IRCC Discussion guide on immigration: What about citizenship?

2016/07/08 3 Comments

Some things never change. IRCC launches consultations on immigration and leaves out any questions on the related issues of citizenship policy. Sigh…Immigration consultations are welcome and needed. They can and should help better inform future level plans and I would hope that there will be  widespread participation with diversity of views.

It may well be that the Government believes with C-6 it has no need to consult on citizenship as hard to believe that this is a mere oversight.

But consulting on immigration while being silent on where and how citizenship is part of the picture is, at best, a missed opportunity.

Also interesting to note the question of “Canadian values and traditions” which should provoke some interesting discussion, and which is horizontal to immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism.

Were there to be citizenship-related consultation questions is below, my initial list is below. Feedback and other suggestions of course welcome:

  1. What percentage of newcomers should we expect to become Canadian citizens? In what time frame?
  2. Does citizenship play an important role in integrating and participating in the Canadian economy and society? In which way?
  3. Do we have the balance right between facilitating and encouraging citizenship and ensuring a meaningful connection to Canada?

The questions:

Opening Questions

  1. How many newcomers should we welcome to Canada in 2017 and beyond?
  2. How can we best support newcomers to ensure they become successful members of our communities?
  3. Do we have the balance right among the immigration programs or streams? If not, what priorities should form the foundation of Canada’s immigration planning?
  4. How should we balance encouraging mobile global talent to become citizens with physical presence residency requirements?

Questions: Unlocking Canada’s diverse needs

  1. How can immigration play a role in supporting economic growth and innovation in Canada?
  2. Should there be more programs for businesses to permanently hire foreign workers if they can’t find Canadians to fill the job?
  3. What is the right balance between attracting global talent for high-growth sectors, on the one hand, and ensuring affordable labour for businesses that have historically seen lower growth, on the other?
  4. How can immigration fill in the gaps in our demographics and economy?
  5. What Canadian values and traditions are important to share with newcomers to help them integrate into Canadian society?

Questions: Modernizing our immigration system

  1. Currently, immigration levels are planned yearly.  Do you agree with the thinking that planning should be multi-year?
  2. What modernization techniques should Canada invest in for processing of applications?
  3. What should Canada do to ensure its immigration system is modern and efficient?
  4. Is there any rationale for providing options to those willing to pay higher fees for an expedited process?

Questions: Leadership in global migration and immigration

  1. Is it important for Canada to continue to show leadership in global migration? If so, how can we best do that?
  2. How can Canada attract the best global talent and international students?
  3. In what ways can Canada be a model to the world on refugees, migration and immigration?

Submit your views

Source: Discussion guide on immigration

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Caribbean countries to tighten rules for investors seeking citizenship – News – JamaicaObserver.com

2016/07/08 Leave a comment

More on citizenship investor programs (last line is incorrect as Canada no longer has an investor immigrant program, apart from Quebec):

Caribbean island nations on Wednesday discussed boosting security to ensure terrorists and other criminals do not gain citizenship by posing as investors.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said that although the island’s citizenship-by-investment program has provided a major source of revenue, the government is not prepared to sacrifice its national security.

“We have to come to terms with that, that in this global terrorism atmosphere that we are now dealing with, we have to be extremely careful that one incident, one person being allowed in our region can in fact create havoc,” he told reporters at a Caribbean leaders’ annual summit being held in Guyana, where the topic has been under discussion.

Having tightened its screening process, Grenada has rejected even some applicants approved by international partners based on anecdotal information, he added.

One country’s policies affect the others because the European Union-style free-movement regime of the 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom) allows Caribbean nationals to travel freely throughout the region without visas.St Kitts and Nevis — which pioneered selling citizenship to investors for as much as $500,000 per applicant, but whose economy depends chiefly on tourism — credited the revenue source with funding the construction of internationally recognised hotels.

“It has been a positive development,” the twin-island federation’s prime minister, Timothy Harris, told reporters. “What is equally true is that it has to be managed well, and we are committed as a government to ensure that we have the most robust due-diligence program because of the reputational downside damage that could occur and because of the evolving security arrangement in which we live.”

