Germany set to add citizenship test questions about Jews and Israel

2024/03/28 Leave a comment

Of note (similar in a sense to ensuring new Canadians know about Indigenous peoples and the various harmful actions of Canadian governments):

Those seeking German citizenship could soon have to answer test questions about antisemitism, Germany’s commitment to Israel and Jewish life in Germany.

The catalogue of more than 300 questions from which citizenship test questions can be selected is to be amended shortly, the interior ministry said in a statement, pending final approval. New questions, German magazine Der Spiegel reported, are to include: What is a Jewish house of prayer called? When was the State of Israel founded? What is the reason for Germany’s special responsibility for Israel? How is Holocaust denial punished in Germany? And, somewhat mysteriously: Who can become a member of the approximately 40 Jewish Maccabi sports clubs in Germany? (Anyone, according to the organization’s FAQ.)

The move comes months after the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt made a written commitment for the “right of the State of Israel to exist” a requirement for naturalization.

Germany has cracked down on pro-Palestinian voices and on antisemitism amid Israel’s war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Germany and German institutions have come under criticism in recent months for enforcing strict speech policies affecting pro-Palestinian protests. Museum shows, book talks and other art events have been canceled.

“One thing is particularly important to me,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told Der Spiegel. “As a result of the German crime against humanity of the Holocaust comes our special responsibility for the protection of Jews and for the protection of the State of Israel. This responsibility is part of our identity today.”

“Anyone who doesn’t share our values can’t get a German passport. We have drawn a crystal clear red line here,” Faeser said. “Antisemitism, racism and other forms of contempt for humanity rule out naturalization.”

The 33-question citizenship test is one of several prerequisites to becoming a German citizen. To pass, applicants must correctly answer at least 17 multiple-choice questions within an hour.

A wave of more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents logged by authorities since Oct. 7 has prompted German leaders to call for better enforcement of the country’s antisemitism laws in recent months.

“Antisemitism has no place in Germany,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an address to German parliament in late October. “We will do everything to oppose it. We will do this as citizens, and as bearers of political responsibility.”

This includes enforcing existing laws, Scholz said.

While antisemitism itself is not a crime in Germany, antisemitic motivation for a crime can be considered in sentencing. In April 2023, the government announced that it would increase annual payments to the Central Council of Jews in Germany to almost $24 million, in part “to further strengthen the safety and security of Jewish communities.”

Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, and punishable by prison time.

Source: Germany set to add citizenship test questions about Jews and Israel

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Opinion: Jack Letts and other Canadians held in Syria deserve proper justice

2024/03/27 Leave a comment

Not convinced, given the difficulty, if not impossibility, of successful prosecution in Canada. And Letts never had a meaningful connection to Canada and his parents, understandably, only approached when his UK citizenship, where he had lived virtually his entire life, revoked his UK citizenship, effectively dumping him on Canada:

When we met Canadian citizen Jack Letts in a prison in Northeast Syria last August, he asked if we thought he would still be there in 10 years. At that point he had been locked up in harrowing conditions without charge or trial for more than six years.

The letters, photos and books we were able to bring to him from his mother, who lives in Ottawa, were Jack’s first news of his family in years. Our visit was the first confirmation for his family in two years that he was even alive. He has no access to a lawyer. And he is not receiving any support from Canadian officials, as the Canadian government refuses to carry out consular visits in the region.

We paused before answering, not wanting to crush his sprits or give false hope. We told him it was unlikely he would still be in detention in 10 years, but that there was no prospect of short-term release. We told him we hoped he might be back in Canada in a year.

“Back in Canada,” of course, does not necessarily mean out of detention. If there is credible evidence that Jack has committed terrorism-related or other crimes, he would rightly be charged under Canadian law. Jack told us that he would willingly face any such allegation, as long as it involved a fair procedure. That, clearly, is not on offer in Northeast Syria.

