Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Bill
Motion in Amendment Adopted
March 10, 2026
Therefore, honourable senators, in amendment, I move:
That Bill C-12, as amended, be not now read a third time, but that it be further amended in clause 28, on page 13, by replacing line 16 with the following:
“same meaning as in section 3 of the Privacy Act, but does not include any personal information, as defined in that Act, about a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident as that term is defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.”.
Honourable senators, I had not intended to speak to Senator Senior’s amendment, but as I listened to her, I wanted to give you the context of what is happening in my home province of Alberta.
A couple of weeks ago, in late February, Bruce McAllister, who is the Executive Director of the Office of Premier Danielle Smith, posted the following on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter:
The people orchestrating this reckless, unsustainable mass immigration into Canada fill me with profound disgust. To deliberately engineer and champion such explosive, unmanageable population growth in your own nation? That’s the height of civic irresponsibility. Was it fueled by greed? Did they line their pockets while irrevocably straining our healthcare, education, and social safety nets? Or does their contempt for Canada’s core values and traditions drive them to flood our borders with millions from societies not built on the same foundations that have made us thrive? Why import from nations with failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here? It almost feels like these elites are ashamed of what built this great country. This is a stark reminder of why Albertans, and indeed countless Canadians, harbor deep mistrust toward the Laurentian elite in Ottawa. They seem all too eager to prioritize their agendas over the well-being of the True North strong and free.
Now, I must tell you that, as an Albertan, the only “Laurentian Elites” I ever knew were the kids who had more pencil crayons than I did, but I think it is important to understand Mr. McAllister’s words as the framing device for what came immediately thereafter, which was Premier Danielle Smith’s address to the province in which she outlined nine separate referendum questions that Albertans will be asked to answer come October, the first five of which deal specifically with this canard of a huge immigration crisis in Alberta, a province which — as I mentioned the other day — in the last quarter had a net international migration of 197 people, and where international immigration has been falling sharply ever since 2024.
In case you have not been following — as I do — the intricacies of Alberta provincial politics, I will take the liberty of reading into the record the five questions that Albertans will be asked to answer to deal with immigration, because this is going to come back to Senator Senior’s amendment in just a moment.
Question 1:
Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?
How exactly Albertans would get first priority is unclear.
Question 2:
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded programs, such as health care, education and other social services?
I can tell you that, as the daughter of a refugee who came to this country speaking not one word of English at the age of nine and who received an excellent public education at the Barrhead Elementary School in the not very booming metropolis of Barrhead, Alberta, the idea of denying public education to immigrant and refugee children seems to me to be a poor public policy choice.
Question 3:
Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs?
Question 4:
Assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their family’s use of the health care and education systems?
I guess this doesn’t matter if Canadian citizens in Alberta no longer receive public health care.
Question 5:
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or citizenship card, to vote in an Alberta provincial election?
Again, what a red herring of a question. Let it also be said that the Premier of Alberta has already said publicly that she intends to make it necessary that you should say whether you are a Canadian citizen on your provincial driver’s licence.
Now, what does this have to do with Bill C-12 and specifically with Senator Senior’s amendment? This was not something that occurred to me until some of us in the Senate were privy to a briefing held by a number of civil society groups and immigration advocacy organizations, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who pointed out that, under the provisions of Bill C-12 — which Senator Senior’s amendment addresses — the Alberta provincial government would have a brand-new vector to find out who in the province was or was not a permanent resident, who was or was not a citizen, and who was or was not a legal resident with a non-permanent status. This is what concerns me, and this is why I will be supporting Senator Senior’s amendment.
I suspect that when the government in Ottawa drafted this legislation, it imagined that it was proceeding on the understanding that provinces would act in good faith and that it was safe to share this kind of personal, private information with provincial governments and provincial authorities.
Coming, as I do, from Alberta, I no longer can say that I share that certainty and that conviction, and I think any law that creates a differentiation between a Canadian citizen who is naturalized — like my mother — and a Canadian citizen who was born here opens a very noxious chasm in the fabric of our Canadian society.