Canada enacted a visa regime for St Kitts and Nevis residents almost two years ago because of concerns about its citizenship-by-investment program.

Dominica, St Lucia, and Antigua and Barbuda have also cashed in on citizenship-by-investment programs that have helped them weather declining tourist numbers during economic downturns in Europe and the United States.

Elsewhere, Malta, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain, the United States and Canada offer similar citizenship programs.

Source: C’bean countries to tighten rules for investors seeking citizenship – News – JamaicaObserver.com

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A response to Candice Malcolm’s Losing True North – Policy Options

2016/07/07 Leave a comment

For those interested, please find below the links for Candice Malcolm’s summary of her book, Losing True North: Justin Trudeau’s Assault on Canadian Citizenship, and my critique,  A response to Candice Malcolm’s Losing True North – Policy Options.

My conclusion:

As other reviewers have noted, there is a need for a strong conservative perspective in citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism policies to inform debates, discussion and policy choices. Otherwise, governments risk not considering the impact of their preferred approach. But this conservative perspective should be rigorous and evidence-based, enriched by anecdotes, and not merely a polemic. The same of course applies to liberals.

While it may be cathartic for her and other Conservative party members and supporters to criticize the Liberal government’s changes in this manner, it does not help the Conservative Party in its reflections on the lessons of the 2015 election. Even though Jason Kenny spent most of his weekends in ridings with large populations of new Canadians, the Liberals were victorious in 30 of the 33 ridings where visible minorities are the majority. Furthermore, her book does little to advance our understanding and knowledge of the challenges in ensuring the ongoing success of the Canadian model of the immigrant-to-citizen process.

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Two-thirds failed new Danish citizenship test – Al Jazeera

2016/07/07 Leave a comment

Appears deliberately designed to encourage a high failure rate rather than encouraging knowledge of Danish history, government and society, let alone integration:

Compared to the test in place under the previous government, the new exam focuses more on Danish history. The earlier test required 22 correct answers out of 30, and a much larger share of test takers passed that exam.

Five of the 40 questions are related to Danish current affairs. For the rest of the questions, some 200 pages of study materials in Danish language are provided for free – ranging from the history of the vikings to Danish architecture and holidays.

Mattias Tesfaye, an MP of the opposition Social Democrats, attended a meeting about the test with the integration minister on Tuesday. In his opinion, the answer options provided are too similar.

For example, the alternatives to answer the question about the lifespan of Danish composer Carl Nielsen are 1865-1931, 1870-1940 and 1892-1965.

“This doesn’t test their ability to understand Danish culture, but only if they are able to remember precise years,” Tesfaye told Al Jazeera.

His party supports a test for citizenship, but is asking that the style of questions be reconsidered.

Another question included in the June test asked which year the first movie about the Olsen Gang, a fictional criminal gang, premiered.

When Danish Radio put the question to one of the lead actors in the film, Morten Grunwald, he replied: “That I can’t even answer myself.”

However, when given the three alternatives – 1968, 1970 and 1971 – he did remember.

The test also asked which Danish restaurant has three Michelin stars.

Other questions test respondents’ knowledge of the Danish laws and political system; for example, the requirements to change the constitution and to participate in elections.

Stojberg of the Liberal party defended the test on Tuesday.

“There are simply too many who haven’t studied enough or followed news in Denmark,” she told Danish Radio.

About 2,400 people took the new test in June. Those who failed will get a new chance to take a test with a new set of questions in December.

Source: Two-thirds failed new Danish citizenship test – News from Al Jazeera

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Bahrain Revocation Of #Citizenship: Both Tactic And Strategy – Eurasia Review

2016/06/29 Leave a comment

Changing demographics through citizenship policy:

Among Arab countries and also at global level, Bahrain ranks first in terms of revoking citizenship of its citizens under political excuses, especially in response to peaceful opposition against the government’s policies. This issue has made Bahrain subject to strong criticism from regional and global human rights bodies. Last April, Nidal Al Salman, a member of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said 280 Bahrainis have had their citizenship revoked since 2012 and about 200 cases of revocation of citizenship have taken place in 2015 alone. He added that university professors, religious leaders, businesspeople and former parliament members have been among those people who have lost their citizenship. Meanwhile, the UN high commissioner for human rights has greatly criticized revocation of Bahrainis’ citizenship. According to an announcement by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, more than 3,000 people have been sent to jail on charges of taking part in anti-government demonstrations or inciting hatred against the ruling regime.

