Government welcomes Royal Assent of Bill C-24, Civil Liberties Groups Plan Legal Challenge

2014/06/20 Leave a comment

Key messages from the CIC’s Press Release:

Improving efficiency

Canada’s citizenship program is being improved by reducing the decision-making process from three steps to one. It is expected that, by 2015–2016, this change will bring the average processing time for citizenship applications down to under a year. It is also projected that by 2015-2016, the current backlog will be reduced by more than 80 percent.

Reinforcing the value of Canadian citizenship

The government is ensuring citizenship applicants maintain strong ties to Canada. These amendments to the Citizenship Act provide a clearer indication that the “residence” period to qualify for citizenship in fact requires physical presence in Canada.

More applicants will now be required to meet language requirements and pass a knowledge test to ensure that new citizens are better prepared to fully participate in Canadian society. New provisions will also help individuals with strong ties to Canada, such as by automatically extending citizenship to additional “Lost Canadians” who were born before 1947 as well as to their children born in the first generation outside Canada.

Cracking down on citizenship fraud

The updated Citizenship Act includes stronger penalties for fraud and misrepresentation a maximum fine of $100,000 and/or five years in prison and expands the grounds to bar an application for citizenship to include foreign criminality, which will help improve program integrity.

Protecting and promoting Canada’s interests and values

Finally, the amendments bring Canada in line with most of our peer countries, by providing that citizenship can be revoked from dual nationals who are convicted of serious crimes such as terrorism, high treason and spying offences depending on the sentence received or who take up arms against Canada. Permanent residents who commit these acts will be barred from citizenship.

As a way of recognizing the important contributions of those who serve Canada in uniform, permanent residents who are members of the Canadian Armed Forces will have quicker access to Canadian citizenship. The Act also stipulates that children born to Canadian parents serving abroad as servants of the Crown are able to pass on Canadian citizenship to children they have or adopt outside Canada.

Government welcomes Royal Assent of Bill C-24 – Canada News Centre.

And the press release from the Canadian Association Of Refugee Lawyers and British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA):

Bill C-24, introducing sweeping changes to Canada’s citizenship laws that make citizenship harder to get and easier to lose, has passed through the House of Commons and is now being considered by the Senate.  CARL, BCCLA and Amnesty International take the position that this proposed law has dramatically negative effects on Canadian citizenship, eliminating equal citizenship rights for all, and violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as international human rights. According to the organizations, the new law will take away rights from countless Canadians, creating a two-tier citizenship regime that discriminates against dual nationals and naturalized citizens.

“This proposed law would allow certain Canadians to be stripped of citizenship that was validly obtained by birth or by naturalization. We think that is unconstitutional, and we intend to challenge this law if it is passed,” said Lorne Waldman, President of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. “We have presented our arguments to the House of Commons and to the Senate, in an attempt to get them to change or stop this Bill. But the government hasn’t listened, it refuses to amend the bill, and we feel we will have little choice but to challenge it in the courts.” …

“The ‘Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act’ does exactly the opposite of what the title proclaims. It makes citizenship less secure,” said Josh Paterson, Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association. “In Canada, lawfully-obtained citizenship has always been permanent – once a Canadian, always a Canadian – and all Canadians have always had equal citizenship rights. This bill turns the whole idea of being Canadian upside-down, so that the Canadian citizenship of some people will be worth less than the Canadian citizenship of others. That is wrong, and it must be challenged.”

PRESS RELEASE: New citizenship law will be challenged on constitutional grounds, if passed, say rights groups

In case you missed it, my assessment, The new citizenship act is efficient. Is it fair?

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The new citizenship act is efficient. Is it fair?

2014/06/19 1 Comment

Following the Parliamentary hearings and debates, without any amendments, my overall take on C-24 — the Strengthening of Canadian Citizenship Act. Full version below (both pay wall and open versions), excerpt on revocation:

Most fundamentally, revocation for dual nationals convicted of terrorism or treason, at home or abroad, changes a policy stance this country has held since Diefenbaker — that a citizen is a citizen, whether single or dual national.

