Australia: Dumped Abbott-era changes resurface in Turnbull government’s citizenship bill

2017/06/20 Leave a comment

I had always thought that Australia granted birthright citizenship but apparently it does not, with these further restrictions moving it more distinct than the Canadian approach. Also surprised that citizenship had been granted to children of diplomats – not the case in Canada:

A crackdown on citizenship rights for children of migrants and foreign diplomats is among a number of dumped Tony Abbott-era proposals to have resurfaced in the Turnbull government’s citizenship revamp.

The government says the restrictions are necessary to stop parents using their children’s citizenship “as an anchor for family migration” or to win sympathy in their own migration disputes.

Under the proposed changes, children will no longer become citizens on their 10th birthday if, at any point, they were present in Australia unlawfully or re-entered Australia without a valid visa.

The same will also apply if a child’s parent lacked a “substantive” visa at the time of the child’s birth and was present in Australia unlawfully prior to the birth. That means a child born to parents on bridging visas would not automatically acquire citizenship.

And children born to foreign diplomats will no longer gain Australian citizenship on their 10th birthday.

However, the immigration department confirmed to Fairfax Media that in each case, if one of the child’s parents was an Australian citizen or permanent resident, the child would acquire citizenship in the normal way.

Source: Dumped Abbott-era changes resurface in Turnbull government’s citizenship bill

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IRCC Datasets: What they say about government priorities

2017/06/19 Leave a comment

While preparing a presentation on how immigration, settlement, citizenship and multiculturalism worked together to facilitate integration, I accessed a broad range of the IRCC operational datasets on the government’s Open Data website. Intrigued by what was available and what was not, I reviewed all  227 unique datasets.

IRCC has, to its credit, invested considerable resources in these datasets for both internal and external use, having the fifth largest number of datasets on Open Data (excluding Statistics Canada). Moreover, these datasets are among the most widely used: 11 of the top 25 government datasets downloaded are from IRCC (April 2017).

IRCC demonstrated considerable flexibility and agility in the creation of datasets with respect to the recent wave of Syrian refugees, and the introduction of monthly operational statistics for key programs.

Part of my motivation was to assess the long-standing weaknesses in citizenship datasets, reflecting the relative lower priority of the citizenship program, and make recommendations for improvements.

Not surprisingly, the datasets reflect IRCC’s overall management emphasis on immigration as well as stakeholder demand: permanent and temporary resident datasets are 93.5 percent of the total. The datasets include:

  • Permanent residents (immigrants: economic, family and refugee classes): 110 datasets of 47.6 percent of the total.
  • Temporary residents (Temporary Foreign Worker Program: includes agricultural workers, live-in caregivers and others; International Mobility Program: includes those admitted under international services agreements like NAFTA, those under “Canadian Interests,” primarily under youth work exchange program and spousal employment; international students): 106 datasets or 45.9 percent.
  • Citizenship and passport: Six datasets or 2.6 percent.
  • Settlement services: Nine datasets or 3.9 percent.

IRCC datasets can be divided into four categories: ongoing and published on a regular basis (80.5 percent), archived or historical datasets (16.5 percent) and specialized datasets pertaining to international students (2.2 percent).

The majority are updated annually (54.1 percent), followed by the recent introduction of monthly reports (21.6 percent), quarterly (9.1 percent) and other (15.2 percent). Monthly and quarterly reports focus on operational data: the number of applications, approvals, approval rate and inventory.

Permanent and Temporary Residents

The comprehensive datasets for permanent and temporary residents include information regarding program and category, country of origin (whether processing source area, country of citizenship or country of birth), gender and age. Table 1 summarizes this information with most datasets having several variables (e.g., gender and age).Given the shared federal-provincial jurisdiction for immigration, and the increased and active role of the provinces in selection (i.e., the Provincial Nominee Program), it is no surprise that the majority of permanent resident datasets are broken down by province (52.7 percent), with 31.8 percent at the national level. To assist the planning and programmes of municipalities and service provider organizations for settlement services (integration), ten percent are at the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) level, with a further 4.5 percent at the Census District (CD) level.

