The cynical roots of Rempel’s female genital mutilation crusade – iPolitics

2017/12/22 Leave a comment

Martin Patriquin on Michelle Rempel’s raising the issue of FGM and its inclusion or not in the revision of the Discover Canada citizenship guide:

The procedure by which a woman’s clitoris is surgically removed is usually performed without anesthesia and in unsanitary conditions. Unnecessary, retrograde and associated with a host of physical ailments, the surgery also can saddle a woman with a lifetime of psychological issues.

The very purpose of the surgery — to deprive a woman of sexual pleasure — is religiosity at its worst. Only a monster would support such a thing.

A monster — or the Liberal government, according to the blinkered thinking of Conservative MP Michelle Rempel. She seems to believe that the 23rd prime minister of Canada, along with its 20th immigration minister, are in favour of the practice.

Why? Because the Liberal government (she suggests) plans to remove from the pending new citizenship guide a reference to female genital mutilation, which is listed among other “barbaric cultural practices,” including honour killings and forced marriage.

“Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws,” the current guide helpfully points out.

In fact, ‘plans to remove’ is too strong a statement, as the Liberals have yet to release the new citizenship guide, which newcomers use to study for the citizenship test. Nor have the Liberals said that the reference would be excised from the guide, despite the leak of a draft copy this summer that didn’t include it. Whenever he is asked about it, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen typically spouts the words “consultation” and “stakeholders” ad absurdum.

Rempel, who serves as the party’s shadow minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, sees something altogether nefarious in all this bureaucratese. And should the Liberals indeed remove the mention of female genital mutilation, it will be a “tacit message to people that perhaps the Canadian government is OK with it,” Rempel recently said during a radio interview.

open quote 761b1bRempel’s line of questioning strongly suggested Hussen was a cypher, using his position to foist the practice of ritual mutilation on an unsuspecting Canadian public.

So, there you have it. Canada’s current government is in favour of the forced, ritual removal of a part of a woman’s anatomy, according to the Official Opposition. To be clear, Rempel says she doesn’t know why the Liberal government would be gung ho on such a thing. But that hasn’t stopped her from speculating — on the record.

During a recent parliamentary committee hearing, Rempel lobbed loaded questions at Hussen, the apparent goal of which was to suggest the Prime Minister’s Office had asked for the reference to be removed. After Hussen said the PMO hadn’t instructed him to do anything, Rempel aimed for the jugular — or rather, below the belt. “What is your personal view?” Rempel asked Hussen, before the committee chair mercifully cut her off.

Hussen hails from Somalia, where the rate of female genital mutilation is the highest in the world, according to UNICEF. He is a refugee who fled war and strife to become a Canadian citizen and eventually a federal cabinet minister. Rempel’s line of questioning strongly suggested he was a cypher, using his position to foist the practice of ritual mutilation on an unsuspecting Canadian public.

The reference to female genital mutilation in the citizenship guide is similarly loaded. Telling potential citizens that cutting off another person’s body parts is illegal and will be punished is … redundant. Worse still, the inference is clear, and is aimed squarely at a certain subset of would-be Canadian citizens: Muslims.

Not coincidentally, female genital mutilation is carried out in roughly 30 countries, nearly all of them in Africa and nearly all predominantly Muslim. The inclusion of the phrase in the 2011 citizenship guide, much like the Conservative’s “barbaric cultural practices hotline” gambit during the 2015 election, is the stuff of cynical wedge politics meant to leverage revulsion against an identifiable religious group.

It conveniently ignores the fact that immigrants and refugees often flee their countries of origin specifically because of such practices. And it vastly overstates the scope of the problem in Canada.

As in Europe, instances of genital mutilation in this country remain isolated tragedies, and often come to light as a result of arrests. Moreover, the rate of female genital mutilation among those 30 countries has decreased by 30 per cent since 1985, according to UNICEF.

Meanwhile, other types of crimes in Canada are far more common. There were 1,409 police reported hate crimes in 2016 — an increase of 20 per cent since 2013. The homicide rate has also increased by 20 per cent in that time period. There were over 220,000 assaults across the country in 2016, and roughly 159,000 instances of breaking and entering.