The government and its supporting witnesses emphasized broad support for revocation in these cases. “Nobody wants a terrorist as a neighbour,” they said. Revocation is not “harsh”and is in line with other countries, they argued. Eight out of ten Canadians support revocation. Immigrants make a choice to come to Canada and accept the “fundamental social contract of citizenship”.

Let’s turn to a specific, theoretical case. Consider the two Calgarians that were killed in Syria fighting for extremist or terrorist groups.

Damian Clairmont and Salman Ashrafi were raised and lived in Calgary. Neither chose to be Canadian. Clairmont was born in Canada. Ashrafi immigrated with his parents when he was in Grade 5 or 6. He became Canadian but also has Pakistani citizenship.

Clairmont would keep his Canadian citizenship; Ashrafi would lose his even though he spent most of his youth in Canada.

Same crime, two different results. Hard to see how the courts would rule this as being charter-compliant.

While Clairmont and Asrafi are dead, similar cases will emerge — such as Mohamed Hersi, the Somali-Canadian convicted of attempting to participate in terrorist activity, who came to Canada as a child.

In the case of the Quebec Values Charter, general polling showed high levels of support — but polling focused on the question of forcing existing Quebec government employees to conform or quit showed less support. Would Canadians necessarily support treating cases like that of Clairmont and Asrafi differently? Someone born and raised in Canada but of dual nationality?

The new citizenship act is efficient. Is it fair? (iPolitics pay wall)

The new citizenship act is efficient. Is it fair? (open)

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C-24 Citizenship Act Committee Hearings – 5 May

2014/05/06 2 Comments

As there was no real press coverage of Committee hearings 5 May, watched the video and the following summary may be of interest.

Like many committee hearings, an element of Kabuki theatre with the Government asking questions of witnesses in favour of their approach to revocation while the opposition asking questions of those opposed to revocation and a number of other provisions.

On the Government “side,” there was Canadian Israel Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), Alliance of Canadian Terror Victims Foundation and the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD); “for” the opposition, the Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

CIJA supported most aspects of the proposed changes, including increased residency, language and knowledge requirements, the intent to reside, and the revocation provisions. Given that the possible impact of the Israel’s law of return, given all Jews the right to Israeli residency and citizenship, subject to an application process, Fogal spent considerable time stating that the dual national distinction did not apply to the right to having another citizenship but only to those who exercise that right. He did, however, note the need for some process improvements, particularly the need in any terror-related convictions in foreign countries to be subject to a test that they were equivalent to Canadian practice and fairness.

Alliance of Canadian Terror Victims Foundation (ACTVF) and the Foundation for Defence of Democracies also support the Government’s revocation proposals (see earlier opinion piece by Sheryl Saperia The case for revoking citizenship – National Post). Both argue that the fundamental social contract makes revocation appropriate in such extreme cases of terrorism, war crimes and the like.

Saperia of FDD noted the need for some process improvements (tighter drafting of connection to Canada for terrorist activities and, like CIJA, the need to have explicit criteria for determining the equivalence of foreign to Canadian convictions). On dual nationals, she said that in cases where other countries do not allow for renunciation, the Minister could have discretion to decided on the degree of connectedness to the foreign country. She also emphasized the need for more preventative anti-radicalization measures, noting the RCMP high-risk traveller program (RCMP set to tackle extremism at home with program to curb radicalization of Canadian youth), as well as requiring those applying for passports to make some sort of commitment to not engage in such activity.

For Alliance founder Maureen Basnicki, it is intensely personal, given she is a 9/11 widow, and believes that:

Therefore, if Canada allows a convicted terrorist to retain the Canadian citizenship, Canada is in effect saying “we accept the terrorist act as part of the fabric of life in Canada”.

But we also allow murderers and sex offenders to stay in Canada, as unfortunately they too are part of the fabric of society.

All three did not acknowledge that dual nationality does not only apply to naturalized Canadians. One can be born in Canada and yet have dual nationality. And if such a person is born and educated in Canada, is  “outsourcing” the problem, without accepting responsibility. And I suspect that the distinction made between the legal right to another citizenship, without taking it up, is a distinction that may not be applied equally to all communities, combined with the reverse onus of proof.

