This Canada Day, we need a new citizenship oath – The Conversation

2019/06/29 Leave a comment

Given the government’s failure to issue a new version of the citizenship guide, we do not know the degree to which the revisions would address these somewhat unrealistic concerns.

The revised version of the Oath proposed in C-99 was overall wordy compared to the TRC recommendation:

This Canada Day might be a good time for Canadians to think about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action. At least three of those (No. 46, 47 and 49) call on Canadians, including newcomers to Canada, to reject concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples.

But my preliminary research shows that concepts taught in the process of acquiring citizenship continue to teach new Canadians colonial relations with the land and with Indigenous peoples.

To become Canadian, immigrants to Canada have to swear or affirm allegiance to the British royal monarch:

“I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors.”

In learning about Canada, new immigrants are taught that the Queen runs through all things Canadian. She is everywhere. Put your hands in your wallet, she is there. Walk onto any land that is outside of city boundaries, it is largely called “Crown” land.

But the Queen is a symbol of the colonization of Indigenous land, a colonization that is ongoing and is reproduced by the citizenship process.

Despite what many would like to believe, ideas of what Canada stands for are not all equitable.

What would it mean to follow the TRC calls, and study, learn and live Indigenous ways of relating to land?

Colonial citizenship

Canadian citizenship is a social construct — a concept that seems fixed but is actually created by the changing cultures and people in a society. The idea of Canadian citizenship carries ideologies and power relations that are perpetuated through forms of public pedagogy — like popular culture, education and gate-keeping systems such as the citizenship process.

To become a Canadian citizen, immigrants have to study Discover Canadaand score at least 15/20 on an exam that teaches them ways of imagining Canada. It details their expected practices and behaviours as citizens. It teaches them Canadian history.

For example:

“The arrival of European traders, missionaries, soldiers and colonists changed the native way of life forever. Large numbers of Aboriginals died of European diseases to which they lacked immunity.”

In this version of history, we are told that Indigenous people merely died from disease, not that these diseases were purposely spread by the British. We are not told that the colonizers practiced race-based genocide, starvation policies and the separation of children from their parents, through the Indian Residential Schools, the Sixties Scoop and the continuing removal of Indigenous children from their families.

Another excerpt has to do with Canada’s first prime minister:

“After the first Metis uprising, Prime Minister Macdonald established the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) in 1873 to pacify the West and assist in negotiations with the Indians.”

Actually, one of the first assignments given to the North West Mounted Police was to forcibly relocate Indigenous communities in the path of the Canadian railway and Macdonald is the architect of the Indian Residential School system.

A third excerpt uncritically explains:

“Mining remains a significant part of the Canadian economy.”

A history of death and neglect

Colonial ways of imagining and belonging to Canada and colonial relationships with Indigenous people are at the heart of injustices that Canada continues to perpetuate.

Colonization is a key driver of how the federal government continues to neglect the health and education of Indigenous children. And the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women report directly links the ongoing deaths of Indigenous women, girls and trans-people to colonial structures.

This colonial history presents a unique set of challenges for immigrants who have pledged their allegiance to a colonial queen. The citizenship exam attempts to bring new immigrants into Canada as allies of colonialism and frames Canada as a benevolent nation. How can immigrants decolonize their relationship to Canada?

Honoring indigeneity for immigrants is not just about saying we are all settlers — a term that assumes we are all white and relate to Canada in identical ways. And honouring indigeneity is not just a land acknowledgement in a ceremony — though that can be a starting point.

A new oath of citizenship

In her book, Pathways for Remembering and Recognizing Indigenous Thought in Education, University of Toronto Prof. Sandra D. Styres explains that Indigenous ways of relating to land centre on three practices: learning whose traditional lands we are on; committing to understanding stories and knowledges of those lands; and choosing to respect these stories of the land.

These Indigenous ways of relating to land are different from the colonial ones most Canadians are taught. These ways do not fit neatly with Canada’s colonial relations to the Queen to whom Canadians have pledged allegiance.

