Terrorist scumbag doesn’t deserve citizenship | Candace Malcolm | Toronto Sun

2016/03/01 1 Comment

Expressed more simply but using the same strand of arguments as in John Ibbitson’s Dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason or spying don’t deserve to keep Canadian citizenship:

Now, the Liberal government is not only saying this man can stay in Canada, but they are also honouring him with citizenship.

Does the Trudeau government plan to send a citizenship judge into Amara’s prison cell to host a citizenship ceremony? Will he be asked to utter the oath of citizenship, and pledge allegiance to Canada and the Queen? Maybe Trudeau will show up for a selfie.

This is an absolute mockery of our citizenship. This scumbag does not deserve the privilege of being Canadian.

And yet, the Trudeau government is going out of its way to grant citizenship to a person who, judging by his actions, has a hatred for Canadians. We are bestowing the privilege and honour of Canadian citizenship upon a radicalized self-confessed Islamic terrorist who conspired to wage war against Canada.

Immigration minister John McCallum justified the move by saying, “Canadian citizens are equal under the law.”

That’s just not the case. In Canada, much like every other Western country, a person convicted of an indictable offence loses many of the rights and privileges that come along with citizenship. Serious criminals are no longer equal under the law.

Amara committed the modern day equivalent of high treason. He should not be treated equally to law-abiding Canadian citizens.

When Amara is released from prison, we should be showing him the door, not handing him Canadian citizenship papers.

Source: Terrorist scumbag doesn’t deserve citizenship | Malcolm | Columnists | Opinion |

Filed under C-6, Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with

Matt Gurney: If deportation is appropriate for war criminals, why not for terrorists?

2016/02/29 Leave a comment

Matt Gurney is unsatisfied with the principle, “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” as an explanation why we revoke citizenship for fraud and misrepresentation but not for terrorism:

After the Second World War, thousands of citizens of defeated enemy nations — Germany, Italy, Japan — moved to Canada. These immigrants included many who had served in the armed forces of those nations, and perhaps had even fought against Canadians. Mere military service in a once-hostile nation was not, and should not have been, found to be sufficient cause to deny them citizenship once the war was over. In some rare cases, however, Canada later discovered (or was told) that people living here as naturalized Canadians had been involved, for instance, in the Holocaust. These individuals, once convicted of their war crimes, had their citizenship taken away and were returned to their original countries of origin to face justice.

If that’s appropriate for war criminals, why not for terrorists?

The legal answer would be, of course, that these individuals weren’t stripped of their passports because they were terrible people who had done awful things, but because they’d lied about having done those terrible things. But while perhaps legally valid, the argument is morally and pragmatically absurd. We don’t exile liars, nor should fraud be somehow treated as a crime worse than, say, genocide. The legal circumstances provided an excuse to what’s really, and rightly, an exercise in morality — denying the honour of Canadian citizenship to those who do not deserve it.

If the Liberals wish to reverse parts of C-24, they of course have that right. They are the government. But concerned Canadians are owed more than slogans. The government should be clear why war criminals can be deported, but terrorists with dual nationalities can keep their passport forever. They may have an answer for it. If so, let’s hear it.

If I were writing the talking points:

  • There is a difference between one’s behaviour before one becomes a citizen and after one becomes Canadian
  • Before, all applicants must meet requirements (residency, language, knowledge etc) in order to take the oath and become citizens
  • Integrity is central to this process
  • Any misrepresentation or fraud, like any government program, means one loses the benefits of the particular program
  • After, all citizens must be treated equally before the law, whether Canadian-born or foreign-born, whether Canadian citizen only or dual-national
  • Current and past cases involve all of these variations, and should be subject to the same punishment. One should not have different punishments for the same crime

Responsive (if asked what about those lying when they take the oath)

  • There is no reliable way to test the sincerity of those taking the oath unlike the other, more easily verifiable, requirements

Comments or suggestions welcome …

Source: Matt Gurney: If deportation is appropriate for war criminals, why not for terrorists? | National Post

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Asian sex abusers to be stripped of UK citizenship and deported

2016/02/29 Leave a comment

Implementation of the slippery-slope argument with respect to revocation in the UK (yes, these are horrific crimes, but very long jail time is the appropriate response):

Asian-born sex abusers will be stripped of their UK citizenship and deported at the end of their sentences under a new Home Office drive, The Independent can reveal.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is planning to significantly increase her department’s use of legal powers that allow serious criminals with dual nationality to have their British citizenship withdrawn, Whitehall sources say.