On the opposition “side”, the Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group focussed on the situations of some of the more vulnerable refugees, and recommended keeping existing residency requirements (3 of 4 years), some exemptions for the knowledge and language requirements, testing language at end of process, maintaining right of Court appeal, reversal of proposed fee increases, no power to strip dual nationals of Canadian citizenship, and ensure intent to reside provision is not grounds for misrepresentation given that situations change.

Audrey Macklin of CARL focussed on the intent to reside and revocation provisions. On the former, their reading is that the law is written so that this could be grounds for citizenship revocation on grounds of fraud or misrepresentation. On revocation, CARL focussed on the constitutionality, noting that Charter rights cannot be violated as punishment, and that the social contract argument is not supported by jurisprudence. The distinction between “mono” and dual Canadian citizens is also likely not Charter compliant. She also raised a number of procedural rights (e.g., retroactively, reverse onus of proof) as areas of concern.

Questioning by MPs was largely predictable. Government MPs asked questions of “their side” as did opposition MPs, both trying to buttress their own positions.

One of the more interesting questions, however, was by Chungsen Leung (CPC), who went on at some length about how attachment and contribution to Canada could happen when one was abroad, almost questioning the intent to reside provision. The eventual question, directed at CIJA, reverted back to the obvious examples of citizens of convenience (e.g., 2006 Lebanese evacuation), with CIJA maintaining that being the real aim of the provision. But then drafting should be tighter so as not to cast to broad a net on Canadians that may move abroad for valid work, study or family reasons.

Ted Opitz (CPC) was poorly briefed in arguing that many countries have the same approach to revocation as proposed by the Government and that a previous Liberal government had ended revocation for treason. CARL corrected him on the former point (only UK currently has this approach, Australia is considering) and it was under Diefenbaker, two generations ago, that Canada stopped revoking citizenship from dual citizens.

And a bit of an interesting debate between Saperia and Basnicki with Macklin of CARL on whether the world would think better of Canada if we revoked citizenship or not. For Saperia and Basnicki, this was viewed as a strong signal worldwide that Canada did not tolerate such activity; Macklin argued the contrary that “outsourcing” our problem would signal that Canada does not take responsibility for the activities of its citizens. A philosophical divide.

Links (where available) are below. One note of frustration, the Parliamentary website, apart from posting agenda and the video link, does not appear to be posting briefs or transcripts, making it harder for those who wish to follow the discussions. A related frustration is that a number of organizations to not post their briefs and statements on their websites automatically or respond to requests for copies. I will update this list as the briefs and statements become available.

Inter-Clinic Immigration Working Group

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs – CIJA (link not yet posted)

Alliance of Canadian Terror Victims Foundation

Foundation for Defense of Democracies (link not yet posted)

Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (brief)

CARL Press Release: New Citizenship Act Threatens Rights of All Canadians

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Finding the Right Balance in Canada’s Citizenship Policy – My Article in Inside Policy

2014/02/06 Leave a comment

On the day of tabling of the revisions to The Citizenship Act, my article on finding the right balance is out in Inside Policy. I focus on four elements of  balance:

  • Maintain citizenship program integrity and rigorousness;
  • Ensure fairness and comparable opportunity to obtain citizenship among different communities and education levels;
  • Maintain competitiveness of Canadian citizenship policies compared to other immigration-based countries; and,
  • Ensure a citizenship focus in immigration, settlement and multiculturalism programs (i.e., permanent not temporary residents).

Inside Policy – February 2014 (page 42)

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Citizenship Processing – Improvement

2014/02/05 Leave a comment

In anticipation of the tabling of the revisions to The Citizenship Act tomorrow, some significant improvements in number of applications processed this January:

Investments announced in Economic Action Plan 2013 have helped make the system more efficient and strengthened the integrity of Canada’s citizenship program. The immense popularity of Canadian citizenship, though, has hampered efforts to tackle long processing times.

The government will take additional steps in the coming days to reduce backlogs while further strengthening the value of Canadian citizenship. As announced in the October 2013 Speech from the Throne, these measures – taken together – will form the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation.

While welcome, understates just how bad both 2012 and 2013 were: 113,111 and 128,94 compared to the previous years which varied between 143,595 and 199,866. However, the trend line is improving, thanks to the temporary funding increase that should largely eliminate the backlog and improve processing times by 2015.