In its statement on March 7, 2016, Amnesty International said forceful expulsion of citizens from Bahrain and revocation of their nationality is a blatant violation of human rights and other rules of international law, especially the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Despite all the criticism, revocation of citizenship has apparently turned into a major tool for the suppression of political opponents in Bahrain. Amnesty International has added that revocation of citizenship has turned into the best weapon in the hands of the Bahraini government to suppress its opponents, while issuing warning about increased frequency of revocation of citizenship and forceful expulsion of the country’s citizens.

Systematic citizenship as opposed to revocation of citizenship

On the other hand, in parallel to revoking citizenship of opposition figures, the government of Bahrain follows the policy of systematic granting of citizenship and intentional acceptance of foreigners. It seems that the Al Khalifah regime has put the policy of changing the composition of the country’s population on top of its priorities in order to counter its opponents. Many analysts maintain that Al Khalifah is trying to implement the same policy in the country, which the British monarchy implemented in Palestine. They believe that by revoking the citizenship of Bahraini people and granting citizenship of Bahrain to foreign nationals and expulsion of Bahrainis from their homeland, Al Khalifah regime is actually implementing the same strategy that Britain implemented in the occupied Palestinian territories. Based on a plan by the British government, Israel started in 1967 to secretly change the composition of population in the al-Quds (Jerusalem). As a result, while in 1967 about 7,000 Palestinians lived in al-Quds with no Israeli citizen being present there, at present, there are 200,000 Israelis living in this city along with about 300,000 Palestinians.

By following suit with that plan, the Al Khalifah officials are pursuing a purposive and long-term plan to change the composition of Bahrain’s population – most of whose residents are Shias – according to their will. Hadi al-Mousavi, a prominent member of Bahrain’s Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, says in this regard, “Since Shias account for a majority in Bahrain and Bahrain is the only member country of the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council with a Shia majority population, the Al Khalifah regime is incessantly trying to change the population composition of the country.” Another noteworthy point about this policy, which is being followed diligently by the government of Bahrain, is that Bahraini officials, unlike officials of other countries in the world, give no figures on the number of people who have been granted the citizenship of Bahrain on an annual basis.

With regard to figures that have been released so far, a report by Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society can be cited here, which says, “The Al Khalifah regime granted citizenship of Bahrain to more than 95,000 foreign nationals between 2002 and 2014.” Sheikh Ali Salman, the secretary general of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, who is now doing time in Al Khalifah regime’s prison, made a speech in August 2014, describing as “catastrophic” the regime’s policy for granting citizenship to foreign nationals while calling on the people of Bahrain to seriously oppose this policy. In reality, the policy of revoking citizenship of political opponents in Bahrain has been used by Al Khalifah regime as both a tactic and a strategy and this reality can explain why Manama is resisting international protesters against the country’s recent suppressive measures.

Source: Revocation Of Citizenship: Both Tactic And Strategy – Analysis – Eurasia Review

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How Australia stripped an Australian of her citizenship | Stuff.co.nz

2016/06/27 Leave a comment

An Australian equivalent to ‘Lost Canadians’ as someone who was caught between the rules and procedures. Would seem a case for humanitarian and compassionate grounds to extend citizenship:

Mullan was born in New Zealand in December 1963 and adopted in Australia several months later, in March 1964. As an adult, she has always struggled with the heartbreaking narrative surrounding those events.

She was part of the “white stolen generation”, so-called to distinguish it from the Indigenous stolen generations, although the associated suffering was shared. In the five decades before 1982, the newborn babies of young, unmarried women were forcibly removed for adoption.

Mullan’s birth mother, from Queensland, had kept her pregnancy secret by staying with nuns in Auckland.

But when she and the father returned to Brisbane and sought assistance from the state government, it separated her from the baby and made her sign adoption forms under duress.

Mullan has since learnt from numerous relatives of her late mother’s desperate attempts to retrieve her.

