House of Commons Debates

ADJOURNMENT PROCEEDINGS
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Citizenship Act

Hon. Andrew Telegdi (Kitchener—Waterloo, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, I rise on an issue of citizenship, which has very much been in the news in the last number of weeks. It is an issue that we have been discussing in the House for over 10 years. It truly is unfortunate that we are still discussing it instead of actually taking action.

I said earlier this week to the minister:

Mr. Speaker, the current fiasco could have been avoided. In the last Parliament all parties recognized the urgency to update the current, archaic and discriminatory Citizenship Act that does not recognize people married in religious ceremonies abroad and considers their children illegitimate. Had it not been for the defeat of the previous government, Canadians would now have a new Citizenship Act.


Will the Conservatives keep their promise to update the Citizenship Act in line with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as they promised when they were in opposition?

That question was fairly straightforward and called on the government not to discriminate against religious marriages. That is exactly what is happening and it is having quite an impact on quite a few Canadians. I find it passing strange that a party, which supposedly promotes religious freedoms, would discriminate against them.

The minister responded to me by saying:

Mr. Speaker, the interim policy on same sex marriage has been annulled and Parliament voted on that issue. That is the law of the land and we believe it should apply equally to everyone.

I am pleased that the Conservatives have recognized same sex marriage, finally, but I am left wondering if they also recognize common law marriage. Why would we discriminate by taking citizenship away from people who were married in a religious ceremony?

What is even more disturbing is that we are talking about a young man 27 years old who lived in this country since he was a few months old and because his great-grandparents were married in a religious ceremony and did not have a civil ceremony, he had his citizenship denied because he was born out of wedlock. How ridiculous can we get?

I find it incredible that this allegation would be made in particular against the Mennonite community that has the highest of morals and is very much traditionalist on this.

We can fix this and we can fix this if the Conservatives keep their promise, in the last government and previous governments, that they would bring in a citizenship act that was in line with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In closing, I want to commend the work of CBC Radio on this issue. I encourage Canadians to engage in the debate because it is a critical debate. It impacts on hundreds of thousands of people, or even millions of people, who are Canadian citizens.

Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a number of anomalies under the Citizenship Act and also raises the issue of amending the act. These issues surrounding the member's questions are not new. In fact, with respect to the Liberal government, Liberal minister after Liberal minister was aware of the issues surrounding citizenship anomalies and did nothing to help citizens caught up in this matter.

The Liberals had 13 years to do it and could not get it done. They had 11 majority governments and did nothing, absolutely nothing, to fix these problems. It is the height of hypocrisy for the Liberal Party and that member to claim the moral high ground on this issue.

While our Conservative government did not create the problem, we will fix the problem for the benefit of all Canadians in all categories. Recently the minister issued a statement to address some of these concerns. At this time, for the benefit of all, I wish to read from the minister's statement:

With the recent need to have a passport to fly to the United States, some people have questions about proving their citizenship, and some erroneous reports in the media have heightened people's concerns. I wish to address those concerns.


In almost all cases, anyone who was born in Canada is a Canadian citizen.

Some people are discovering that, after having lived in Canada most of their lives, they do not have citizenship. These cases deserve immediate attention and so I am making these individual cases a priority. I will use the powers available to me as Minister under the Citizenship Act to resolve these cases as quickly as possible. I have directed my department to deploy the resources necessary to do so.


While these steps are being taken, we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that these individuals will not experience any interruption in government benefits such as health care coverage or OAS payments.

While these cases are being reviewed, these individuals can rest assured that they can remain in Canada.

This government finds it unacceptable that law-abiding individuals who have been led to believe they were always Canadian citizens are not now having their citizenship affirmed.

This is precisely why the minister has instructed department officials that if an individual falls in one of the areas in question and has been recently notified that he or she is no longer a citizen while showing a significant attachment to Canada, our government will do everything necessary to make sure that citizen's status is made clear as quickly as possible.

In fact, the minister's recent actions have received support from stakeholders.

Let me quote from the January 26 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press, which said that the immigration minister's “decision was welcomed by Bill Janzen, head of the Mennonite Central Committee”, to which the member was referring, “who has been trying for several years to help an accumulating number of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Mennonites who have lost their citizenship, even though they were raised in Canada”. Mr. Janzen stated, “We are really happy now that the government is committed officially and clearly to act quickly on these cases”.

That is action when we have seen 13 years of inaction. We will see that we stand behind these citizens and make sure that they are recognized, as they ought to be.

Hon. Andrew Telegdi:

Mr. Speaker, on the question of hypocrisy, when I was faced with an act that did not conform to the charter, I resigned as parliamentary secretary because I believed the Citizenship Act should conform to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. My friend over there who is now a parliamentary secretary perhaps could learn a lesson from that.

We are going to be holding hearings on this issue. I want the country to know. They will take place on Monday, February 12, Monday, February 19, and Monday, February 26, from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock. They are going to be televised. I encourage people to be engaged with this.

The hypocrisy of the government's position happened just yesterday when it told Mr. Joe Taylor that it will go all the way to the Supreme Court to deny him his citizenship. This man is the son of a Canadian veteran who fought for democracy and freedom. The government eliminated the court challenges program and is trying to bankrupt Mr. Taylor before he can get his citizenship.

Mr. Ed Komarnicki:

Mr. Speaker, this problem did not arise overnight. This problem has existed for a number of years. It existed while the hon. member was the chair of the citizenship committee and it was not addressed. We are addressing it in the short term and will do so on a long term basis as well.

We have taken steps to add additional staff to the case processing centre in Sydney, in headquarters and in the call centre. We have implemented a dedicated referral line at the call centre for clients who wish to speak to an agent about their urgent situations. We will address it.

We have increased coordination among Passport Canada, Service Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency. This coordination is helping to fast track proof of citizenship for passports, assure continued benefits, and ensure safeguards against removal while cases are being examined.

We will continue to take steps to screen all incoming applications in order to identify cases that require urgent processing and cases that fall into the anomaly category. We will deal with them. We will take steps to ensure an expedited process.

We are taking steps. We are ensuring that something is being done. When that government--