The longer term issue is to ensure a business process and ongoing funding that prevents future backlogs from emerging. CIC has traditionally underfunded citizenship (under current business processes), waiting until the backlog increases to unacceptable levels, and then finding temporary funding to address the backlog.

And citizenship applications, as they come from permanent residents, generally do not fluctuate that much year-to-year, and thus are easier to predict, and manage, than previous immigration regimes, where demand was always greater than CIC’s ability to manage (recent changes to Canadian immigration policy have a large “demand management” aspect).

News Release — Welcoming new Canadians.

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Canadian citizenship rules face broad reform in 2014 – CBC News

2014/01/25 Leave a comment

Minister Alexander does some pre-messaging on what’s in, what’s out in the upcoming revisions to The Citizenship Act, expected to be tabled shortly in Parliament.

What’s in:

  • Further measures to reduce some of the remaining gaps in “lost Canadians”, Canadians who lost their citizenship due (i.e., personal circumstances before 1947 when Canadian citizenship was introduced such as war brides);
  • Providing an exemption (likely) for the children of those born abroad to Canadian government personnel to the second generation limit;
  • Similar provisions to Britain (and likely coming to Australia) stripping citizens of citizenship involved in terrorism abroad (Australians fighting in Syria could lose citizenship, British fighters in Syria stripped of UK citizenship);
  • Inclusion of some elements, not specified, of Devinder Shory, Conservative MP’s bill, stripping Canadian citizenship of those “engaged in an act of war against the Canadian Forces”, and reducing residency requirements by one year for those signing up to the Forces (US has some similar provisions;
  • Longer residency requirements and making it clear that physical presence is required, combined with a promise of shorter wait times (but no service standards or published statistics to ensure accountability); and,
  • Other unspecified integrity measures.

What’s not:

  • Change in jus soli (automatic citizenship to those born in Canada). While the Minister indicated ongoing concern about “passport babies”, and said CIC is still working on the issue, too complex given the implication for the provinces and vital stats agencies to propose something concrete now. There was never any hard evidence on the extent of “passport babies” (i.e., data from health ministries on number of babies born whose parents did not have healthcare); rather the government relied on anecdotes, albeit informed by formal consultations.

Canadian citizenship rules face broad reform in 2014 – Politics – CBC News.

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Consular policy shift a solution in search of a clear problem

2014/01/25 Leave a comment

Good piece by Natalie Brender on the recommendation for a shift in consular policy to address “Canadians of convenience”, noting some of the practicalities and other issues involved (see also Doug Saunders’ Deny assistance to Canadians living abroad? It won’t work – The Globe and Mail):

This perspective would suggest, for example, that if there’s a major problem of expatriate “free-riders” reaping the benefits of citizenship without making equivalent contributions to Canada, it could be reasonable to square matters from a fiscal angle by imposing a higher charge for renewal of expatriate Canadians’ passports. The goal of limiting “free-ridership” would also support the government’s move in 2008 to restrict transmission of Canadian citizenship to one generation born abroad.

All parties involved in the ongoing discussion about Canadian citizenship — politicians, bureaucrats, citizens and the media — would help make the conversation about policy solutions more lucid if they began with a clearer focus on what the “Canadians of convenience” problem is really all about.

Consular policy shift a solution in search of a clear problem

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‘You are as equal as anyone’ | Toronto Star

2013/11/18 1 Comment

An alternate “welcome to Canada and Canadian citizenship” speech by Haroon Siddiqui of The Star, with the classic liberal emphasis on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights (as part of the changes introduced along with Discover Canada, the 2010 citizenship guide and test, the Charter was no longer handed out at citizenship ceremonies, replaced by a pamphlet emphasizing the role of the Crown):

Respect that Canada is a Christian-majority nation. But know that it is not a Christian country. Canada has no official religion. All faiths are equal. Canada has no official culture, either. So be free to practise your faith, if you so choose, and live your culture as fully as you like — within the rule of law.

The rule of law is what binds all Canadians together, new and old, the foreign-born and the Canadian-born. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is our common holy parchment.