The TRC has called for a new oath of citizenship:

“I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including Treaties with Indigenous Peoples, and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.”

Learning Indigenous philosophies

Such an oath is in the works, and would highlight immigrants as treaty people and their treaty obligations. But what of the history of colonial relations that immigrants are asked to learn and subscribe to so they can become citizens?

In 1974, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, also known as the Berger Inquiry, sought input from Indigenous nations about opening up their lands of the Yukon and the Northwest territories to a pipeline. Phillip Blake, a Dene and social worker, testified at a community hearing in 1975. His words offer a powerful philosophy for relations of belonging for those who come to settle on Indigenous land:

“We have always tried to treat our guests well, it never occurred to us that our guests would one day claim that they owned our whole house. Yet that is exactly what is happening.…White people came as visitors to our land. Suddenly they claim it as their land. They claim that we have no right to call it Indian land, land that we have occupied and used for thousands of years.…

I strongly believe that we do have something to offer your nation, however, something other than our minerals. I believe it is in the self-interest of your own nation to allow the Indian nation to survive and develop in our own way, on our own land. For thousands of years we have lived with the land, we have taken care of the land, and the land has taken care of us…

It is our greatest wish to be able to pass on this land to succeeding generations in the same condition that our fathers have given it to us.…I believe your nation might wish to see us, not as a relic from the past, but as a way of life, a system of values by which you may survive in the future. This we are willing to share.”

Source: This Canada Day, we need a new citizenship oath – The Conversation

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Australia: Labor should let hope prevail on refugees, shadow minister Andrew Giles says

2019/06/27 Leave a comment

Post-election positioning. Even the government seems to have turned down its pre-election rhetoric as seen in its apparent abandoning some of its citizenship proposals (Whatever happened to the ‘Australian values’ citizenship bill?):

Public sentiment on asylum seekers has shifted, and Labor must use the looming parliamentary term to “give Australia’s hopeful side a fair chance to prevail over the politics of fear, and division” according to the shadow minister for multicultural affairs, Andrew Giles.

Giles will use a speech to Australian Fabians on Wednesday to argue the recent community debate around the medical evacuations bill, and the tone of the federal election, suggests Australians are over the toxic politics of border protection, and are fatigued by the “false binaries and unnecessary aggression” from the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton.

The Victorian leftwinger will say it was notable that border protection, and the “demonisation of asylum seekers” did not feature front and centre in the 2019 federal election, which is unusual compared with previous federal contests. “I’m not sure if we can quite characterise this as something to celebrate, but it is a significant development – something to build upon.”

Giles says the “noise” of the hyper-partisan conflict over border protection policy that has raged in Australia since the Tampa standoff “has crowded out both a reasoned and reasonable exchange of ideas, and the voices of those whose lives are directly affected by the policy choices we make”.

Source: Labor should let hope prevail on refugees, shadow minister Andrew Giles says

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Egypt considers pros, cons of foreign citizenship changes

2019/06/27 Leave a comment

Another citizenship-by-investment approach with explicit political involvement :

The topic of granting foreigners Egyptian citizenship has long been controversial, and proposed amendments to the Egyptian Nationality Law are no exception.

The recent proposals have stirred up many questions since the Egyptian government submitted them to parliament in April. They received initial approval June 9 of the parliamentary Defense and National Security Committee, which will discuss them further and then submit them to parliament’s general assembly for final voting.

Article 2 of the amendment bill would entitle the prime minister to grant nationality to foreigners who buy real estate owned by the Egyptian state or other public entities; it also establishes an investment project in Egypt in accordance with the investment law or deposits a sum of money in foreign currency in Egyptian banks.

Article 3 stipulates forming a Council of Ministers unit to examine naturalization applications. This unit will comprise security authorities and representatives of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Investment and International Cooperation. The same article states foreigners would submit naturalization applications after paying $10,000. The unit would examine applications within three months while considering national security. If the prime minister grants initial approval, an applicant would be granted residence in Egypt for six months to complete the required procedures.

Opinions on the amendments vary among parliament members, political and economic observers, and citizens.