We were cautiously optimistic because of a pending appeal application before the Supreme Court of Canada in a legal challenge brought by Jack and three other Canadian men unlawfully detained in Northeast Syria. Little did we know, however, that three months later the Supreme Court would inexplicably deny leave to hear that appeal, a deep disappointment. The court does not give reasons for leave decisions.

We have now passed the halfway point in what we hope will not prove to be misguided optimism of justice within a year. However, six months on, there is no sign that the Canadian government is readying to repatriate Jack.

Jack Letts is not alone. There are at least eight other Canadian men unlawfully imprisoned in Northeast Syria. We also know of one Canadian woman, 13 Canadian children and three non-Canadian women who are mothers of some of those children, who are held in a dangerous and overcrowded detention camp in the region, also with no end in sight.

And those Canadians are not alone. There are more than 50,000 prisoners, more than half of them children, unlawfully detained across Northeast Syria. Most are Syrian or Iraqi, but in all there are 60 different nationalities in the camps and prisons. Some have very likely been responsible for terrible abuses during the years that ISIL controlled that region, while others were themselves victims of or opponents to ISIL. All are denied any justice.

We met with one other Canadian male prisoner, all of the women, and six of the children while we were on the ground in August. The human rights violations they are enduring are extensive, and the Canadian government’s failure to take steps to protect them is a disgrace.

Last week, an exceptional application was filed with the Supreme Court, asking for reconsideration of the decision not to hear an appeal. Given the ongoing intransigence of the government, turning to the court, no matter how extraordinary the request, seems the only option. Past progress with repatriation has generally only happened under threat of possible court action.

That application has been brought because the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate, and the risks to these Canadians grow even more alarming. That is due in part to shifting political and military circumstances in the Middle East since the Oct. 7th Hamas attack in Israel and the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by more than five months of unrelenting bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military.

No doubt taking advantage of international focus being diverted to the Gaza crisis, the Turkish military has ramped up its deadly drone attacks in Northeast Syria. ISIL activity also appears to be increasing. And now there is talk that the U.S. military, whose presence in Northeast Syria has provided a minimal degree of stability, may be preparing to withdraw its troops. Notably, the U.S. government repeatedly calls on Canada and other countries to repatriate their nationals.

Things were bad enough when we were in Northeast Syria in August. The situation has only worsened since and seems slated to become more dire. What is needed is not protracted litigation. What is needed is a political decision to bring all Canadians home from there, to hold them accountable in our legal system if warranted. It is time for human rights to prevail.

Kim Pate is an Independent Senator for Ontario. Alex Neve is a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Scott Heatherington is a retired Canadian ambassador and diplomat. Hadayt Nazami is an immigration and human rights lawyer in Toronto. They travelled to Northeast Syria as a civil society humanitarian delegation last August.

Source: Opinion: Jack Letts and other Canadians held in Syria deserve proper justice

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After a decade in Canada, his citizenship application was not accepted — for filing one day early

2024/03/27 Leave a comment

Seem to recall another similar similar case, suggesting that IRCC only does the final check the day of the ceremony, not allowing them to catch such cases before, sparing unecessary embarrassment and inconvenience. Appears to be rare however (recommendation to applicants, don’t cut it too fine given risks:

Daniel Aguilar has been waiting almost a decade to become a Canadian citizen.

He’s now wishing he had waited one more day before applying.

Aguilar submitted his application in July, and passed the citizenship exam in January.

That date, however, never came.

His application was not accepted for the most unusual and, to Aguilar, frustrating reason.

The Colombian man was told in a recent email from Immigration that there was an error in documenting the number of days he spent in Canada to qualify for his citizenship.

According to officials, he missed the required 1,095 days — by one day.

Now, he was told, he must withdraw his application and reapply.

“It’s more than seven months since I submitted my application and nobody took the time to review the physical presence (requirement) in order to allow the application to keep moving forward,” said Aguilar.

Along with his wife and four children, he has lived in London, Ont., since he came to Canada in 2014 via the United States.