Of her current plight, she asked: “If I was born to two Australian citizens, removed from them by the Queensland government and adopted out to two other Australians citizens, how can I not be a citizen?”

In a letter last December, DFAT formally denied her a full validity replacement passport because she could not present proof of citizenship through a citizenship certificate.

When she sought answers from passport personnel and the office of Immigration and Border Protection minister Peter Dutton, officials would only divulge that she was an “unintended consequence” of law changes that had affected a number of adopted people.

After she applied for her citizenship certificate, the DIBP deemed her paperwork invalid, stating in a letter that citizenship needed to be “acquired” by “conferral”.

She has since been advised to apply for the required evidence by paying A$190 to attend an interview, sit a test, swear her allegiance to Australia and attend a ceremony, where she would receive her certificate.

In the past few days, New Zealand has accepted Mullan’s application for a passport – and recognised her as a citizen – even though she only spent a week there after her birth. While she described her relief as immense, questions still surround her status in Australia when she returns.

A spokesman for Dutton said the department understood it could be distressing for long-term residents of Australia to discover they were not citizens “when they believed this to be the case for many years”.

Source: How Australia stripped an Australian of her citizenship | Stuff.co.nz

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Canada’s identity is an experiment in the process of being realized: Foran

2016/06/20 Leave a comment

Interesting reflections by Charlie Foran on Canadian identity and its complexities:

It has certainly been a slow awakening. In 1972, a young Margaret Atwood willed a unity onto the then-nascent notion of a Canadian literature with her influential thematic study, Survival. “When I discovered the shape of the national tradition I was depressed,” she admitted. The immigrant “is confronted only by a nebulosity, a blank: no ready-made ideology is provided for him.”

Ms. Atwood famously declared the act of cultural, political and, yes, meteorological “survival” in such an environment to be our determining narrative. Not long afterward, the journalist June Callwood wondered if the actual daily practice of civility – in part, our overpraised politeness – might be the Canadian unifier. Truth be told, neither concept goes far enough toward the territory of heroic statuary or stirring legend.

Here we are in 2016, when few dispute any longer the unseemly length of English Canada’s colonial hangover. For the first century of nationhood, we didn’t bother moving away from imported and inherited customs and thinking, a stark disavowal of lived history and geography.

Canada in the 21st century is certainly an energized place by comparison. Our cultural industries are big businesses and our artists are reasonably supported. Audiences for most of the arts are on a steady rise.

Even so, we continue to export much of our acting and musical talent, ignore our films, keep Canadian theatre largely in the commercial margins, and at the moment appear destined to outlast the era of brilliant long-form television without making a significant contribution to it – unlike, say, tiny Norway or Denmark.

The senior film producer Robert Lantos fumed in this newspaper at the CRTC’s rejection of an all-Canadian movie channel under the “mandatory carriage” category, calling the chairman “utterly blind to the cultural imperatives of what it takes to be a nation.” That was last weekend. Mr. Lantos also lamented the modest Canadian box office for Remember, the latest film by Atom Egoyan. Add Paul Gross’s impressive Hyena Road to the predictable list of the predictably neglected.

Given these ongoing challenges for Canadian arts and artists, why then would anyone think it lucky for English Canada to be too late to create an old-fashioned cultural nation? Consider the Prime Minister’s comments again, especially his calling us the “first postnational state.”

Like so much of the focus of the new government, the words seem calculated to change the direction of public thought. In the months since the election, the Liberals have proposed lots of new words for fresh thinking: reconciliation, diversity, inclusion, to name a few.

If this was Justin Trudeau’s intent, it is worthy. We do need new language to describe this vast, improbable country called 21st-century Canada. We do need to find a way to inhabit our entire cultural space.

To do so, we must get past one easy misconception – the outdated nation-state model – and one harder reality: the historic comfort level among Canadians with conceiving of themselves as parts of smaller, cozier self-definitions, as well an attendant incuriosity about who else lives reasonably nearby.

The launching point for this project is obvious. Indigenous Canada is where we all live, in terms of geography, spirit, and history. In order for that to be real and meaningful, we must start with the stark: that a cultural genocide occurred, and most of us were unaware or, perhaps, just not concerned enough. Artistic expressions of these truths are necessary, and can only help.

