FIRST READING: Save the #citizenship ceremonies! 

2023/03/09 Leave a comment

Summary of some other commentary criticizing the move. Haven’t seen any commentary favouring the change although a small minority in comment sections and social media are in favour given “promised” reduction in processing times:

Amid news that the federal government is mulling an end to in-person citizenship ceremonies, a cross-section of prominent Canadians have emerged to denounce the “terrible” and “horrifying” idea.

“This is without question a terrible idea,” wrote former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi in a tweet last week. “The ceremony is deeply meaningful and the reasons for removing it given here are bureaucratic and puerile.”

On Feb. 25, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration first gave notice that they were mulling an end to in-person citizenship ceremonies in favour of a “secure online solution.” In-person ceremonies could still be arranged upon request, but subject to a delay.

Rather than swearing allegiance to the Crown in front of a citizenship judge, new Canadians would simply check a box online. Presumably, the “online solution” would also do away with a group singing of “O Canada.”

According to immigration officials, phasing out the ceremony was suggested purely as a way to relieve a three-month backlog in finalizing citizenship applications.

“Recognizing that more can be done to further improve client service and processing times … the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration announced that the Department would begin pursuing the necessary changes to allow for self-administration of the Oath of Citizenship,” it wrote.

A brief also noted the inconvenience of new citizens sometimes having to book time off work to make the ceremony. “Many clients have to take time off work to attend citizenship ceremonies, and this time off is not necessarily paid by employers,” it reads.

“It is a bad idea to do away with citizenship ceremonies. A very bad idea. The opposite of efficiency,” novelist John Ralston Saul wrote in a statement last week.

Some of the most vocal defenders, however, have been foreign-born Canadians whose own citizenship began with the swearing of an oath.

Sergio Marchi is an Argentinian immigrant to Canada who eventually served as minister of immigration under then-prime minister Jean Chrétien.

“For years, my parents would recount how momentous and meaningful (the ceremony) was. Why would government want to rob future citizens of this feeling of attachment?” wrote Marchi in an op-ed for the Toronto Star.

The former minister also called it an “insult” that the ceremony would be phased out merely in the name of expediency. He noted that when similar backlogs piled up under his tenure, the department began deputizing Order of Canada recipients to act as citizenship judges.

“In-Person Canadian citizenship ceremonies are the magical rituals that bring together everyone (new and old citizens) to celebrate the true meaning of the Canadian dream,” reads a Monday social media post by Tareq Hadhad, a Syrian refugee famous for founding the Nova Scotia-based chocolatier Peace by Chocolate.

“We cannot afford to lose the significance of this celebration of belonging nor can we diminish the value of Canadian citizenship,” Hadhad added.

Former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson came to Canada as a refugee from Japanese-occupied Hong Kong, and would preside over a few citizenship ceremonies herself as an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In a column for The Globe and Mail, Clarkson said she was “horrified” by the proposed change.

“The idea that Canada, which is perhaps the most successful immigrant nation in the world, would resort to a machine-oriented way of saying that you are now a citizen, is egregious,” she wrote.

Right up until the end of the Second World War, Canadians were considered British subjects and all citizenship rituals and protocols were dictated by the U.K.

But the 1946 passage of the Citizenship Act first demarcated Canadian citizenship as a distinct entity from that of the U.K. One of the more unique aspects of the bill was its provision that new Canadians should attend “appropriate ceremonies” in order to impress upon them the “responsibilities and privileges of Canadian citizenship.”

This is not a universal practice. While the United States maintains a similar swearing-in ceremony for new citizens, in many countries naturalization is a more bureaucratic process done without any official pomp.

The centrepiece of the Canadian ceremony is the Oath of Citizenship. After some modern refinements over the years, it’s now a 64-word recitation pledging allegiance to King Charles III, the “laws of Canada,” the “Constitution” and “the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.”

Ironically, the Department of Immigration is looking to phase out citizenship oaths at a time when pledging allegiance to Canada has never been easier. 

With many citizenship ceremonies made virtual during COVID-19, thousands of new Canadians have already finalized their citizenship by speaking into a webcam.

However, it’s still against the law to deliver the oath by phone.

“Administering the Oath over the phone is not in keeping with the legislation,” reads an official guide for new Canadians living in remote areas.

Source: FIRST READING: Save the citizenship ceremonies!

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Griffith and Omidvar: Canadian citizenship by individual click? That’s not a good idea

2023/03/08 Leave a comment

Written jointly with Senator Omidvar:

The federal government’s recent proposal to allow applicants to self-administer the citizenship oath instead of being required to do so before a citizenship judge or equivalent undermines the meaningfulness and significance of becoming a Canadian citizen with fellow new Canadians.

Citizenship ceremonies are one of the few special moments in which the federal government can connect with new Canadians and celebrate their becoming Canadian and furthering their integration journey.