I look around this room, and I see how many of you here, my colleagues — my respected colleagues, who are, frankly, some of the most respected citizens in this country — were not born here. How many of you are naturalized Canadian citizens? What does it mean to you that the government should treat you as a second‑class citizen, that information about you could be shared in a way that information about me might not be?
How many of you — like me — are the children of naturalized Canadian citizens? What would it have meant to you if your mother and father had been treated in a differential fashion by your federal government?
I applaud the fact that Senator Senior has broadened the scope of her amendment to also address the issue of people who have been granted permanent residency, which is a protected status in this country.
I think that there has been an erosion of public cultural agreement in this country, that we were a nation built by immigrants and refugees and a nation that prided ourselves in welcoming immigrants and refugees. I think that malicious actors — not just within this country but without — have been trying to pour an acid of hatred onto the foundations that have made this country great. And I’m deeply concerned that, however well intentioned the government may have been, it may have even unconsciously — or subconsciously — been infected by the discourse of hatred that is driving so much public policy in this country.
When I think back to that tweet I read into the record from Bruce McAllister — from somebody who works intimately with the premier of my province — I’m left in despair. This country was not built on some fiction of Judeo-Christian values. This country was built on the values of every single Canadian who came here.
First of all, let me back up and say that this country was built on the foundation and the values of the First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit, the values that they embody in this country and they embed in this country: the values of community, the values of sharing, the values that mattered when you were Indigenous Peoples in this country who had to work together to survive in one of the harshest climates in the world, the values of Indigenous traditions and knowledge and spiritual teachings that are the bedrock of this country.
On top of that, we have built a foundation of people who have brought their values from around the world, whether those values were Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or Jain — I’m not going to give you the list of everybody from the world religion textbook, but this is a country that has survived and thriven on the fact that we were able to incorporate the religious and moral teachings of all of the world’s great religions and all of the world’s great spiritual cultures.
To try and rewrite history with a view towards — and I must choose my words carefully here — an exclusionary vision and a vision of Christianity that is contrary to, I think, the deepest of Christian values fills me with dread for how we withstand the dangers without.
So I will be voting in favour of Senator Senior’s amendment, which treats all Canadians as equal and which prevents the erosion of the kind of social contract upon which my Canada is based.
Thank you very much.
If I might extrapolate from Senator Simons’ stirring speech, what she is referring to is the danger of unintended consequences. I think many of us looking at this bill and at the information provision clauses in the bill might see it as innocuous, and, clearly, we can imagine benefits coming from information sharing. I support the information-sharing provisions, but extend it to permanent residents and naturalized citizens. I am a naturalized citizen, and treating us differently from Canadian-born Canadians is unjust. Perhaps we have the situation in Alberta to thank for being able to imagine an unintended consequence that we probably could not have imagined just a few years ago.
However, what Senator Simons has described is not that isolated a phenomenon. Have you heard about the “remigration” movement? They are putting up banners on highways. They are talking about me. Some of you who have the bad luck of following me on X will know that I have quite a fan club. Many of them are asking for me to be deported and for my citizenship to be stripped. It is not going to happen.
Then again, I don’t know. Three or five years from now, and it could well be that this bill, which treats — it is not so much information sharing, because I get that; I get why different departments need to have information. It’s the different treatment of naturalized citizens and permanent residents compared to Canadian-born citizens that is odious. It also opens the door to a way of thinking about and treating people like me and, I dare say, a quarter of us here as somehow lesser than Canadian-born citizens. That is a very dangerous position to be in.
Colleagues, this amendment does not get in the way — let me just reiterate this — of any of the issues that Senator Dhillon has raised, unless he tells us differently; I invite him to correct the record. As I understand his speech, getting this amendment through does not, in any way, hinder our efforts to fight extortion and to deem inadmissible people who are trying to exploit the immigration system. I support that cause, too.
This is an amendment that deals with the matter of justice. It doesn’t have to do with criminality.