The Egyptian Businessmen’s Association (EBA) praised the amendments to the Egyptian Nationality Law, also known as Law No. 26 of 1975.

EBA vice chairman Fathallah Fawzi said in a June 17 press statement the proposed amendments to that law and a bundle of others — most notably the unified Investment Law — will help grow the real estate sector in Egypt and create a more attractive business climate for foreign investors.

But speculation abounds. Some critics see the proposed amendments as a move to pave the way for the US plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, dubbed by US President Donald Trump the “deal of the century.” That deal is being discussed this week at an economic summit in Bahrain.

Many Egyptians were concerned the US plan will include an offer to establish a place for Palestinians in parts of the Sinai. But US officials denied this, and Yahya al-Kadwani, a member of Egypt’s parliamentary Defense and National Security Committee, told Al-Monitor that’s not likely to happen.

He noted that in 1959, Egypt ratified an Arab League recommendation exhorting Arab countries not to grant nationality to Palestinians so as not to weaken the Palestinian movement to establish a homeland.

Talaat Khalil, a member of the parliamentary Planning and Budget Committee, said some Egyptians, himself included, also fear amendments to the Egyptian Nationality Law would be used as leverage to get Palestinians to cooperate with the US peace plan by offering them Egyptian citizenship.

He said amendments aren’t necessarily even needed, as not having Egyptian nationality is unlikely to prevent foreign investors from establishing projects in Egypt. In a June 11 statement to BBC, Khalil said the current unified Investment Law already gives foreign investors many advantages and opportunities equal to those of Egyptian investors, in addition to almost open-ended residency permits.

Other critics claim the amendments aim to pressure refugees, especially Syrians, to invest more in exchange for citizenship. Reports by the Istanbul-based Arabic Post and Qatari Al-Jazeera news websites, which oppose the Egyptian regime, potentially linked the nationality law amendments to a campaign launched by Samir Sabri, an Egyptian lawyer close to the regime.

On June 9, Sabri filed a complaint asking the government to examine the funds of Syrian refugees to ensure they’re not used for money laundering or terrorist financing. The news reports said Sabri’s complaint might aim to pressure Syrians in Egypt to invest more in real estate or make greater bank and investment savings to obtain Egyptian citizenship.

Yet, Bahaa al-Ghamri, a political science professor at Suez Canal University, questioned the Arabic Post and Al-Jazeera articles. He told Al-Monitor the Egyptian state has always welcomed Syrian and other Arab refugees fleeing civil wars and security unrest in their country.

“The amendments to the Nationality Law will favor affluent Arab and Syrian refugees. Refugees in Egypt are prohibited from engaging in many business activities such as establishing pharmacies, newspapers and some other types of companies. Once the amendments are effective, many Syrians who wish to invest in these fields will be able to do so and get Egyptian citizenship in return,” Ghamri said.

Osama Rushdy, a lawyer specializing in the incorporation of companies and representing many foreign investors, denounced attempts to link the amendments to the “deal of the century” or the Syrian crisis. He argued that the amendments aim to promote the Egyptian investment climate and make investing easier.

“Many refugees in Egypt are unable to invest because of their status as refugees, since they don’t have permanent residency. Giving them Egyptian citizenship is the best way to secure permanent residency,” Rushdy told Al-Monitor.

“The old and current investment laws don’t allow foreign investors to incorporate specific types of companies except in cases of Egyptian partnerships such as those with limited shares, with 49% of the shares held by Egyptians. This [high] percentage of shares could force the foreign investor to accept interventions by one or more unwanted Egyptian partners,” he said.

Rushdy added, “It’s better for foreign investors to obtain Egyptian citizenship to facilitate investment and business procedures.”

Source: Egypt considers pros, cons of foreign citizenship changes

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Citizenship policy challenges the next government will face – My latest

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Citizenship is the neglected child of immigration-related policies. It attracts less attention, and it has a lower profile and fewer resources than other areas. This is evidenced by wide swings in the number of new citizens, periodic funding shortfalls and the paucity of data, compared with that for immigration.