One wonders why Rempel isn’t pushing the federal government to remind potential citizens that murder, assault, thievery and race-based aggression are illegal in this country and will be punished. Because it’s obvious, perhaps?

via The cynical roots of Rempel’s female genital mutilation crusade – iPolitics

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i24NEWS – Austria pledges to grant citizenship to Holocaust victim descendants

2017/12/21 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether there is much take up by descendants:

The newly minted Austrian government will grant citizenship to the descendants of Holocaust victims, Haaretz reported Tuesday.The decision comes in the wake of a diplomatic spat between Israel and Vienna as Austria’s new coalition between the conservatives and the far-right Freedom Party was sworn in on Monday, rekindling an alliance from the early 2000s which prompted unease around Europe.

The Freedom Party, led by Heinz-Christian Strache, has a past stained by frequent anti-Semitic incidents and instances of Nazi propaganda, which is why a harsh Israeli response was widely expected

According to a statement released by the Israeli government, “Israel will continue to work with civil servants of the Ministries headed by members of the Freedom Party”, but will also “continue to struggle against Anti-semitism” and “for the commemoration of the Holocaust.”

Some Israeli media have interpreted the statement as a “boycott” of the Freedom Party Ministers at the political level, since it says that “working relations” will continue with “civil servants”.

Others have emphasized that working relations will go on, reading the statement as a weak reaction. The reaction is certainly milder than in 2000, when the Freedom Party first joined a coalition government and Israeli authorities withdrew the Ambassador from Vienna.

Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache has traveled to Israel a number of times, and developed ties with representatives of the Israeli right. In one of his last trips, however, late Israeli President Shimon Peres had refused to meet him.

via i24NEWS – Austria pledges to grant citizenship to Holocaust victim descendants

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Hungary Citizenship Plan Reaches 1 Million Mark in Orban Boost – Bloomberg

2017/12/20 Leave a comment

Electoral strategy:

Hungary’s program to extend citizenship to ethnic kin who are nationals of other countries reached the 1 million mark, boosting Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s already strong chances for re-election next year.

The millionth citizenship under the program, one of the first laws approved by parliament after Orban returned to power in 2010, was awarded to a 36-year-old ethnic Hungarian farmer in Serbia, President Janos Ader said at a ceremony in Budapest over the weekend that Orban also attended.

Ethnic Hungarians living abroad, most of them in areas of neighboring countries that were cut off from Hungary after World War I, overwhelmingly backed Orban in the 2014 parliamentary elections, when more than 95 percent of almost 130,000 of those votes were for the premier’s Fidesz party. Fidesz has a wide lead in all opinion polls over a fragmented opposition ahead of elections next year, where Orban is looking to further consolidate the first “illiberal state” in the European Union, modeled on Russia and Turkey. Orban has said he expects elections to take place in April.

Unlike hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who’ve moved West, ethnic kin living abroad who’ve received citizenship can cast ballots by mail, a recurring criticism for opposition parties who say the rule is discriminatory. At the same time, ethnic kin living abroad get only one vote — for party list — versus two votes for others who also get to pick the candidate for their electoral district to represent them in parliament.

In 2014, 8.2 million Hungarians were eligible to vote, including almost 194,000 ethnic Hungarians living abroad, according to the website of the National Election Office.

via Hungary Citizenship Plan Reaches 1 Million Mark in Orban Boost – Bloomberg

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‘I have no country’: After more than 60 years in Canada, B.C. woman discovers she doesn’t have citizenship

2017/12/18 Leave a comment

There are always some people who fall through the cracks and where the issue (and solution) apparently lies with respect to the administrative processes of IRCC rather than the need for a legislative fix (C-37 and C-24 fixed the legislative gaps for “lost Canadians”):

Irene Gyselinck arrived in Canada as a refugee from Germany on Aug. 25, 1951, with her mother and brother. She was just a one-year-old, and has never known any other home since.

But after more than 60 years in Canada, Gyselinck discovered she’s not actually Canadian.

Gyselinck, 67, grew up in Manitoba and now lives in Deep Cove, B.C. Over the course of her life, she has worked as a welder, car detailer, and artist, among other things. She also married, had two children and was widowed.

She always had a social insurance number, health insurance and paid her taxes.

The realization that she’s not a Canadian citizen has sent her life into a tailspin, leaving her unable to acquire valid identification and at risk of losing her health insurance.

“I always felt like I was part of the system,” she said. “Now, I feel I’ve been here for 66 years and I don’t count.”

