The oath to the Queen is constitutional – as is changing it – Globe Editorial

2014/08/15 Leave a comment

Globe Editorial on the recent court ruling on the citizenship oath (ruling itself not surprising):

The oath – which is a constitutional requirement for MPs, and a legal obligation for new citizens and many officials within our system of government and justice – is a pledge to respect the deepest and highest principles of Canada’s Constitution. And those principles include the right to freedom of belief and conscience, democratic participation and the working of change by peaceful and democratic means. The constitutional order is strong and supple enough that, from 1993 to 1997, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition was a party dedicated to dismembering the country. Yet Bloc Québécois MPs could take the oath to the Queen and, simultaneously and in good conscience, call for the removal of Quebec from Canada. In taking their oath, they were pledging allegiance to the democratic and legal processes of our constitutional order – not to the person or beliefs of the sovereign.

Want a constitutional monarchy with, say, the governor-general as the head of state? An elected head of state? No head of state? Want to write the Queen out of the oath, or get rid of all oaths? You can take the oath to the Queen, and then work for that. To do so will not offend the Queen, the law or the Constitution. Working through violent or illegal means would be a failure to bear true allegiance, as promised in the oath. But to advocate legally, non-violently and democratically for a change in Canada’s laws or system of government, including even the abolition of the monarchy? To do so would respect the Constitution that the monarchy represents.

Having spent years pushing their case against the monarchy through the courts, the complainants have become the embodiment of our Constitution’s inherent reasonableness. In Canada, it is not just possible to take an oath to the Queen and oppose the existence of the monarchy. Being able to do so is a fundamental right. It is the whole point of our constitutional order.

Should the oath to the Queen be rewritten? The Constitution, like the oath itself, neither demands nor forbids it. It leaves that question to the only people qualified to decide: Canadians and their democratically elected governments.

The oath to the Queen is constitutional – as is changing it – The Globe and Mail.

The related news story:

The three longtime permanent residents had argued before the Ontario Court of Appeal that they oppose the oath on religious or conscientious grounds, arguing the requirement was discriminatory and unjust.

“The purpose of the oath is not to compel expression,” wrote Justice Karen Weiler. “But to obtain a commitment to our form of government from those writing to become Canadian citizens. If there is a violation of the appellants rights to freedom of expression, it is justified.”

Oath to the Queen upheld by Ontario Court of Appeal – Toronto – CBC News.

Filed under Citizenship

Kuwait citizenship row a risk for business, too

2014/08/14 Leave a comment

Vignette from the Gulf and the Kuwaiti approach to citizenship and revocation. Given the large number of expatriate workers, both lower and higher skilled in the region, all states there have restrictive citizenship rights and depend largely on guest workers.

The Canadian government did not cite Kuwait as one of its models for revocation (Canada does, unlike recent UK measures, have an exception for those who would be left stateless):

Nationality has long been a fraught subject in Kuwait, home to an estimated 100,000 stateless individuals. The country’s so-called bidoon from the Arabic word for without, or stateless persons are unable to find legal work or access social services; some find odd jobs on the black market but most live in abject poverty. Many were born in Kuwait and claim that their parents – bedouins or members of other nomadic communities – were not able or aware that they needed to register to obtain citizenship when Kuwait became independent. While the government admits some of these residents deserve citizenship, it says others have arrived from third countries in hopes of accessing the country’s generous welfare system.

The creation of a new stateless class could complicate things further. None of the individuals who have lost their passports so far have other nationalities, meaning they have effectively joined the ranks for the bidoon.

Kuwait citizenship row a risk for business, too / 08 / 2014 / Insights / Home – Monitor Global Outlook | A Premium Service of The Christian Science Monitor.

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Baby Gammy, whose parents left him with Thai surrogate mom, may still be eligible for Australian citizenship

2014/08/06 Leave a comment

The complications arising from surrogacy in the case of the Australian couple who didn’t accept their child with Down’s syndrome. Apart from the broader moral issues involved, the citizenship aspects are of interest:

Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told Sydney Radio 2GB on Monday that Pattaramon “is an absolute hero” and “a saint,” adding that the law surrounding the case “is very, very murky.”

“We are taking a close look at what can be done here, but I wouldn’t want to raise any false hopes or expectations,” Morrison said. “We are dealing with something that has happened in another country’s jurisdiction.”

Morrison’s office later said in a statement that “the child may be eligible for Australian citizenship,” without elaborating.

Australian citizens are entitled to free health care in Australia.

In Sri Racha on Sunday, Pattaramon said that she was not angry with the biological parents for leaving Gammy behind, and that she hoped they would take care of the boy’s twin sister they took with them.