“Why did they wait until this time to tell me I didn’t meet the criteria, just before I was ready for my ceremony?” said Aguilar, who says he feels he’s still a foreigner in the country. “That should have been done at the beginning of their process of the application, not at the end.”

The snafu and further delay to Aguilar’s citizenship followed a recent report that found the proportion of eligible permanent residents acquiring citizenship has dropped significantly, especially during the last census period.

According to the Statistics Canada study, the percentages of permanent residents who acquired Canadian citizenship after they met the residency requirement has decreased from 75 per cent in 1996 to just 46 per cent in 2021. Between the two most recent national surveys (2016 and 2021), the citizenship naturalization rate fell by 14.7 per cent.

The worrisome trend has prompted concerns over the value of Canadian citizenship and the potential consequences the decline may have on civil engagement, community involvement and electoral participation, as well as allegiance to the country.

This is also happening while the Immigration Department is still tackling ongoing backlogs in all of its programs, built up as a result of the operational disruptions caused by the office lockdown and travel restrictions during the pandemic.

Despite efforts to hire more staff and digitize application processing, the overall number of permanent and temporary residence as well as citizenship applications in the system has grown from 2,017,700 to 2,188,400 in the past year. Files that have exceeded the standard processing times have also grown from 896,300 to 930,000; as of January, 19 per cent of the 267,400 citizenship applications are considered backlogged.

Aguilar said requiring him to submit a new citizenship application for missing a day of physical presence doesn’t make sense when the Immigration Department has bigger problems to worry about, especially given that with the time he’s spent in Canada during the processing of his application, he would have surpassed the requirement regardless.

“According to Immigration, I need to go through the whole process again and they are going to be processing my application from scratch, just for the one missing day,” said the 45-year-old man, who works three jobs as a security guard, transit driver and landscaper.

“They are creating extra work for themselves. They are creating the backlog for themselves.”

Immigration officials said there are no waivers for adult applicants for this particular requirement and citizenship cannot be granted if the required days are not met.

“If the applicant miscalculated absences and submitted the application without having the required number of days, the application will be refused,” said a department spokesperson, who didn’t explain why the physical presence assessment only takes place at the end of the application process. He did say Aguilar’s file is still “in progress.”

The journey to citizenship has been long for the former refugee who fled Colombian paramilitaries, arrived in late 2014, had an asylum hearing in 2016, won an appeal in 2019 to overturn the initial refusal and received his permanent resident paper in 2021 after being a protected person on temporary status for two years.

Despite his years in Canada, the law stipulated that only half of the days he spent as a protected person were counted toward his citizenship application. Since he had made four overseas trips, Aguilar said he waited until July 6, 2023, to apply for his citizenship, confident that the extra time would have made up for his days absent from Canada.

In an email to Aguilar on Feb. 15, the Immigration Department pointed out a discrepancy in a trip he made to Mexico in 2020 during the pandemic to treat severe back pain.

“Our findings show that your return date to Canada on this specific trip was 2020/09/14 02:13:58 AM Entry Pearson International Airport – Terminal 3 and not 2020/09/04,” said the letter, offering Aguilar the option to withdraw his application.

“With the adjustments that have been made, you currently have 1,094 days during the following eligibility period: 2018/07/09 to 2023/07/08. You are presently 1 day short of meeting the physical presence requirement.”

The irony, said Aguilar, was his flight from the trip actually arrived in Toronto at 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 13, 2020, as per his itinerary, even though he admitted he made a mistake by filling in a wrong date. However, due to delays caused by public health protocols, he said he had to wait in lines and did not get cleared at the customs until 2:30 a.m. the next day, based on immigration officials’ record.

“To Immigration, technically I arrived the next day even though I actually landed in the airport in Mississauga the day before,” he lamented.

Aguilar said he had twice emailed the immigration office in Kitchener that handled his application for advice in his attempt to remedy the situation without having to go through the entire process again, let alone pay another $630 application fee.

He said he had no choice but to withdraw his application earlier this month after not getting a response; he is still waiting for officials to authorize his withdrawal, which he was told would take six to eight weeks.