From experience attending ceremonies and taking the oath, we know the impact on new Canadians is real and meaningful, as it is on existing Canadians in attendance. Having citizenship conferred is not transactional, unlike obtaining drivers’ licences, health cards or passports. Citizenship allows for political participation through voting and being able to run for office and thus directly influence the future direction of Canada.

The proposed change continues a trend of diminishing the value of Canadian citizenship in practical aspects. There has been the ongoing massive shift to virtual citizenship ceremonies, prompted by the pandemic but expanded (99 per cent since April 2020). As well, there is no updated citizenship study guide despite plans for one more than three immigration ministers ago.

The government justifies the proposed change on operational and financial grounds and is silent on the policy implications regarding integration of new Canadians. The previous government was similarly silent on the implications of its quintupling of adult citizenship fees in 2014-15, which we now know has resulted, along with other factors, in a significant drop in naturalization rates.

The current government is explicit that cost savings will come primarily from reduced citizenship ceremonies, both physical and virtual.

It is striking that a government so attuned to the importance of reconciliation and recognition of past and current injustices and the concerns of particular groups, can be so blind to the power of citizenship ceremonies to bring people of diverse origins together to celebrate them becoming part of Canadian society with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. And arguing, on inclusion grounds, that the change will save applicants two hours of ceremony time misses this broader aspect of inclusion.

Arguably, with pandemic measures largely over, the government should revert to in-person ceremonies as the default option, as these provide a greater sense of community and connection than virtual ceremonies.

The government, early in its mandate, made significant changes to residency and language requirements to improve inclusion, and more recently, changes to the oath of citizenship to recognize Indigenous and treaty rights. Reducing processing and ceremony time are insignificant in comparison.

We know from the recent Statistics Canada and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship analysis that naturalization has declined dramatically from 60.4 per cent in 2016 to 45.7 per cent in 2021, five to nine years after landing, reflecting a combination of factors, including the pandemic and high citizenship fees. A substantive inclusion measure would require the government to implement, at least partially, its platform commitment in the 2019 and 2021 election platforms to eliminate citizenship fees.

Citizenship provides a mix of personal and public benefits.

Applicants personally benefit from the security citizenship provides in terms of mobility and voting rights and the ability to run for office. Canadian society benefits from the “common bond for Canadian-born individuals and naturalized Canadians alike, signifying full membership in Canadian society.”

The proposed change highlights how the government treats citizenship as a service transaction rather than a substantive unifying and integrating process to help new Canadians feel fully part of Canadian society.

Andrew Griffith is the former director general for Citizenship and Multiculturalism and is a fellow of the Environics Institute and of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. Sen. Ratna Omidvar is an independent senator from Ontario.

Source: Griffith and Omidvar: Canadian citizenship by individual click? That’s not a good idea

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Clarkson: If Canada loses its citizenship ceremonies, we risk losing ourselves

2023/03/06 Leave a comment

Calls out the efforts by the government and IRCC to diminish the value and meaningfulness of citizenship and highlights their lack of understanding of the fundamental meaning and belonging of ceremonies (disclosure I am providing citizenship and related data to the ICC).

To date, op-eds from the left (Toronto Star), centre (Globe) and right (National Post). Tenor of reader comments is against the proposed change but how many will submit written comments through the Gazette process and will the government listen.

And will either the NDP or CPC deem it important enough issue to raise given the understandable fixation on the government’s handling (or mishandling) of Chinese government foreign interference allegations:

One of the most wonderful things about becoming a Canadian is the citizenship ceremony.

There, new citizens are surrounded by a little crowd of other people who want to become Canadian too. It might be held in a federal citizenship office or in some other location that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has found that can accommodate people, though at the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, we try to hold our citizenship ceremonies in public spaces: libraries, city halls, university campuses, places we hope these new citizens will return to. Always, there is incredible joy – the kind that comes with recognizing that something special is happening. Wearing a head scarf or a beard, or an embroidered vest in brilliant colours, these about-to-become citizens know that they are doing something meaningful.

When I became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992, I was told that I would be able to preside over these ceremonies in the way a citizenship judge does. I was delighted by the idea: For my family and me, who arrived as stateless refugees during the Second World War, the precious gift of Canadian citizenship that we received in 1949 was something we cherished and celebrated.

The first ceremony over which I presided was overwhelming: there was such excitement and warmth among people of different backgrounds – even though the whole thing was taking place at the Metropolitan Toronto Police headquarters!

When my husband John Ralston Saul and I founded the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, one of the first things we wanted to do was to have special ceremonies to acknowledge how important this moment is in people’s lives. For six years, as Governor-General, I presided over citizenship ceremonies, and invited people who already had Canadian citizenship to come specifically to meet the new citizens, to sit at roundtables with them and have discussions before the formal ceremony. Everyone shared coffee and doughnuts afterward. It wasn’t elaborate, but it was congenial and hospitable.

When I left Rideau Hall, I decided that this would be a feature of the institute, and for 16 years we carried this on with the wisdom and guidance of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. With their help, we have ceremonies in which we have Indigenous speakers and music, and roundtables where people can share their experiences of Canada up to that point.