In terms of immigration class, over one-quarter are for refugees (27.3 percent), 21.8 percent for economic class, and 1.8 percent for family class, with 49.1 pertaining to all classes.

For temporary residents, who cannot access settlement services, the majority (60.4 percent) are at the national level, 34 percent at the provincial level, and 4.7 percent at the CMA level.

By program, datasets for international students form 23.6 percent, IMP and TFWP each at 21.8 percent and other ten percent, with 22.7 percent pertaining to all programs.

By and large, these datasets are coherent and consistent, with any variation reflecting program needs and a balance between the overall picture and greater detail (e.g., top 10 for refugees, top 20 for IMP or top 50 for students or all (various) countries of birth or citizenship).

However, as shown in Table 2, the main difference concerns age data, with permanent residents focused more on younger immigrants, compared to temporary residents with a relatively greater focus on older workers. The difference in age cohorts between all permanent residents and those admitted under Express Entry likely has a policy justification. However, it is hard to understand the policy rationale for settlement services using the temporary resident breakdown given that only permanent residents can access these services. IRCC may wish to review whether there is a need for greater consistency and coherence regarding the age cohorts.

Citizenship, Passport and Settlement Services

There are only six datasets for citizenship (including one for passport) and nine for settlement services (three general, six for refugees). This reflects a number of reasons:

  • Citizenship has always been a secondary priority for IRCC at both the political and official levels. The program is under-funded and under-managed, as seen in the large and repeated fluctuations in the number of applications and new citizens, in sharp contrast to the number of new permanent residents which is more tightly managed to deliver on the annual levels plan (Chart 1);
  • The provinces have no role in citizenship and thus no data demands. Immigration stakeholders have limited interest in citizenship as they focus on immigration and refugee issues;
  • Passport is a new program to IRCC (previously was with Global Affairs Canada), with similarly low interest with outside stakeholders beyond basic operational data; and,
  • Service provider organizations (SPOs) and others that are interested is settlement services data have a wide range of useful permanent resident data that assists them in planning and operations. IRCC has responded to the needs of SPOs by providing general refugee settlement datasets as well as specific ones for Syrian refugees.

Table 3 lists these datasets:

Moreover, these are more limited than other datasets. Annual permanent and temporary resident provide ten year data, adequate to assess trends and changes. In contrast, annual citizenship data covers only five years, settlement services data only two years and passport processing data is not even presented on a full-year basis, making it impossible to assess trends and the impact of policy and program changes. Citizenship datasets are even more limited with no gender and age breakdowns.

They are also updated less frequently than other datasets. Monthly datasets for permanent and temporary residents and settlement services include April 2017 at the time of writing (14 June); citizenship only until February 2017, and passport until December 2016.

Concluding observations

As noted, IRCC has invested considerable resources in developing and maintaining these datasets. In doing so, it has naturally enough reinforced its main focus on immigration statistics, responding to overall stakeholder interests, with minimal attention to citizenship.

The datasets appear to have grown organically as program changes created needs for new datasets. There appears to be potential to review the number and type to see if some datasets are no longer needed or duplicative (e.g., the introduction of monthly datasets may make quarterly ones necessary, are csv versions needed in addition to xls?).

Another area for improvement with respect to provincial datasets is to ensure that these all include national totals by program, as there is currently some inconsistency (e.g., Transition from Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Status – Quarterly IRCC Updates tables versus the “Facts and Figures” series for both permanent and temporary residents).

Other areas for improvement at the Open Data level include, particularly those that are likely within IRCC control:

  • Order the dataset groupings alphabetically as it currently appears random, with related sets not grouped together;
  • Review grouping titles for clarity, particularly “Quarterly Updates” as the vast majority of datasets listed are a mix of annual and quarterly data;
  • Review all data set titles for consistency (e.g., temporary resident facts and figures are numbered, permanent residents are not; set a standard sequence: program/category then geography, then specific variables such as gender, age, education etc.; inclusion or not of ‘Canada’ in title; indicate specific immigration class if appropriate);
  • Advocate with other departments for a wider field for data set descriptions (appears to be only 37 characters) to make these more readable and shorten the wasted space of the titles for other fields (type, format, language, links);
  • Advocate for more than 10 dataset groupings per web page to minimize clicks.