“I would love to have the right to vote, because that is the only way to participate in democracy in this country,” he said. “Having the citizenship will make me feel I belong to this country. As a permanent resident, even though you have all the other rights, you don’t feel like you’re a complete Canadian.”

Source: After a decade in Canada, his citizenship application was not accepted — for filing one day early

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Article of interest recap

2024/03/25 Leave a comment

For the 1st time, Canada will set targets for temporary residents After trimming growth in Permanent Residents, imposing caps on international students, Minister Miller reverses course again and reduces the number of temporary foreign workers. Taken together, marks a significant repudiation of previous decisions and ministers, ironically making it easier for a possible future conservative government to impose further limits should it choose to do so. And including temporary foreign workers and international students in the annual levels plan is long overdue.

The Coalition for a Better Future’s report Fragile Growth: An Urgent Need to Get the Basics Right reiterated productivity and related economic challenges.

Scotia Bank’s Raising the Bar, Not Just Lowering the Number: Canada’s Immigration Policy Confronts Critical Choices makes the case for a charter focus on economic immigration and increasing productivity.

Parissa Mahboubi’s Canada’s immigration system isn’t living up to its potential. Here’s how to fix it provides a familiar list of recommendations, along with the puzzling one for more business immigrants given that government is notoriously bad is assessing entrepreneurship as previous programs have indicated.Life in Canada is ‘more expensive’ than most immigrants expected, new poll finds. Not surprising findings from Leger, highlighting a declining value proposition for immigrants.

Daniel Bertrand of the ICC argues Stop undervaluing the contributions that international students make to Canada, noting the need for “a much more strategic approach, modelled after the economic immigration process, with a points system that prioritizes these more valuable areas of study.”

No surprise that Trudeau rules out Quebec’s request for full control over immigration (Trudeau dit non à confier les pleins pouvoirs en immigration au Québec) with Michel David noting the Les limites du bluff. More detailed explanations of the reason behind the refusal in Marc Miller émet de fortes réserves sur les demandes de Québec en immigration, my favourite being, with respect to family class, « C’est très difficile de légiférer l’amour, [et de] demander à quelqu’un d’épouser quelqu’un qui parle uniquement français ».

Citizenship

Using coercion, Russia has successfully imposed its citizenship in Ukraine’s occupied territories, horrific example of citizenship as an instrument of war and denial of identity.

India’s new citizenship law for religious minorities leaves Muslims out, confirms the Modi governments overall approach of Hindu nationalism.

Omar Khan, in Ramadan heralds a political awakening for Canadian Muslims, notes the need for political responsibly among Muslim and other Canadians “it’s a responsibility to recognize that proper understanding between communities comes through dialogue, not ultimatums. There should be no litmus tests for elected officials wishing to address Muslim congregations. Those with divergent opinions should be engaged, not frozen out.”

David Akin assesses A closer look at the growing diversity of Conservatives under Poilievre, highlighting the party’s recruiting efforts (and quoting me).

Other

John McWhorter continues his contrarian streak in No, the SAT Isn’t Racist, making convincing arguments in favour of standardized testing.

Marsha Lederman highlights the increased censorship in the Exodus from literary magazine Guernica reveals the censorship the Israel-Hamas war has wrought in terms of free and honest artistic expression.

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COVID-19 Immigration Effects – January 2024 update

2024/03/11 Leave a comment

Regular monthly data update.

Overall normal post December increase across programs with the exception of asylum claimants and students.

The percentage of former temporary residents transitioning to permanent residency was the highest to date, 78 percent of all Permanent Residents.

Asylum claimants continue at about 15,000 per month.

The impact of the cap on international students is not yet apparent in the February website data (possible leading indicator). February operational data on applications and permits issued will likely indicate impact.

Full 2023 settlement services now included, showing 53 percent increase compared to 2022.

Full 2023 citizenship application data now included, showing 20 percent increase compared to 2022, with the January number of new citizens increasing by a comparable on a year-over-year basis.   