Overall, Canada as an experimental cultural space requires the right spirit in order to take shape. That spirit, simply, is an openness to having your history unsettled and your mind changed. As well, a certain comfort level with complexity and irresolution is probably good. In her forthcoming book, The Promise of Canada, Charlotte Gray calls us an “unfinished and perhaps unfinishable project.” That sounds about right.

At the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, the spoken-word artist Shane Koyczan gained national attention with his poem We Are More. Canadians thrilled to lines such as “We are an idea in the process of being realized” and “We are an experiment going right for a change.”

Source: Canada’s identity is an experiment in the process of being realized – The Globe and Mail

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Britons ‘as French as Edith Piaf’ apply for citizenship over Brexit worries | Reuters

2016/06/15 Leave a comment

Not large numbers but interesting as people hedge their bets:

Twenty-nine year-old Briton Colette Taylor-Jones rushed to become French before the referendum that will decide whether Britain stays in the European Union or not.

“I decided to change my nationality when the whole ‘Brexit’ story started,” the book publisher told Reuters at the end of a ceremony organised by authorities for naturalized citizens.

Worried she might find herself an alien in the country she calls home, Taylor-Jones, who grew up in Nice, filled in the forms to become French when Britain’s Conservative Party promised to hold a referendum on EU membership if it won 2015 parliamentary elections.

Under EU rules, her British passport has so far guaranteed her the same rights to live and work in France as her French neighbours and she did not want to have to ask for a residency permit in case of Brexit, she said.

The latest polls ahead of the June 23 referendum show Britons are almost evenly split over whether to stay or go.

Some 279 Britons became French in 2014, the latest year for which data is available, with the numbers fluctuating between 205 and 354 per year in the five previous years, French Interior Ministry data shows.

Officials said they cannot provide data on how many have applied for a passport.

Twenty-eight year-old Jack McNeill, who has been living in France for six years, says he considers it home too. The prospect of having to ask for a residency permit or not being able to move freely around Europe if Britain left the EU pushed him to apply for a French passport.

McNeill, who is from Edinburgh and works at an international organization based in Paris, is now going through the paperwork and filling in the forms required for his citizenship request.

“What it means to be French is to adhere to the values of the country. ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’,” he said, referring to the French motto of freedom, equality and solidarity.

“That’s what it means and you can be from any ethnicity or your first language could be any other language but if you believe in these values and the importance of them, and the importance of preserving them and so on, then you are as French as anyone else, as Edith Piaf,” he said – while acknowledging he might not quite share the late singer’s musical skills.

Both Britain and France allow their nationals to hold dual citizenship and McNeill, speaking in a pub that sells fish and chips in the heart of Paris, said he still feels British too.

The French foreign ministry estimates that about 400,000 Britons live in France. There is no official data because they are not obliged to register.

Source: Britons ‘as French as Edith Piaf’ apply for citizenship over Brexit worries | Reuters

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Supreme Court rejects American Samoan citizenship case

2016/06/15 Leave a comment

Lack of congressional statute, unlike Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Marianas, raising of course the question of why no statute:

American Samoans have no automatic claim to U.S. citizenship by birth despite living in a U.S. territory, according to a move by the Supreme Court on Monday.

The court declined to reconsider a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on those born in American Samoa. The Supreme Court’s move effectively preserves the appellate court’s decision in the case as the last word.
In the case, an American Samoan, Leneuoti Fia Fia Tuaua, petitioned the U.S. courts for citizenship under the clause of the Constitution that confers citizenship at birth to those born in the United States. American Samoa has been a U.S. territory since 1900.
Those born in the other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Marianas — all get citizenship at birth, but that was determined by statute in Congress. No such statue exists for American Samoa.
Tuaua was opposed in his quest by the American Samoan government itself, which argued that recognizing a right to citizenship at birth could complicated the legal structure in the territory.
The appeals court, in an unanimous ruling, agreed with the American Samoan government, emphasizing that the resident population has also avoided automatic U.S. citizenship.
The opinion from a conservative panel of justices drew criticism for heavily drawing from a set of cases that have grown controversial. The so-called Insular Cases, a series of rulings at the turn of the 20th century, distinguished between U.S. territories destined for statehood, such as Hawaii and Alaska, and those that weren’t, like Puerto Rico and American Samoa. Those residents in territories not likely to become states were entitled to only “fundamental” rights, the cases say.
But the cases have drawn criticism for being racially tinged and vestiges of colonialism, and the appellate court’s decision relying on them likewise drew flak.

