Citizenship Act
Bill to Amend--Second Reading
May 17, 2022
Moved second reading of Bill S-245, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians).
She said: Honourable senators, I’m honoured to once again sponsor and speak to Bill S-245, formerly Bill S-230, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians).
In the last parliamentary session, Bill S-230 was adopted in the Senate following debate and a thorough study at the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. The bill was unanimously supported and sent to the House of Commons but died on the Order Paper when the election was called.
As I said previously for Bill S-230, this current bill, Bill S-245, will address a specific gap in the Citizenship Act to capture a small group of Canadians who have lost their Canadian citizenship or became stateless because of changes to policy.
Many of these individuals were raised in Canada from a young age. Though they were born abroad, some came to Canada at a young age, as infants, in some cases. They went to school in Canada. They raised their families in Canada. They worked and paid taxes in Canada, and yet, they turned 28 without knowing that their citizenship would be stripped from them because of the change in policy to the Citizenship Act of 1977 that required Canadians born abroad to apply to retain their citizenship when they turned 28. As previously explained, this age-28 rule was passed, then forgotten. Those who did not apply to retain their citizenship before their twenty-eighth birthday subsequently became “lost Canadians” on their twenty-eighth birthday.
Bill C-37 of 2008, which repealed the age-28 provision and grandfathered all those Canadians who had not yet turned 28 to be included in the policy change, left out a small group of Canadians who had already turned 28, specifically those born in the 50-month window between February 15, 1977, to April 16, 1981. This small cohort of lost Canadians is the group for whom this bill was brought forward in this Parliament once again.
With the passage of S-245, we can reinstate this last cohort of “lost Canadians” affected by the age-28 rule and ensure that they are given the rights and opportunities that they deserve, as do all Canadians across our great nation.
I would like to thank Senator Omidvar for once again being the critic of this important bill and working in collaboration with me and tireless advocates like Don Chapman on such an important issue.
Honourable senators, I ask you to support this bill once again and, rather than send it to committee, that we expedite this bill straight to third reading and to the House of Commons, as we did earlier in this current Parliament with other familiar bills that also died on the Order Paper in the other house, namely Bill S-202, An Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act (Parliamentary Visual Artist Laureate); Bill S-214, An Act to establish International Mother Language Day; Bill S-216, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources of a registered charity); and Bill S-223, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (trafficking in human organs).
After Senator Omidvar speaks, I will seek leave to expedite this bill in support of the “lost Canadians,” who have been waiting far too long for this bill to become law. Thank you.
Thank you, Senator Martin, for being indefatigable in your defence of “lost Canadians.” I am the official critic of the bill, and I always thought of a critic as someone who is unfriendly or opposed to the bill, but this is certainly not the case. I am very friendly to the bill, as you well know.
When I became a senator in 2016, and because of my established interest in citizenship, I started to get a lot of emails about “lost Canadians.” I had never heard the term before, to be honest. I was, frankly, lost when I heard that terminology. For those of us who have found Canada, who know what a privilege it is to be a Canadian, to have inadvertently lost citizenship because of what I can only describe as bureaucratic fumbling and missteps is unimaginable.
When I rose subsequently — it was, I think, my first major speech in the Senate — as a sponsor for a major citizenship bill, I described citizenship as a home. I drew a picture of a house, a home, that has a strong door and a lot of windows to let the sun shine in, but also a very strong roof to keep the danger out. The foundation of this welcoming but safe home is grounded in a few essential principles.
The first and most important is equality among citizens. Equality sees all citizens — by birth or naturalization, mono-citizens or dual citizens, whether they’ve been citizens for 50 years or a month — treated equally under the law. Equal rights, equal responsibilities and, when necessary, equal punishments. These are not aspirational goals. These are the floor, the absolute foundation of how equality is expressed in Canada.
The second is the principle of facilitating citizenship or making it easier for people to get citizenship. I think of this, again, as the main floor of the house, a welcoming home with a big fire, blazing to keep out the wretched cold, and with a big welcoming door. However, “lost Canadians” have lost the warmth of this fire. In fact, they were kicked out of the home. Think of it as an eviction.
As we know, our immigration system and our citizenship laws are incredibly complex. Because of this complexity, they sometimes catch people in their net, and it is hard for people to get out and deal with this devastating yet unintended outcome. I will admit that this was not intended. This was accidental, but how often do we in this chamber deal with unintended but devastating outcomes of legislation that was passed either in the other house or here?
Senator Martin has already provided you with the background of how “lost Canadians” came to be lost. I am not going to repeat that. I will just tell you about how currently “lost Canadians” deal with becoming found. It is on a case-by-case basis. They have to make an application to the minister and to the ministry to get their citizenship back. I wonder about the equity of a case-by-case basis, when what we really need is a systemic solution. A case-by-case basis means that everybody who is lost needs to have the same kind of determination and agency as Byrdie Funk, who was a famous “lost Canadian.” She petitioned the court, she petitioned the minister and got her lost citizenship back, but again, it is taken case by case. Senator Martin’s proposal is a systemic fix.
Senator Dalphond last time asked a reasonable question: How many people does this impact? Not that many actually. Maybe a few hundred. Maybe 200. We don’t know, because maybe the “lost Canadians” don’t even know that they’re lost until they have to apply for a passport, and then they find out.
The consequences of losing your citizenship are also severe. While waiting to get your citizenship, you may not have a social security number that is valid. You may not be able to get a job. You may not be able to travel, and you may have limited access to health care — all this at a time when a potential deportation could be in the works. So this is very severe, even if it is for a few hundred people. I think we all understand that injustice to one person, a few people or even a hundred people is intolerable in our system.
I also want to point out that there are other lost Canadians, and I congratulate and commend Senator Martin for being focused and practical on dealing with those whom we can help most immediately. Legislation is never the art of perfection. I believe it is the art of what is possible. This legislation is in our reach. Colleagues, I urge you to support it. Thank you.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(Motion agreed to and bill read second time.)