The discovery

Gyselinck discovered her status when she tried to enter the U.S. in March 2012 without a passport. Prior to 2009, Canadians entering the U.S. by car were not required to have a passport, and Gyselinck travelled there many times, using her driver’s license as ID.

But this time, Homeland officials turned her back, urging her to get proper travel documents. They said she had no proof she had a right to re-enter Canada, and would need to apply for a temporary visa to return home.

After several hours of confusion, she was eventually escorted back into Canada.

“It really, really confused me and scared me,” said Gyselinck, who immediately applied for a record of her citizenship. Since then, she’s been in a back-and-forth battle with Immigration Canada, trying to obtain documents proving her status as a permanent resident.

To her shock, she discovered she never became a citizen.

The only person who might know how that happened is her 95-year-old mother. But she has debilitating dementia and alzheimers, and is unable to explain how or why her daughter, unlike other family members, slipped through the cracks. Gyselinck does not know why her mother did not fill out the paper work for her to become a Canadian citizen.

Immigration Canada would not comment on how many of these cases exist.

Gyselink does not have German citizenship, either, which makes her effectively stateless.

She says her lack of citizenship likely went undetected for so long because she never applied for a passport or voted, as she preferred to remain politically unengaged.

She said her older brother, who was also born in Germany, was issued a passport when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy at 18. Gyselinck said she now realizes that had she applied for citizenship before the age of 21, she might have avoided the situation she now finds herself in.

“I realized I have no country,” she said. “I’m an undocumented immigrant.”

Panic sets in

In March 2013, Gyselinck’s husband suddenly died. Shortly afterwards, she applied for the survivor benefit allowance, but because of her lack of documentation, found that she wasn’t eligible.

“I didn’t even have time to grieve,” she said.

Gyselinck took steps to apply for a permanent residency card, with the goal of eventually becoming a Canadian citizen. But she soon discovered that her situation was so uncommon, she faced roadblocks at nearly every step in the process.

In June 2013, she sent an application to Immigration Canada to receive a replacement copy of her record of landing at Halifax’s Pier 21, but it was returned and marked “incomplete.”

A few months later she re-applied, and this time received no response at all.

After two years of back and forth, she eventually received confirmation from Immigration Canada that she is a permanent resident. However, she still lacked the proper identification that would allow her to apply for citizenship.

In March 2017, Gyselinck received a letter from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) stating that under a new system, her B.C. health card and driver’s license would be issued together. Because one of her ID cards included her middle initial and the other didn’t, she was asked to come to an ICBC office to update the IDs to avoid problems with her health insurance.​

Gyselinck headed to the office to fix what she thought would be a minor clerical issue. But ICBC told her that without a record of landing, passport or permanent resident card, she couldn’t renew her cards under the new system — or her health insurance.

With a major surgery scheduled in February, panic set in. ​

Gyselinck said the back and forth with Immigration Canada has been emotionally devastating, and that she now suffers severe insomnia.

“It’s totally consumed me, the anxiety and stress has caused me to go onto medication,” she said, adding that she’s retired and cannot afford an immigration lawyer.

“It’s really affected me emotionally, it’s isolated me. I’m always in panic mode, so people just don’t want to talk to me.”

‘Very betrayed’

Immigration Canada confirmed to CBC News that Gyselinck arrived in Canada in 1951 and, according to their records, is not a citizen.

They said children who arrive in Canada at a young age must apply for citizenship along with their parents.

A spokesperson for Immigration Canada initially responded to CBC’s request for information by directing Gyselinck to apply for a permanent residency card.

After CBC asked specific questions about the hurdles Gyselinck faced in trying to apply, Immigration Canada assigned a case worker to the file.

The B.C. health ministry has now told Gyselinck that her health number will remain active until February so she can undergo her surgery.

Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said cases like Gyselinck’s are not as uncommon as they might seem — especially in cases from decades ago. Immigrant parents might not have applied for citizenship for their children because they didn’t understand the process, or couldn’t afford to.

“The person has worked so hard to get a solution and they’re only at the permanent residence confirmation decision,” he said. He added that Gyselinck “should be allowed to immediately apply for citizenship, because she obviously qualifies.”

Gyselinck said her experience has left her feeling “very betrayed.”

