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I believe we're just a couple of weeks away from Christmas. So far nobody said Happy Holidays. Thank God. We have lots coming up for you today.
Still I have this hour at David Millgard, who will be joining us. David spent 23 years of his life in prison. He was convicted of sexual assault in the murder of a young person's Saskatchewan. And of course as we all know in this country now, he was innocent.
I've talked to David a couple of times this week about an excerpt from something that he wrote for Canada 150, which appeared in newspapers across this country. And one of the questions I asked him was, Have you been in prison for 15 years or longer for a crime that you did not commit? And they come to you and they say, look, if you'll just plead guilty, just plead guilty. We'll let you go.
Why didn't you do that? Because many people would. Well, I'll ask David to answer that question later on in the hour. Also I had this hour, Abdrihin Fukara, who's the Washington bureau chief of Al Jazeera on the moving of the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
That's not going to happen overnight. But there has been a lot of response in the Middle East. And we're going to begin with Michelle Rimple. She's a immigration critic for the Conservative Party of Canada.
And yesterday there was an exchange between Mrs. Rimple and the immigration minister, the Liberal immigration minister of Medicine, in a parliamentary committee that had to do with the... Michelle, was it all about the citizenship guide or was there something else that was being discussed in that committee? Yeah.
The minister was appearing in front of our committee on a routine motion to look at something called supplementary estimates. This is the process by which parliament allocates funding to the government for various expenditures. So in these meetings, the minister is expected to show up and be prepared on a wide variety of topics. I chose to go on this topic.
What shouldn't have been a surprise to him. I've been raising it for the last 10 days. And earlier in the week I had raised the issue of the fact that they've outsourced the citizenship guide, test questions to be developed. That's where I started my question line.
I honestly didn't think that it was going to go that way because I thought the minister was going to take on the question. And yeah, it was a surprise to a lot of people I think. So you said what to the minister and how did he respond? Because from why I understand it became somewhat heated.
As a matter of fact, let's have a listen to a little bit of it. The government has recently gone to tender for a vendor who will write Canada citizenship test. And it's also my understanding that the government has decided to revise Canada citizenship guide. Ostensibly there will be expenditures related to this decision and my questions relate to the content of both instruments, which has relevance to the expenditures included therein.
Will the minister reverse his decision to remove female genital mutilation from Canada citizenship guide? I haven't done that in the assertion that first of all, the citizenship guide hasn't been written. We're still in the consultation stage to proceed. So the draft, can I finish my answer?
I don't have enough time. I'm trying to finish my answer. Mr. Chair, can I finish?
Mr. Chair, can I finish? Mr. Chair, can I finish my answer?
Point of order. I was asking a yes or no question. I've been asking a question. I'd like to finish my answer.
Mr. Chair, please. That's possible. On to quorum.
You must appreciate it. I have very limited amount of time to question the minister. I'm looking for a yes or no answer, not a talk-the-clock answer. So I will be brief and brief.
The honourable member is suggesting that I've removed something from a product that hasn't been completed. So that's how it went. Yesterday, so you were trying to get a yes or no on the removal of female genital mutilation, that the minister wouldn't give you an answer. Further in the discussion, the reason why I've been raising this is that a draft version of the citizenship guide was released in late June.
So this is an out for months. It was reported on in the media. And media reports showed that that particular section of the guide had been removed in the draft. So my question line was, well, so he went on to say, well, we're consulting.
And I asked, well, which group would possibly want that removed from the guide? And after interrogation, he said, well, no one. And I said, well, you commit to reversing this decision. Well, we haven't finished consulting it.
So what we're talking about is nowhere in this, I think it was about nine minutes exchange that he condemned the process of FTM. And beyond me is that if no one is asking for this to be removed, then why would they still be – why is this a question? Like, why am I spending nine minutes of parliamentary committee time listening to you to obfuscate on this issue? It was beyond the pale.
