on citizenship by Zoom and pushing forward with the present path, even as evidence shows that we are not building enough homes, that we are not credentialing those who should be able to work here in their professions and that we are not doing our due diligence. That is clear. That is a message they should have heard over the summer and is a message they probably heard at the doors in Montreal last night.
Perhaps most egregious is giving people who created this mess even more responsibility in running the government. The guy who used to be the immigration minister, the guy responsible for losing those million people, is now being promoted to the guy who is supposed to build houses in this country. This is a guy who ignored advice from his own ministry and instead chose to pursue a blind political agenda. What happened? He was given a promotion. It is the guy under whose nose blossomed a corrupt and phony international student program alongside a foreign worker program called a “breeding ground” for modern-day slavery. This is the guy who is in large part responsible for the debate we are having today, as the Ontario Superior Court cited bureaucratic incompetence at the IRCC as a major reason for its decision. Spoiler alert, that minister could not run the system, and he cannot build homes either. That should not surprise anyone.
We need to fix this broken system. We need to fix it for those who want to come here and create a better life, for the promise of Canada, for the promise that if they come here and work hard, they can buy a home in a safe neighbourhood. They should be able to work in their profession to the scope of its practice and to the scope of their education, and they should know that when they come here.
What we have right now is a broken consensus in the public because the system does not work. That is because people who come here cannot achieve the dream that we have promised and cannot achieve the dream that so many of us and our constituents have benefited from. That is a shame.
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