“I’ve always been proud to be Canadian, so to speak, because I thought I was. And I still consider myself a Canadian after all this.”

via ‘I have no country’: After more than 60 years in Canada, B.C. woman discovers she doesn’t have citizenship – British Columbia – CBC News

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Cost of British citizenship for children is now 22 times more expensive than Germany | The Independent

2017/12/15 Leave a comment

I had not done the comparison of fees for children so the data in this article is revealing. The last time I checked, UK was also the most expensive for adults:

The Government is under pressure over the “astronomical” rise in the cost of British citizenship for children, which is now 22 times more expensive than in Germany.

Costs to register a child’s citizenship application have soared by 153 per cent in the last seven years, from £386 in 2010 to £973 today.

Scores of youngsters descended on Westminster on Wednesday morning with Citizens UK in protest against the fee, which sees many children unable to become British citizens despite having a legal right.

The fee is considerably higher than in other European countries, with the figure standing at 80 euros in Belgium, 55 euros in France and just 51 euros in Germany.

Each application costs the Home Office £386, meaning the department makes a £586 profit per child registered. With 40,537 applications made in the year to September 2017, the Home Office is expected to make almost £24m this year from children registering for citizenship.

The soaring costs mean a family with three children who have come from abroad and settled in the UK for 10 years, accessing citizenship for all members, including those born here, would have paid out more than £15,000 to be “naturalised” as British citizens, taking into account all migration fees.

Many of these families suffer in-work poverty due to their low wages, so are unable to afford the cost of citizenship, which can prevent children from fully participating in the life of their community, experts warn.

There are an estimated 120,000 “undocumented” children across the UK, more than half of whom are legally entitled to a UK passport. Many are unaware of their status until they apply to university, try to open a bank account or need a passport for foreign travel, according to Citizens UK.

Anne-Marie Canning, director of social mobility and student success at King’s College London, said this can lead to problems when youngsters wish to go into higher education, with many facing difficulties due to not having the correct documents to access student loans.

“There are a large number of students in Greater London who are unable to access university because they are locked out of the student loans system due to paperwork,” she said.

Revd Mother Ellen Eames and school children singing carols outside the Home Office. Hundreds delivered Christmas cards to Secretary of State Amber Rudd asking her to cut the cost of British Citizenship (James Asfa @ Citizens UK)
“We’ve heard stories of parents having to pick which of their children’s paperwork they process so they can access student finance, as they cannot afford to do it for all of their children. We and other universities in London and across the UK are concerned about this issue and have made scholarships available for these learners.

“If the Home Office reduced their fees it would enable more children and talented young people to secure their papers and access higher education like other students.”

Citizens UK leader Fiona Carrick Davis said: “Over the past few years Citizenship fees have risen astronomically and far exceed those of other European countries.

“Many of these children were born in the UK or have spent much of their lives in the UK and have a legal right to citizenship. This is their home, they are British in all respects except they don’t have Citizenship.

via Cost of British citizenship for children is now 22 times more expensive than Germany | The Independent

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EUROPP – The question of citizenship in the Brexit divorce: UK and EU citizens’ rights compared

2017/12/12 Leave a comment

Some interesting polling data. No surprise that “on average British citizens are more supportive of their rights abroad compared to EU-27 citizens’ rights in the UK:”

One of the key priorities for the EU during the Brexit negotiations is safeguarding citizens’ rights. This refers to 3.5 million EU citizens living in the UK and 1.2 million UK nationals living in EU countries. The EU supports equal treatment in the UK of EU27 citizens as compared to UK nationals, and in the EU27 of UK nationals as compared to EU27 citizens, in accordance with Union law. In her Florence speech on 22 September, the UK Prime Minster, Theresa May, offered to incorporate legal protections for EU citizens living in the UK into UK law as part of the exit treaty.

However, since the UK triggered Article 50 on 29 March, there has been little substantive progress in the Brexit negotiations with the question of citizens’ rights being one of the primary sticking points. A European Parliament resolution criticised the lack of sufficient progress on this issue, with the Parliament’s Brexit chief, Guy Verhofstadt, arguing that ‘citizens’ rights are not being well-managed’ suggesting the possibility of a potential European Parliament veto of the Brexit deal.

