Immigration

National Post: Government bill will allow Canadians to pass citizenship rights to kids born abroad

NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who is supporting the Liberal bill, said it was past time the issue is addressed. She said Canadians travel the world to work and study, and should be able to hold onto their citizenship rights.

“Canada is a global community of Canadians: people travel, people study abroad, people work abroad, people fall in love abroad, people have families abroad.”

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled last year that the previous version of the law was unconstitutional, and gave Ottawa until June 19 to fix the problem.

“This is an example of Conservatives having taken away Canadians’ rights and something they hold most dear to them, in their citizenship,” Miller said Thursday.

Kwan accused the Conservatives of filibustering a previous attempt to address the “lost Canadians” issue through a private member’s bill last year, even though they have said they are committed to addressing the issue.

“People will remember 15 years ago, it was the Conservatives that brought in this law. It was the Conservatives that stripped children of Canadian parents the right to pass on the citizenship automatically to the children,” she said. “As a result of that, the Conservatives have created a second-class citizen in Canada.”

 

Toronto Star: ‘Monumental’: Canada to extend citizenship to children born abroad, restoring rights of ‘lost Canadians’

“People travel. People study abroad. People work abroad. People fall in love abroad. People have families abroad,” said NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan, who joined Miller at the media scrum.

“But guess what? As a result of this law, it meant that for some of those families, they have had to be separated from their children. Some children have been rendered stateless.”

Kwan also sniped at the opposition Conservatives for filibustering a recent bill by the Senate that called on similar changes to extend citizenship by descent to children born abroad to Canadians.

“We have to fix this once and for all,” she said. ”I’m standing here not for partisan reasons. I’m standing here because this is the right thing to do, not only a moral imperative to do this, but also a legal imperative.”

CPAC: Canada Introduces citizenship bill with NDP amendments to fix Lost Canadians injustice

Today is a historic day for Lost Canadians and their families and I am happy to stand with them and the Minister of Immigration at the press conference.  

Legislation has been introduced to rectify the Conservative's punitive and unconstitutional law that stripped children of Canadian parents the right to Canadian citizenship creating two classes of Canadians.  Today is a historic day for Lost Canadians and their families and I am happy to stand with them and the Minister of Immigration at the press conference.  
 
For 15 years, this unjust law caused significant hardship and suffering to many Canadian families.  It has separated families and rendered children stateless.   If failed to recognize that Canadians are global citizens who travel aboard, study aboard and work aboard.  They fall in love aboard and they have families aboard.  

Last year, parliamentarians across party lines had a chance to fix the Lost Canadians issue by passing Bill S-245 as amended by the NDP.  Instead, the Conservatives filibustered debate on the bill for 30 hours to delay its passage and refuse to allow it to advance to third reading.

When it became obvious that the Conservatives will continue playing games with the lives of Lost Canadians and their families by doing everything they can to block passage of the legislative fixes, I approached successive immigration ministers to call on them to bring in a government bill with the NDP amendments.  
 
The government has a moral imperative and  a legal one to act after the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the creation of two classes of Canadian citizenship is unconstitutional.  

Let's pass the bill expeditiously and end the legacy of the Conservatives' unconstitutional treatment of second generation born abroad Canadians. 

CPAC VIDEO: NDP MPs Comment on Govt’s Family Reunification Efforts – May 22, 2024

NDP MPs Jenny Kwan, Alexandre Boulerice and Heather McPherson raise concerns over the government’s handling of getting family members of Canadians who are stuck in conflicts abroad to Canada.

They are joined in Ottawa by Palestinian-Canadians Israa Alsaafin and Safinaz El-Sohl and Sudanese-Canadian Einam Mohammadian. (no interpretation)

CIMM#98: Government's Response to Afghanistan Final Report, Processing Times for PR Pathways for Hongkongers and Canadian Armed Forces' Applications

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

At this juncture, I would like to move the following motion:

That the committee request that Global Affairs (GAC) provide the unredacted findings of the internal investigation regarding the issuance of “inauthentic” facilitation letters to third parties to the law clerk and parliamentary counsel for redaction according to his discretion before being sent to the committee, and further that GAC provide to the community the unredacted name and title of the official(s) within GAC who provided the “inauthentic” facilitation letter to George Young, acknowledged receipt of Senator McPhedran's email and shared the names of the vulnerable Afghans with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada no later than 30 days following the adoption of the motion.

