44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 24, 2023 11:00AM
- Apr/24/23 5:58:23 p.m.
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I do want to remind members that if they want to have conversations, especially those across the way from each other, to please take them out to the lobbies or to the hallway in order not to interrupt those who are speaking.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by letting you know that I am going to be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill.
I am here to talk about Bill S-245. It is not something I planned to do today, and I am sure most members in the House had not planned on doing this, but here we are, and I want to make sure that people are clear on what it is we are talking about.
This is a private member's bill that has come from the other place, the Senate. Senators, just like members of Parliament, are able to produce legislation called private members' bills, so this is the legislation that has come from Senator Yonah Martin from the other place. It is her intention and her idea. It is something that she wants to see done. That is what we are talking about here. It is now in the House and we are working with it.
The subject of this is the “lost Canadians”. We have heard many different explanations of this, but many people may not quite understand what that is. Essentially, our Citizenship Act has some flaws in it that cause certain people to either lose their citizenship or to not get it in the first place. They create these little categories of people who, through no fault of their own, do not have access to Canadian citizenship.
There have been attempts over the years to fix some of these problems. Many of them have been fixed over the years, but there are still some groups of people who are still considered lost Canadians and are not being treated the way they should be, as they are unable to receive Canadian citizenship status. Over the years, there have been bills brought attempting to plug those holes and fix those gaps to ensure that those people who deserve to be Canadian citizens are, and this bill is one of them. There is a particular group of people, a fairly clearly defined group of people, that it seeks to remedy. It is not trying to fix everybody, and that was part of the point initially.
I also want to mention that often times when we think about people who are not citizens of Canada, we immediately think of immigrants. This does not necessarily mean immigrants. There are in fact many people who would not consider themselves immigrants who fit into these categories of lost Canadians. They are just Canadians who do not have their citizenship. There are different categories of these. Part of the point here is that trying to catch them all, and fix all of the holes in the legislation in one shot, is very difficult. It has been attempted over the years and, so far, it has been unsuccessful. We believe that a better approach is to target a very specific area, a specific group of people who are lost, and at least fix those, and then if there are more holes, we would fix those holes, rather than trying to do everything at once. This is a simple bill to fix one of those groups.
This is the same as Bill S-230. In a previous Parliament, the bill was studied in the Senate. It went to committee, was looked at carefully, and was sent here to the House to be worked on. Then an election happened, so that legislation never saw the light of day. Therefore, the attempt to rectify the citizenship situation of those lost Canadians failed. It failed because it did not get through the process in time before an election was called. That is very significant because right now we are in another minority Parliament, which means an election can happen at any time, so we do not have a lot of time. Time is not our friend in this case; we need to move to pass these bills quickly.
The same senator, Yonah Martin, has now put forward the same bill, Bill S-245, which has also gone through the Senate. This time in the other place it was not reviewed or studied because it was exactly the same as the previous legislation. Therefore, the Senate decided to fast-track it, move it through the other place and then to the House here so that we could deal with it. That is where it is now. It is here in the House and we are dealing with it now.
I just want to mention this with respect to the sponsor of the bill, Senator Yonah Martin. She was able to get it through the last Parliament. It took a lot of work and effort to bring everybody together to agree on things, but she was able to get it as far as it got. Unfortunately, it was not far enough. However, she was able to get it here quicker, which is a testament to her ability to work across party lines and with other people in the Senate, because she knew that time was the enemy and the biggest problem that the bill faced. The assumption that went along with that, as she got it to this House, was that it was the same bill as last time. From the Senate's perspective, this bill is the same one that it studied before and therefore it did not need to study it again. That is important and we should remember that.
Why are we here today? We are studying this bill at committee. We are getting very close to the end. There has been a lot of debate and talk about it. We have heard many witnesses speak to this bill. Indeed, there are many groups of people who represent these groups of lost Canadians, because there are numerous groups of lost Canadians. Everybody wants to solve this problem. The Conservatives want to fix this problem, as do the Liberals and all of the other parties. However, we want to fix it; we do not just want to talk about it. We do not want to study it to death, but fix it. We were able to get a lot of testimony and hear a lot of things to understand what the scope is and how it is going to work.
So people understand, what happened toward the end of this process is this. With respect to private members' bills, we have to stay within the scope of the bill. We cannot add things that go beyond the original intent of what, in this case, Yonah Martin had. There must be some ideas out there to do that, to go beyond the scope of this bill, because the government and the NDP teamed up together to bring this to the House now so that it can authorize the committee to go beyond the scope of the bill. That is what we are here talking about today.