“I’ve never felt angry at them or hated them. I’m always willing to forgive them,” Pattaramon told The Associated Press. “I want to see that they love the baby girl as much as my family loves Gammy. I want her to be well taken care of.”Pattaramon was promised 300,000 baht $9,300 by a surrogacy agency in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to be a surrogate for the Australian couple, but she has not been fully paid since the children were born last December.

If I recall correctly, for a surrogate baby born abroad to be eligible for Canadian citizenship, the genetic material from one of the parents must be Canadian (see Couple fights federal surrogacy policy to bring their boy back to Canada).

Baby Gammy, whose parents left him with Thai surrogate mom, may still be eligible for Australian citizenship.

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Residents urged to apply for Canadian citizenship to avoid hurdles on horizon

2014/08/05 Leave a comment

Nicholas Keung’s story on the coming-into-force provisions of C-24 Citizenship Act, and some concrete stories about some who will be affected:

When Ottawa enacted the new law in June, many, including frontline immigrant settlement workers, assumed it would take effect immediately and that little could be done to beat its more restrictive criteria.

In fact, some of the most controversial changes — requiring citizenship applicants to be present in Canada for four years out of six rather than three years out of four, and raising the age of exemption from language and citizenship tests to 65, from 55 — won’t come into force until next June, immigration officials confirmed to the Star.

“We want to tell people it’s not too late, and they should take advantage of the old rules,” said Ann McRae, executive director of the Rexdale legal clinic, a member of the Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group.

At the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, staff have reached out to community groups to deliver workshops and help clients file citizenship applications.

“All the changes were rushed through so quickly that people are confused,” said clinic lawyer Karin Baqi. “Those who are eligible today may not be eligible tomorrow. We have to get the word out.”

Remon Kirkor came here from Iraq with his wife and three daughters in 2007. The family met the three-year residence requirement in 2010. Yet, Kirkor, 44, hasn’t applied for citizenship, because he knows that as a high school dropout he would have a tough time passing the language test or the citizenship knowledge exam offered only in English and French.

“I work 20 hours a day to support my family. By day, I am a window installer. At night, I work as a dishwasher,” Kirkor, a former truck driver for UNICEF, said through his daughter, Mariam. “I have no time to sleep. I have no time to study English.”

Residents urged to apply for Canadian citizenship to avoid hurdles on horizon | Toronto Star.

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

Strengthening Citizenship, Speeding Up Processing – Canada News Centre

2014/08/02 Leave a comment

Bit of a puff piece as no hard numbers (not that the improvements are not happening, but the Government appears to have an aversion to releasing numbers on a timely basis):

It is expected that in 2015/16 the processing time for citizenship applications will be less than a year. It is also projected that the current backlog of applications will be reduced by more than 80 percent.

Changes to Citizenship Act now in effect:

In addition to the new streamlined decision making model, the government has today implemented a range of legislative amendments to further strengthen Canada’s citizenship program. These amendments relate to authorities to refuse incomplete applications and a uniform system for judicial review of citizenship decisions are also now in effect.

These changes were part of Bill C-24, the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, which received Royal Assent on June 19, 2014. These improvements are in addition to funding in Economic Action Plan 2013 of an additional $44 million over two years to the citizenship program to ensure the timely processing of applications.

Quick facts

  • Canada has the highest rate of naturalization in the world—85 per cent of eligible permanent residents become citizens.

  • Since 2006, Canada has welcomed over 1,300,000 proud new Canadians.

  • Citizenship and Immigration Canada received 333,860 citizenship applications in 2013, the highest volume ever and a strong reminder of the value of being a Canadian citizen.

Strengthening Citizenship, Speeding Up Processing – Canada News Centre.

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Blatant lying loses family its citizenship — but earns them a $63K bill from Canadian government

2014/07/30 2 Comments

Further to my article Overstating “Fraud” – New Canadian Media, an example of particularly egregious misrepresentation (polite term for lying) about residency:

Ottawa has stripped a Lebanese family of their Canadian citizenships — and handed them a $63,000 bill — after they were caught blatantly lying about living in Canada, part of a government crackdown on bogus citizens that could extend to thousands of cases.

The family — a father, mother and their two daughters — signed citizenship forms claiming they lived in Canada for almost all of the previous four years when they really lived in the United Arab Emirates, a fact even posted online in the daughters’ public résumés on LinkedIn.

The bold nature of the fabrications — that successfully won them citizenship in 2008 and 2009 — and their attempts to fight Ottawa’s decision brought rebuke from both the government and the Federal Court of Canada: not only have their citizenships been revoked, but they have been ordered to pay all of the government’s $63,442 in legal bills.