Against this background of uncertainty, it is important to understand how citizens’ rights feature in the hearts and minds of the British public. To do so, we designed a survey, conducted by YouGov for the University of York on 29 June just a few days after official negotiations for departure began between the UK and the EU on 19 June. The key questions we sought to address were:

  • What is the opinion of British citizens on the rights of EU citizens in the UK as part of the Brexit divorce?
  • How do attitudes towards the rights of UK citizens abroad compare to attitudes towards the rights of EU citizens in the UK?

Our sample consisted of 1,698 individuals and was representative of the general British population in terms of age, gender, education, social grade, region, political attention and EU referendum vote. We broke down the question of citizens’ rights into four subsequent components that relate to freedom of movement in the EU, i.e. the right to freely work, reside and do business in another EU member state, as well as receive welfare.

UK citizens’ attitudes towards EU-27 citizens’ rights in the UK

Overall, British public opinion is dispersed on EU-27 citizens’ rights in the UK, as shown in Figure 1. There is much more support for doing business in the UK as opposed to working and living in the UK. The least support is observed on the question of access to welfare where we may observe comparatively much more disagreement and potentially a level of polarisation among the electorate.

On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 denotes full disagreement and 10 full agreement, approximately a quarter of the respondents (24.16%) fully disagree that EU citizens should be allowed to claim welfare benefits in the UK. If we were to add those who have responded below 5, i.e. the middle point of the scale, then this proportion reaches 50% of the respondents. This shows that opposition to EU citizens’ accessing welfare benefits in the UK is much higher to opposition to EU citizens’ right to live, work and do business in the UK, which is at 20.84%, 19.57% and 9.25% respectively. Put differently, the majority of British citizens tend to be in favour of EU citizens living, working and doing business in the UK, but they are not as happy for them to claim welfare benefits in their country.

UK citizens’ attitudes toward UK citizens’ rights in the EU-27

How do these findings compare to how British citizens view their own rights abroad? Here the picture is slightly different. Figure 2 shows that on average British citizens are more supportive of their rights abroad compared to EU-27 citizens’ rights in the UK. Overall, fewer people disagree that UK citizens should have the right to live, work, do business and claim welfare benefits in other EU countries (responses below point 5 on the scale). These percentages range from 14.74% disagreeing that UK citizens should have the right to live in an EU country, 14.04% being hostile to UK citizens having the right to work in the EU, only 7.74% disagreeing that UK citizens should be able to do business in other EU countries, and 44.9% arguing that UK citizens should not receive welfare abroad. The latter number on UK citizens’ welfare rights in other EU countries is about 5 percentage points lower than those who oppose EU citizens’ welfare access in the UK. That being said, however, British citizens are similarly polarised on the question of welfare access even if this concerns their own nationals abroad.

Our findings suggest that although the question of EU immigration is very important among the public, and – as we know – contributed to how people voted in the Brexit referendum in 2016, it is much more nuanced and potentially contradictory than we had previously thought.

First, often – at least in the British case – some nationals may have ‘double standards’ not viewing non-nationals having equal rights to themselves. This might undermine the UK government’s popularity following a Brexit divorce deal that guarantees equal rights for both UK nationals in EU member states and EU-27 citizens in the UK.

Second, the British public is much more agreeable to EU citizens’ living, working and doing business in the UK, but they are considerably less comfortable with them sharing welfare. This suggests that it is the social aspect of EU citizenship that is the key issue featuring in the hearts and minds of the majority of the British public. This could be because the anti-EU campaigns, parties and individuals heavily politicised the welfare aspect of EU integration during the Brexit referendum, by for example associating EU membership costs with a deficit in the NHS.

via EUROPP – The question of citizenship in the Brexit divorce: UK and EU citizens’ rights compared

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Australia’s citizenship saga resurfaces ‘legacy of pain’ for Indigenous MPs | The Guardian

2017/12/06 Leave a comment

Interesting wrinkle to Australia’s s 44 dual citizenship prohibition for parliamentarians (some Indigenous Canadians have likely also had citizenship issues given lack of documentation):

Requiring Indigenous politicians to prove their Australian citizenship has been an upsetting and anger-inducing process that resurfaced a colonial “legacy of hurt and pain”, two federal parliamentarians have said.

Some were unable to say when or where their family members were born because the Australian government never registered the births or recognised them as citizens.