Until now, the powers have predominately been used to remove the UK passports of terrorists and terrorist sympathisers.

But senior department sources told The Independent that – in response to the series of Asian sex abuse gangs uncovered in towns across the country in recent years  – there is likely to be an “acceleration of passport strike-outs and potential deportations”.

British-Pakistani members of the gang of six men and women from Rotherham who were convicted on Wednesday of offences including rape, forced prostitution, indecent assault and  false imprisonment are expected to face action to strip them of their UK citizenship after they are sentenced today. Legal proceedings seeking their potential deportation to Pakistan are likely to follow.

The abuse of predominantly white girls by networks of Asian men has led to prosecutions across the North of England and the Midlands. More trials are imminent.

David Greenwood, head of the child abuse department at Switalskis solicitors in Sheffield, who represents almost 60 victims subjected to sexual abuse by the Rotherham gang between 1996 and 2012, said: “This trial is just the first of many and is the tip of a very big iceberg. From the work I have done, it appears that gangs of Asian men have been operating to sexually abuse young white girls in Rotherham, Oxford, Keighley, Bradford and Rochdale.”

Although amendments to British nationality laws in 2014 making it easier to strip dual nationals of citizenship were primarily aimed at terrorists who could undermine the UK’s security, the Home Office is now using the same legal sanctions to target serious crime, including sex abuse.

Source: Asian sex abusers to be stripped of UK citizenship and deported | Crime | News | The Independent

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Revocation Tagged with , , ,

John Ivison: Jason Kenney’s newfound energy signals that the Tory leadership race has started in earnest

2016/02/29 Leave a comment

Good profile by John Ivison on Jason Kenney and his post-election reflections (I have great respect for former Minister Kenney from my time as former DG – Citizenship and Multiculturalism – as chronicled in my book, Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism):

“The fatal flaw was our tone. It seemed too often the government went out of its way to make enemies, not friends, starting with the media,” he said.

“On identity questions, every public opinion poll demonstrated a super-majority of Canadians supporting the notion that the citizenship oath should be taken openly … So I think we were on the right side of those issues substantively and politically. But when dealing with sensitive issues you have to communicate with great nuance and subtlety. I accept that was not necessarily the case in our campaign.”

The received wisdom is that these mistakes led to a hemorrhaging of support from the loose coalition of new Canadians that Kenney, more than anyone else, had helped knit together. But he disputes there was a repudiation of the Conservative message among ethnic voters.

“We got 32 per cent of the new Canadian vote, down from the low 40s in 2011, which was proportionate to our popular vote. It’s encouraging that it is still a far higher percentage than the Conservative Party has attracted historically. The problem is our vote didn’t grow with the electorate, which was mostly an issue with the under-30s. The bottom line is we now have a competitive environment. It wasn’t catastrophic.”

What Kenney doesn’t say, is that while the Conservatives got 32 percent of the new Canadian vote, this was 20 points behind the Liberals in the 33 ridings where visible minorities are in the majority (905, BC’s lower mainland) – and where he personally invested considerable time in wooing those communities.

It was not only a question of tone in these ridings: a number of citizenship and immigration changes did not, in the end, go down well with many voters.

“Showing up” was not enough.

Source: John Ivison: Jason Kenney’s newfound energy signals that the Tory leadership race has started in earnest

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New Canadians continue fight to disavow citizenship oath to Queen

2016/02/27 Leave a comment

Small number – about 30.

While I am not a fan of the current oath (Australia did away with its oath to the Queen in 1994), I do not believe that individual disavowal, rather than advocating for a new oath, is the more appropriate approach. And it does suggest contempt for our history and institutions.

It is possible that at some time, the current government may decide to revisit the oath, as the Chretien government considered doing almost 20 years ago:

Emboldened by comments from Ontario’s highest court, a tiny but determined group of new, and not-so-new, Canadians have been publicly disavowing the oath to the Queen they were forced to take to become citizens.

