The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Alexander (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), seconded by Mr. Duncan (Minister of State), — That Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration;
And of the amendment of Ms. Blanchette-Lamothe (Pierrefonds—Dollard), seconded by Mr. Scott (Toronto—Danforth), — That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, because it:
(a) does not provide an adequate solution for reducing citizenship application processing times, which have been steadily increasing;
(b) puts significant new powers in the hands of the Minister that will allow this government to politicize the granting of Canadian citizenship;
(c) gives the Minister the power to revoke citizenship, which will deny some Canadians access to a fair trial in Canada and will raise serious questions since Canadian law already includes mechanisms to punish those who engage in unlawful acts; and
(d) includes a declaration of intent to reside provision, which in fact gives officials the power to speculate on the intent of a citizenship applicant and then potentially deny citizenship based on this conjecture.”.
The debate continued.