My particular focus, however, is with respect to citizenship.

The lack of attention to citizenship, seen operationally in the wide swings of application and new citizens, requires greater management focus and attention. While IRCC has been very helpful in the provision of special runs, more comprehensive citizenship datasets on Open Data are needed. IRCC should ensure a minimum degree of consistency with permanent and temporary resident datasets that would help flag operational and policy concerns. For citizenship, passport, and settlement services, these would include:

  • 10-year time series data for citizenship and settlement services;
  • 1947-2016 long-term citizenship data (new citizens);
  • gender breakdown for citizenship (not just for adoptions), passport and settlement services (not just for refugees);
  • age breakdown for citizenship and passport, using the permanent resident age groups; and,
  • monthly citizenship applications by country of birth, not just monthly number of new citizens.

Should resources permit, a number of additional citizenship datasets should be considered to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how well the program is working with respect to integration and reinforcing the immigrant-to-citizen transition:

  • Annual data on the number and percentage of immigrants who have taken up citizenship within six years of landing in order to assess the recent naturalization rate, not the overall one that IRCC cites in its performance reports and elsewhere. While a target of 70 percent naturalization within six years of landing is proposed, more analysis might suggest a different target. Having this data collected and reported would inform the establishment of a meaningful performance standard; and,
  • Annual breakdown by immigration class of new citizens and approval rates by gender to assess the impact on each class of citizenship policies.

Given the importance of immigration, settlement, citizenship and multiculturalism to integration of newcomers and their children, good and comprehensive data is central to evidence-based policy making. IRCC has again commendably invested in such data with respect to immigration data but should address the above mentioned gaps in citizenship data to strengthen the management and oversight of the citizenship program.

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Australia: Coalition’s test likely to disadvantage those who need citizenship most | The Guardian

2017/06/16 Leave a comment

As the Australian government proceeds with its changes, the same issues raised by refugee advocates as in C-24:

Citizenship applicants will need to demonstrate a higher level of English proficiency if the government’s proposed changes to the Australian citizenship test go ahead.

Applicants will be required to reach the equivalent of Band 6 proficiency of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

To achieve Band 6, applicants must correctly answer 30 out of 40 questions in the reading paper, 23 out of 40 in the listening paper and the writing paper rewards language used “accurately and appropriately”. If a candidate’s writing has “frequent” inaccuracies in grammar and spelling, they cannot achieve Band 6.

Success in IELTS requires proficiency in both the English language and also understanding how to take – and pass – a test. The proposed changes will then make it harder for people with fragmented educational backgrounds to become citizens, such as many refugees.

How do the tests now work?

The current citizenship test consists of 20 multiple choice questions in English that ask about Australia’s political system, history and citizen responsibilities.

While the test does not require demonstration of English proficiency per se, it acts as an indirect assessment of language.

For example, the question “Which official symbol of Australia identifies commonwealth property?” demonstrates the level of linguistic complexity required.

The IELTS test is commonly taken for immigration purposes as a requirement for certain visa categories; however, the designer of the IELTS argues that it was never designed for this purpose. Researchers have argued that the growing strength of English as the language of politics and economics has resulted in its widespread use for immigration purposes.

Impact of proposed changes

English is undoubtedly important for participation in society but deciding citizenship based on a high-stakes language test could further marginalise community members, such as people with refugee backgrounds who have the greatest need for citizenship yet lack the formal educational background to navigate such tests.

The Refugee Council of Australia argues that adults with refugee backgrounds will be hardest hit by the proposed language test.

Data shows that refugees are both more likely to apply for citizenship and twice as likely as other migrant groups to have to retake the test.

Mismatched proficiency expectations

The adult migrant English program, where many adult refugees access English learning upon arrival, expects only a “functional” level of language proficiency.

For many adult refugees – who have minimal first language literacy, fragmented educational experiences and limited opportunities to gain feedback on their written English – “competency” may be prohibitive to gaining citizenship. This is also more likely to impact refugee women, who are less likely to have had formal schooling and more likely to assume caring duties.