Those of you who were at the National Defence Committee will recall that a similar amendment was attempted on information sharing — not on the removal of naturalized citizens or permanent residents as such, but on the sharing of information — with foreign entities. I acknowledge the work of Senator Al Zaibak in trying to move that amendment.
It was defeated, but, in some ways, it should be brought back because we have had very bad experiences of sharing our information with foreign powers, which have led to severe abuses of human rights. You know what I’m talking about. That was a shameful period in Canadian history.
Also, while the bill says that the minister has to approve the sharing of information with a foreign entity, maybe we trust the minister today, but would we trust the minister five years from now? If we were to have a sunset clause, maybe that would help, but we don’t have a sunset clause. We could have a minister who wants to prosecute the “war on terror” and who wants to root out “undesirables” in this country — those who were not born here. I don’t want to go too far in my speculation, but these things have happened in the past.
So, the amendment before us is really, if I may say so, a very modest attempt at trying to correct course. It is simply trying to establish the principle that naturalized citizens have the same rights and that they should not be seen or even thought of differently than Canadian-born Canadians.
I, therefore, support this amendment, and I hope you will, as well.
Honourable senators, I applaud Senator Senior’s amendment. It was very thoughtfully supported and thoughtfully described and argued. I don’t feel the same way about other comments that were directed at the government in relation to this bill. I think I need to say that ascribing some of the motives to the government in association with this that we’ve just heard a short time ago is regrettable, I would say.
We all know that is not the government’s intention here; we know that is not what the government wants to do. I needed to say that because I think the tone of some of the rhetoric goes way beyond the discussion that Senator Senior intended to have, and I don’t want to ascribe emotions to her either. We need to be concerned about the language we use.
This is about information sharing. Much of our information, whether as Canadians, citizens or others, is shared. It is certainly shared at the provincial level when it comes to health cards, driver’s licences and other identity-related provisions. This and other types of information are likely shared already and have been shared previously, although not perhaps in digital form.
I have heard of no situations in which information that is currently being shared within the federal government and with provincial and territorial governments has raised itself to the sorts of levels that have been described here. I just wanted to say that.
There is a continuum of information and of attachment to the contrary. I don’t think that this proposal to share information is inappropriate. I think it can be shared safely. I have confidence that, for example — and I’ve thought about Alberta. Going forward, will the federal government — knowing what has happened and what is being done in Alberta — choose to share or continue to share certain sorts of information with the Government of Alberta if it knows that it will be used to deny people their benefits?
I just want to take us back and bring the tone back a little to the purpose of information sharing, which has benefits to citizens, permanent residents and other classes of people in this country. I know there are concerns. You will make your own decisions about this proposal and the amendment, but I don’t, for a moment, read into this the worrisome, troublesome concerns that relate almost to the draconian measures on the part of this government. I needed to say that. People will support this amendment or they won’t, but I do take issue with the way that concerns have been raised and the way they have been described.
I have a question for Senator Dean.
Will you take a question, Senator Dean?
Yes.
Thank you. I’m happy that you did speak so that I could ask a question. Is this amendment proposed by Senator Senior going to hurt the bill in any way or fashion?
In the context of the scope of this bill, will it harm it or take away any of the fundamental principles that are reflected in the bill? I don’t think so. Is it necessary? I’m not sure. But I don’t sit where Senator Senior sits, and I don’t share Senator Senior’s experience.
On the face of it, with the way these provisions have been described, the intentions with which they are associated and the service quality that might result from them in terms of a tell‑us‑once perspective, which I am a supporter of, I think that’s where the loss would be.
Information sharing has virtuous aspects. We have identified one concern here where it might cause negative consequences. Senator Senior has made some good arguments, and she has reflected her concerns in a way that, if I can put it this way, does not additionally ascribe motives to the Government of Canada that I am not seeing here.
Will Senator Dean take a question?
Yes.
