Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 7th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Good afternoon, everyone. I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number six of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

As always, I want to do a few reminders for the benefit of everyone here today.

Kindly wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. Please make all comments through the chair. Please raise your hand if you wish to speak. The clerk and I will manage, as always, the speaking order as best as we can. Thank you in advance for your co-operation.

Before we begin, our clerk, in his wisdom, has suggested that we have a budget to adopt regarding Bill C-3. It was distributed last week by the clerk. If I look at it, it says it'll give Julie Dzerowicz $1 million and everyone else not much.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

It's fairly straightforward. The amount requested is $5,500 for this study. Does anyone have any questions, or do I need to get the clerk...?

If not, does everyone approve?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much. We'll turn our attention now to what we are all here to do today, which is clause-by-clause of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, 2025.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, September 22, the committee is resuming its study of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, 2025.

I would now like to welcome the officials, who are available to answer questions today during clause-by-clause.

Please join me in warmly welcoming, from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Uyen Hoang, director general, citizenship branch; Stephanie Jay-Tosh, acting senior director, citizenship legislative policy; Alain Laurencelle, team manager and senior counsel, legal services unit—I'm glad we have a lawyer with us—Allison Bernard, senior policy analyst; and Jody Dewan, senior policy analyst.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here with us.

I would like to provide members of the committee with a few comments on how committees proceed with the clause-by-clause consideration of a bill.

As the name indicates, this is an examination of all the clauses in the order in which they appear in the bill. I will call each clause successively, and each clause is subject to debate and a vote.

If there is an amendment to the clause in question, I will recognize the member proposing it, who may explain it. The amendment will then be open for debate. When no further members wish to intervene, the amendment will be voted on. Amendments will be considered in the order in which they appear in the package each member received from the clerk. There are a couple of exceptions, which we will talk about in a minute.

During debate on an amendment, members are permitted to move subamendments. Only one subamendment may be considered at any one time and that subamendment cannot be amended.

Once every clause has been voted on, the committee will vote on the title and the bill itself. An order to reprint the bill may be required if amendments are adopted, so that the House has a proper copy for use at report stage.

(On clause 1)

With that, I am going to start with clause 1.

I believe that Ms. Rempel Garner has an amendment that she would like to introduce.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Yes.

Chair, the clerk has this amendment in both official languages and will distribute it to colleagues.

As well, for my colleagues opposite, we made a slight change to two of our amendments that are similar and deal with age. He'll also be distributing those. We also have hard copies in both official language for consideration.

I move that Bill C-3, in clause 1, be amended by adding after line 9 on page 2 the following:

(4.1) Subsection 3(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

(2) Paragraph (1)(a) does not apply to a person if, at the time of their birth, neither of their parents was a citizen, lawfully admitted to Canada for permanent residence or a protected person under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

I'll briefly outline my rationale as this is being distributed.

Bill C-3, the bill before us, fundamentally alters how citizenship by descent is applied to Canada. The reason why I have proposed this amendment is that a decade of the Liberals' high levels of immigration has profoundly altered Canada's immigration system and the landscape around it. In this context, Canada's unrestricted jus soli policy, the granting of citizenship to anyone born here, even temporary residents' children, presents several major problems.

For starters, the status quo presents obvious challenges as immigration levels have outpaced housing, health care and job growth. This has led to social tensions, but the problems go far beyond these concerns. For a decade, the Liberals have operationalized the philosophy of postnationalism, asserting that there is no shared Canadian identity, while simultaneously bringing newcomers in at a rate at which integrating them into Canada's social and economic fabric has become challenging. The result of this coupling of misguided policy and poor management of the immigration system has led to the breaking of Canada's long-held immigration consensus, and confusion over the responsibilities associated with Canadian citizenship. Anti-immigrant sentiment is also shamefully on the rise as Canadians mistakenly blame those who recently came to Canada instead of the Liberal government's abysmally broken postnational immigration system.

These postnational Liberal policies have sent a message that there is no need for Canadian citizens to defend shared Canadian pluralistic values like freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought and belief, freedom of association and the equality of men and women. These practices have also virtually eliminated the expectation that anyone seeking to become a Canadian needs to abandon any violent, extreme or hateful prejudices they may have once held and contribute to the nation. Said differently, colleagues, the government has, through a postnationalist and large-scale or mass immigration policy, brought into question the intrinsic value of Canadian citizenship. Without immediate reversal, this philosophy risks permanently breaking Canada's peaceful pluralism and long-standing consensus for immigration—and so you have the amendment before you today. This is why I've moved it.

Today, there are millions of people living in Canada on temporary visas, comprising an astonishing 7% of the country's population, a situation never before seen in Canadian history. There are another estimated 500,000 undocumented persons living in Canada, as well as 300,000 people in the asylum queue, many of whom will have bogus claims.

Many of the millions of temporary residents are set to have their visas expire or have visas that already expired. In this context, colleagues, it's not much of a stretch to foresee that Canada's practice of having no restrictions on jus soli citizenship acquisition is likely to be abused by people seeking to stay in the country after their visa expires or after a bogus asylum claim is found to be invalid. This is because, while having a child on Canadian soil theoretically grants no immediate stay rights to parents who are temporary residents, in practice, court rulings, a deeply broken asylum system, protracted appeals and sluggish deportations functionally allow them to remain. Recent videos, especially ones circulating over this weekend on social media advertising this loophole, suggests this may be the case.