It’s not a big deal. But it is important. And everyone who is sworn in across the country as citizens recognizes that the others around them are people who, like them, have taken the risk of leaving their own country with the courage to come and make a new life in Canada.

We can’t overstate the significance of being able to be around each other when we take our citizenship vows, or of new citizens receiving the formal and yet warm welcome they get from professional and excellent Immigration officials, who leave no misunderstanding as to what a citizen is and how a citizen can contribute to their country. The citizenship judges, whether they are federal appointees or members of the Order of Canada, always take the ceremonies to heart, and it is so moving to see people from so many different countries at each ceremony joining together and saying that they will become part of Canada.

Now, there are reports that in order to get rid of an administrative backlog, new citizens will be given the option to take their oath online, rather than in a physical ceremony. Frankly, I’m horrified by this. I believe that people want ceremonies to mark important passages in their lives. I think welcoming people in person is the least we can do as a country. I feel that the people who work at the ministry understand that, and that they do put a human face on it as much as they can.

The idea that Canada, which is perhaps the most successful immigrant nation in the world, would resort to a machine-oriented way of saying that you are now a citizen, is egregious. In 2001, on my state visit to Germany as Governor-General, then-president Johannes Rau told me how deeply impressed he was that we inducted people into citizenship personally. He lamented the fact that Germany generally sent out citizenships by some form of registered mail.

I can’t help feeling very emotional when I talk about this, because I do believe that ceremonies are important stages of every human being’s life. There is a reason why we have birthday parties, for instance, or why co-workers often share a cake when someone leaves for another job. There is a reason why people go to city hall or to a religious institution to bring meaning to their marriage. There is humanity in marking milestones in each other’s company; it is the mark of a civilized society. And Canada should always think of itself as a society which not only knows how to welcome people, but shows that a personal welcome is only the beginning of belonging.

Adrienne Clarkson was Canada’s 26th Governor-General and co-founder of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.

Source: If Canada loses its citizenship ceremonies, we risk losing ourselves

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Yuan Yi Zhu: Canadian citizenship is embarrassingly cheap and online oath makes it cheaper

2023/03/06 Leave a comment

Apart from the unnecessary snark and playing to the gallery if the comments on Zhu’s article are any guide, he nails the substance of this misguided change. But hopefully he and others will take the time to file their objections to the proposal through the Canada Gazette process (I will share my input in a future post):
Newly published figures by Statistics Canada revealed that fewer than half of permanent residents now take Canadian citizenship within 10 years, a 40 per cent decline over two decades.
Cue soul-searching among the usual Ottawa think tankers, wondering why the world’s denizens no longer wanted to be on “Team Canada.” Why did so many recent immigrants, arriving in record numbers, refuse the citizenship we hand to them practically for free and after as little as three years’ residence, or 1,095 days spent within the country out of the last five years?

Source: Yuan Yi Zhu: Canadian citizenship is embarrassingly cheap and online oath makes it cheaper

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Record year for EU countries granting citizenship to foreigners

2023/03/04 Leave a comment

Some useful data here even if 2021, not 2022. By way of comparison, the Canadian figure, in terms of total population in 2022 is higher, about 9.3 per thousand:

In total 827,300 people acquired citizenship in EU member states in 2021, an increase of around 98,300 (14 per cent) over 2020, when the number was 729,000, according to the latest data published by the EU statistical office Eurostat.

Although the figures are likely to see a ‘pandemic effect’ compared to 2020 when many countries shut down or severely restricted administrative processes during the lockdowns, the figures also show a rise compared to 2019. In that year 706,400 people were granted citizenship in EU countries.

Around the EU countries, the administrative process of getting citizenship takes an average of two years, so most of the people getting their citizenship in 2021 would have applied for it in previous years.

Largest growth in France

The largest increase in absolute terms was recorded in France (+43,900 compared to 2020), followed by Germany (+18,800), Spain (+17,700), Sweden (+9,200) and Austria (+7,200).

In 10 countries, however, the number decreased, with the largest decline in Italy (-10,300), Portugal (-7,600) and Greece (-3,200).

Among new citizens, the proportion of women was slightly higher than men (50.2 over 49.8 per cent), especially for the age groups above 30. The median age of persons acquiring citizenship in the EU was 32.

About of quarter, 25 per cent, were children between 0 and 14 years old, with the highest proportions in Slovenia (35 per cent), Latvia (34 per cent) and France (33 per cent), according to the data, which Eurostat collects from national statistical offices.

Highest naturalisation rate in Sweden

In relation to the total population, the highest number of citizenships were granted by Sweden (8.6 per thousand persons), followed by Luxembourg (7.8) and the Netherlands (3.6).

Sweden also topped EU countries for naturalisation rate, the proportion of persons who acquire citizenship in relation to all non-national residents.