….

Full text: Citizenship policy challenges the next government will face

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Whatever happened to the ‘Australian values’ citizenship bill?

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Spoiler – Identity politics and the election:

Nothing seemed as urgent as the protection of Australian values when journalists were called to the Prime Minister’s courtyard two years ago to hear of new laws that would make it harder for migrants to gain citizenship.

Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton stood side by side in Parliament House to announce a bill that would require newcomers to pass stricter English tests and sign a “values statement” before they could become Australians.

This sounded absolutely imperative. The law would be put to Parliament “as soon as possible” to not only apply the new tests but also require permanent residents to wait at least four years, rather than just one, before they could apply for citizenship.

There would even be a change to the preamble in the citizenship law so that new citizens would accept the obligation to “pledge their allegiance” to Australia and its people.

But an election victory changes everything. The new law is no longer as urgent as it seemed in April 2017. The Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017 has been dropped into a filing cabinet and may never be seen again.

The quiet demise of this proposal is a curious shift from years of government warnings about the need for citizens to speak better English and respect Australian laws.

“We want them to demonstrate that they’re adhering to Australian values and that is why it’s incredibly important on all of those levels to get this change through the Parliament,” Dutton told Ray Hadley on 2GB in the middle of 2017.

The proposal was the product of its time. Turnbull stood alongside Dutton at a point when Tony Abbott was mounting a conservative offensive from the backbench. One year into his tenure as Prime Minister, Turnbull was at risk of looking too “progressive” for his own side.

And the political objective of the bill was never in doubt.

“We’re standing up for Australian values and the Parliament should do so too,” said Turnbull in the courtyard.

“So if Labor doesn’t sign up they don’t respect Australian values?” asked a journalist. Turnbull did not have to answer the question directly for the implication to be obvious.

Bill Shorten and his shadow ministers, including citizenship spokesman Tony Burke, resisted the pressure to wave the bill through. Burke said the language test was “ridiculous” because it required university-level standards.

The uproar ran for months. The current citizenship test, put in place by the Howard government, is described as a de facto English test because it asks 20 questions about Australian history and culture. The new test would have required “competent” English to Level 6 of the general training stream of the International English Language Testing System.

Of course new citizens should be encouraged to speak English, but this was not the principle at stake in the government plan. At issue were the scale of the change and the difficulty of the test. The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia called the proposed standard “punitive” and unnecessary.

The result, a political stand-off, raised the usual question when politicians thunder about values. What did they want more: an outcome or a fight? It was easy to see the bill as an example of conservative virtue signalling.

Eager to hear the roar of the “values” debate, the government revved the engine so hard the parts glowed red and the radiator ran dry. Was it worth it? Turnbull certainly did not prosper from his appeal to the right. The bill was hardly front-and-centre in the election campaign. It is a footnote on the long list of reasons for Shorten’s defeat.

The Immigration Minister, David Coleman, now has carriage of the citizenship bill and some of the pressing issues around the settlement of new migrants, not least the way Australia looks after new refugees. One item on his agenda is a review of settlement services.

Coleman has no history of starting culture wars. He knows multicultural Australia better than many politicians, given his seat of Banks in southern Sydney is considered one of the country’s most diverse. His focus appears to be on the practical.

The final status of the plan is uncertain. The bill will not come back to Parliament but none of the proposals has been formally rejected – not the English standard, the four-year wait, the values statement, the “pledge of allegiance” or anything else.

Some sections of the bill gave the immigration minister more discretion to reject citizenship applications, a feature that troubled experts but did not gain as much attention as the language test. There may be a natural tendency in any government to bring these sorts of changes back to Parliament.

Yet the fact remains that the government chooses to let the bill fall by the wayside even when the new Parliament seems to give it a stronger chance of getting its way. The Coalition would only need the support of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the Australian Conservatives’ Cory Bernardi and Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie to pass the bill.

A spokeswoman for Coleman says the government “continues to monitor” the citizenship requirements and the broader citizenship program.