It is a punishment historically associated with only the most egregious cases, usually accused Nazi war criminals who hid their involvement in atrocities when fleeing to Canada after the Second World War.

This case is only the beginning. The RCMP has targeted about 11,000 people from more than 100 countries suspected of fraud by misrepresenting their residency in Canada.

RCMP identified more than 3,000 citizens and 5,000 permanent residents under suspicion in ongoing large-scale fraud investigations. Most are residency claims like in this case.After questions from officials, nearly 2,000 other people have withdrawn their applications, said Nancy Caron, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

A few points to note:

  • If I am correct, it is the same Judge McTavish that threw out the Government’s elimination of refugee claimant health care, partly on grounds of lack of evidence. This case shows that when the Government has sound evidence, it can successfully defend policy before the Courts;
  • The new Citizenship Act makes such revocation decisions at the discretion of the Minister, not the Courts. Yet the Courts have handed the Government a significant victory;
  • My estimate of fraud, based upon numbers provided (no change in this article), was a maximum of 3 percent, calculated on the unlikely assumption (CIC not providing information to the contrary) that the number of fraud investigations pertained to a single year. This case dates from 2008, suggesting that the 3,194 fraud investigations cover multiple years, reducing the percentage of fraud considerably;
  • In addition to requiring the family to cover court costs (appropriate deterrent), the bigger financial risk is that the father will lose his Canadian expatriate status with his UAE employer, and the benefits that go with it. As a Lebanese national, his package will likely be significantly less. I expect he will not rush to tell his employer, however;
  • In addition to Hong Kong and Chinese nationals, the breakdown of fraud investigations reveals mainly Mid-East and Pakistani nationals, likely working in the Gulf, given the incentives mentioned above; and,
  • Lastly, the role of social media in exposing fraud provides another useful tool for CIC and the RCMP. I expect that some will likely be revising (i.e., scrubbing) their various profiles as a result.

It is appropriate for the Government to take a serious approach to reducing fraud and this, and likely other cases in the hopper, strengthen the Government’s case.

However, one can question whether the Government is casting the net too broadly in its review of current applications, and delaying too many applications of those following the rules, rather than focussing on the higher risk cases.

Blatant lying loses family its citizenship — but earns them a $63K bill from Canadian government | National Post.

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For Somalia, “Team Canada” means more money, fewer jobs

2014/07/30 Leave a comment

Interesting profile in the Star about returning members of the Canadian Somali diaspora:

A study released last month by the Mogadishu think-tank Heritage Institute notes that “the relationship between returnees and locals in Somalia is complex.”

Security measures often keep the diaspora segregated since they are seen as influential, and therefore targeted by the Shabab. Also, as the report points out, “returnees often find it easier — and more advantageous from a professional networking point of view — to socialize disproportionately with other diaspora returnees.”

Of course the returning diaspora are not a cohesive group. “Generally, non-diaspora Somali communities grasp the diversity among the diaspora returnees,” writes report author Maimuna Mohamud. “They distinguish, for example, between the ‘good diaspora’ who have been successful in their host countries, and the ‘bad’ ones who failed to take advantage of the opportunities available to them.”

Al-Jazeera journalist Hamza Mohamed poked fun at the stereotypes of the returning diaspora by their country of citizenship, dubbing those from Canada who are not part of Mogadishu’s who’s who as “Team Canada YOLO you only live once.”

“They are everyone’s friends. This group treats life as a party and Somalia as a dance floor,” Mohamed wrote in a column that went viral. “They usually arrive with few things — like a minor criminal record and a Mongolian scripture tattoo they got while under the influence on a night out in Toronto. It’s hard to find them talking about serious issues. Don’t mention school — they have usually dropped out of school and are sensitive discussing this subject. If you want them to unfriend you on Facebook, tag them in photos from your graduation ceremony.”

For Somalia, “Team Canada” means more money, fewer jobs | Toronto Star.

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Retour discret des toiles de Pellan aux Affaires étrangères | Le Devoir

2014/07/30 Leave a comment

li-pellan2-620Progress:

Alfred Pellan est de retour au ministère des Affaires étrangères. Les deux toiles du peintre québécois, qui avaient été écartées du hall d’entrée du ministère au profit d’un portrait de la reine Elizabeth II, sont de retour… timidement, sur un mur adjacent.