Sweden granted 10 citizenships per 100 foreign residents in 2021, followed by the Netherlands (5.4), Romania (4.6), Portugal (3.7) and Belgium and Spain (both 2.7). The lowest naturalisation rate was in the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all below 0.5, while the EU average was 2.2.

Non-EU citizens most likely to naturalise

Similar to the previous year, the vast majority of people who obtained citizenship of an EU member state were from non-EU countries: 706,900, or 85 per cent of the total.

The largest group was from Morocco (86,200 people, who acquired citizenship mostly in Spain or France), followed by Syrian (83,500, mostly in Sweden and the Netherlands), and Albanians (32,300, mostly in Italy). Then came Romanians (mostly in Italy and Germany), and Turks (Germany and France).

Among new EU citizens there were also 5,370 US nationals (compared to 3,425 in 2020), with the largest number in Austria, Norway, France, Sweden and Italy.

Naturalisation of British citizens 

The Brexit vote in 2016 led to a big increase in citizenship applications among Brits who lived in the EU, as they faced the prospect of losing their rights to EU freedom of movement.

According to Professor Maarten Vink, Chair in Citizenship Studies at the European University Institute in Italy, since 2016, more than 100,000 Brits have acquired citizenship in EU countries.

The peak for citizenship granted to Brits was in 2019, and since then numbers have seen a decrease. Anecdotally, many of the applications after 2016 were from Brits who had been resident in an EU country for many years, so could have naturalised previously.

Some 10,600 Britons acquired citizenship in EU countries in 2021, ranking 19th among other nationalities. The number decreased by 5,400, or 34 per cent, over 2020.

The largest groups were recorded in Germany (2,345), Austria (1,190), Ireland (1,186), Sweden (1,131), Belgium (1,010), Denmark (546). Only 163 were recorded in France, 343 in Spain and 453 in Italy. UK national acquiring citizenship in Norway were 1,578 and in Switzerland 855.

Source: Record year for EU countries granting citizenship to foreigners

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Marchi: Citizenship ceremonies are too valuable to replace with a mouse click

2023/03/03 1 Comment

Former Minister of Immigration (1994-96), Sergio Marchi, nails it. Minister Fraser, his staff, and the officials who recommended this change should reflect on his commentary, and how the changes would further diminish the value of Canadian citizenship.

Have been working with others on additional op-eds so stay tuned:

Processing Canadian Citizenship applications has become frustratingly long process. It is not unusual for it to take up to two years. With the excitement of becoming a citizen, this is a cruel punishment for applicants. They, and we, deserve better.

Last weekend, federal officials proposed doing away with the swearing an oath before a citizenship judge. The alternative? People can take an oath on their own, perhaps by the click of a computer mouse. They claim that this measure would save three months.

Talk about adding insult to injury!

Why debase the value of citizenship, for the sake of gaining a measly three months? I hope Canadians — and those actually waiting in the citizenship queue — will voice their displeasure. As a former minister of citizenship and immigration, I cannot believe that this, or any other government, would approve such a misguided idea. 

And here’s why:

  • First, the act of swearing allegiance to one’s country before a citizenship judge is a powerful, and moving ceremony. It helps to cement a formal commitment to country, and witnessing these ceremonies was one of my highlights as minister. Watching hundreds of people — young and old, women and men, Black, white, and brown — all raising their right hands and reciting the pledge was wonderful to behold. These moments would always be embraced by tears of joy, and immense pride. After migrating from Argentina, my parents and I stood before a judge, too. For years, my parents would recount how momentous and meaningful this date was. Why would government want to rob future citizens of this feeling of attachment?
  • Secondly, the ceremony is not just for the candidates. It is a special occasion to be shared with other Canadians. It helps to remind us all of our civic obligations and respect toward one another. As minister, I encouraged hosting these sentimental events in our communities — in churches, schools, recreational facilities, libraries and community centres. I wanted neighbours to see firsthand who these new citizens were. I wanted them to also celebrate this solemn ritual. The auditoriums were consistently full and local residents willingly helped with the organization and refreshments. In the process, it helped to break down barriers between old and new Canadians.
  • Thirdly, the functions regularly enjoyed the participation of numerous youngsters — underaged children who were automatically assuming Canadian citizenship on account of their parents; youth over 18 years who stood taking the oath; and many local students as observers. The latter would sing the national anthem, waive small flags, and applaud enthusiastically. At a time when we question if our kids are taught enough about our country and its traditions, these ceremonies served as a practical lesson in civics. After all, what can be more important than citizenship?
  • Finally, there are other ways of reducing backlogs without undermining the meaning of citizenship. The government could easily allocate more funds for the hiring of additional citizenship judges. Keeping the rendition of an oath in our courts and communities would be worth every additional cent.

Or, even better, enlist recipients of the Order of Canada to preside over these ceremonies. That is what I directed my officials to do when we faced long waiting times in the early ’90s. The recipients loved it and they happily volunteered. Moreover, what better role model for our new citizens, than fellow Canadians who were awarded our country’s most prestigious award? It served to underline civic duty and honour.