Morrison has extraordinary authority from his election victory. How he uses his power remains to be seen. Perhaps his approach to the citizenship bill is a sign that he feels no obligation to pander to the right.

On population and migration, Morrison set out his goals in March in a 44-page statement that made no mention of citizenship tests and spoke about urban congestion far more than values.

In any case, the government would prefer to fight on the refugee medical transfer bill. All its firepower in this portfolio will be focused on the medevac debate when the new Parliament meets.

This means the citizenship bill has served its purpose. The government was able to flex its muscle, pick a fight with Labor and appeal to a group of conservative voters it feared losing during the Turnbull years.

The argument was entirely shaped by the weaknesses of the government, riven as it was by the divisions between left and right, and the result was years of hot air. No law was changed. No wonder Australians are so cynical about the empty posturing in Canberra.

Like an old car with a burnt-out engine, the “Australian values” bill may now be left to rust in a field.

Source: Whatever happened to the ‘Australian values’ citizenship bill?

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UK accused of profiteering on Syrians’ child citizenship fees

2019/06/20 Leave a comment

Not quite a weekly event, yet another example of hard to justify UK citizenship and immigration policies and practices (when Canada raised its adult fees in 2014-15, it maintained the low fee for children):

The UK government could profit by more than £5m by charging children who have fled war-torn Syria to apply for British citizenship, according to research.

The revelation, based on the Home Office’s own data, has sparked accusations that the government is profiteering from vulnerable children and making a windfall profit by driving vulnerable families into debt.

Campaigners point out that the government will profit whether the Syrian children’s applications are successful or not: if they are refused, applicants are not refunded. If children reapply for citizenship, the fee must be paid again.

Valerie Peay, the director of the International Observatory of Human Rights, has called on the next prime minister to end the “practice of profiteering from vulnerable children”.

The UK charges 10 times more than any other European country for child citizenship fees, at £1,012 per child, plus £19.20 to provide biometric information. They are charged an extra £80 if they turn 18 during the application process. The cost of processing the application is £372.

The charges have increased 51% in the last five years, during the period when Theresa May’s Home Office instigated a “hostile environment” policy to reduce immigration numbers.

Source: UK accused of profiteering on Syrians’ child citizenship fees

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Sajid Javid’s decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship questioned by one of UK’s most senior judges

2019/06/11 Leave a comment

On the statelessness aspect:

One of Britain’s most senior judges has called into question Sajid Javid’s decision to strip Isil bride Shamima Begum of her British citizenship.

Jonathan Sumption, who retired as a justice of the Supreme Court in December, indicated that the Home Secretary may have breached international law by effectively making Ms Begum stateless.

Mr Javid claimed that Begum, 19, whose parents came to the UK from Bangladesh, was a Bangladeshi citizen under that country’s law even though she had never been to Bangladesh.

This meant he could remove her British citizenship without making her stateless.

Speaking on the BBC’s Reith Lecture today, however, Lord Sumption said: “I am frankly surprised at the suggestion that she can be regarded as the citizen of a country with which she has never had anything to do but that is the Government’s position and I have no doubt it will be tested in the courts in due course.”

The Bangladesh Government has rejected the British claim that she is a Bangladesh citizen and said it would refuse to accept her, although its nationality laws do include a right of “citizenship by descent” to anyone who is born to a Bangladeshi parent.

This right only lapses when a person reaches the age of 21.

Lawyers for Begum, who fled London to join Isil in Syria and married an Isis fighter with whom she had three babies, all of whom died, are however appealing the Home Secretary’s decision.

Asked if the removal of citizenship also meant a person lost their standing under human rights, Lord Sumption said: “What they lose is their citizenship. That doesn’t necessarily deprive them of their standing when it comes to human rights.

“I have no problem with the notion of depriving people of their citizenship who have gone abroad to fight in foreign wars save this.

“It’s an established principle of international law that you cannot deprive somebody of his or her citizenship if the result would be to render them stateless.

“And whatever they may have done in Syria or anywhere else, that rule has always been applied and will no doubt be applied in this case.”