Bar too high?

The challenges faced in resettlement, such as pressures of work and financial responsibilities to extended family, often combine to make learning a language difficult and, by extension, prevent refugees from completing the citizenship test.

Similar patterns are evident with the IELTS. Nearly half of Arabic speakers who took the IELTS in 2015 scored lower than Band 6.

There are a number of questions to clarify regarding the proposed language proficiency test:

  • Will those dealing with trauma-related experiences gain exemption from a high-stakes, time-pressured examination?
  • What support will be provided to help applicants study for the test?
  • Will financially disadvantaged members of the community be expected to pay for classes and materials to prepare for the citizenship test?
  • The IELTS test costs $330, with no subsidies available. Will the IELTS-based citizenship/language test attract similar fees?

There are also questions about the fairness of requiring applicants to demonstrate a specific type and level of English under examination conditions that is not required of all citizens. Those born in Australia are not required to pass an academic test of language to retain their citizenship.

Recognising diversity of experiences

There are a few things the government should consider before introducing a language test:

1. Community consultation is essential. Input from community/migrant groups, educators and language assessment specialists will ensure that the test functions as a valid evaluation of progression towards English language proficiency. The government is now calling for submissionsrelated to the new citizenship test.

2. Design the test to value different forms and varieties of English that demonstrate progression in learning rather than adherence to prescriptive standards.

3. Provide educational opportunities that build on existing linguistic strengths that help people to prepare for the test.

Equating a particular type of language proficiency with a commitment to Australian citizenship is a complex and ideologically loaded notion. The government must engage in careful consideration before potentially further disadvantaging those most in need of citizenship.

Source: Coalition’s test likely to disadvantage those who need citizenship most | Sally Baker and Rachel Burke | Australia news | The Guardian

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Australia: Labor disputes Peter Dutton’s claim party was briefed on citizenship changes

2017/06/14 Leave a comment

The politics are fascinating (policy not so much).

Not releasing the results of the consultations (Australia: Feedback on controversial citizenship changes to be kept secret) and now Labour contesting the degree of consultations …:

The shadow minister for citizenship, Tony Burke, has accused Peter Dutton of misleading journalists about having properly briefed Labor on the government’s proposed changes to citizenship laws.

Dutton, the immigration minister, announced on Sunday he would introduce legislation to parliament this week that made it harder to get Australian citizenship.

He said the Turnbull government wanted to toughen English language competencies, introduce a values test, extend the amount of time before permanent residents could apply for citizenship, and require people to demonstrate they had integrated into Australian society.

He called on Labor to support the legislation, and said Labor had been briefed on the bill.

“The Labor party will receive a copy of the bill this week,” he said on Sunday. “They’ve already had a briefing in relation to the bill.”

On Monday, Dutton then announced the legislation would give him power to overrule decisions by the Administrative Appeal Tribunalon citizenship applications that he didn’t think were in Australia’s national interest.

He called on Labor to support the bill again.

“It won’t pass through the Senate unless we can get Labor’s support, so that’s the key objective for this week, to speak with the Labor party,” he told Sky News.

“They’ve already had a briefing in relation to many of these matters and once they’ve seen the legislation this week they can ask questions.”

Labour response

But Burke said on Tuesday that Labor hadn’t been briefed on the policy details that appeared in media reports over the last couple of days.

He said the last briefing Labor received was before the 9 May budget, over a month ago.

“I was given a briefing on the 8th of May,” Burke said. “Was I briefed on the issues of the citizenship changes that were in the papers on the weekend? No, not at all. That’s all new. None of that existed as part of the proposal at the time of the briefing.

“[During that briefing], when I asked which parts of what I was being briefed on the government was committed to, the answer was none.

“When I asked, on the English-language test, how many people who currently apply for citizenship would pass the test, the government didn’t know.

“When I asked how many Australians would pass the test at a university level, the government didn’t know.

“Today I see in the papers, a claim that it is somehow linked to national security … once again, we’ve got changes here that have appeared in the paper that weren’t part of the briefing, that weren’t part of the government’s original proposal,” he said.