Some are making the required pledge, then formally renouncing it as soon as their citizenship ceremonies are over. Others have waited decades to declare their anti-monarchist views.

“It is pretty hard for me to consciously swear to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to someone who has inherited her privileges and without having to prove any other merit than the fact to be the ‘child of’,” said Eric Dumonteil, a French national who became a citizen last week.

“How could I rationally swear the same thing to her heirs and successors? Signing a blank cheque to some people that don’t exist yet? Not for me.”

Dumonteil, 31, of Montreal, who came to Canada five years ago, handed a letter stating his position on the oath to the citizenship judge and clerk following his ceremony.

In 2014, an Israeli national, Dror Bar-Natan, along with a Jamaican woman and Irishman, lost a battle to have the courts strike down as discriminatory the requirement for would-be citizens to swear to be “faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.”

However, in refusing to nix the requirement, the Ontario Court of Appeal noted the trio had the opportunity to “publicly disavow what they consider to be the message conveyed by the oath” as well as the ability to “freely express their dissenting views as to the desirability of a republican government.” The matter died legally last year when the Supreme Court refused to weigh in.

Leaning on the Appeal Court comments, Bar-Natan, who called the oath tantamount to a “hazing” ritual, recanted his oath orally and in a letter to the judge moments after becoming a citizen in November. He also set up a website (www.disavowal.ca) to allow others to make their disavowal views known. To date, about 30 people have done so.

Source: New Canadians continue fight to disavow citizenship oath to Queen – Macleans.ca

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My Take of the #Citizenship Act Changes: Finding the Centre

2016/02/26 2 Comments

The proposed changes to the Citizenship Act announced 25 February by Minister McCallum focussed on implementing the Liberal platform and ministerial mandate commitments, rather than full-scale repeal of the previous Conservative government’s legislation and related measures.

The package of measures is carefully balanced between matters of principle — a “Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” repealing the national interest revocation provisions — with measures both to remove barriers to citizenship while improving integrity.

Given some of the pressures within the Liberal caucus, particularly those with large number of new Canadian voters, to ease language competency and other requirements, this has to be viewed as a relatively moderate package (the Liberals won the vast majority of seats with large number of new Canadians, and have the largest number of visible minorities in their caucus (39).

In many ways, these changes reflect the establishment of a new centre, one that balances facilitation while emphasizing integration, integrity and meaningfulness.

While Michelle Rempel, Conservative critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, has already lambasted the government on repealing the revocation provisions, she is silent on the extent that many of the integrity and process changes introduced by the Conservative government have been maintained, if not strengthened. This significant legacy of former ministers Kenney and Alexander remains, one that addressed long-standing management and integrity issues with the citizenship program.

In his announcement, the Minister emphasized both what was different — repeal of the revocation provisions and removal of barriers — as well as what was unchanged: emphasis on program integrity, and continued emphasis on ensuring that citizenship means a “real and meaningful” commitment to Canada.

Starting with what is different.

Principle that a “Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

What will clearly be the most controversial change, judging by the Official Opposition and media, the Government will repeal the revocation provisions for those convicted of terror or treason and restore the citizenship of the one person, Zakaria Amara (a member of the “Toronto 18”), whose citizenship was revoked under the previous government’s legislation.

This was the focus of media questions, and McCallum repeatedly stressed the principle that a Canadian, whether born in Canada or not, whether Canadian only or having dual nationality, should be treated the same and that Canada’s criminal justice system is to punish the convicted. The Government campaigned on this issue and is implementing its platform commitment.

In response to questions regarding that Canada is moving in the opposite direction to other government such as Australia and French, he declined to comment on other governments, and simply reiterated the principle behind the decision, one that the government campaigned on.

