Moved second reading of Bill S-235, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

She said: Honourable senators, first I want to thank Senator Pate for helping me draft this bill and for her support throughout its stages. Her assistance has been invaluable to me, and I thank her for it.

I want to read the summary of the bill, honourable senators:

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to provide citizenship for certain persons when they transition out of the care of a child welfare agency or foster parent. It also amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to provide that, in certain circumstances, a removal order cannot be enforced against a person who was not a citizen when they transitioned out of such care.

At its core, this bill aims to address the issue of minors coming to Canada, being taken into government care and never becoming citizens because the government, their parent, failed to secure citizenship for them. As these children are taken away from their parents by our government, the government becomes their parent. However, the government consistently fails to carry out the responsibility of a parent when it comes to applying for citizenship. In fact, as things are, the government never applies for its children to obtain Canadian citizenship when they are under its care.

Consequently, on attaining the age 18, as these children are released from the Canadian foster care system, they face the risk of getting deported if they get in trouble. Many are sent back to the country of their parents, a country with which they have no connection and of which they, often, don’t speak the language.

Honourable senators, this is a complete failure on the part of the government in its role as a parent to these minors. The bill will ensure that after living in Canada for a minimum of one year, a minor under foster care will be granted citizenship. In addition, it would prevent and/or blunt the unwarranted and unnecessary use of removal orders on adults who came to Canada as minors but never became Canadian citizens because of the fault of our government, which acts as their parent.

This bill will enshrine in law that all young people who come to Canada would obtain their Canadian citizenship, and that their rights are respected if they are taken into care. Currently, the Canadian government is failing some of the most vulnerable people. The Canadian government is failing the children who have come to Canada with hope for the future.

In 2007, the Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal’s own review of provincial annual reports concluded that on any given day, over 65,000 Canadian children were in care. As these numbers date from 15 years ago, we can only imagine how they have increased since. And with that increase, so do we see more non-Canadian citizens raised by the government being deported back to the country of their parents — one that is unknown to them.

Of the countless stories of the anonymous victims of our foster care system, many of which have ended in deportation, let me share with you three cases that highlight the darkness and pain endured by those whose lives illustrate this reality.

Back in 2017, during the Senate’s debates on Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act, Fliss Cramman’s case was cited as an example of why there is an urgent need to protect children without citizenship who are in Canadian care. That was in 2017, honourable senators, and the need has only grown since.

As a side note, we owe a lot of gratitude to Senator Oh’s work on Bill C-6. Thanks to the work of Senator Oh, the Senate successfully amended the bill to add the clarification that non-parental guardians can apply for a child’s citizenship, and that older children can apply for their own citizenship.

These improvements were an important step forward, but unfortunately, they were not enough. Even with these improvements, as it stands, Bill C-6 is not enough to ensure the protection of these children. Fliss Cramman’s is one of the cases that exemplifies why.

Fliss Cramman came to Canada at 8 years old and became a Crown ward at age 11. She had mental health issues, as well as a history of suffering from violence and sexual abuse throughout her childhood in Canada.

When she committed an offence at age 33, Ms. Cramman — a mother of four and a professional chef — found out that she had never become a Canadian citizen.

Following her release from the Nova Institution for Women in Truro, Nova Scotia, Ms. Cramman was taken into custody by the Canada Border Services Agency. While in their custody, Ms. Cramman became very ill and had to be hospitalized due to a perforated bowel. While at the hospital, Ms. Cramman was shackled to her bed. In full shackles, Ms. Cramman underwent a hearing where she was told she was subject to removal from Canada.

Imagine, senators: This young girl came to Canada from the United Kingdom, spent her childhood in care and then, as an adult with children and a steady job, got into some trouble and found herself shackled to a hospital bed, being told she would have to leave the country that, for her, was home. She did not know the home of her parents.

In this instance, due to the national attention to her case and the work of the Elizabeth Fry Society, then-federal immigration minister John McCallum stepped in to prevent Ms. Cramman’s deportation on compassionate grounds. Had Minister McCallum not stepped in, Ms. Cramman would have had to go to the United Kingdom right away, leaving behind her four children and a good career.

Ms. Cramman’s case illustrates why the amendments to Bill C-6 are not sufficient, because simply allowing a child in care to apply for citizenship on their own becomes moot if the child does not know they lack citizenship in the first place. For too many, like Fliss Cramman, they do not know they are not a Canadian citizen until it is too late.

Another case that mirrors Ms. Cramman’s is that of Kiwayne Jones. Mr. Jones was born in Jamaica. At 10 years old, he arrived in Canada with his parents. Less than a year after his arrival, then age 11, Mr. Jones was taken into care by the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. Not long after, he was made a permanent ward of the Crown — that is, the government became his family.

This means that Mr. Jones was a non-citizen who was removed from his family and placed into the care of the Ontario government. The Ontario government, in effect, became his family.

During the entire time of being under the care of the Ontario government, Mr. Jones did not have access to any of his personal documentation. Only when he was 21 did the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services return some of his documentation. When he received these documents, he discovered that his Jamaican birth certificate was no longer considered valid in his birth country, and that his Canadian permanent resident card was near expiration. Until then, Mr. Jones believed he was a Canadian citizen. Mr. Jones was beyond shocked when he heard this.

In Mr. Jones’s own words:

“I kind of felt disowned. I felt confused. I couldn’t understand what happened,” Jones said in an interview with the Star, talking about the confusion over his status in Canada after he was no longer a Crown ward.

Mr. Jones rightfully questioned this and stated:

. . . the Crown has decided they’re going to be my parents, and all the circumstances around that would mean I’m adopted as a Canadian, but that’s not the reality of it.