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SCOTUS strikes down citizenship law – CNNPolitics.com

2017/06/14 1 Comment

Surprising it took this long for a case to test the discrimination:

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that treats children born overseas to unmarried parents differently for purposes of citizenship depending upon whether the biological father or mother is a US citizen.

Under the law, US citizen fathers have to spend at least five years in the states before the child could become a citizen, while the mother only had to spend one year.
The plaintiff in the case, Luis Ramon Morales-Santana, was born in 1962 in the Dominican Republic to unmarried parents. His mother was a citizen of the Dominican Republic and his father was a US citizen who had not spent more than five years in the United States after his 14th birthday.
Morales-Santana was admitted to the US as a lawful permanent resident in 1975. After years of living in the US he was put in removal proceedings after convictions for various felonies. He claimed he was a US citizen because of his father’s citizenship. But the Board of Immigration Appeals denied the claim because the father had not satisfied the physical presence requirements.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who dedicated her career to the issue of gender discrimination before taking the bench, wrote the decision.
The section of the 1952 Nationality Act, she wrote, could not “withstand inspection under a Constitution that requires the government to respect the equal dignity and stature of its male and female citizens.”
But while the law “violates the equal-protection principles,” the court also said it is “not equipped” to grant the relief that Morales-Santana seeks — striking down the law and grant him citizenship. Congress would have to make that determination, Ginsburg wrote.
Under the Immigration and Nationality act of 1952 as originally written, a child born outside of the United States to an unwed citizen father and a non-citizen mother has citizenship at birth only if the father was present in the United States for a period totaling at least 10 years, with at least five of those years occurring after the age of 14. But the statute has since been amendedto decrease the time requirement for those born since November 14, 1986, to 5 years in the United States, at least two of which were after age of 14. A child born abroad to an unwed citizen mother has citizenship if the mother lived in the United States for at least one year at some point prior to the child’s birth.

Source: SCOTUS strikes down citizenship law – CNNPolitics.com

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Australia: Feedback on controversial citizenship changes to be kept secret

2017/06/13 1 Comment

Hard to understand the rationale apart from stifling discussion and debate. Indicates a certain insecurity:

The Turnbull government will keep secret the public’s feedback on its proposed changes to the Australian citizenship test, in a marked departure from normal processes, as the controversial bill goes before Parliament this week.

The immigration department confirmed it will not publish submissions to the consultation process designed to inform the final version of its revamped citizenship regime – particularly the introduction of an Australian values test.

New citizenship laws will be stronger

The government will introduce new citizenship laws this week and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says they’ll focus on English language competency and more thorough background checks.

Open for the six weeks until June 1, the consultation was supposed to help the government define “Australian values” and to word a new pledge of allegiance to Australia. “We are looking for views,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in April.

But the department will not air those views publicly, citing confidentiality, nor confirm the volume of feedback received. “Submissions were provided in confidence and were not for publication by the department,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

However, several organisations that made submissions told Fairfax Media they did not request the department keep their recommendations private.

The Refugee Council, Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils and the Liverpool Migrant Resource Centre have all published their submissions – critical of the government’s proposal – on their websites.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton on Sunday confirmed a bill to enact the major changes – including a four-year wait before permanent residents can attain citizenship, and tougher English language requirements for aspiring citizens – will be introduced to Parliament this week.

The new regime would allow him, as minister, to revoke the citizenship of migrants suspected of gaining citizenship fraudulently – by lying on the test, for example. It will also require minors to pass a “good character” test to gain citizenship, in a move designed to target young migrant criminals.

“It is a bill that suits the times we’re living in and the government is very serious about making sure that people who pledge their allegiance to our country abide by our laws and our values,” Mr Dutton said on Sunday.

The citizenship reform package, the second in three years, has attracted the ire of migrant groups and some in Labor’s Left faction, who have voiced concerns about unfairly strict English testing and disenfranchising permanent residents for four years.

Labor reserved its position on Sunday, with citizenship spokesman Tony Burke promising to “deal responsibly with any sensible proposal” from the government. Mr Dutton also indicated he was willing to negotiate with the Senate crossbench.

