Chrétien summoned to testify on immigration influencing 1995 Quebec referendum
The House of Commons’ immigration committee voted unanimously to summon former prime minister Jean Chrétien, his immigration minister, and his then-deputy minister to answer questions.
The House of Commons’ immigration committee voted unanimously to summon former prime minister Jean Chrétien, his immigration minister, and his then-deputy minister to answer questions on the Liberals’ use of fast-tracking newcomers to citizenship to influence the results of Quebec’s 1995 referendum.
During an immigration committee meeting on Tuesday, Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe tabled a motion to investigate Chrétien’s Liberal government’s “Operation Citizenship,” which naturalized immigrants to sway the results of Quebec’s 1995 independence referendum.
Quebec’s separation referendum was voted down by just 1.16 per cent, 54,288 votes out of over 4.7 million valid ballots.
The motion calls for Jean Chrétien, his federal immigration minister at the time, Sergio Marchi and his deputy minister, Senator Peter Harder, and any other relevant witnesses to appear before the committee next week to investigate the “bureaucratic initiative.”
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said her party would support the motion to understand how Canada’s immigration system can be strengthened so a government cannot influence a political outcome by altering immigration processes or documents.
During a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday, Rempel Garner announced a new amendment to Bill C-12, which Conservatives say would prevent the federal government from mass-extending visas or fast-tracking temporary residents to permanent residency. She noted Operation Citizenship as one of the reasons Conservatives added a new amendment after the committee’s study on the border security act concluded.
“I think that the story was sort of like another red flag for me to make sure that the powers in that bill are clarified so that the Liberals can’t use them to extend temporary resident visas,” she said. “If the Liberals have no plans to use the powers in C-12 to extend temporary resident visas massively, then they will support this amendment.”