Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Jacques.

Thank you, Mr. Menegakis.

Now we go to Ms. Salma Zahid for six minutes.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for appearing before the committee today.

My first few questions are for Mr. Chapman.

Thank you for coming back again and talking about the issue of the lost Canadians.

As you know, there have been many legislative attempts to address the lost Canadians issue. We will both recall Bill S-245 sponsored by Conservative Senator Yonah Martin and in the House by MP Jasraj Singh Hallan. The Conservatives stalled their own bill for 12 meetings over three months back in 2023 before using procedural tactics to ensure it that never came back for debate in the House.

What message did that Conservative obstructionism send to lost Canadians and their families?

[Don Chapman]

That was the second bill I did with Senator Martin. Up until two days before the testimony, Senator Martin was all in for amendments. That changed. It was almost like she got an edict from the party to say “no more amendments”, because she had been all in.

It was also interesting that Mr. Poilievre's office sent an email, which I have a copy of, saying that he was all in for Bill S-245. They weren't in for the amendments, and I can't help but look at the sincerity of those amendments. One of them was that there would not be any citizenship ceremonies on Yom Kippur. Today's Yom Kippur. We can have meetings on this day. I didn't think it was sincere.

They brought up the same issues of security, language and so forth, which brings me to Finley Weinberger. He got a letter saying that he had to put forth a citizenship knowledge test for language and so forth. Finley had just turned two years old. Again, this is not about anything to do with that. The courts have ruled that, going back to 1997, this is an issue about fairness, about the courts, about the rule of law and the charter. No party gets a choice here. This is what the law says.

If we talk about confidence in the system, we have to talk about confidence in the citizenship system and confidence in the court. This is not an immigration issue, period.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chapman.

We just heard some of the Conservatives' questions to the other witnesses focusing on the cost of restoring the citizenship of lost Canadians. They seem to be putting forward an argument that it is too expensive for Canada to recognize the citizenship of people who have, in many cases, lived here all their lives, contributed to Canada, paid their taxes and always thought of themselves as Canadians.

Do you think it is right to put a cost on being a Canadian?

[Don Chapman]

Is that for me?

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

Yes.

[Don Chapman]

Absolutely not. In Canada, when you take a citizenship ceremony, it's a two-way street. They say that you have an obligation as a citizen, but likewise, a country has an obligation to its citizens. One of the obligations all governments around the world are supposed to adhere to is to protect the rights of their citizens and make life better for their citizens. It's not a cost function.

The court in this case, in Bjorkquist, did not say, “Protect these people up to a certain price tag.” It said that this a right—done. There should be no issues on the money. Actually, when it comes to the money, it's interesting. Bill C-37 was a Conservative bill. It's almost as though this side and this side switched places, because years ago, 20 years ago, when I was sitting in the witness stand, the Liberals were saying the same thing about security background and knowledge. It was exactly the opposite, except different parties.

For the Conservatives, I have the interim leader on camera saying that it's an irrelevant issue: So what if it's 200,000; we need people. This is not an immigration issue; it's a citizenship issue. If you're going to start taking away rights of citizens, what do we do? Do we take away the entire citizenship of everybody in Victoria? No. It's a citizenship issue. They have rights, and they are quite within their powers to expect the government to protect their rights.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre—Don Valley East, ON]

Definitely it is about rights.

Can you explain a bit more why you would say this bill is about restoring citizenship and is not about immigration?

[Don Chapman]

That's what the courts ruled. There was nothing about immigration in that court case, and there was nothing about immigration in the Benner v. Canada case. This is to restore citizenship. They declared the law unconstitutional, period, so how do you want to go forward? Do you want to make the Citizenship Act charter-compliant and have it conform with the Constitution of Canada or not?

This is about citizenship. I know, because I've been 47 years, as I said, trying to get my citizenship restored, and I've been on this path since I was about 10 years old, listening to Canadians over and over and over again—by the way, everybody's guilty here, all parties—saying I had to have a criminal background check and so forth to get into Canada, to get into my own country. It's an insult.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Chapman.

Thank you, Ms. Zahid.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here today.

My first questions will be for the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

I asked the minister earlier how many people could be granted new citizenship under Bill C‑3. She was unable to give me a number, yet your department can.

Shouldn't a minister introducing such a bill be able to give a figure if you're able to do so? What's the difference between IRCC's calculations and the Parliamentary Budget Officer's calculations?

[Louis Perrault, Director, Economic Analysis, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer]

The number we have is obviously an estimate. When we look at all the estimates on the Canadian diaspora, we see that they differ considerably. They can vary between 300,000 and four million people.

We relied on a Statistics Canada study. This demographic study from 2018, I believe, compiles data on the Canadian diaspora from 1921 to 2016. This diaspora is divided into three groups, one of which is made up of citizens by descent. We took that number and used certain assumptions to come up with our figure of 115,000 people.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

In the same report, you also estimated the costs at $20.8 million.

How did you come up with that number?

[Louis Perrault]

We used the four groups that were affected by what was then Bill C‑71. We asked some departments about the cost of obtaining proof of citizenship and the cost of granting citizenship. We also contacted Global Affairs Canada to obtain costs for consular services in normal and extraordinary cases, such as repatriation cases, in the event of war or other circumstances, so we multiplied all those costs to arrive at $20.8 million.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Prime Minister Carney's directives to all his ministers last summer said that spending should be cut in certain areas.

Do you believe that IRCC's current resources are sufficient to process the new applications that will arise as a result of Bill C‑3, if it is passed quickly?

[Jason Jacques]

We haven't done an assessment of the department's budget, so it's difficult for us to tell you definitively whether there are enough resources or not.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Have you received any assessments from IRCC in terms of who would be affected and cost assessments?

Did you ask them questions, and did the department respond to you?

[Louis Perrault]

In October 2024, we asked the department whether there were any estimates related to the number of Canadian citizens who would be affected by Bill C‑71. We were told there weren't any. We were also given some leads as to how we could estimate that number.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

So, clearly, IRCC told you that it had not done that work.

[Louis Perrault]

Not to our knowledge.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Earlier, I reminded the minister of how the Immigration Act, which falls under her jurisdiction, works. She told us that the 1,095‑day period we use, which is entirely appropriate, was copied from the 1,095 days required of permanent residents. However, she forgot that, for permanent residents, it has to be over a five‑year period, whereas in Bill C‑3, it's 1,095 non-consecutive days, regardless of the period.

Do you have any numbers?

I imagine you don't have any, but would you be able to redo—I'm asking this in all naïveté—a calculation, if we added the criteria of 1,095 days, or three years, over a five-year period?

Could your department provide us with an estimate?

[Louis Perrault]

At this time, there's no specific estimate for the 1,095 days. We have an estimate that the number of potential Canadians who could be affected by Bill C‑71 is about 115,000. Theoretically, more people from the Canadian diaspora could be affected by this measure.

On the issue of the 1,095 days, I imagine that the data would probably be difficult to obtain quickly like that. So we would need to think about it.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I tried.

Mr. Chapman, in your opinion, could certain cases of lost citizens not be covered by Bill C‑3 in its current form?

[Don Chapman]

Yes, there are. It does not correct all the categories, but it comes very close.

Do you know what? There are always going to be problems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you, Mr. Chapman, and thank you, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

That is the end of our first round. We are now on to our second round.

We'll go to Mr. Ma for five minutes.