The decision against publishing the public’s feedback defies routine practice for government consultations, whereby public submissions are usually published online unless they contain sensitive or defamatory material.

Source: Feedback on controversial citizenship changes to be kept secret

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Liberals’ citizenship bill [C-6] to proceed with some Senate amendments

2017/06/12 1 Comment

Being debated and voted on in the House Monday June 12.

Expect that the Senate will/should declare victory given two out of three amendments accepted, including the most important one of restoring procedural protections for those accused of fraud or misrepresentation:

Far more people lose their citizenship because it was obtained fraudulently, and the Senate wants to amend the bill in order to give those people a chance at a court hearing before their status is stripped away.

Hussen said the government will accept that proposal, albeit with some modifications of its own, including giving the minister the authority to make decisions when an individual requests it.

Hussen’s hand was partially forced by a recent Federal Court decision that said people have a right to challenge the revocation of their citizenship, although predecessor John McCallum had earlier suggested he would support the amendment.

“This amendment recognizes the government’s commitment to enhancing the citizenship revocation process to strengthen procedural fairness, while ensuring that the integrity of our citizenship program is maintained,” Hussen said in a statement.

The government will also accept a Senate recommendation that would make it easier for children to obtain citizenship without a Canadian parent.

But they are rejecting efforts to raise the upper age for citizenship language and knowledge requirements from 54 to 59, saying it’s out of step with the goal of making citizenship easier to obtain. The current law requires those between the ages of 14 to 64 to pass those tests; the Liberals want it changed to 18 to 54.

Hussen thanked the Senate for its work making the bill “even stronger and for providing an example of productive collaboration on strengthening important legislation.”

The Senate has the choice of accepting the government’s decision, rejecting it, or proposing further amendments of its own, which could further delay the legislation.

Source: Liberals’ citizenship bill to proceed with some Senate amendments – The Globe and Mail

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Australia: Peter Dutton pressures Labor to support Coalition’s citizenship crackdown | The Guardian

2017/06/12 Leave a comment

I don’t understand that what is announced as a change – from one to four years permanent residency before requirement – is actually a change from the current policy outlined on the Australian government website (Australian citizenship).

It will be interesting to see how they develop and implement a “values” test. The “integration” test – holding a job, sending kids to school, is more objective but has its own implementation challenges.

One can expect, just as occurred in Canada with policies designed to make “citizenship harder to get and easier to lose,” a drop in citizenship applications and new citizens, breaking the immigrant-to-citizen model:

The Turnbull government will unveil details this week of its planned changes to make it harder to get Australian citizenship.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, will introduce legislation to parliament that extends permanent residency from one year to four before people can apply for citizenship, that toughens English language competencies, introduces a values test and requires people to demonstrate they have integrated into Australian society.

He has briefed Labor on the bill and has called on the opposition to support the bill through both houses.

“I think it’s an issue that requires bipartisan support,” Dutton said on Sunday. “I suspect we will get support of independent senators … there’s obviously negotiations to take place in that regard but this is an issue where we would want the Labor party to support the government.

“It is a bill that suits the times we’re living in and the government is very serious about making sure that people who pledge their allegiance to our country mean it, that they abide by our laws and our values.”

The overhaul of the citizenship process – which has been in gestation within the government for months – follows the Coalition’s move two months ago to overhaul skilled migration by replacing 457 visas with two new categories that cut off pathways to permanent residency.

In April, Malcolm Turnbull said it was time for a new citizenship test that demonstrated people’s allegiance to Australia and whether they were prepared to stand up for “Australian values”.

Asked to provide a summary of values he believed all Australians should sign up to, given that people were likely to have different views on that question, Turnbull nominated “mutual respect, democracy, freedom, rule of law … a fair go”.

Senior Labor figures expressed early scepticism about the proposal, including Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, who said the proposed citizenship changes looked cosmetic and politically motivated.

But Dutton said on Sunday the citizenship changes were necessary.