As well, we could summon an army of young Canadian students to help applicants prepare for their citizenship exams. The landed residents would find their confidence much quicker, and pupils could do this as part of their school curriculum. Talk about a win-win.

Taking an oath of citizenship, in the presence of other applicants and a community of Canadians, has been in vigour since 1947. It’s an elegant and unifying act that bolsters patriotism. It would be scandalous to replace this by a laptop relegated to the privacy of one’s home.

If anything, we should be further strengthening the institution and importance of Canadian citizenship.

Source: Citizenship ceremonies are too valuable to replace with a mouse click

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Why thousands of people who thought they were British could lose …

2023/03/03 Leave a comment

One of the apparent collateral damage of BREXIT:

Confusion has arisen around the British government’s own understanding of its citizenship laws, following a judgment by the UK’s high court. In a ruling handed down on January 20 2023, in the case of Roehrig v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Mr Justice Eyre determined that the restrictive approach applied by the Home Office since 2000 to how the children of EU nationals automatically acquire citizenship is the correct interpretation of the law.

The case in question concerns the nationality of Antoine Lucas Roehrig, who was born on October 20 2000 in the UK. His mother is a French national who had lived and worked in the UK under EU law for the five years before he was born. Roehrig claimed he acquired British citizenship at birth by virtue of section 1(1)(b) of the British Nationality Act 1981 because his mother was settled in the UK at the time he was born. The Home Office disputed that his mother met the act’s criteria for being settled and refused his application for a British passport.

Eyre’s ruling in favour of the Home Office hinges on the government’s interpretation of how the legal definition of being “settled” in the UK applied to EU nationals. It could upend the lives of many thousands of people, who have always believed that they were British.

Indefinite leave to remain

Before 1983, anyone born in the UK automatically acquired British citizenship. After that, when the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force, those born in the UK would only be considered British citizens if at least one of their parents were either a British citizen themselves or “settled” in the UK at the time of the child’s birth.

For 17 years, the Home Office deemed EU nationals exercising free movement rights in the UK to be settled and their UK-born children, thus, British. But on October 2 2000, the Home Office changed the rules. In order to be deemed “settled”, EU nationals now had to apply for and be granted indefinite leave to remain.

The problem is that many EU nationals did not apply for indefinite leave to remain, simply because they did not need it to enter and reside in the UK. Why apply for something you apparently don’t need?

The question posed by Roehrig’s case, therefore, is whether EU nationals without indefinite leave to remain could be considered “settled”. To answer this question, the high court had to determine whether EU nationals met the definition, as specified in section 50 of the British Nationality Act, of someone residing in the UK without any immigration law restrictions on the period that they could stay.

EU law, which had direct effect in the UK until Brexit, effectively created a conditional residence for EU nationals, who could reside in the UK for as long as they remained a “qualified person”. These residence rights were usually granted on the basis of being in employment. In certain circumstances, someone might be eligible through being unable to work due to illness or job loss, through living off personal savings, or through relying on a family member.

Eyre found that this conditional residence had the same effect as an immigration law restriction on the period for which EU nationals could remain in the UK. In other words, he judged that being a “qualified person” under EU free movement law did not mean you can now be deemed to have been “settled”.

This is a surprising interpretation of the law. Until Brexit, and the subsequent requirement to apply for the EU settlement scheme, many EU nationals were able to reside in the UK on the basis of EU law for decades without applying for indefinite leave to remain. They were treated as settled, and their children treated as British.

The impact of this judgment

Importantly, new rules, like those the Home Office introduced on October 2 2000, do not actually change the law. They simply alter the interpretation of the law and how to implement it.

Eyre has decided that the Home Office’s restrictive approach to British citizenship, as applied since October 2 2000, is the correct interpretation of the British Nationality Act. It follows that the previous interpretation, as implemented between 1983 and October 2 2000, was incorrect. This means that the Home Office will have mistakenly granted British citizenship to many people born during this time period to parents who, like Roehrig’s mother, were “qualified persons” under EU free movement law.

Conversely, if Roehrig appeals the judgment, and is successful, it is the restrictive approach the Home Office has taken since 2000 that will be found to be unlawful. The interpretation of the law, as implemented before October 2000, will have been the correct one. In this instance, the Home Office will have mistakenly denied British citizenship to many people born since 2000 to EU nationals who should have been considered to be “settled” in the UK.

Given that the government has greatly underestimated the number of EU nationals living in the UK before Brexit, it is not unreasonable to expect the number of people who could be affected, either way, to be in the tens of thousands.

The secretary of state’s submissions to the high court provided reassurance that the Home Office has accepted “as a matter of policy and fairness” that affected children born before October 2 2000 are British. But this is simply a matter of policy. It provides no legal certainty.

As immigration barrister Colin Yeo warns, the Home Office has nullified citizenship before, relying on the confusing logic that it was never actually held if acquired through error or Home Office mistake. At present, the policy to recognise the British citizenship of those born before October 2 2000 has been paused.