Source: Supreme Court rejects American Samoan citizenship case – CNNPolitics.com

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Russia Quietly Strips Emigres of Dual #Citizenship – Forward.com

2016/06/14 Leave a comment

Another example of the links between citizenship and identity, and how government changes affect the latter:

Tens of thousands of Russian dual nationals are being effectively stripped of their Russian citizenship via a quiet policy of Russian consulates worldwide refusing to renew their passports.

Under new regulations the consulates are enforcing, anyone seeking to renew a passport who was not registered as living in Russia on February 6, 1992, will be rejected, even if his or her passport had been renewed on previous occasions.

It is unclear just how many people this new policy will affect. But it will certainly apply to thousands of Jews who emigrated from Russia after July 1, 1991 — the date on which the Soviet Union, then in its final days, ended its policy of taking away the passports of Jews who left the country with exit visas to Israel. (The Soviet Union was formally dissolved on December 25, 1991.)

In Soviet times, the only way that Jews were allowed to leave the country was with their Russian passport confiscated — if they were allowed to leave at all. Many actually moved to the United States or to Europe once they got out, despite the Israeli stamp on their exit visa. But under the late Soviet policy, which was continued by the successor Russian government following the Soviet Union’s breakup, Jews could, for the first time, like others, become dual nationals. This allowed them to return freely to Russia to visit — or even move back if they changed their minds.

“I’ve always had two citizenships, two languages, two identities and two cultures. It’s who I am,” said Katya Rouzina, a 27-year-old college Russian instructor and graduate student who expects her Russian passport application will be rejected—as was this reporter’s—because she left Russia before February 1992. Like many Russian expatriates, Rouzina, who moved to the United States when she was 1-year-old, considers her continued tie to Russia a matter of identity. “They can’t just randomly say you’re not a Russian citizen anymore. That just makes me angry,” she said.

Like the United States, the Russian Federation allows for dual citizenship, though estimates of how many Russians have this status vary widely. Konstantin Romodanovsky, the director of Russia’s Federal Migration Service, told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that between 1 million and 6 million Russians have dual citizenship.

Asked about the new policy, which was never formally announced, the Russian Embassy in Washington confirmed the change, which it said was not a matter of any new law passed by the country’s legislature. “Our laws expand, they don’t change,” embassy press secretary Yury Melnik said. “The laws are interpreted better…. An expired passport isn’t considered a valid document.”

The Russian Consulate in New York City acknowledged that in the past, Russia had issued passports to people who had been expatriate citizens of the old Soviet Union, even if they had never registered as residents and citizens of the new Russian Federation, established after the Soviet Union’s breakup. It acknowledged having renewed their passports, as well.

“The people with such passports considered themselves citizens of the Russian Federation,” the consulate wrote in its email. “While we are aware that the persons holding such passports are not to be blamed for the existing situation, we must now, nonetheless, put things in order. We cannot issue passports to those whose Russian citizenship is not properly registered.”

The consulate suggested that those caught in this situation apply for a visa to visit Russia as American citizens instead. Michael Drob, director of a new documentary, “Stateless,” which tells the story of Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union, said that not having a Russian passport would not only make travel to Russia more difficult, it might also prevent elderly people from receiving their Russian government pensions when they reach retirement age.

Moreover, he said, those caught up in this change, who came to America and became permanent residents but who never applied for citizenship, would now effectively be rendered stateless; so would those who came on more limited visas and stayed in America illegally.

The exact number of people who emigrated from Russia between July 1, 1991, when the Soviet-era passport confiscation policy for departing Jews ended, and February 6, 1992, could not be obtained. But it is clearly on the scale of tens of thousands.

Source: Russia Quietly Strips Emigres of Dual Citizenship – World – Forward.com

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