This is really significant, because the originator of the bill, in this case Yonah Martin, had an intent for this bill. She came to committee and spoke about the bill and what her intent was. She was specifically asked if she would allow for amendments to the bill that would expand its scope. She was very clear on that. She said that she was willing to accept amendments that would clarify the bill, but she was not willing to accept amendments that would expand it. The reason she said that was very simple and makes a lot of sense.
Why would she accept amendments to clarify the bill? She wants the bill to be successful. She wants to plug that hole for this group of lost Canadians once and for all, so in her mind, if her words were not quite correct and somebody had a better idea to make those words a bit better, she was all ears and willing to do that. It only makes sense, because we want to get the wording correct. We have an army of lawyers in this place who are able to interpret our laws and statutes who I am sure had ideas and suggestions to clarify those things.
Why did she not want to expand its scope? It is very clear. She knows that if the scope gets expanded it creates a whole new pathway for this bill. First, it goes beyond what she had intended, which makes it more complicated, which means more work and more understanding is required. It goes from a simple one-page bill to a multi-page bill that has implications on all kinds of things. Most significantly, should it come through the House and be amended and expanded in scope, then it ends up back in the other place. Why did it pass through the other place very quickly? Because it was the same bill that had been studied in the previous Parliament. It had been looked at and studied in the Senate. The senators had their chance to talk about it and tweak it. That had all been done. The only reason they expedited it through this time was because it was exactly the same as the last time.
If we put two and two together, if it goes back to the other place having been changed, what is going to happen? The senators would say that it is not the same bill and would want to know what happened. Senator Martin would have to explain that it has changed and grown in scope and they would say that they need to study the bill and that it is going to committee to be studied.
With the way timelines work around here, we would be adding months to the process. The enemy of this bill is time, so we would clearly be doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing, which is adding time to this bill. We would be adding complexity to it, which means it would have to be studied at committee and looked at again. At the end of the day, there could be an election. We all know that an election could happen at any time. It could happen over this issue today. I heard members saying that might happen, so we never know what could happen. We never know what the day is going to bring. Time is the enemy of this bill, and this process would be adding a lot of time to it. That is the whole point of why Senator Martin wanted this to be done.
As I close, I want to highlight two things. First, we are all in support of fixing these problems for lost Canadians. There are no members on either side of the House who do not want to fix this law and correct the problem there. That is a given.
Second, we oppose the idea of the government taking a private member's bill, expanding it and putting things in there that were never intended to be there by the member who raised the bill. That is something we are very concerned about. We do not want to set a precedent. We do not want to allow the government to come in and pull up someone's bill and do that.
It was great to speak in the House today.
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Madam Speaker, I just heard the member say again that he is in support of ensuring the lost Canadians issue is addressed. The Conservatives say that, and I hope it is actually true. If it is true, we have an opportunity to do it. It is a rare moment when all the parties in this House say they want to do this, and we can seize this opportunity to make those necessary amendments, through Bill S-245, and also indicate to the Senate that this is the direction we want to go.
I believe Senator Yonah Martin, who has done this work and put this bill before us, would support it if the Conservative members would join the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals to say that we need to go out of scope to address the lost Canadians issue once and for all, particularly because of the first-generation rule cut-off the Conservatives brought in, which hurt so many families and which we need to get rid of.
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- Apr/24/23 6:09:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member and I have a good relationship at the immigration committee and I enjoy working with her. I agree with her, but the problem in what she is saying right now is that I do not believe it is possible. I do not believe it is possible to achieve what she is talking about. We do not have enough time to deal with this. What she is talking about is wishful thinking.
I have wishes and hopes and dreams too. I wish Canadians could afford groceries and I wish we did not have a strike going on right now, but these are not the realities of our life today. We want to be the most pragmatic we can be. We have the opportunity to at least solve this problem for a group, for a subset of these lost Canadians, so we see the opportunity to push it forward and solve that part of the problem.
I would also like to mention that the government and this member have had many opportunities to present legislation on this subject before, so there is no reason we could not see other legislation on this. There is no reason the government could not put forward legislation to plug the rest of the holes that are here.
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- Apr/24/23 6:10:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to bring it back to the simplicity of what we are talking about by using an example. Imagine that a couple living in Canada is requested by their company to go live in, let us say, France. They are in France and they have a child, and that is not a problem. They come back a couple of years later and the child grows up. At 19, the child joins the military, goes abroad and marries someone. The child of that individual would not be classified as a citizen, as a direct result.
Would the member or the Conservative Party support the principle of allowing that child to be a Canadian citizen?
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- Apr/24/23 6:11:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I said before, Conservatives are committed to solving this problem and fixing these gaps. This was actually a very good explanation, and I appreciate it. The member was giving one example, so let us just assume that this is the one we are trying to fix with this legislation. We want to get it through and pass it, and then that person would be a Canadian and the problem would be solved.