Les deux tableaux avaient été remplacés à la veille de la visite du prince William et de sa femme Kate, à l’été 2011. Plutôt que les peintures colorées du peintre québécois, les diplomates et visiteurs du ministère sont désormais accueillis par une grande reproduction d’un portrait de la reine, jonché au-dessus du comptoir de la réception — où se trouvaient les Pellan depuis l’inauguration de l’édifice par la reine en 1973.

I suspect that any change of government would result in a quick reversal of the current government’s fetish for all things related to the Monarchy, including in our missions abroad.

Retour discret des toiles de Pellan aux Affaires étrangères | Le Devoir.

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UK: How I Passed the English Cricket Test – Kenan Malik

2014/07/29 Leave a comment

Kenan Malik on Britishness and belonging:

Craft a statement. Teach a lesson. Politicians may be the only people in the world who imagine that the creation of identities, or the forging of a sense of belonging, can be reduced to such simple formulas.

What most public debates ignore is the complexity, elasticity and sheer contrariness of identity. Whether personal or national, identities can never be singular or fixed because they are rooted largely in people’s relationships with one another — not merely personal but social relationships, too — and such connections are always mutating.

…. My parents were of a generation that accepted racism as part of life. I was of a generation that challenged it, politically and physically. We confronted far-right thugs, organized street patrols to protect black and Asian families, and stood up to police harassment. And this inevitably shaped our sense of who we were.

My generation did not think of itself as “Muslim” or “Hindu” or “Sikh.” We wanted to be seen as British. When Britain told us, “You don’t belong,” we responded both by insisting on our Britishness and by identifying with those who challenged British identity. Such is the contradictory character of belonging.

… Today, things are different. Neither racism nor racial violence has disappeared, and hostility to immigration has become a defining feature of British politics. Yet the savage, in-your-face racism that marked Britain a generation ago is, thankfully, relatively rare. The nature of Britishness has changed, too. No longer rooted in ideas of race and empire, it is defined as much by diversity as by jingoism. National identity is being recast in a host of new debates, from the fractious question of Scottish independence to the fraught relationship with the European Union.

Blacks and Asians have long since become an accepted part of Britain’s identity, as well as its sporting tapestry. And I have dropped my “anyone but England” attitude. I, too, now feel the pain of penalty shootout defeats and the rare joy of cricket match victories. Yet, if I am now willing to wave the flag at a cricket field or in a soccer stadium, I will not necessarily do so in all contexts. I may be tribal about sports, but I am not patriotic about Britain.

Unthinking, irrational support for one team over another is an essential part of the experience of sports. Patriots wish us to be equally unthinking in our attachment to the nation in every arena, from culture to war. The myth of nationalism is that “Britishness,” just like “Frenchness” or “Americanness,” comes as a single package. But identity does not work like that.

There are many aspects of British life that I admire, and many that I despise. I only have to visit a London street market to be reminded how open Britain is to foods and goods and influences from all over the world; I only have to stand in line in passport control at Heathrow Airport to remember how deep the suspicion of foreigners runs. Many British traditions resonate with me; many I find abhorrent. This is the nation that produced the Levellers and the Suffragettes, radical movements that helped shape the world; it is also a nation that still clings to a monarchy and the unelected, feudal House of Lords.

Many non-British traditions, too, have helped shape my views, values and ideals. To erase this complexity with the myths of patriotism is to diminish the very meaning of belonging.

How I Passed the English Cricket Test – NYTimes.com.

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Thérèse Casgrain, feminist icon, quietly shunted by Harper government

2014/07/29 Leave a comment

Governments unfortunately have a tendency to remake history in their own image, as this vignette about the Thérèse Casgrain indicates:

Michèle Nadeau, Casgrains granddaughter, says her family and the Montreal-based Thérèse Casgrain Foundation, which she heads, were not consulted about whether the award should be eliminated.

“We were informed of a sort of internal review that was done by the Human Resources Department, and they decided to discontinue. But we were never consulted.

“Basically, we were advised that at some point the award would be discontinued … Members of the family, the grandchildren, etc., the great grandchildren, were rather upset.”

An image of Casgrain and her namesake volunteer-award medal also disappeared from Canadas $50 bank note in 2012, replaced by the image of an icebreaker on a new currency series.

An image of the so-called Famous Five women was removed from the same bank note.

The Casgrain Award was killed once before by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in 1990, but was revived in 2001 by the Chretien Liberals.

During preparations for Discover Canada, officials recommended including the Famous Five as part of the historical narrative and to reinforce the some of the values messages but this was not accepted.

Never completely understood why removal rather than appropriating but there is a consistent thread to these and related actions.

Thérèse Casgrain, feminist icon, quietly shunted by Harper government – Montreal – CBC News.

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