Source: Sajid Javid’s decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship questioned by one of UK’s most senior judges

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Australia: The Section 44 soap opera: why more MPs could be in danger of being forced out

2019/06/08 Leave a comment

Good overview on the issues and likely one of the factors in relatively poor representation of visible minorities and immigrants in Australia:

One thing we learned from the recent election campaign is that the political crisis over Section 44 of the Constitution has not gone away.

Many candidates in the election had their eligibility to stand for parliament questioned and some were even forced to withdraw from their races.

Despite all the attention given to this matter over the last couple of years, and the various procedures introduced to address it, Section 44 will only continue to be a problem until the parliament steps in to address it.

To do that, we first need to address seven myths about Section 44.

1. Everyone knows their citizenship, they just need to do their paperwork

Section 44 is about more than just citizenship – it covers a variety of restrictions on who can serve in parliament.

For instance, a GP who bulk-bills a patient could be considered to have a “pecuniary interest in an agreement with the Commonwealth.” And a postman or a nurse in a public hospital could be deemed to hold “an office of profit under the Crown.”

On citizenship, the section doesn’t just disqualify dual citizens, it also bars those “entitled” to citizenship elsewhere (even if they haven’t applied for it) and those “entitled to the rights and privileges” of citizenship (basically, the “right of abode”, or being entitled to enter a country and live there).

Such entitlements are not easy to discover and almost impossible to remove, because they’re embedded in foreign legislation.

2. It doesn’t affect many people

On the contrary, the parliamentary committee investigating the matterestimated half the adult Australian population, or more, could be disqualified by law or impeded in practice from standing for parliament.

In the recent election, we saw one potential candidate withdraw because she was an Australia Post employee and another because she was entitled under Indian law to some privileges of Indian citizenship.

As a result, the Australian parliament becomes even less representative of the Australian people.

3. The constitution framers knew what they were doing

The original text agreed to at the constitutional convention in 1898 simply said anyone who had acquired foreign citizenship by their own actwas disqualified from standing for parliament.

The text that eventually became Section 44 was inserted surreptitiously by one of the key architects of the constitution (and Australia’s first prime minister), Edmund Barton, as a drafting amendment. He introduced 400 amendments on the second-to-last day of the convention, but made no mention of this change, and expressly denied there had been any changes to Section 44 apart from a minor one to another subsection.

4. The High Court has sorted it out

Far from it. Very few cases challenging Section 44 have made it that far, partly because the court has done everything possible to fend them off, including trashing the constitutional provision giving citizens the right to challenge the eligibility of parliamentarians. Politicians have also refused to refer cases to the court unless it’s advantageous to their party.

And when the court has heard a case, it has construed its task so narrowlyas to give little guidance to future action on the section. In particular, it has said nothing about the disqualification of those MPs “entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship” in other countries.

In fact, when Senator Matthew Canavan’s eligibility was challenged because Italian laws had changed to permit citizenship to descendents of native Italians, the High Court noted that the law was fairly generous, but one had to apply. Canavan hadn’t applied, therefore couldn’t be an Italian citizen.

But if he had applied and then received Italian citizenship because he was eligible (as his brother had done), he would have been disqualified by Section 44.

This was all too much for the court to sort out. As a result, it offered no clarity on the large number of MPs whose eligibility hangs on what sorts of “entitlement” would disqualify them.

5. But there are administrative checks now, too

Well, yes, but nobody does anything about them. In 2017, all MPs were asked to fill out a form documenting their ancestry and citizenship, and the responses were then logged in a citizenship register. This showed some 15-20 MPs were entitled to foreign citizenship and a total of 59 had the “right of abode” in the UK, which the High Court has decided is the key to the “right and privilege” of citizenship.

But no action was taken on any of these cases. The register appears as a matter of record only.

Similarly, although the Australian Electoral Commission is now requiring candidates to complete a similar form, it does not take action against those who refuse to submit it, or leave sections blank. One candidate was referred to the police, but this was clearly a pointless face-saving exercise.

