Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to join the discussion and the debate about Bill C-3.
This morning the bill was debated, and I listened intently to the debate back and forth, which was primarily from Conservative members. I actually did not even hear, from the members who stood, about the purpose of the bill, why we are here and the remedy that Bill C-3 is proposing. Let me start with that. Why are we here, and what is Bill C-3 all about?
First, Bill C-3 is a piece of legislation attempting to correct a wrong. It is attempting to make Canada's citizenship laws charter-compliant. In fact, Canada's citizenship laws have not been charter-compliant for decades. Why is that? It is because we have a set of archaic immigration citizenship rules.
Somewhere along the way through the history, and more specifically pertaining to the piece of legislation before us, in 2006, the Conservatives, under the Harper administration, saw fit to take away citizenship rights for those who are the second generation born abroad. The Harper government took away the rights of Canadian citizens who are the first generation born abroad to pass on their citizenship to their children who were also born abroad. If an immigrant who became a Canadian were to have a child outside of Canada, they could not pass on their citizenship to their child. That citizenship right was stripped away for Canadians by the Conservatives.
As a result, many people had to separate themselves from their families, and some children were even born stateless. Canada is a global country. We go abroad to work, to study and to travel, and, guess what, as life would have it, sometimes we fall in love. Sometimes we marry people abroad. Sometimes we have children abroad. If this happened to a second-generation born-abroad child, they would not have Canadian citizenship rights.
The matter was actually challenged in the courts. The Ontario Superior Court ruled that it was in violation of charter rights, and the government had to remedy that. In the last Parliament, there were several attempts to try to fix this. In fact, Senator Yonah Martin brought in a Senate bill to try to fix it. Through much debate, much effort and much collaboration, I, as the immigration critic for the NDP, raised the matter and worked with the government to bring forward amendments to fix the bill and fix the charter violation, and we did.
We went through a whole series of discussions, lengthy debates and committee work, and we came through with a number of amendments, which passed, but then the bill never had third reading in the House. Why is that? It is because the Conservatives filibustered the debate and used a whole bunch of rules and tactics that delayed that debate, and it never came back.
In the midst of all of that, I said to the government that if it wanted to make sure Canada's citizenship rules were charter-compliant, it needed to bring forward a government bill. It agreed. Conservatives, by the way, at the time actually said that if the government brought forward a bill, they would support it.
The government brought forward a bill, and what happened? There were more games played. The Conservatives again filibustered the House, and Bill C-71 was never actually passed.
Here we are again, with Bill C-3, for the third round, still trying to fix the situation where the judge ruled that Canada's citizenship law is unconstitutional. It is not charter-compliant. The court had to give the government multiple extensions to fix the situation. This is why we are here today.
If the first-generation born-abroad Canadians decide to go abroad and have a child, they cannot pass on their Canadian citizenship to their child at all, and, of course, they run the risk of rendering their child stateless.
The Bjorkquist decision held that the second-generation cut-off violates section 15 by discriminating against first-generation born-abroad women more particularly, stating:
[The cut-off] disadvantages pregnant first-generation born abroad women who are living abroad when they get pregnant by placing them in the position where they have to make choices between their careers, financial stability and independence, and health care on the one hand, and the ability to ensure their child receives Canadian citizenship on the other.
Women's reproductive autonomy and family planning are extremely time-sensitive, and the Conservatives' legal impediment to exercising this freedom comes at a human cost to women, parents and children. This is the reality.
An estimated 170,000 women born abroad in the age range when people often start a family are being affected by the current law. As reported, the justice said in her June decision that “these are not ‘theoretical or minor constitutional violations’ but ones that could lead to ‘children being stateless.’”
She went on to say:
They can lead to women having to make choices between their financial health and independence on one hand, and their physical health on the other. They can separate families.... They can force children to stay in places that are unsafe for them. They can interfere with some of the deepest and most profound connections that human beings both enjoy and need.
That is why we are here today. This is what we are trying to fix.
What I heard the Conservatives talk about was the connections test, that somehow these Canadian citizenship rights are deemed not to be rights. They somehow treat it that one has to earn one's citizenship back. However, if people are Canadian, they have Canadian birthrights that are being passed on. These are not immigrants per se, trying to get their citizenship through an immigration process. These are their birthrights. The connections test in this remedy is that they have to establish and show they have a connection to Canada. The substantial connections test in the legislation requires they have some connection in Canada, having been here for 1,095 days nonconsecutively, because people travel. They move and work abroad. Therefore, they have to show a connections test of 1,095 days nonconsecutively.
I have heard the Conservatives say that there should be a criminality test. Would they apply a criminality test to Canadians who were born in Canada to say that if they commit an offence, they will lose their birthright of being Canadian? No. We have the judicial system that we can go through to deal with that. If there are criminality issues, a person would then go before a judge and the process would follow as it should.
It is time for us to fix this problem once and for all. Canada's immigration citizenship laws should be charter-compliant to respect the rights of women and women who have children abroad and to respect the rights of all Canadians who travel abroad. We are global citizens; we work and travel abroad. It is time that we honour all of our rights as equal in Canada.
