Colby Cosh: Is a Canadian a Canadian if he first tortured prisoners for ISIS?

Overly simplistic characterization. One of the problems with the previous government’s legislation on post-citizenship revocation was that it allowed for “offloading” of responsibilities to other countries. The best example to date has been the UK government’s revocation of Jack Letts (“Jihadi Jack”), who was born and raised in the UK with minimal to no time in Canada.

However, as his mother is Canadian, his parents are understandably pressing Canada to take on his case. But correctly speaking, his radicalization occurred in the UK and the UK should not have “offloaded” responsibility to Canada. The Canadian government, to its credit, has not responded substantively to the various persons lobbying on his behalf.

Revocation for misrepresentation at the application stage is fully appropriate, including judicial review rather than leaving it only to the Minister. But post-citizenship, countries should assume their responsibilities which the UK has shamefully not done:

…The new government preserved the state’s pre-2015 right to cancel citizenship for “false representation or fraud” in an application, but it added a proviso for appeal by right to the Federal Court. This means that today’s immigration minister initiates the process for revocation, if he can find evidence of falsehood, but that he is no longer the ultimate decision-maker.

Miller knows all this, whether or not he is hoping you remember it. Nobody’s real concern about the latest accused Toronto terrorists is that the elder of them may have filled out a citizenship application form incorrectly, which is itself a purely speculative possibility. The minister is using the shreds of revocation powers left by (and to) his own government to give the general impression that a terrorist might lose citizenship only for terrorism. But this is a possibility that our prime minister explicitly rejected, and whose rejection he campaigned successfully on. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, even if he fought for ISIS not long before becoming a Canadian. Right?

Source: Colby Cosh: Is a Canadian a Canadian if he first tortured prisoners for ISIS?