Thank you. I want to start by acknowledging my colleague’s speech and thank Senator Simons for bringing to our attention Bruce McAllister’s comments about immigrants. It goes without saying that I came to this country as one. I’m a naturalized Canadian, and I’m very proud of who I am. Long before I came here, there was racism in this country, and long after I’m gone, there will be racism in this country. I hope we aspire to do our best to weed them out, call them out for who they are and challenge, of course, when they bring attention to those of us who might look a bit different. There are some immigrants who come to this country who will never be questioned.
I do appreciate the point that was made, but I think we need to put the debate in context around Bill C-12. There are many aspects of this bill that I know some colleagues legitimately have some serious concerns about, and we should not, of course, try to dismiss those. I think we should try to address them in a meaningful way.
I want to ask my question to Senator Dean. The Privacy Commissioner testified before the National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs Committee and was asked specifically with regard to the sharing of information among jurisdictions across this country and in other places. I think earlier in your remarks you quoted him with regard to the sharing. As senators — and we saw this the last time we were dealing with Bill C-4 — we look to him for guidance with regard to how information is shared in this country and whether or not we should have confidence in what the government is doing and how they go about protecting that information when it is shared among jurisdictions.
Senator Dean, maybe I could ask you to reflect on what you said earlier in your remarks regarding the Privacy Commissioner’s comments, specifically around the sharing of information that is in this bill.
Thank you, Senator Yussuff.
I took great comfort, frankly, from the Privacy Commissioner’s comments. He takes his work seriously. He had taken a look at the bill, so it gave me comfort. I’m one person in here. There are others who are obviously not comfortable with that, and I respect that.
Certainly, I have read every single background document on the information-sharing requirements. I have a bias, which I have indicated before, that governments should be sharing information that is useful for their purposes but also for the purposes of clients of government services. So I was pleased to see this section in the bill because I tend to focus on all of the positive aspects of it.
Senator Senior has identified a concern for her and likely others, and we have to take that seriously. But, again, I think the Privacy Commissioner has looked at that. He is another set of eyes on this; he is another voice on it. You have now heard everything that I can say about this. I think that others should have an opportunity to speak.
I’ll just say that in reading this section and thinking about it in relation to my experience with information sharing in government, I was comfortable with it and I remain comfortable with it, but there are other views on this. Thank you, Senator Yussuff.
Senator Simons, would you like to ask a question?
I would, if that’s possible.
Would Senator Dean accept a question?
Yes, of course.
Not to attribute motives to anybody — and I really didn’t think that I did that except perhaps to Mr. McAllister — I was very cheered, Senator Dean, when you said that there would be measures wherein the federal government would not share information with a province that proposed to use that information, I believe, if I understood you, to take away people’s rights to things like public health care.
Can you expand a little bit more on how you imagine that might work? If Alberta did become a sovereign nation, would that information be shared with them as a sovereign nation?
Well, the answer to the last part of your question is absolutely not, I would assume.
One of the important things about our work in the Senate is that we tend to surface issues that are sometimes not surfaced in the other place, and that’s a tremendous benefit. We love to do it. Canadians like to hear it. Surfacing them is one thing; how much impact they have is another thing.
I would say, to go back to your question, that the Senate and others have socialized the question of what happens if a provincial jurisdiction takes steps that would influence the benefits and rights of their citizens when that would also affect the benefits and rights flowing from federal policy and benefits. I have to think that this government is attuned to that, so that gives me some comfort. I would think that any other government that took steps to intentionally disenfranchise benefits that might otherwise be available at a provincial-territorial level would have to think about the way that reflects on them and the price that they ultimately might have to pay for that.
That’s the way politics works in this country. We all understand that.
That’s my answer to your question.
Senator Dean, there are 17 seconds left in your 15 minutes, and I have a list of senators who wish to ask questions. Are you asking for five more minutes to answer those questions?
I am not because I think that others have more to say about this and other provisions in Bill C-12. I have said all I need to, and I think others probably have as well, so let’s move on, shall we?
Are honourable senators ready for the question?
All those in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: In my opinion the “yeas” have it.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion in amendment?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
An Hon. Senator: On division.
(Motion in amendment of the Honourable Senator Senior agreed to, on division.)