The number of people born in Canada to temporary or undocumented residents is not publicly tracked, but recent policies by Canadian hospitals charging temporary residents for giving birth suggest it is a problem, and birth tourism, the practice of non-residents, for example those on visitor visas, travelling to Canada to have their child on Canadian soil so they can obtain citizenship, is also on the rise.

When former prime minister Stephen Harper left office in 2015, birth tourism levels were 590% lower than they are today. Birth tourism is now at its highest level ever, both in terms of absolute levels and percentages. These types of population growth are not accounted for in immigration levels. In this context, Canada is an outlier in granting unconditional birthright citizenship and should move into alignment with peer nations like the U.K. and Germany, which are also experiencing unprecedented immigration crises.

What I have in front of you today, colleagues, is to restrict birthright citizenship to permanent residents—at least one parent being a permanent resident or a citizen. This would align Canada with other peer nations and would somehow.... I don't support Bill C-3, but it could restore the value of Canadian citizenship, which has been eroded over the last 10 years.

Colleagues, without changes to the current unrestricted system of birthright citizenship, as well as with the federal government's relatively porous border policies, Canada risks inviting further organized birth tourism and immigration fraud, as well as further clogging an overwhelmed processing and appeals pipeline.

Being a Canadian should mean something to someone who acquires it and that meaning should be derived from significant enough ties to our nation that a deep understanding of the responsibilities associated with being Canadian becomes joyfully entrenched within a new citizen's fibre. Canadian immigration law and policy should vigorously protect that principle and not erode it.

I think that scrapping the bill in front of us would be a good place to start, but it needs to be severely amended. We are going to be proposing other smart amendments to this bill to protect the value of Canadian citizenship today.

Folks, the decade of unfettered mass immigration, the further erosion of our citizenship through bills like this, and an entrenched and operationalized postnationalist viewpoint from this government have led to a lot of people not understanding what being a Canadian is. Frankly, we see that in the minister of national identity. The minister of national identity said there's no one way to be a Canadian. He didn't talk about respect for rule of law or protecting democratic institutions.

We have a former prime minister who said that Canada's a postnational state. The current Prime Minister could only define Canada as not being American. If these are the leaders of our country, we have a problem with how we obtain citizenship.

If Bill C-3 is to proceed, I believe that we should proceed by restricting birthright citizenship to at least one parent having permanent residence or citizenship and move ourselves into alignment with other peer nations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much, Ms. Rempel Garner.

The amendment is admissible. I just wanted to mention that to everyone.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll be voting against this amendment. In my opinion, birthright citizenship is a principle that must be upheld in our Quebec and Canadian societies. Unfortunately, I see the Conservatives' position as aligning with President Trump's decision to attack birthright citizenship in his own country, south of the border.

I simply wanted to let the committee members know how I would be voting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

Does anybody else want to address this amendment?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London Centre, ON]

We'll be voting against, Madam Chair. We're ready to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Does no one else wants to speak to this?

We now go to a vote on the amendment.

(Amendment negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

Now we'll go to the next amendment. I'll turn again to Ms. Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Chair, are you looking at CPC-1? Fantastic.

Colleagues, I move that Bill C-3, in clause 1, be amended by replacing line 36 on page 3 with “1,095 days during any period of five consecutive years before the person's birth; or”, and by replacing line 28 on page 4 with the following—

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

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

The interpreters are a bit confused. I want to make sure that the interpreters accurately convey the points raised.

Can we start over? I'm not the only one listening to the interpreters. A number of other people are listening to them too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Okay. What I'm hearing is that we want to establish where we're at.

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

We weren't necessarily keeping up with the discussion. I just wanted to make sure—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

I don't understand. Do we need a few minutes for the interpreters?

Okay. Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I wasn't confused for once. It was a strange thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

Ms. Rempel Garner, go ahead on CPC-1.

Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'll start again. I move that Bill C-3, in clause 1, be amended, first, by replacing line 36 on page 3 with the following:

1,095 days during any period of five consecutive years before the person's birth; or

Second, it would replace line 28 on page 4 with the following:

1,095 days during any period of five consecutive years before the person's birth.

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

I have a point of order.

The interpreter doesn't have the text. I'm not the only one listening to the interpreter. We need to make sure that the interpreter is given the correct text so that everyone listening to the French can follow along. It's about complying with the Official Languages Act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

I'm just going to suspend for one minute, please, so we can figure out where things are at.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dzerowicz]

We are now back in session.

I think our interpreters are now onside. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you, Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe, for alerting us to the issue.

We are discussing CPC-1.

Ms. Rempel Garner, would you mind starting from the top, please?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I move that Bill C-3, in clause 1, be amended, first, by replacing line 36 on page 3 with the following:

1,095 days during any period of five consecutive years before the person's birth; or

Second, it would replace line 28 on page 4 with the following:

1,095 days during any period of five consecutive years before the person's birth.

Briefly, colleagues, the reason for this amendment is to ensure that—

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

I have a point of order.

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

The English version refers to “1,095” days, while the French version refers to “15 days”.