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OECD: Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes

2024/03/09 Leave a comment

Likely more effective not to have these programs at all given this misuse:

Citizenship and residency by investment (CBI/RBI) programmes are government-administered programmes that grant citizenship or residency to foreign investors by expediting or bypassing normal migration processes. These programmes can help spur economic growth through foreign direct investment, but they are also attractive to criminals and corrupt officials seeking to evade justice and launder the proceeds of crime reaching into the billions of dollars. This report highlights how CBI programmes can allow criminals more global mobility and help them hide their identity and criminal activities behind shell companies in other jurisdictions. It highlights the vulnerabilities of these complex and international investment migration programmes, including the frequent use of intermediaries, involvement of multiple government agencies, abuse by professional enablers and lack of proper governance of the CBI/RBI programmes. The report proposes measures and examples of good practice, that can help policy makers and those responsible for managing the investment migration programmes address these risks. These include an in-depth analysis and understanding of how criminals can exploit CBI or RBI programmes and incorporating risk mitigation measures, such as multi-layer due diligence, in the design of the investment migration programme.

Source: Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes

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Removing Shamima Begum’s citizenship is a cruel, politically-motivated policy has done nothing to keep us safe

2024/03/09 Leave a comment

Revocation, without considering statelessness or “ownership” of problematic citizens, is indeed more politically motivated than justified.

As the case of “Jihadi Jack” illustrates, it also allows countries to export their problems to other countries in cases of dual citizens.

That ministers are prepared to do this to British kids shocks me every time I go there.

It is also where Shamima Begum has been imprisoned without charge or trial for the past five years.

Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid deprived her of British citizenship when she was 19 years old and mourning a third child, and she has been stuck there, stripped of all her rights, ever since.

Yesterday a group of United Nations legal experts weighed in on her case. “There is a credible suspicion that Ms Begum was recruited, transferred and then harboured for the purpose of sexual exploitation,” they said.

Last month, Britain’s own Court of Appeal referred to “the likelihood that she was a child victim of others who wished to exploit her for sexual or extremist reasons”.

It is well-documented that ISIS targeted vulnerable British girls and young women and that UK institutions failed in their duty to protect them.

Remember, Shamima was 15 years old and studying for her mock GCSEs when she was groomed. The idea that she should be sent into exile for the rest of her life because she was targeted by a trafficking gang runs contrary to good sense and basic humanity.

Former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption has made the point that depriving Ms Begum of UK citizenship leaves her stateless. The United Nations legal experts agreed.

The Government’s claim that she could be a citizen of Bangladesh, a country she has never visited and that has publicly stated it will not accept her, reveals a racist, two-tier citizenship regime.

Britain is alone among G20 nations in stripping citizenship in bulk. Only Bahrain and Nicaragua have deprived more people of citizenship in the last two decades.

This cruel, politically-motivated policy has done nothing to keep us safe – in fact security experts agree that the detention camps are ticking timebomb. That’s why every one of our allies is repatriating families from North East Syria.

Maya Foa is the Director of Reprieve

Source: Removing Shamima Begum’s citizenship is a cruel, politically-motivated policy has done nothing to keep us safe

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Canadian Citizenship in Transition: Trends, Debates, and Challenges

2024/03/08 Leave a comment

Looking forward to this timely discussion given recent trends and issues, and the need to maintain and strengthen meaningfulness and belonging of citizenship process, requirements and ceremonies.

Hope some of you can attend in person or virtually.

Please join our panel of experts to discuss trends, debates, and challenges in Canadian citizenship. Topics will include (but not be limited to) the precipitous decline in Canada’s naturalization rate; the suitability of self-administered online naturalization ceremonies and citizenship oaths; concerns over citizenship acquisition through birth; impediments to new Canadians’ access to licensed professions and position of economic, social, and political power; conflicting ideas of what constitutes ‘good’ citizenship and Canadian national identity (as reflected in citizenship guides and courses, government pronouncements, and public discourse); and the consequences of changing immigration policies for newcomers’ access to citizenship. This is a timely and important event that will be of interest to anyone interested in Canadian citizenship both now and in the future.