Reduce Barriers to Citizenship

As part of efforts to shifting the balance towards making citizenship easier, Bill C-6 includes the following measures:

  1. Restore the previous age limits for knowledge and language testing to 18-54 year olds (the previous government had increased these to 14-64). This change will affect slightly over ten percent of all applicants. The rationale for requiring testing for 14-17 year olds was never clear (they would have been in the Canadian school system for 4-6 years) whereas for older applicants, 64 was believed to be a better and more consistent definition of senior;
  2. Repeal the “intent to reside” provision given concerns regarding how this could be interpreted over time, and become grounds for possible future revocation;
  3. Restoring pre-permanent residency time 50 percent credit towards citizenship, calling the previous government’s removal the “stupidest part” of C-24, given that providing such credit encourages citizenship take-up by international students, in line with the approach of other countries which also ‘compete’ for students. Some IRCC senior officials have previously indicated that this change was prompted in part by concerns of increased competition with Canadian-born students;
  4. Maintaining the physical presence requirement but reducing the time required to three out of five years compared to four out of six (historically, it was three out of four, making it three out of five provides greater flexibility for those whose work or family obligations take them outside Canada);
  5. Although not in legislation (nor in the Liberal platform or the Minister’s mandate letter), revise Discover Canada, the citizenship study guide, given concerns about language and content (McCallum cited too much emphasis on the War of 1812 and references to “barbaric cultural practices”). This will be done jointly with the departments of Canadian Heritage and Indigenous Affairs, reflecting a much more inclusive process than when my former team prepared Discover Canada.

Retain Integrity

McCallum repeatedly stressed that citizenship should mean a “real and meaningful” commitment to Canada. Citizenship misrepresentation and fraud remained a concern. The physical residency  requirement remained as did the language requirements (although he said “modest adjustments” would be made).

He also retained virtually all of the integrity-related measures introduced by the Conservatives:

  1. Physical presence, not just legal residency;
  2. Knowledge requirement must be met in English or French, not through an interpreter;
  3. No change to “lost Canadians” provisions;
  4. No change to expansion of bar granting citizenship to those with foreign criminal charges and convictions;
  5. No changes to regulations for citizenship consultants;
  6. No changes to increased fines and penalties for fraud;
  7. No change in authority for Ministerial authority to revoke citizenship for routine cases (previously, had been Governor in Council);
  8. No change in authority for Minister to decide on discretionary grants of citizenship (previously, had been Governor in Council);
  9. Maintain authority to decide what is a complete application (streamlines processing);
  10. Maintain single-step citizenship processing to reduce duplication (previously was three-step) with reduced role for citizenship judges;
  11. Maintain requirement for adult applicants to file Canadian income taxes;
  12. Maintain fast-track mechanism for Permanent Residents serving in the Canadian Forces.

In addition, the Minister is also proposing to increase citizenship integrity further (not highlighted in his press conference) by:

  1. No longer counting time spent under a conditional sentence order towards meeting the physical presence requirements; and those serving a conditional sentence order are prohibited from being granted citizenship or taking the oath of citizenship;
  2. Retroactive application of the provision prohibiting applicants from taking the oath of citizenship if they never met or no longer meet citizenship requirements to applications still in process received prior to June 11, 2015; and,
  3. Authority to seize documents if there are reasonable grounds to believe they are fraudulent, or being used fraudulently.

Issues not addressed include the high cost of citizenship (which rose from $200 to $630 under the previous government). When asked, McCallum stated that his focus was on implementing Liberal platform commitments and that the issue of fees may be examined in the future. Moreover, there was no commitment to reducing the time required to process citizenship applications, or implement and report on how well the department is doing.

Given the media focus on the revocation changes and the degree the previous government emphasized this provision, this will continue to be the focus of the discussion and debate on Bill C-6. It is also the easiest issue for people to understand and debate, as the other changes are largely adjustments (“tweaks” to use the Minister’s word), as the fundamentals — physical presence, knowledge and language requirements — have been preserved.

Taken as a whole, these proposed changes reflect a re-centring of citizenship, a relatively surgical approach to repealing provisions of the previous Conservative government’s 2014 Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act (C-24). It aims to define a new balance between facilitating citizenship while maintaining meaningfulness.

Meeting the Liberal government’s public commitments, while retaining virtually all of the previous government’s integrity measures, should reduce fears that the Government is not able to make choices and is not ‘pandering’ to the many ethnic voters which supported it.