And what of those who have gone on to have their own children, thinking they had passed on their British citizenship? Guaranteeing protection for the affected group could be achieved through legislation which retroactively recognises their acquisition of British citizenship. For now, though, thousands of “possibly British” people with EU national parents are left facing great uncertainty.

Source: Why thousands of people who thought they were British could lose …

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Proposal to make citizenship ceremonies optional a ‘disservice to all of Canada’

2023/03/02 Leave a comment

More coverage of this misguided proposal:

A proposal by the Canadian government to allow prospective citizens to tick a box on a website rather than affirm a formal oath of citizenship is causing concern among those who see the longstanding swearing-in ceremony as an important rite of passage for new Canadians.

As detailed over the weekend in the Canada Gazette, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration is proposing to allow new citizens to fast-track their applications by giving them the option of affirming their citizenship oath via a secure internet webpage rather than raising their hands at a citizenship ceremony.

“In the 5 years from 2016–2017 to 2021–2022, citizenship grant applications have more than doubled, from 113,000 to 243,000,” read the statement published in the Gazette.

“Immigration levels continue to rise, with a target of 500,000 permanent residents for 2025, which will contribute to ongoing increases in citizenship applications.”

As of October 2022, the department said, around 358,000 citizenship applications were pending with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, with some waiting over two years before having their citizenship ceremony — the last step in Canada’s long and drawn-out citizenship process. 

The change, the department said, would save prospective citizens two to three months of processing time. 

Institute for Canadian Citizenship CEO Daniel Bernhard told the National Post that losing the ceremony is tantamount to losing an important chapter in Canadian history.

“It’s really unfortunate,” he said.

“The day you become a citizen is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion that has implications for every generation afterwards. People recognize that, and these are very special, meaningful and very emotional days, not just for the new citizens but also for their family and friends.”

Rather than giving options to bypass the affirmation, Bernhard said Canada should be doing more to celebrate citizenship.

Indeed, fewer Canadian permanent residents are going through the process of obtaining citizenship.

Last month, Statistics Canada reported that just under half of permanent residents who immigrated to Canada between 2011 and 2021 obtained Canadian citizenship.

That’s compared to just over 75 per cent in 2001.

A 2022 Leger poll commissioned by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship found immigrants are realizing that life in Canada isn’t as rosy as assumed, with the current leadership and/or government (43 per cent), high cost of living (35 per cent) and racism (19 per cent) listed as the top three reasons why they wouldn’t recommend others immigrate to Canada.

That same survey reported around 22 per cent of new immigrants saying they were likely to leave Canada over the next two years.

That said, the same survey reported 71 per cent of respondents saying Canada provides immigrants with a good quality of life.

While Bernhard understands the need for the government to streamline the process, particularly in this time where unreasonably long processing delays have become default for the federal public service, he stresses it shouldn’t be at the expense of ceremony.

“I understand the government is facing a lot of pressure from people who, very reasonably, want their applications to be processed more quickly, but I would hope that we would be able to find those efficiencies in other parts of the process,” he said.

“These celebrations are really special, and if we do away with them, that’s a disservice to all of Canada.”

Source: Proposal to make citizenship ceremonies optional a ‘disservice to all of Canada’

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Soon a Canadian citizenship oath could be just a scroll and click away: But should it be?

2023/03/01 Leave a comment

The Canada Gazette notification of plans to further water down citizenship by allowing the oath to be administered by a “non-authorized person” risks further weakening the meaningfulness of Canadian citizenship.

IRCC justifies the proposal solely on operational and financial grounds, without any serious discussion of policy considerations. In a sense, this repeats the process of the previous government’s quintupling of adult citizenship fees in 2014-15, with a Gazette notice that discounted any impact from fee increases on naturalization rates. As we know from the recent Statistics Canada analysis and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, that was likely one of the factors, along with the impact of the pandemic, on the drastic decline in naturalization from 60.4 percent in 2016 to 45.7 percent in 2021, five to nine years after landing.

More worrying is some of the rationale for this change. Upfront costs of some $5 million over 10 years are expected to be recouped though reduced ceremonies as the Gazette notice states: 

“Consequently, it is expected that participation in ceremonies would be lower than it is currently, and there would likely be fewer ceremonies overall. Therefore, the Government of Canada would save costs, as the proposal would likely reduce the number of ceremonies the Department would be required to arrange.”

In a nod to inclusion, the notice mentions that applicants will save “up to three months processing time.” Furthermore, “swearing or affirming in this manner via the secure online solution is expected to take significantly less time” than the 90 minutes the current ceremonies take. 

These are insignificant compared to changes made early in the government’s mandate that eased residency and language requirements, or the more recent change to the Oath to recognize Indigenous and treaty rights.

But to make citizenship more inclusive, the government would need to implement, at least partially, its platform commitment in the 2019 and 2021 election platforms to eliminate citizenship fees, a much more substantive measure.