Mr. Chair, I'm moving this motion today because we heard on August 25, 2021, from Senator McPhedran. In her testimony, she said, “the facilitation template in question was sent to me by George Young”. That's a quote from her testimony. She went on further to say, “Mr. Young received this facilitation template from Global Affairs Canada, and he told me this in writing.” She then further stated:

Names for the rolling list were sent frequently to George Young and Mr. Oz Jungic, a senior policy adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Jungic confirmed receipt of the names to me on August 24, with an assurance that they would do everything they could to try to help get these people out.

Senator McPhedran went on to say, “Mr. Young stated that he had put these names 'into the system'.” She also said:

When George Young sent me the facilitation templates on August 25, he wrote, with the first one, “I have received this from a colleague at GAC...try it. George.”

What we need to get to is who from GAC provided that “inauthentic” facilitation letter to George Young.

Mr. Chair, to that end, I am moving this motion so that we can get that information.

 

HANSARD: Order Questions on immigration processing backlog

HANSARD: Order Questions with regard to the temporary public policy to facilitate temporary resident visas for certain extended family affected by the Gaza crisis

CIMM#97: Government's Response to Afghanistan Final Report and Committee Business

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
NDP

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We were just talking about the issue of the appearance of the minister and those requests. As the clerk had indicated, the request on the Gaza and Sudan motion following the first appearance was actually made to the minister's office on March 21. It is now May 1, and we still have not had a response in terms of offering a date from the minister and the officials to reappear. I don't think that's acceptable. The reality is that this is an urgent situation. People are dying. I know of family members who submitted their application and since that time, they have already lost their loved ones. We can't just delay and delay. We can't have the minister ignore the request of the committee. We need to redouble our efforts and to get the minister here so we can get some answers for the families.

I'm going to leave it at that. I trust the work of the clerk. I have no doubt that the clerk has done what he needs to do on behalf of the committee. I thank the clerk for his effort. Perhaps this is more of a message for the minister and their office to get on with scheduling the minister to appear before the committee and to meet all the commitments that have been requested of the minister by the committee on the motions. All of those issues are important; otherwise, we would not have passed them at this committee.

Mr. Chair, at this point, I'd like to move this motion:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee add an additional meeting to the study adopted on February 12, 2024 regarding the pension transferability and access to Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) for Hongkongers, to study the processing delays for permanent residence applications of Hongkongers, potential differential treatment among different Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) visa offices, and the status of priority processing for applicants in Canada and abroad.

The reason I'm moving this motion at this point, Mr. Chair, is that I have spoken with a lot of Hong Kongers whose applications are simply stuck in the system. For example, Hong Kong Link and VSSDM are active organizations working with Hong Kongers. They are people who have made an application. Originally, the priority processing time for these applications was six months, and now it is to the tune of 21 months. People are still waiting for the PR applications to be processed. In the meantime, people's work permits are expiring. Their study permits are expiring. They're losing their medical coverage. Dependent children are having difficulty accessing education. You can see how difficult that whole scenario is for people.

While this is happening, in Hong Kong, they've recently passed the new Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which only means they will further escalate the arbitrary arrests and detentions of Hong Kongers.

You can see how frantic people are with the situation. They're so worried about their study permit or work permit expiring, falling out of status and being sent back to Hong Kong to face that situation. I can tell you nothing good will come out of that.

It is really urgent for the minister to come and also address this issue as well. I hope that committee members will support this. This will be in addition to the pension question, which is also a critically important issue.

HANSARD: Question to Minister on Hong Kong Pathway processing issues

Olympics: Erin Brooks: The resilient surfer behind the image of a teenage dream

Erin Brooks proudly sporting the maple leaf
While Brooks’ home base in Hawaii helped her to shoot into the top echelons of surfing at lightning speed, it indirectly also put her competitive future in jeopardy.

Brooks was born and raised in the United States, but her grandfather was born and raised in Montreal and her father is a dual American-Canadian citizen. She applied to become a Canadian citizen by descent, but due to the intricacies of the country's immigration laws concerning descendants who are living abroad, her citizenship was still not approved when she took part in the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games.

The International Surfing Association reviewed Brooks’ citizenship status after the competition, in which she finished second behind Pan American Games champion Tatiana Weston-Webb, and decided to suspend her eligibility to compete as a Canadian.

After several months of uncertainty – including her application initially getting turned down - Brooks received her Canadian citizenship in January 2024 with the help of parliament member Jenny Kwan.

“Having my Canadian citizenship, I'm so glad that I got it because it was a little bit of a struggle, but I had so many great people helping me and I just had to have faith in them that it would happen," Brooks said. "I'm glad that I can now compete for Canada and be a Canadian along with my family."