Filed under C-24, C-6, Citizenship, Citizenship Act Tagged with

Various Commentary on Citizenship Act Changes

2016/02/26 Leave a comment

Commentary on the Liberal government’s planned changes to citizenship (Bill C-6), from those advocating a more facultative approach (including myself) and former Minister Alexander:

“We are very pleased with the government’s decision to rescind the previous government’s Bill C-24 that made it far more difficult to obtain citizenship and far easier to lose,” said Debbie Douglas of the Ontario Council for Agencies Serving Immigrants.

“We are particularly pleased that we are moving away from two-tier citizenship where dual citizens could have their citizenship revoked. We commend the Liberal government for taking this principled decision.”

The new citizenship bill also makes some new changes by extending immigration authorities’ power to seize documents suspected of fraud and barring those serving conditional sentences from seeking citizenship or counting the time toward the residency eligibility.

Andrew Griffith, a former director-general with the immigration department, said the proposed legislation surprisingly retained many of the provisions passed by the previous government to improve enforcement and integrity of the citizenship system while reducing unreasonable hurdles for would-be citizens.

“They are removing some of the worst abuses the Conservatives did, promoting its diversity and inclusive agenda, without changing the fundamental value of real and meaningful commitment to Canadian citizenship,” Griffith said.

“These proposed changes reflect, apart from revocation, relatively modest changes, in line with the Liberals’ public commitments, and that retain virtually all of the previous government’s integrity measures.”

While he is pleased with the proposed citizenship changes, veteran immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman said those who face citizenship revocation on the grounds of misrepresentation are still not entitled to a hearing – a practice that is under a legal challenge in the federal court.

“Why are we keeping this Harper legacy?” Waldman asked.

Under the Harper government, the citizenship application backlog had ballooned with processing time significantly lengthened. New resources were brought in last year to reduce the wait time.

McCallum said new citizenship applications are now being processed in 12 months and the backlog is expected to be cleared by the end of this year.

 Source: Ottawa reverses course of Canada’s ‘easier to lose, harder to get’ citizenship | Toronto Star

In an email to The Canadian Press ahead of the announcement, former Conservative immigration minister Chris Alexander said the changes his government made were in keeping with Canadian values.

“Terrorism, espionage and treason are serious crimes, representing gross acts of disloyalty. They are far more serious violations than covering up minor crimes from one’s past — a common form of misrepresentation,” he said.

The Conservative bill was attacked as setting a dangerous precedent and even challenged, unsuccessfully, as unconstitutional.

Liberals to pull back Tory rules, restoring citizenship to convicted terrorist
In the National Post, John Ivison harshly criticizes the repeal of the revocation provisions (as well as pandering to ethnic voters):

It’s true, as Immigration Minister John McCallum pointed out, that this fulfils an election pledge, made to drive a wedge between the Tories and the ethnic communities that supported them in three elections.

The Conservatives signed their own death warrant by tightening up the family reunification criteria, raising the income threshold necessary for new immigrants to bring in parents and grandparents.

The Liberals campaigned hard on easing those restrictions and on their intention to revoke the Conservative citizenship bill, exploiting fears in ethnic communities that they could be stripped of their citizenship and deported if convicted of a crime.

…. the central failing of this bill. Dual nationals can now be convicted of terrorism, high treason or spying and retain their Canadian citizenship.

You can be supportive of civility, tolerance and inclusion and still believe this move is dangerous and misguided.

Loyalty is the measure of good citizenship.

When you betray that trust, you should forfeit the rights, privileges and duties of being a member of Canadian society.

Dual nationals convicted of terrorism, high treason or spying don’t deserve to keep Canadian citizenship

I am waiting for Ivison’s colleague, Chris Selley, to weigh in given his previous strong criticism of revocation (National Post | Chris Selley: Stripping jihadis’ citizenship feels good. But what good does it do?)