6. We want our MPs to be unequivocally Australian

Having foreign ancestry does not make you un-Australian. Section 44 does nothing to establish the strength of identity or loyalty – it simply prevents an undefined, but potentially very large, slice of the population from standing for parliament.

One case illustrates the ludicrous reach of the present wording.

After Lithuania regained its independence in 1990, it passed a citizenship law that gave people born outside the country to Lithuanian parents the right to citizenship. In 2016, this provision was expanded to cover those with Lithuanian grandparents. As a result, Senator Doug Cameron, whose Scottish burr we are used to hearing on news broadcasts, became eligible for Lithuanian citizenship.

While Cameron could (and did) renounce his British citizenship to qualify for election to the Australian parliament, he cannot renounce his entitlement to Lithuanian citizenship. And while some people have very strong views about Cameron, I have never heard it suggested he was working to a Lithuanian agenda rather than an Australian one.

7. It’s too hard to change the Constitution

The same thing was said about amending the Marriage Act to permit same-sex couples to marry. The public recognises there’s a problem with Section 44 and it expects the politicians to fix it.

The best shot came with the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which recommended adding the words “until the parliament otherwise provides” to Section 44. This would not change the law, just where the law is made.

Instead of disqualifications being defined by the laws in foreign countries, as the High Court has interpreted Section 44, they could be determined by the Australian parliament. This is how qualifications of senators and members are currently decided. It’s also how women got the vote in 1902.

If this proposal was strongly supported by all the parties and clearly explained to the electorate, it would likely pass in the next election.

So where does this leave us?

It all comes down to leadership. Up to now, both the Coalition and Labor have been primarily motivated by partisan advantage: how can we use Section 44 to score a political point?

The Joint Standing Committee showed that with a willingness to collaborate, there is a path forward to solving the problem. The best we can hope for is that after the trauma of the last few years, and the evidence of the continuing decline in support for the main parties, political leaders will see that acting constructively on Section 44 might actually be in the best interests of both parties.

Source: The Section 44 soap opera: why more MPs could be in danger of being forced out

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Our Canadian war dead deserve the honour of their citizenship

2019/06/06 1 Comment

Largely a repeat of previous columns, with Chapman remaining in denial about Canadian soldiers being British subjects at the time. The distinct Canadian citizenship, versus British subjects resident in Canada, only became a legal reality upon the implementation of the first Canadian citizenship act in 1947:

Over the course of both world wars, 111,000 servicemen wearing Canadian uniforms gave their lives, their last full measure of devotion. Our government calls them Canadian heroes but not Canadian citizens. They’re embraced as British Subjects only.

That means the Brits fought all our infamous “Canadian” battles — from the Somme, Arras, and Vimy Ridge during the First World War, to Dieppe and D-Day in the Second.

This is an egregious rewrite of history, perpetrated by former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King — the force behind deliberate deceptions as to the origin of Canadian citizenship.

That means the Brits fought all our infamous ‘Canadian’ battles

In 1867 our first governor general announced, with pride, that Canada had just created a new nationality. Over time, often controversial legislation evolved further the definition of Canadian citizenship. In 1943 as a rallying cry to the soldiers heading into war, Ottawa published a booklet saying they were fighting as “citizens of Canada,” a widely accepted belief, both then and now. Numerous Supreme Court decisions upheld this as truth.

Nonetheless, like a magical sleight of hand, in January 1947, King had himself sworn in as Canada’s first-ever citizen. While historic nonsense, today’s government buys into it, thus refusing to accept our war dead.

This June 6, on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, will we be honouring Canadian or British soldiers?

Canadians don’t seem to care — a stark contrast to our southern neighbours. If the U.S. rejected their war dead, Americans would be screaming — and rightly so. In Canada, the Lost Canadians organization is almost alone in embracing our heroes as also having been citizens.

During the Harper years we filed a petition asking the government to recognize them. The Conservatives refused. Next came the Trudeau government, responding similarly. Interesting how both sides publicly and eagerly embrace “our” soldiers, like on Remembrance Day or the 75th anniversary of D-Day, but behind the scenes with double-standard clarity, they snub with equal enthusiasm.