Source: Canadian Citizenship in Transition: Trends, Debates, and Challenges

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Is the ‘market value of becoming Canadian’ dropping? Fewer immigrants are becoming citizens

2024/03/01 Leave a comment

One discussion point that has arisen in social media is the extent that Harper-era changes, making citizenship “harder to get and easier to lose,” are responsible for the decline.

The 2021 study is based upon the 2011-15 period, when all immigrants have met the residency requirements (5-9 years since landing). So while the Conservative government changes to language and knowledge were implemented in 2010-11, increased residency requirements and fees were not implemented until 2015, thus not impacting this study.

One area that needs to be considered is for the settlement sector to provide citizenship test preparation courses, given that the study confirms that lower levels of language fluency and education attainment correlate with lower naturalization.

It is unlikely that the current government will implement its 2019 and 2021 election commitment to eliminate citizenship fees (virtue signalling) but there is a case to waive these fees, at least partially, for lower income applicants.

… The findings confirm the worrisome trends identified by the research of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship that found a strong decline in the “market value of becoming Canadian.”

“This study shows that some of the people who are most likely to naturalize are the wealthiest and best educated,” said the institute’s CEO, Daniel Bernhard. “But we saw just a few weeks ago from Statistics Canada that the (recent) immigrants who are most likely to leave the country are exactly those.

“No matter which way you look at it, it’s clear that Canada’s appeal in the eyes of immigrants is fading. And if our growth strategy continues to be dependent on immigrants, that’s a real problem for our future viability.” 

Although office lockdowns and public health restrictions have caused backlogs and contributed to the disruptions of citizenship application processing, Statistics Canada said that only accounted for 40 per cent of the decline between 2016 and 2021.

The study compared the citizenship takeup among recent immigrants who arrived in Canada five to nine years before each census. It found that 75.4 per cent did so in 1996 and it gradually declined from 2006, when the Conservatives took power.

In the decade with the Tories at the helm, the “knowledge of Canada” test was strengthened, language requirements increased, citizenship application fees rose and the physical presence requirements for citizenship were changed from three of four years preceding application to four of six years. The naturalization rate subsequently dropped to 60 per cent.

After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals came into power, the federal government restored the residency requirement to three of five years, and moved the upper age limit for the exemption to the language and knowledge test from 64 back to 54, the report notes. The citizenship fee for minors was also reduced in 2018.

However, these changes have failed to reverse the trends, with the citizenship naturalization rate falling a further 14.7 per cent between 2016 and 2021, said Statistics Canada, which, in an earlier report, also found a significant number of immigrants are leaving the country after initial arrival.

“Other more global events also likely play a role,” said the report. “Significant economic development in some source countries, such as China and India, could encourage immigrants from these regions to maintain their source-country passports and reduce their motivation to become Canadian citizens.”

The study also found the fall in citizenship rates over the past 25 years varied by demographics:

•Families with household income between $10,000 and $30,000 annual saw a 35.9-percentage-point drop, compared to a 13.5-point decline among those making over $100,000 a year;

•Those who did not complete high school saw a 39-percentage-point drop compared to 29 points for those with a university degree;•Newcomers whose mother tongue was not an official language registered a 32-percentage-point decline in naturalization rate versus just a 19-point fall among those with English or French as first language;

•Before 2006, StatCan calculated that the group of immigrants with all three characteristics of low income, education and language skills was more likely to acquire Canadian citizenship than the most advantaged group, but the pattern reversed after that; in 2021, the citizenship rate was 1.5 times higher among the most advantaged group than among the disadvantaged. 

•Immigrants from some non-western countries who traditionally were more likely to acquire Canadian citizenship now more closely resembled their counterparts from developed nations in citizenship uptake.

Bernhard said the report speaks to the need for greater policy intervention to address the question of why people want to become Canadian, as well as their experience here and commitment to the country, and what they’re getting from and giving to Canada.