Tasha Kheiriddin in iPolitics starts from the same place but ends with a more nuanced criticism, making a distinction between those who became citizens as children, which should be treated no differently from Canadian-born, and those who became citizens as adults:

But the fear of losing one’s citizenship struck a deep chord with immigrants and native-born Canadians alike. Trudeau’s impassioned defence of citizenship was widely seen as a highlight of that debate — that rare sort of knockout punch pundits and audiences yearn for. The Liberals carried that punch from the debate to the doorstep, where it — coupled with their defence of the niqab and opposition to the Conservatives’ barbaric cultural practices tip line — helped cement the Liberals’ reputation as pro-New Canadian, and the Conservatives’ image as anti-immigrant.
This week, Immigration Minister John McCallum announced that the government would be reversing Bill C-24. “Canadian citizens are equal under the law, whether they were born in Canada or were naturalized in Canada or hold dual citizenship,” McCallum said in a statement. …

The bill also will restore Canadian citizenship to anyone stripped of it under Bill C-24. As a result, Amara will have his citizenship reinstated once the Liberals’ new bill becomes law.

Opponents of the Conservative law decried the creation of two different “classes” of citizens — those born in Canada and those who have dual nationalities. But those individuals are arguably already in two different classes — in fact, more than two, depending on how they obtained their citizenships. Some did so by birth, some due to a parent’s move to Canada, and some by their own choice as an adult. And the implications of revocation for each group can be very, very different.

In Amara’s case, he came to Canada as a 13-year-old. While he arguably took his oath as a child, nothing would have prevented him from renouncing his Jordanian citizenship as an adult. Maintaining it, however, gave him certain advantages, including freedom to live, work and travel in Jordan, where he was born. Those advantages are not available to other Canadians. Should they complain that they’re second-class citizens, because they don’t have the same privileges? Should he complain that he received unequal treatment, when he himself maintains an unequal status?

In the case of dual citizens born in Canada, who hold dual citizenship by virtue of their parents, the situation is somewhat different. Saad Gaya, also one of the Toronto 18, was deemed to have Pakistani citizenship retroactively, due to his parents’ possessing Pakistani nationality. Unlike Amara, Gaya had no connection to his parents’ country, and claimed that he didn’t even have said citizenship. Furthermore, as a child born here, he did not choose Canada. Because of this, he claimed that sending him to Pakistan would constitute “cruel and unusual treatment”.

A better version of the law would be one that allows the state to cancel the Canadian citizenship of a person convicted of treason who obtained that citizenship consciously and deliberately as an adult. This would deter those seeking citizenship for no other reason than to enable them to strike back at their adopted country, or who used their ability to move freely in Canada to facilitate terrorist acts.

While there is no doubt that withdrawal of citizenship should not be subject to the whim of the state, neither should citizenship be completely taken for granted. For citizenship to have value, it must not just be a passport of convenience — or worse, a cover for crime.

Dual nationals convicted of terrorism don’t deserve to keep Canadian citizenship

Comparatively little to no coverage or commentary in Quebec media, unless I missed it.

Filed under C-6, Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with , , , , , ,

Liberals to repeal citizenship law Bill C-24: immigration minister – “coming days”

2016/02/25 4 Comments

Whether in the form of “tweaks”, “significant” or “radical” changes (the Minister has used all three terms), likely that the changes will be more substantive than mere tweaks.

But overall, messaging is a reversal of the previous government’s approach of making citizenship “harder to get and easier to lose.”

The extent to which this undermines some of the needed integrity measures introduced by the Conservatives – more rigorous knowledge and language testing, physical residency requirements etc – remains to be seen, although the Minister in Committee did state the importance of language knowledge to integration.

These changes happen in the context of a significant decline in the number of persons applying for citizenship: from an average of around 200,000 in past years, to about 130,000 in the last three years.

Will be hosting a citizenship workshop at Metropolis next week in Toronto and should the Minister literally announce this within days, we will have a good discussion regarding the changes (I will post my deck next week, essentially an updated version of Citizenship – Canadian Ethnic Studies 24 Oct 2015 with more recent data:

Immigration Minister John McCallum says the government will announce significant changes to the Citizenship Act in the coming days.

Mr. McCallum said Tuesday that the Liberals will soon follow through on their election pledge to repeal the Conservatives’ controversial Bill C-24, which gave the government the power to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism, treason or espionage.

Asked when the changes will be unveiled, Mr. McCallum told The Globe and Mail to expect an announcement “in coming days, but not very many days.”

