He has written to Vancouver East NDP MP Jenny Kwan and also met with B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma last December.
Kwan’s office told Global News the MP has brought Mr. Kabayabaya’s concerns regarding victim services to the B.C. Attorney General and Solicitor General’s attention, and said it was told the province would respond to Kabayabaya directly.
Global News has reached out to the B.C. Attorney General’s ministry for a response.
How many hundreds, if not thousands of individuals were left stranded we will likely never know—even the government itself is unsure. In June 2022, NDP Member of Parliament Jenny Kwan alleged that the government had lost 2,900 applications from individuals who had an “enduring relationship” with Canada. It’s one of the few indicators of the potential size of the problem.
Certainly, the deliberate effort not to assist these individuals prior to July 2021 condemned many to their deaths, as did the hurried, shifting evacuation efforts for the month of August. Again, how many will likely never be known, which is perhaps convenient for the government.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship, told The Hill Times that she is frustrated with needing to wait longer for progress on Bill C-71.
“The issue around lost Canadians has been going on for literally decades. People have lost their status, families have been separated, some have been rendered stateless. It’s created significant, undue hardship for Canadian families, and this is primarily as a result of Canada’s archaic immigration citizenship laws,” said Kwan. “The Liberals, time and again, they say one thing and then they do another, and this is yet another example of them dragging their heels in fixing the lost Canadian issue.”
Kwan attempted to put forward a unanimous consent motion in the House on June 10 and on June 11 to urge parties to expedite passage of Bill C-71, but the motions did not receive unanimous consent.
“On the second occasion, I barely uttered my words before the Conservatives said, ‘No,’” said Kwan. “[Passing Bill C-71] is the right thing to do not only morally, but legally. It needed to be done and it should have been done.”
The NDP has warned that closed work permits can make migrants tied to a single employer vulnerable to abuse.
“These migrant workers are often underpaid and their immigration status is tied to their employer through a closed work permit, making it virtually impossible for them to change employment or exercise their rights,” immigration critic Jenny Kwan said in an e-mail, calling for them to be given permanent status.
“Their precarious status immigration status lead to severe power imbalances, abuse and a fear to speak out.”
NDP MP Jenny Kwan is the latest federal politician to call for their identities to be revealed.
“I think we’ve got to be cautious about a right to know and the need to know,” said Duheme, who has read the unredacted version of the NSICOP report.
But Kwan says keeping the names secret damages the reputation of all members of the House of Commons, and the trust Canadians have in their elected officials.
The MP for Vancouver East raised a question of privilege and requested the matter be referred to a parliamentary committee to “explore options” on how to disclose who the parliamentarians are without “compromising national security.”
Kwan received a briefing from Canada’s spy agency that she was targeted by China over her criticism of Beijing’s human rights abuses.
The RCMP commissioner warned that investigations could be compromised if names are revealed.
“If we start disclosing a lot of secret and top-secret information, there's tradecraft involved in that,” Duheme said.
“We have to be mindful about the impact we’ll have on the international partners who are supplying some of that information.”
Conservative MP MICHAEL COOPER and New Democrat JENNY KWAN were among the MPs who pushed LeBlanc the hardest to explain why the government wasn’t giving Hogue what she had asked for. (Hogue’s commission has said it is in talks with the government over getting the unredacted documents.)
LeBlanc returned several times to the following points:
1. That Hogue already had everything she needed, in the opinion of the government. The information that had been withheld or redacted wasn’t relevant to the Commission.
(Kwan asked: Shouldn’t Hogue decide for herself which documents are relevant? Neither LeBlanc nor Drouin really refuted this suggestion, but Drouin assured the committee that the government had not withheld any information about a specific “incident” of foreign interference.)
In June, New Democrats successfully blocked changes to Canada’s asylum system that the Liberals tried to sneak into an omnibus budget bill. The Liberal proposal would have made it more difficult to seek asylum in Canada and easier for the government to deport asylum seekers. This is plain wrong.
New Democrats also pushed this government to take more refugees from the Gaza and Sudan and reunite family members. Unacceptable delays and bureaucratic barriers in both programs have prevented family members of Canadians from reuniting in safety.
New Democrats believe we all need to work together to find solutions to root causes of the global forced displacement crisis and ensure Canada remains a safe place for those fleeing persecution and seeking a better life by investing in social housing, health care and newcomer services.
Opposition MPs remained unconvinced by Drouin’s testimony and proceeded to press Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc over why the government is withholding information from a commission that is working under a tight deadline to have a final report completed by Dec. 31.
“Ultimately, what we all want coming out of this inquiry is to have faith in the process and in the inquiry and its outcome. If documents are withheld, you are going to undermine and undercut the work of the commissioner,” said NDP MP Jenny Kwan.
LeBlanc reiterated that public servants, not politicians, were involved in deciding what information is considered a cabinet confidence.
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan helped draft the bill alongside the Liberals. She attempted to push it through by asking for unanimous consent from MPs, but Conservatives voted against it twice.
"I've talked to family members who've been separated from their loved ones because of this unjust law that Conservatives brought in 15 years ago," the Vancouver East NDP MP said last month. "I've talked to family members where their children are deemed stateless, lost in the system, because of this unjust, punitive, unconstitutional law."
If the federal government is not given another court extension before Bill C-71 passes, it may be up to the immigration minister himself to decide individual citizenship cases.
"If it doesn't come through we're sort of in no man's land," Miller said before Wednesday's court extension. "Basically, it's my discretion deciding who's Canadian or not. Obviously, that shouldn't be up to the discretion of a minister."
Anyone affected by the 2009 change will be able to apply online for a Canadian citizenship certificate. The government also has a digital tool that can help you find out if you are Canadian.
So-called "lost Canadians" will have to wait longer to obtain their right to citizenship now that a court has granted the federal government more time to fix legislation it ruled was unconstitutional.
The courts initially gave the federal government until today to replace legislation that prevents Canadians born abroad from passing on their citizenship to children also born abroad.
In May, the Liberals introduced Bill C-71, which introduced sweeping changes to Canada's citizenship laws. The government says the legislation addresses the concerns of the court.
But the Liberals did not get the bill through the House of Commons before it rose for the summer on Wednesday. MPs will not return to the Commons until mid-September.