For far too many, this is their reality. They come to Canada as children with their families, are taken into foster care and feel they are abandoned upon reaching majority.

Non-Canadian citizens raised as Crown wards face the risk of deportation to a country they do not even know. They are denied any benefits that come with being a Canadian citizen. They are denied their democratic and Charter rights. They lose critical educational and employment opportunities. They suffer unimaginable losses of their identities, communities and sense of belonging.

Honourable senators, numerous more cases have exposed the blatant injustices in the immigration system that led to individuals being unfairly at risk of deportation. Consequently, in Ontario, a multi-million dollar class-action lawsuit is being launched against the province for failing to obtain citizenship for non-citizen Crown wards. The representative plaintiff in the case is Kiwayne Jones.

According to the statement of claim filed in the Superior Court, the lawsuit will argue that the government has failed in its duties:

. . . to take all reasonable steps to maintain permanent residency status and pursue and obtain Canadian citizenship for the non-citizen Crown wards in its care.

Additionally, it mentions that Canada’s failure to secure their citizenship status violates their constitutional rights.

Honourable senators, no matter where they came from, when these children came to Canada, they were expecting to have a new home and to be protected by their new country, especially when taken into the care of the government. They thought of themselves as Canadian citizens. Instead, following their arrival, they were taken into the care of the government; they were not Canadian citizens, but they were Canada’s responsibility. Canada became these children’s parent when they took them into care.

As you all know, being a parent comes with many responsibilities. The government cannot pick and choose which right to uphold according to its liking. On the contrary; these obligations are fundamental — fundamental to our obligations under international and domestic law and, arguably, under Canadian values.

Some of you may have heard about the case of Abdoul and Fatouma Abdi. Along with their two aunts, Abdoul, then age 6, and Fatouma, then age 8, came to Nova Scotia as refugees in 2000, fleeing Somalia.

In 2001, the siblings were taken into care by children’s services when their aunt removed them from school in response to racist bullying they were experiencing. During the course of their time with children’s services, Abdoul was moved around to different foster homes 31 times.

Worse yet, both Abdoul and Fatouma recounted detailed accounts of horrific histories of sexual, physical and emotional abuse while they were under the care of foster parents, including being forbidden from engaging in their traditional language or customs while in care.

Eventually, as a youth, Abdoul began accumulating criminal charges. When Mr. Abdi’s aunt attempted to obtain citizenship for him, the service intervened on the basis that Mr. Abdi was a ward of the government and only the government could apply to grant him citizenship. Although children’s services should have attempted to obtain Canadian citizenship for Mr. Abdi, they never did.

As a young adult, Mr. Abdi accumulated more serious criminal charges and ended up in custody. This led to his facing deportation through a removal order to Somalia, a place he did not know and did not have any connections to. In both 2017 and 2018, Abdoul faced deportation to Somalia after completing a prison term, but both orders were overturned by the federal court. In the ruling, it was noted that the government had a responsibility to secure Mr. Abdi’s citizenship, which it had failed to do.

I repeat, the court held that the government had a responsibility to secure his citizenship.

Ultimately, the federal government dropped the deportation proceedings.

On the one hand, this case led policy change in Nova Scotia. It granted powers to social workers to apply for Canadian citizenship on a child’s behalf. However, honourable senators, this is not enough. In order to truly rectify this injustice, federal action is needed. Bill S-235 is needed now.

Indeed, in 2018, Fatouma Abdi asked Prime Minister Trudeau a question about her brother’s case at a town hall meeting. The Prime Minister acknowledged that Canada’s care system failed Abdoul and that his situation:

 . . . opened our eyes to something that many of us knew was ongoing in many communities, but we continue to need to address.

Honourable senators, these are the words of our Prime Minister. Even the Prime Minister acknowledged this injustice to our children and said that it needed to be addressed. However, nothing has been done.

Clearly, Canadian immigration laws are unfair and unable to address this crisis facing our children. Current Canadian law allows for individual government departments to decide if and when to apply for a young person in their care to be granted citizenship. Far too often, these children never become citizens if the government does not apply for their citizenship, and many do not even know they are not citizens until they get into trouble.

The government fails them, and then they are left to pick up the pieces. We are failing our children.

Honourable senators, Bill S-235 will address this issue of minors coming to Canada, being taken into government care and never becoming a citizen because the government failed to secure their citizenship. Bill S-235 is the only way to meaningfully and comprehensively address this injustice. It is the only way to ensure that young people who come to Canada as immigrants and refugees are fairly protected and represented in our country while simultaneously ensuring that their most basic rights are upheld.

In closing, let me remind you that the courts have spoken on this issue. The Prime Minister has spoken on this issue, calling on the minister to act. The federal government stated twice in Mr. Abdi’s case that the government had a responsibility to secure Mr. Abdi’s citizenship, which it failed to do.

On top of that, the judges determined that if public authorities failed to take reasonable steps to secure his citizenship over a period of years, a valid concern about the appropriateness of deportation does arise.

Bill S-235 answers those concerns. I encourage you to think of all the children who are falling through the cracks. Honourable senators, we have an opportunity to right this wrong to our children, so I respectfully ask that you support this bill. Thank you, senators.

Yes.

Thank you very much, Senator Simons. This is something that I have struggled with a lot, because it is true. We all know that it is the provinces who take the children into care.

But in our wonderful federal system, immigration law is under the federal government. It is something I really believe is our responsibility. So the immigration law can only be changed by the federal government or by us in Parliament. It is the beauty of our federal system that if the federal law changes and becomes the law of the country, the provincial social workers would have to apply to get citizenship.

I have struggled a lot with this, but that’s the only way to do it. The courts have held that as well, because the provinces don’t form immigration laws.