Linda Burney, a Wiradjuri woman, was not considered an Australian citizen until she was 10 years old, and in her maiden speech described her experiences of “racism and exclusion”.

Being forced to justify her place in Australia again, as the federal parliament sought clarity on everyone’s citizenship status, was “gut-wrenching”, Burney told Guardian Australia.

In an attempt to end the continuing parliamentary chaos over breaches of section 44 of the constitution, all parliamentarians have been required to lodge declarations and evidence of their citizenship. The forms request the date and place of birth for parliamentarians, their parents and their grandparents, as well as any evidence required to show any citizenships to other nations were renounced.

“I have been made to feel quite angry about what I had to go through to find out about my father and his parents,” said Burney. “The only way that we could find out anything was to go to what was left of the old Aboriginal Protection Board records, and there was a document written by my grandfather to the mission manager on Brungle reserve, requesting permission to build a home.

“To go and have to do that, to go to the old Protection Board records, to realise the best they could do was a letter requesting permission to build a roof over their heads, it really stirred up a lot of deep emotions. Some of that was just disgust and an understanding of the way our people were treated.”

Burney said she understood there had to be a “circuit breaker” in the citizenship crisis and she hoped this process would achieve it. “Somehow or other this issue needs to be dealt with, intelligently and sensitivity, because I suspect there are people – not just Aboriginal people – who are going to find out some very difficult family histories.”

The NT Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy told Guardian Australia there were “moments of outrage” as she sat in her office trying to complete the questionnaire. “Because just a simple act of filling out this document reminded me of how far our country still has to go in recognising First Nations people in our country, and the legacy of previous policies and the impact they still have today,” she said.

“It brings up a lot of hurt, the legacy of hurt and pain, because we reflect on very real circumstances on the past that impact on the present.”

McCarthy was raised on Yanyuwa country, near Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria, to an Indigenous mother and a father of Irish descent. She is a traditional owner of Yanyuwa land and uniquely has declared as much on the parliamentary registry.

“The difficulty for my maternal side of the family is that we don’t know the dates of when my grandparents were born on Yanyuwa country and Garawa country, or even the dates of my mother’s birth, although we’ve always guessed it was around 1950,” she said. “My maternal grandmother we guessed around 1930.

“I don’t know [details for] my maternal grandfather and that’s largely because statistics and birth certificates were just not part of the way of Australia and the policies of the time didn’t include us.”

McCarthy said she had no concerns about an unknown second citizenship in her background, but added the Labor party’s vetting was strict.

Other parties appeared to be more lax. Among those to have been found ineligible is Jacqui Lambie. The former Tasmanian senator is Indigenous, but her father’s Scottish heritage bestowed upon her dual citizenship, overriding her place as a First Nations Australian.

Western Australian senator and Yawuru man Pat Dodson declined to be interviewed but in a speech to farewell Lambie he decried the system which “put to one side” her Indigenous heritage. “It’s an absolute tragedy that our constitution was written by all these white folks that never bothered to consider and incorporate the First Peoples in it,” he told the Senate.

McCarthy said: “This is what the non-Indigenous men of the day, when they wrote this constitution, this is what they determined for this country.

“The question is do we want to change that?”

To change it would require a referendum. Referendums are difficult to win – something Malcolm Turnbull recently cited to justify his total rejection of an Indigenous voice to parliament.

McCarthy said constitutional recognition of First Nations people must come before any changes to section 44. “If there is a genuine approach to [the concerns of First Nations people], and if First Nations people can see and will believe that, then any steps towards changing the constitution would probably follow suit,” she said.

via Australia’s citizenship saga resurfaces ‘legacy of pain’ for Indigenous MPs | Australia news | The Guardian

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US expat groups vow to continue fight to end citizenship-based tax regime, repeal FATCA

2017/12/05 Leave a comment

Despite the efforts, too small an interest group, and not domestically-based, to effect change to date:

After the US Senate voted early on Saturday morning to approve a version of a major tax reform bill that failed to include certain fiercely-fought-for changes that would have benefited expatriate Americans, spokespeople for some of the organisations that lobbied on behalf of these changes said they didn’t regard the battle as over – and that in any event, the fight would go on.