Imagine that example, and now add family number two, with a slightly different situation, then family number three with a slightly different situation, family number four, etc. It complicates everything and all of a sudden this simplistic solution becomes a very complex solution.
We are trying exactly that, which is to solve this problem for a group of lost Canadians. We are fully willing to work with the government, the NDP or whoever else wants to put forward legislation to try to fix the rest of them.
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- Apr/24/23 6:12:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment of the April 25 and April 27 sittings be 12 o'clock midnight, pursuant to the order made Tuesday, November 15, 2022.
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Madam Speaker, despite the size and intent of Bill C‑47, there is nothing in it for seniors or housing. There is no long-term solution to fix the underfunding of health care and no sign of EI reform.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.
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- Apr/24/23 6:13:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that question is better suited for the next debate.
Let me take this moment to reiterate one more thing. The government has had many opportunities to solve the problem of lost Canadians. The government has been here eight years. Canadians are tired, in fact, of the government. It has had many opportunities. It has heard of this many times. It has heard lots of speeches and heard about lots of situations and examples. It has had ample opportunity to solve this problem, yet it has not. Now the government wants to take over a private member's bill, hijack it and put its legislation into that member's private bill. That is simply not right.
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- Apr/24/23 6:14:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, like many colleagues here, I am on House duty today. I showed up here expecting that we would be having a debate about the budget.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/24/23 6:14:34 p.m.
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Order. I just want to remind members that they are not to ask questions when it is not question and comment time. I know the hon. parliamentary secretaries know the rules of the House, so I will ask them to hold off.
The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.
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- Apr/24/23 6:14:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a regular occurrence for me when I am speaking to have the two members across the way, who remind me of the old guys from The Muppets, chirping from the gallery as I am—
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- Apr/24/23 6:15:08 p.m.
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I just want to remind members not to use those types of descriptions when referring to members in the House. It does not add to the conversation at all.
I would ask the hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin to have a bit of respect for his colleagues in the House.
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- Apr/24/23 6:15:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure whether the offensive reference was “old” or “Muppets”. Usually they get their back up when I start talking about the Trudeau legacy. We have had this happen on multiple occasions as we talk about budgets and disastrous Liberal economic policy. We get talking about the Trudeau legacy. Of course, I am talking about the Pierre Trudeau legacy.
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- Apr/24/23 6:15:56 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary on a point of order.
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- Apr/24/23 6:16:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think Kermit was thinking in regard to—
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- Apr/24/23 6:16:08 p.m.
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I want to remind members that it is not proper to refer to other members by such names. I think the hon. member actually answered the question the hon. parliamentary secretary was going to ask about.
I would ask members to please be respectful in the House and be mindful as to the references being made.
The hon. member for Shefford on a point of order.
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- Apr/24/23 6:16:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if I understand correctly, the issue is extending sittings until midnight. Indeed, that is the question. Were the leaders actually consulted? We wonder who was consulted during that consultation, because the leaders should be consulted on such a motion. I want to know who.
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- Apr/24/23 6:17:00 p.m.
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Okay.
The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.
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- Apr/24/23 6:17:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, since we are having this conversation, I have a couple of points on this. It is interesting that we are supposed to be talking about the budget today. The NDP and Liberal members have agreed to have this debate here in this House because they do not want to talk about the budget, including all the challenges with the budget and the economic disaster that reflects the previous approach taken by a different Prime Minister Trudeau back in the seventies and eighties. It is also interesting that the debate we are talking about today is something that the coalition could decide to have any day, if they wanted to.
Any day, NDP and Liberal members could decide to move legislation to accomplish exactly what we are talking about today. Instead, they have chosen to do this in a different way, using up valuable House time when we could be talking about the budget. If it was something that was important to them, they could do it on their own through their coalition.
I am not on the immigration committee, but my understanding is that parties have worked collaboratively on that committee. I understand that the senator who moved this Senate public bill did not want to move beyond the scope to the degree that we are talking about right now. This goes way beyond the scope of the bill. It is very unusual to see this approach.
It is sad. First of all, it is an important issue that deserves to be discussed seriously. The bill itself is a bill that members from all parties of the House should be able to support. Instead, we have this political gamesmanship of sorts today.
It seems that this is all because the NDP and Liberal members do not want to talk about a disastrous budget. What we are not talking about today, because we are talking about this, is an approach with the budget that projects endless deficits into the future. If we look at the impact of this budgeting approach, again, we only need to look back to the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties to see what that disastrous approach would look like. In those years, there was a deficit in 14 out of 15 years. The then Trudeau government came into power with almost no debt in Canada and left with a generational debt. It was a debt that, a generation later, required another Liberal government in the late nineties, the Chrétien-Martin Liberal government—
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