Citizenship, as I have argued in the past, provides a mix of personal and public benefits. 

Applicants personally benefit from the security citizenship provides in terms of mobility and voting rights and the ability to run for office. Canadian society benefits from the “common bond for Canadian-born individuals and naturalized Canadians alike, signifying full membership in Canadian society.” 

This proposed change highlights how the government treats citizenship as a service transaction rather than a substantive unifying and integrating process to help new Canadians feel fully part of Canadian society. That the government has not issued the revised citizenship study guide, announced three ministers ago, is but a further example. 

Canadians, newcomers and old-timers, should raise their concerns with their MPs, regarding this diminishment of citizenship and the integration of new Canadians:

Starting as soon as June, new Canadian citizens could take the oath on their own — without the need for a citizenship judge.

The proposed change is an attempt by immigration officials to reduce processing time and backlogs.

However, critics warn the move would drastically change the decades-old ritual for generations of newcomers and with a click on the keyboard, further dilute the meaning of Canadian citizenship.

“This just further cheapens the significance of becoming a Canadian citizen. It’s just as easy to click terms and conditions to become a citizen as it is to create a Facebook or a TikTok account,” said Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.

“That’s really a shame.”

The change, as part of the modernization and digitalization of immigration processing, is expected to reduce the current citizenship processing time by three months to 21 months, according to the plan published in the Canada Gazette over the weekend.

Swearing an oath has been a legal requirement of becoming a citizen in this country since 1947. It’s a solemn vow taken by citizenship applicants to follow the laws of Canada and fulfil their duties as citizens.

Citizenship is not only a milestone for new immigrants toward their belonging and commitment to Canada, it also comes with the benefits of a passport, voting rights and the ability to run for elected office.

Under the proposed change, the immigration minister would have broad discretion to allow citizenship applicants to take the oath by other means and not necessarily before an authorized individual. 

Currently, new citizens swear or affirm the oath before a citizenship judge at virtual or in-person ceremonies, which are mainly scheduled on weekdays, during working hours, although ceremonies are occasionally scheduled on Saturdays. 

“Many clients have to take time off work to attend citizenship ceremonies, and this time off is not necessarily paid by employers,” the immigration department said in the Gazette.

“The flexibility would allow the Department to implement options aimed at improving client service and reducing processing times of citizenship applications.”

The proposed change came in the wake of new data indicating a nosedive in citizenship uptake over 20 years.

The 2021 census found that just 45.7 per cent of permanent residents became citizens within 10 years, down from 60 per cent in 2016 and 75.1 per cent in 2001.

“Citizenship does take a long time, and they’re working on the process,” said Bernhard, whose organization obtained the data. “But the actual problem is not how long it takes to get the citizenship. The actual problem is the desirability of Canadian citizenship itself.”

During the pandemic, citizenship processing time has doubled from the prior 12-month service standard, even though the number of citizenship applications granted annually has risen significantly to 243,000 from 113,000 over the last five years. 

With Canada moving toward bringing in half a million new permanent residents a year by 2025, the inventory of citizenship applications — standing at 358,000 — is expected to grow.

Citizenship applicants must go through a stringent screening process to ensure they meet all requirements, including three out of five years of physical presence in Canada at the time of applying. Those between ages 18 and 54 must also show proficiency in either official language and pass a citizenship exam before they are scheduled for a citizenship ceremony.

Due to COVID, officials have brought in virtual citizenship ceremonies as of April 2020. Since then, 15,290 of the 15,457 ceremonies have been held online in front of an authorized official, generally a citizenship judge.

The “self-administration” of the oath-taking would now allow new citizens to sign a written attestation online without a witness to complete the obligations of citizenship, and applicants would still have the option to do it before a citizenship judge, the immigration department told the Star in an email Monday.

Officials said the measure could result in savings as fewer ceremonies are expected to be hosted.

For Andrew Griffith, a former director general at the immigration department, the change marks another diversion of the federal government in its approach to immigration and citizenship.

“I just look at all of our immigration policies,” said Griffith, now an Environics Institute fellow. “It’s basically the more, the merrier. It’s not about the ability to integrate. It’s just increasing numbers. I can see the logic in terms of you just want to push people through but I always thought that immigration and citizenship was more than that.

“We’re just really further diminishing the value of citizenship.”

The public has 30 days to comment and provide feedback to the proposed regulatory change.

Source: Soon a Canadian citizenship oath could be just a scroll and click away

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , , ,

Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina, seeking passports — and options — for their kids

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

More detailed account than elsewhere. In contrast to some earlier reports, appears many are fairly afflluent. And not all are birth tourists with some settling in Argentina:

Shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Alla Prigolovkina and her husband, Andrei Ushakov, decided they had to flee their Sochi, Russia, home.

Ushakov had been detained for holding up a sign that read “Peace,” and Prigolovkina, a pregnant ski instructor, feared he would soon be drafted and potentially killed, leaving their baby fatherless.