Some advantages that used to be reserved for citizens such as jobs in the federal government and military are now open to permanent residents, which removes the incentive for some to acquiring citizenship, said Bernhard, adding that immigrants need to have positive experiences and strong connections to feel belonged.

“That’s the difference between residency and citizenship,” he said. “That’s the difference between, you know, Dubai and Canada, both of which have large foreign-born populations. Only one of them allows you to be an owner of the society.

“That’s Canada, where citizenship remains very accessible. And if that ownership is no longer desirable, that’s a really shocking signal to the rest of us that we have deeper issues to reflect upon and resolve.”

Source: Is the ‘market value of becoming Canadian’ dropping? Fewer immigrants are becoming citizens

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The decline in the citizenship rate among recent immigrants to Canada: Update to 2021

2024/02/29 Leave a comment

A valuable update to the earlier Statistics Canada study of 2019.

As someone who raised concerns over a declining naturalization rate since 2015, having these detailed studies confirming the trend with detailed breakdowns and analysis provides a basis to assess whether this simply reflects a global trend, given changing economic opportunities changing its value proposition, and/or, are there specific Canadian policies that had an impact (beyond the pandemic period).

There has always been a balance between the meaningfulness of citizenship, as seen through language and knowledge requirements, the Discover Canada study guide, the oath, and citizenship ceremonies, and facilitating citizenship through the same instruments (harder or easier language assessment, harder or easier citizenship test, a more or less rigorous citizenship study guide, in-person or virtual citizenship ceremonies).

The former Conservative government emphasized meaningfulness, the current Liberal government less so, as seen in its virtue signalling 2019 and 2021 election commitments to eliminate citizenship fees, its failure to issue a revised citizenship study guide announced four ministers ago, its proposal to allow self-affirmation of the citizenship oath (“on a click”) and the less meaningful virtual ceremonies for about 80 percent of new citizens. The government did, however, revise the oath to include reference to Indigenous peoples.

However, compared to most other countries, the current requirements compare favourably in terms of access to citizenship. But proposals like self-affirmation of the citizenship oath or the massive shift to virtual ceremonies undermine one of the few celebratory moments for immigrants, and arguably reduce their sense of being welcomed to the “Canadian family.”

Having experienced in-person ceremonies, both in my former official capacity, as well as celebrating with friends and family as they became citizens, their impact on new citizens and existing citizens is significant.

Citizenship should not be viewed simply as a government service (although it needs to ensure a quality service experience) but in the more fundamental sense of welcoming and belonging new citizens and assisting their integration journey.

One last detail. This Statistics Canada study will force IRCC to address its current performance standard of 85 percent of all immigrants, no matter their period of immigration, become Canadian citizens, given that the rate in 2021 was only 81.7 percent. While the pandemic shutdown clearly had an impact, IRCC should revised its performance standard to refer only to recent immigrants, five to nine years after landing (90 percent of immigrants do so within that period), as it is the recent immigrant rate that is the meaningful benchmark, not those immigrants who arrived many years ago.

This article examines the trends in citizenship rates among recent immigrants who have been in Canada for five to nine years, based on census data from 1991 to 2021. The citizenship rate among recent immigrants has decreased significantly, dropping from 75.4% in 1996 to 45.7% in 2021, a decline of 29.7 percentage points. Almost half of this decline occurred from 2016 to 2021, with approximately 40% of the most recent decrease possibly related to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. However, even after accounting for the pandemic effect, the citizenship rate declined at a faster rate from 2016 to 2021 than during any other five-year intercensal period since 1996. The decline in citizenship rates among recent immigrants from 1996 to 2021 was larger among those with lower levels of education, lower family income and lower official language skills. The decrease was also more substantial among recent immigrants from East Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia than among their counterparts from the United States, Western Europe and Southern Europe. This article discusses possible explanations for these trends.

Source: The decline in the citizenship rate among recent immigrants to Canada: Update to 2021

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