It was bizarre. And I just don't understand what happens. I don't understand motivation there. Who's doing the review?
Who they're doing the consulting with? And why is it necessary to have any consultation on FGM? So that is the question I asked the minister, and that he responded with the same line he did over and over again, we are consulting. He then suggested that I wasn't consulting, and I pointed out that I had been, and that we had a petition that over close to 20,000 Canadians have signed in a very short period of time asking the government to reverse this decision.
I haven't heard a single advocacy group suggest that shedding light on this practice, which part of the issue is that it happens in a shrouded silence, and that part of the way to combat it is to allow women to understand that this is something that is not tolerable, that it's illegal in Canada, and that their light is to not have this happen to them. Like, having more information about this out there is a good and just thing. I can't imagine somebody phoning you up right now and having a justifiable rationale as to having a line in the citizenship guide that talks about this. No, I don't understand.
I don't understand. You have a minister of the Crown. You know, further in the exchange, you know, the chair of the committee had to intervene, because when I wasn't getting anything, I said, well, what do you think, Minister? What is your opinion?
You know, you use the same talking point. At the end of the day, this is your decision. What is your opinion on it? And he wouldn't answer the chair of the committee, actually had to intervene.
He intervened, and while the minister's opinion is irrelevant. I argued otherwise, but the chair overruled me because the liberal side of the majority of the committee. You know, I've seen a lot of exchanges in parliament. This was the most bizarre.
And frankly, his contempt too. His tone was so contemptuous. It was bizarre. FGM is a criminal offense in this country, is it not?
It is. So it's cotton dried? It is. Beyond that, right?
Like, part of the issue is that women won't report this crime. There's a lot of reasons why women tend to not report it, so it's not usually, it's not something that's frequently prosecuted. True. And that's because there's a lot of social stigma.
You talk to people who are trying to combat the practice. The first line of the sense on this is shedding light on it, right? It's getting information out to the public for people to understand that this is something that they don't have to undergo. So to me, that's why, you know, looking at the citizenship guide in one vehicle to do that, you know, it's different than saying, douse out not murder, right?
That's sort of like a generally accepted, understood principle around the world. And those are crimes that are reported. You know, FGM practices that happen sort of in a shroud of silence. There's something that needs to be in a citizenship guide, and that's why I've been so over-ciferous on this.
Like, I don't know why they would take this, take it out. There's no justification. Seems to me that the other plan is to take it out, and the minister didn't want to be called out on it, and so he didn't want to answer, and he was looking for somebody to help him get away from your question. I mean, that would be speculation on my part.
I'm just saying that's what it sounds like to me. Yeah, it was, I actually had a whole other line of questions prepared because I thought, well, after 10 days of me, you know, badgering him on this, he knew he was coming to the committee. We should have been no surprise that this was being, you know, raised. I thought he was going to just answer it on the first go, and then, you know, he would move on, but I was wrong.
Well, now, of course, they're in a box, and clearly he needs to provide an answer, he needs to provide the correct answer, and he needs to do it quickly, Michelle, because yesterday's performance was just abysmal on the part of the minister. Yeah, I also have expected him after being sort of skewered over this, that he would have issued some sort of a statement afterwards. I mean, you know, I've been on the government side of the aisle before, I've seen, you know, ministers have a, you know, you know, have clarification on the issue, and then the issue with the statement later, they've been silent on this. So I just, I don't understand why.
Maybe there'll be some clarification early in the week, but if not, please stay on it, and let's keep, let you and I keep talking about this, so what's going to happen on this program? Thanks so much, and I appreciate you shedding weight on this issue as well. Thank you very much. Anytime, Michelle, thank you very much.
What you're doing is extremely important. Take care. Michelle, Rample, Calgary, remember Parliament, Conservative Party, remember Parliament. When we come back, Abda Raheem for Cara, the Washington Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera, on the decision by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the fallout from that decision.
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It must be 19 plus Ontario.