They also stressed that much had been achieved in terms of educating Americans at home and abroad to the issues, and organising and building groups that will continue to work for a change. Said Marylouise Serrato, executive director of the American Citizens Abroad, one of the organisations at the centre of the campaign: “Thanks to everyone’s efforts, the awareness and interest in the topic of residency-based/territorial taxation for Americans overseas is the highest its ever been.”

As reported,  the ACA, along with such other organisations as the Republicans Overseas, the Democrats Abroad, Americans for Tax Reform, the Heritage Foundation and a number of American chambers of commerce have fought hard for months to convince US lawmakers to do away with the current US system of citizenship-based taxation.

Some of these and others, including the Campaign to Repeal FATCA, and certain members of Congress such as Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, have been campaigning for the US to get rid of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which has made life difficult for expatriate Americans since it was signed into law by president Obama in 2010.

Saturday’s Senate vote saw 51 Republican lawmakers vote to approve the Senate version of the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and 49 senators – all Democrats – voting against it.  Neither a proposal to replace the current citizenship-based tax regime nor one that would have called for the repeal  of FATCA was included in the version that was passed, even though, as reported, such key lawmakers as the Republican head of the House Ways and Means committee, Kevin Brady, had publicly indicated that Washington officials were taking “seriously” the call for a shift away from the citizenship-based income tax system.

via US expat groups vow to continue fight to end citizenship-based tax regime, repeal FATCA

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Malta’s “due diligence” of rich passport buyers gets glowing review

2017/12/02 Leave a comment

Different meaning of “due diligence”:

Malta’s due diligence of people applying to buy citizenship has been held up as “a textbook example” of effectiveness and reliability by Thomson Reuters.
Peter Vincent, general counsel at the Canadian company that provides intelligence services, said Malta’s Individual Investor Programme provided a high standard of due diligence.

“Malta has a reputation for having a very solid programme for citizenship and residency that has very secure due diligence processes in place and transparency. It’s by no means perfect but there is no completely secure system in the world but if you are looking for a model, not just for the EU but for the entire world, I would look to a country like Malta,” Vincent said in an interview with Investment Migration Insider, an industry journal.

Thomson Reuters is one of the companies used by Identity Malta to help it in the screening of prospective clients.

Vincent was speaking on the price war in the Caribbean over citizenship programmes, which was affecting due diligence standards in the region.

“Malta is a textbook example of how to conduct effective and reliable due diligence,” he said, adding that Identity Malta should look beyond its remit and mentor other countries still trying to develop their programmes.

The IIP was introduced amid much controversy in 2014 with the aim of attracting rich foreign nationals interested in buying Maltese citizenship. The scheme has enabled the country to create a multi-million euro fund administered separately from government accounts.

The programme last year raised some €165 million and is capped at 1,800 applications, a number likely to be reached some time next year.

The government has been criticised by the European Parliament because the names of those who obtain citizenship through the IIP are not published separately. Instead, the names are included without any specific identifier with those of others who obtain citizenship through naturalisation.

At a recent citizenship forum organised by Henley and Partners, the company entrusted to manage and market Malta’s scheme, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said Malta will be extending its citizenship by investment programme.

He told his audience in Hong Kong the second IIP programme would be “even more exclusive” than the current version, without elaborating further.

via Malta’s due diligence of rich passport buyers gets glowing review

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Billionaire got Canadian citizenship after renting a Montreal basement

2017/12/01 Leave a comment

I would not be surprised if more cases like this emerge given the abuse of the business immigration program and the imprecise definition of residency, both fixed by the Harper government through the termination of the former and specifying physical presence in its C-24 Citizenship Act changes:

Among the most curious revelations contained in the Paradise Papers is the question of Wafic Said’s Canadian citizenship, and how he obtained it, given his tenuous ties to this country.

Said, a Syrian-born, Monaco-based billionaire, was the broker of the 1985 Al-Yamamah arms deal to sell British warplanes to Saudi Arabia, in which £6 billion in “corrupt commissions” were allegedly paid to members of the Saudi royal family.

The longtime friend of Brian Mulroney also donated $4 million to the soon-to-open Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. Francis Xavier University, where he received an honorary degree in 2015 and was announced as a Canadian citizen.

But how did this Saudi-Syrian businessman pick up a third passport?

It’s not clear exactly when, but at some point in the 1990s, Said received Canadian citizenship. To fulfil the three-year residency requirement, public records show that instead of living in a luxury building, as he did in London, U.K., Said rented a basement apartment in Montreal.