During last year’s election campaign, the Liberal platform committed to “repeal the unfair elements of Bill C-24 that create second-class citizens and the elements that make it more difficult for hard-working immigrants to become Canadian citizens.”

Mr. McCallum said the government’s announcement will make it impossible to revoke citizenship.

“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Mr. McCallum said, repeating a line used by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a heated election debate last September. “We would not revoke people’s citizenship. … That will certainly be a part of it [the announcement],” the Immigration Minister added.

Mr. McCallum said the government will also remove barriers to citizenship posed by Bill C-24.

“We believe that it’s better to make it easier rather than harder for people to become citizens.”

However, he did not say which specific barriers would be addressed.

Source: Liberals to repeal citizenship law Bill C-24: immigration minister – The Globe and Mail

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Changes coming soon to #Citizenship Act, John McCallum says

2016/02/20 1 Comment

Messaging is more in the nature of relatively minor changes/reversals, in contrast to his earlier reference to “radical changes” (McCallum promises ‘radical changes’ to Citizenship Act | hilltimes.com). We should know which is it in a few weeks:

But McCallum said the Liberal government has two main goals when it comes to making its changes to the Citizenship Act.

“We would make it impossible for the government to take away someone’s citizenship, and we would reduce the barriers currently in place that people have to overcome,” he said.

One of those barriers is a test to prove language proficiency in English or French. Bill C-24 expanded the age range for people required to take that test, to those aged 14 to 64 from a ranged of 18 to 54.

McCallum hinted the government is considering restoring the original age limit, among other changes.

“We could bring it back to [age] 54,” he said. “That’s an adjustment at the margin on the grounds that some older people coming to this country may not be fully proficient in English, although their children will be and their grandchildren certainly will be.”

“It’s one of the things we are potentially considering,” he added.

But McCallum made clear the government has no plans to scrap the language testing.

“I think you could call it tweaks to the system, and certainly not ditching the system.”

As for when Canadians can expect an announcement from the government, McCallum said to be on watch “in the coming days and weeks, but not very many weeks.”

Source: Changes coming soon to Citizenship Act, John McCallum says – Politics – CBC News

Filed under C-24, Citizenship, Citizenship Act, Revocation Tagged with

USA/New York: Costs of applying for #citizenship soaring

2016/02/20 Leave a comment

A local illustration of the impact of costly citizenship fees (Canada not immune given the increase in fees from $100 to $530 in 2014, along with the cost of language assessment around $200, a definite contributing factor in the decline of citizenship applications from an earlier average of some 200,000 a year to a more recent 130,000 per year):

Nearly 670,000 New Yorkers are eligible to apply for citizenship, but the costs have spiked so high that immigrants may no longer be able to afford becoming full-fledged Americans, the city comptroller has warned.

The citizen application fees have soared nearly 500 percent since 1989, after adjusting for inflation, from $68 to $680 [CAD 940] today, according to Comptroller Scott Stringer. In addition, the city recently cut back on adult literacy programs and now provide only limited access to affordable legal services.

These barriers to citizenship are among the findings in a new report from Stringer released last week.

“With costs that can reach into the thousands of dollars, our citizenship process has become too expensive for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers,” Stringer said. “High fees and diminished access to English instruction and affordable legal services are throwing up roadblocks to naturalization for this generation of immigrants. Becoming a citizen is an integral part of the American experience. Every New Yorker deserves a fair and fighting chance to make it in this city and it’s the job of government to break down barriers to help those who have lived and worked here to make citizenship an attainable goal.”

Low-income immigrants are currently offered free waivers for the paperwork costs, but the waiver process is “plagued by problems,” according to Stringer. In 2011, only 23,000 fee waivers for naturalization were granted out of a total of 756,000 applications, just over 3 percent.

Applicants must pass a language-proficiency test, but English language classes cost around $400 per week for group lessons. Although the New York Public Library expanded seats for free English classes by 300 percent over the last three years, the report said, several branches have reported having to turn away applicants, unable to meet the high demand.

Source: Costs of applying for citizenship soaring: Stringer • TimesLedger

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

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