He said a key component of the legislation would force people to stay as permanent residents for a longer time period before applying for citizenship. That would give them more time to demonstrate they had integrated into Australian society, through things like holding down a job or making sure their children went to school, he said.

It also allowed the government to consider people’s behaviour over a longer period before allowing them to become citizens, rather than just a “point-in-time snapshot”, he said.

Source: Peter Dutton pressures Labor to support Coalition’s citizenship crackdown | Australia news | The Guardian

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Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics

2017/06/08 1 Comment

More on the government’s plans to repeal the User Fees Act and replaced it with the streamlined Service Fees Act (no changes or amendments made by the House FINA committee). The critique by Roy Cullen, the author of the User Fees Act, is revealing:

As the Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal Ontario riding of Etobicoke North from 1996 to 2008, Roy Cullen had the relatively rare accomplishment of having a private member’s bill pass with strong support in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

In 2004, Bill C-212, An Act respecting user fees, received royal assent. The bill was intended to increase accountability, oversight, and transparency for the way in which the federal government sets fees for various services, from providing Canadians with passports to giving them access to national parks.

But the government’s current omnibus budget Bill C-44 proposes to replace the User Fees Act with a Service Fees Act that would come into force next April and which would, Mr. Cullen argues, reduce public-service obligations to justify raising prices to Parliament.

His bill required federal departments and agencies to clearly explain how user fees are determined, and identify their cost and revenue elements, as well as create standards comparable to those in other countries where comparisons are relevant and “against which the performance of the regulating authority can be measured.”

The Service Fees Act is silent on those two points. It also seeks to automatically raise fees every fiscal year by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which concerns Mr. Cullen.

“Some of these user fees have never been justified in a way my bill required them to be justified,” he explained in an interview this week from Victoria, where he now resides. “They’ve never undergone benchmarking to determine whether they met the performance standards identified in the legislation.”

He recalled that when he was developing the User Fees Act, several departments and agencies sought exemptions on the basis their user fees were “unique” and could not be compared against those charged in other jurisdictions. “In some cases, there was some validity to their arguments, in others, it was just a cop out,” Mr. Cullen said.

However, a 2016 internal Treasury Board document, obtained by CBC News earlier this year under the Access to Information Act, stated that 84 per cent of user fees have not been revised since the User Fees Act was passed. A subsection of the act that would reduce a user fee if it failed to meet its performance standard has resulted in a “disincentive to amend fees,” said the memo to Treasury Board President Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), which also noted the “significant time and effort…required to prepare proposals to amend or create fees” under the User Fees Act.

“While fees have not increased over time, costs have. This resulted in an increase in the rate of taxpayer subsidies for government services that benefit private interests.”

Roger Ermuth, assistant comptroller general in the Treasury Board Secretariat, who wrote the memo obtained by the CBC, told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance last month that based on information from the latest available departmental performance reports, the federal government collected [in 2014-15] $1.9-billion in user fees, but the associated costs to deliver services were around $3.4-billion.

But he indicated that the goal isn’t necessarily to increase fees by $1.5-billion to close the gap.

Former federal official Andrew Griffith, who served as director general of citizenship and multiculturalism in what is now Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada until his retirement in 2011, believes there has to be a consideration of the public interest in setting and hiking government fees beyond recovering the costs of providing services, as there was with the User Fees Act.

In a brief he presented to both the House and Senate finance committees, Mr. Griffith also recommended that any proposed fee increase in the proposed Service Fees Act that exceeds the annual CPI adjustment and which affects the general public, such as citizenship or passport application fees, should be referred to the relevant Parliamentary committee for review, “rather than the after-the-fact reporting required in the proposed Act.”

He said while the “User Fees Act consultation process and justification requirements may have been too onerous, the Service Fees Act goes too far by removing all meaningful transparency and consultations,” and Mr. Griffith argues that the proposed legislation could have a further impact on citizenship applications whose numbers have decreased from 198,000 in 2014 to 92,000 last year, in part, because of increasing fees, according to his analysis.