“I am a Canadian citizen and am proud to be one,” wrote Said in an email to the Star and CBC/Radio-Canada. “I took appropriate professional advice about my entitlement to Canadian residency and citizenship. I followed this advice to the letter, met the relevant qualifications and was granted citizenship.”

A spokesperson for Said later added: “Mr. Said lived in Canada for three years thus complying with the immigration residency requirements.” He was only “absent” from Canada for a few weeks in 1989 and 1990, the spokesperson wrote.

The first trace of Said in Canada shows up in 1988, when he registered a numbered company in Canada that would later be renamed Safingest Inc. and declared himself president and sole shareholder.

In public filings, Safingest states its business is “indeterminate and imprecise.” Its office shares a Montreal address with the office of his lawyer, Annie Kenane. Said’s personal address is listed as an apartment in a building also owned by Kenane.

And it was not the kind of apartment where one would expect to find a wealthy international businessman. According to public records, for three years, Said appears to have been a billionaire in a basement.

The basement apartment is in a three-storey walk-up in the gritty Montreal neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges.

Elaine Gloutnez, who lived on the third floor of the same building from 1987 to 1991, said she had never heard of Wafic Said. When shown a photo of Said and his wife, Gloutnez said she had never seen them at the house.

“He’s not the type that would live here,” she told Radio-Canada. “Here it is simple people, young families, students . . . It’s not luxury housing. We’re not in Westmount here.”

“I’ve been in this area since ’85 and I’ve never seen a billionaire here,” Gloutnez said.

In his statement to the Star and the CBC, Said wrote that the apartment was “rented for me but when I was there with my family it was easier to stay in hotels.”

A representative for Said later added: “Mr. Said paid rent under the terms of the lease for the apartment at Légaré Street and used it often.”

Public filings in the U.K. show Said also stated he was living in the prestigious London neighbourhood of Mayfair at the same time, in 1990 and 1991.

In 1990, Said purchased a penthouse in a more upscale Montreal neighbourhood for $1.5 million. In 1999, he sold it for $825,000.

Said did not clarify when and where he received his Canadian citizenship.

The earliest trace of Said’s Canadian citizenship is a Canadian passport issued in Paris in 1996.

From 1986 to 2014, Canada had an immigrant investor program that granted permanent residency to wealthy foreigners who made large investments in the country. At the end, in order to qualify, an applicant had to have $1.6 million in assets and commit to invest $800,000 in Canada.

The program was shut down by the Harper government in 2014 and replaced with a one-year pilot program that raised the mandatory investment to $2 million. Quebec continues its own program that requires $800,000 is invested.

“Investments enabled me to qualify for permanent residence and then for Canadian citizenship,” Said’s statement reads.

Said said he made a “very successful investment” in a company called Jordan Petroleum Ltd., whose shares were held by Safingest Ltd. His Bermuda-based offshore company, Said Holdings, which counted Brian Mulroney among its board members from 2004-2012, “has continued to invest substantial sums in Canada,” he added.

Andrew Feinstein, the executive director of the group Corruption Watch in the U.K., has investigated Said for many years. He had no idea Said was a Canadian citizen.

“What on earth would he want a Canadian passport for? And how would he be granted one, because I’m not aware of . . . when he would have spent any meaningful time in Canada.”

Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland says the Canadian government can waive normal residency requirements and grant citizenship in “very special” cases.

“The special treatment to issue a national interest Canadian citizenship comes in two flavours,” Kurland said. “It’s direct in the open, the way we give it to the Dalai Lama. Or it’s behind the red curtain in Ottawa.”

“You don’t have to tell parliament you’re doing this. You don’t have to apply the normal way. If they don’t give it to you directly, they will tell you: ‘Just apply. Put it in the system. And our folks in the system will take your case and process it no questions asked.’ That’s how it’s done.”

Canadian citizenship is one of the most sought-after assets for Middle Eastern billionaires, Kurland said.

“Billionaires like two things: There’s the money and the freedom . . . A Canadian passport is the golden ticket,” he said.

“You’re not taxed in Canada because Canada taxes on residence, not on citizenship. And you can travel visa free, no questions asked, in almost every country in the world.”

via Billionaire got Canadian citizenship after renting a Montreal basement | Toronto Star

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