Don’t our Canadian heroes deserve better?

Mackenzie King’s racist and anti-Semitic ways are well documented. Catering to his base, he wanted to rid Canada of what they considered to be “undesirables.” Targeted were Asians, starting with Japanese-Canadians. In the mid-1940s Mackenzie King’s cabinet issued an Order in Council cancelling their citizenship. The Supreme Court upheld that Order in 1946, leading to 4,000 people first being stripped of their Canadian citizenship and their legal rights, then deported. Seven hundred were children born in Canada.

How can you cancel citizenship in 1946 if it didn’t exist till 1947? You can’t in law, but you can through grandstanding and creating false narratives.

To explain King’s about-face, it had everything to do with getting rid of the Japanese-Canadians. At the time, in 1946, the United Nations considered the deportation of one’s own citizens to be a “crime against humanity,” especially after what had just happened in Germany. To avoid running afoul of international opinion, King cancelled the citizenship of Japanese-Canadians. Almost 4,000, most of them born or naturalized Canadians, were sent to Japan. Almost immediately afterwards King had himself sworn in as “Canada’s first Canadian citizen.”

It was a lie then, and it’s a lie now. The problem is that for 72 years, Canada has denied citizenship to people born before 1947, saying it didn’t exist until then.

Lost Canadians has advocated for legislation to correct the pre-1947 citizenship anomalies. To date there have been seven bills correcting most of the citizenship problems. But not, as of yet, for those who gave their lives for Canada in the world wars.

This D-Day, who will you be honouring? Every Canadian prime minister should be proud to call Canada’s fallen heroes “citizens.” Whomever is buried in the Tomb of Canada’s Unknown Soldier should not be a foreigner.

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Australian citizenship: Waiting time drops by ten per cent

2019/06/04 Leave a comment

I always had looked up to Australia when working on citizenship given their service standard, if I remember correctly, that 80 percent of applications would be assessed within six months. Since then, the various policy changes and likely funding constraints have resulted in a significant backlog, even if the situation appears to be improving:

The number of migrants granted Australian citizenship has doubled compared to last year and the waiting time has dropped according to the Department of Home Affairs.

The latest figures released by the department reveal the waiting time for Australian citizenship has dropped by ten per cent.

The time period from lodgement to citizenship ceremony (by conferral) has dropped for 75 per cent of applications from 20 months to 18 months.

For 90 per cent of applications, though, it remains unchanged at 23 months.

Australian Citizenship May 2019

The Department attributed the reduction in waiting time to a range of reforms implemented to streamline the process.

“There is no greater privilege than Australian Citizenship and the Department takes its responsibility to efficiently and effectively process applications within the law very seriously.

“The number of people approved as Australian Citizens between 1 July 2018 and 30 April 2019 is around double the number approved in the same period last year.

“This follows from the implementation of a range of reforms that seek to streamline Departmental processes as much as possible without compromising on national security or program integrity,” a spokesperson of the Department told SBS Hindi.

“Long queue will continue to reduce”

Despite the drop in the waiting time and an increase in the number of approvals, the long queue of people awaiting the outcome of their citizenship application is still well above 200,000.

According to the Department of Home Affairs, there were 221,859 applications in the queue as of May 26th 2019.

The department, however, states the number of applications in the queue has significantly reduced compared to over 250,000 last year.

Indian population in Australia increases 30 per cent in less than two years; now the third largest migrant group in Australia
After England and China, India ranks third on the list of residents born overseas according to the latest figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

A spokesperson for the Department said with a high level of focus on the Australian Citizenship program, the number of applications waiting for an outcome is expected to continue to reduce.

“The Department is placing a high level of focus on the Australian Citizenship program.

“As a consequence of these measures, the number of Citizenship by conferral applications on-hand with the Department is reducing and is expected to continue to reduce.

“The improvement has occurred against a backdrop of a record number of applications and an increase in complex cases in recent years,” it said.

Source: Australian citizenship: Waiting time drops by ten per cent

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