In 2014, the citizenship-application processing fee jumped from $100—a price that had remained unchanged for 20 years—to $300 and then $530 later that year after the federal Immigration Department obtained an exemption from the User Fees Act. The first increase was announced in February 2014 when the former Conservative government unveiled Bill C-24, The Strengthening of Canadian Citizenship Act, and was subject to Parliamentary review. The second hike was revealed in a Canada Gazette post just before the Christmas break in December 2014, “all but guaranteeing no one would notice at the time, and resulting in no debate,” Mr. Griffith wrote in his brief.

He added that had automatic consumer price indexing been allowed, the citizenship application fee would have only grown to $150 in 2016. Instead, an immigrant couple must pay $1,060 (plus an additional $100 right-of-citizenship fee each), and $200 for every child, to apply for citizenship.

“Over time, there will be a larger percentage of the population that will remain permanent residents unable to afford citizenship,” Mr. Griffith said in an interview.

“From a policy perspective, Canada has always had the model that we don’t just select immigrants, we try to select future citizens to fully integrate and participate in Canadian society.”

He would like to see the Service Fees Act distinguish between “public benefits,” such as for citizenship applications where the government could split the cost to provide the service with applicants, and “personal benefits,” such as for passport applications where the government could take a full cost-recovery approach in providing Canadians with the travel document.

Source: Budget bill will increase service fees with less accountability, say critics – The Hill Times – The Hill Times

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Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Dispute among the citizenship-by-investment promoters:

On May 28, 2017, global citizenship consultants Arton Capital initiated legal proceedings for alleged defamation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against the Investment Migration Council (IMC) and its UAE representative office CI Businessman Services (which operates under the name Citizenship Invest).

Arton Capital has partnered with the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia, along with other countries around the world, in relation to their citizenship by investment programmes, as well as advising more than 5,000 investors on investment programmes that empower global citizenship.

In December 2016, IMC, Transparency International (Hungary) and Dr Boldizsár Nagy published a report entitled “In whose interests? Shadows over the Hungarian Residency Bond Program”, which is, in Arton Capital’s view, defamatory, contains false information and has caused serious reputational damage to the firm’s business.

Arton Capital contends that the spread of this false information forms part of a broader smear campaign that it believes is intended to damage its reputation within the industry.

Arton Capital said it has spent more than a decade building a reputation of trust with governments around the world, as well as building the investment migration community.

“Arton Capital takes its reputation extremely seriously and will take all necessary steps to correct falsehoods and protect its hard-won reputation for trust and diligence. The founders of the company are committed to driving forward the highest standards of best practice, regulation, and governance for the industry,” the firm said in a press release on Monday.

IMC is a Geneva-based self-proclaimed oversight association for investor migration and citizenship-by-investment prominently backed by Henley & Partners, another consultancy firm active in the Eastern Caribbean economic citizenship programmes.

Earlier this year, Henley & Partners came under fire for its perceived involvement in a controversial “60 Minutes” investigative programme aired by the US television network CBS on January 1, which focused on the citizenship by investment programmes (CIP) operated by three out of the five Caribbean islands that offer such programmes.

It was alleged that Henley, whose chairman Christian Kalin appeared prominently in the broadcast, was behind the production of the programme in the first place, although the firm later denounced the broadcast as “one-sided”.

However, according to one industry insider, Henley & Partners apparently forgot that they invited the 60 Minutes producers to one of their citizenship conferences in Dubai in order to initiate the report.

A number of resignations earlier this year from IMC’s advisory committee were, according to one resigning member, prompted by, amongst other things, the controversial 60 Minutes report in January that was a “PR disaster” and made the citizenship industry look ridiculous.

Furthermore, Kalin is one of the five-strong governing board of IMC and his critics now say that he is using the organisation to attack his commercial rivals. Members of the advisory committee apparently decided that they did not want to be a party to any potential lawsuits, with its involvement in attacking residency programmes such as Hungary’s going beyond its stated mission.

“The IMC is no more than a mouthpiece of Henley & Partners,” said an industry source.

IMC was established in October 2014 with the stated aim of bringing together stakeholders within the immigration and citizenship by investment industry and to give the industry a voice and, for reasons best known to itself, said it will soon be opening a representative office in Barbados.

Source: Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

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