The original plan was to stay in Europe, but anti-Russian sentiment discouraged them.

“We chose Argentina because it has everything we needed: Fantastic nature, a large country, beautiful mountains,” Prigolovkina, 34, told The Associated Press inside the home her family is renting in Argentina’s western Mendoza province. “We felt it would be ideal for us.”

They were hardly alone.

Over the past year, Argentine immigration authorities have noticed flights packed with dozens of pregnant Russians. But whereas Prigolovkina said her family intends to build a life here at the foot of the Andes mountains, local officials believe many of the other recent Russian visitors are singularly focused on receiving one of Argentina’s passports.

All children born in Argentina automatically receive citizenship and having an Argentine child speeds up the process for the parents to obtain residency permits and, after a couple of years, their own passports.

Crucially, the navy blue booklets allow entry to 171 countries without a visa, a backup plan that Russians believe could come in handy in the ever-uncertain future. Due to sanctions, Russians have also had trouble opening bank accounts in foreign countries, something an Argentine passport could solve.

According to official figures, some 22,200 Russians entered Argentina over the last year, including 10,777 women — many of whom were in the advanced stages of pregnancy. In January, 4,523 Russians entered Argentina, more than four times the 1,037 that arrived in the same month last year.

After an investigation, Argentine officials concluded that Russian women, generally from affluent backgrounds, were entering the country as tourists with the plan to give birth, obtain their documentation and leave. More than half of the Russians who entered the country in the last year, 13,134, already left, including 6,400 women.

“We detected that they don’t come to do tourism, they come to have children,” Florencia Carignano, the national director for migration, said during a meeting with international media.

Although Argentina generally has a relatively permissive immigration process, the recent arrest of two alleged Russian spies who had Argentine passports in Slovenia raised alarms in the South American country, where officials reinforced immigration controls.

“We canceled residencies of Russians who spent more time outside than in,” Carignano said, expressing concern the Argentine “passport will cease to have the trust it enjoys in all countries.”

Immigration authorities have also called on the justice system to investigate agencies that allegedly offer assistance to Russian women who want to give birth in Argentina.

It’s unclear how many women have left Russia to give birth in the last year, but the issue is big enough that lawmakers in Moscow this month raised the question of whether those who choose to give birth abroad should be stripped of the so-called maternity fund that all Russian mothers receive — a financial benefit of almost $8,000 for the first child and about $10,500 for the second.

There is no discussion on whether to cut off access to the maternity fund for Russian mothers who give birth abroad, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The phenomenon also is not entirely new. Prior to the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian women were part of a wave of “birth tourists” in the U.S. and many paid brokers tens of thousands of dollars to arrange their travel documents, accommodations and hospital stays, often in Florida.

Embarking on a long journey during an advanced pregnancy can be particularly perilous, and Russians in Argentina insist that their decision to leave their homes goes beyond a new passport. Despite the government’s claims, some at least seem eager to make Argentina their new home.

In spite of the language barrier and the unfamiliar, stifling summer heat, Prigolovkina and Ushakov have quickly adopted Argentine customs since their July move. Prigolovkina said they especially enjoy spending time in the park with their dogs. And while the family may not have been interested in soccer in Russia, they happily cheered when their newly adopted country won the World Cup late last year.

Still, she also concedes that obtaining a passport for their newborn son, Lev Andrés, was a motivating factor for the move: “We wanted our baby to have the chance to not just be Russian and have a single passport.”

Some experts say a country in which migrants once made up as much as 30% of the population should be particularly sensitive to the plight of Russians trying to start a new life. The South American country was transformed in the late 19th and early 20th century by the influx of millions of European migrants, including many from Italy and Spain.

“Given our history of migration, a country like ours should empathize more with the humanitarian dimension” of these recent immigrants, Natalia Debandi, a social scientist and migrations expert who is a researcher at the publicly funded CONICET institute, said. “They are not terrorists, they are people.”

A study by immigration agents based on interviews with 350 newly arrived Russians concluded that most are married and largely well-off professionals who have remote jobs in finance and digital design or live off savings.

Days before giving birth to a boy named Leo, 30-year-old Russian psychologist Ekaterina Gordienko lauded her experience in Argentina, saying “the health care system is very good, and people are very kind. My only problem is Spanish. If the doctor doesn’t speak English, I use the (Google) translator.”

Gordienko arrived in the nation’s capital of Buenos Aires in December with her 38-year-old husband, Maxim Levoshin. “The first thing we want is for Leo to live in a safe country, without a war in his future,” Levoshin said.

In Mendoza, Prigolovkina is excited for her family’s new life in Argentina and optimistic they will be able to give back to the country that has welcomed them.

“We have left everything behind to live in peace. I hope that Argentines understand that Russians can be very useful in different areas of life, in business, the economy, in science,” she said. “They can help make Argentina better.”

Source: Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina, seeking passports — and options — for their kids

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , ,

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