Canada wants you to succeed. The more you succeed, the more successful Canada becomes.

i‘You are as equal as anyone’ | Toronto Star.

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The citizenship review: what to watch for | iPolitics

2013/11/09 Leave a comment

My opinion piece in iPolitics on the upcoming Canadian citizenship legislation (full article below as behind the iPolitics paywall):

Over the past five years, the federal government has engaged in a comprehensive policy renewal across the whole suite of immigration policies. The major remaining gap was in citizenship, where the government announced its intent in the 2013 throne speech:

Canadians understand that citizenship should not be simply a passport of convenience. Citizenship is a pledge of mutual responsibility and a shared commitment to values rooted in our history …

To strengthen and protect the value of Canadian citizenship, our Government will introduce the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation.

During the same period, and within existing legislation, the government nevertheless led an intense period of renewal of the citizenship program:

  • Issuing the new citizenship study guide, Discover Canada, and related citizenship test in 2010
  • Implementing new pre-qualification language requirements in 2012
  • Introducing a series of initiatives targeting residency fraud, starting in 2011
  • Increasing the public profile of the citizenship program and ceremonies, aligned to the messaging of Discover Canada
  • Supporting the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), and its work on strengthening the meaning of citizenship.

All of these reflect the government’s emphasis on making citizenship more meaningful, “harder to get and easier to lose”, to use former immigration minister Jason Kenney’s phrase — in contrast with previous governments’ emphasis on facilitating citizenship.

  • It is likely that the proposed Citizenship Act will continue to emphasize meaningfulness in the following areas, based upon previous bills tabled but not yet passed, and media coverage of ministerial comments:
  • Regulating citizenship consultants
  • Increasing penalties for citizenship fraud
  • Clarifying the definition of residency to mean physicalresidency, not just legal residency, and possibly increasing the required residency period from the current three years
  • Improving the government’s ability to bar criminals from becoming Canadian citizens
  • Streamlining the revocation and removal process
  • Ensuring a first-generation exemption for Crown servants
  • Possibly eliminating the current “birth on soil” grant of citizenship in favour of a more qualified right.

As the current Citizenship Act dates from the 1970s, the reformed act likely will be more in keeping with current drafting practice, giving ministers more authority and discretion compared to the extremely prescriptive current act, which goes into considerable detail on the citizenship application process and procedures.

While attention will be paid to the specific provisions in the new act, and the balance between facilitating acquisition of citizenship and making citizenship mean “ongoing commitment, connection and loyalty to Canada”, some of the broader issues to watch for include:

  • The balance between ministerial discretion and prescriptive measures in the act. While ministers and officials prefer to have more discretion, citizenship touches all Canadians and there can be advantages in having more constraints on ministers to ensure that changes enjoy wider support. The current act has a mix, specifying “adequate knowledge” of an official language and of “Canada and of the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship”, defining these in regulations, not legislation, while the wording of the citizenship oath is in the Act itself
  • Close review of measures presented as “housekeeping,” to ensure that there are no unannounced or unanticipated substantive implications. Given the technical nature of much of citizenship policy, the devil is in the details
  • Whether the act, or related initiatives, seriously addresses the chronic and ongoing under-resourcing and under-management of the citizenship program, or whether the government is silent on these issues. In 2012, this, along with other changes, resulted in a drop of 37 per cent in new citizens, an example of poor program management. No government has properly resourced the citizenship program; typically the program gets a top-up once the backlog reaches an unacceptable level, as was the case in 2013 when $44 million was allocated in the budget
  • A real commitment to citizen service through meaningful service standards. Currently, it takes an average of over 2 years to acquire citizenship compared to Australia’s two months. Surely Canada should be able to do better, without compromising the integrity of the application process.

Beyond the specifics, the broader question of citizenship policy being faced by many governments is the balance between citizenship as “place” — assuming that citizens remain in their country of immigration — and citizenship as “status”, or a more instrumental view of citizenship as a means to secure employment and other rights.

In contrast to earlier waves of immigration — largely one-way, with limited and expensive two-way travel opportunities — today’s globalization enjoys free communications, low-cost travel, community-specific media (either Canadian or internationally-produced), all of which makes identities more fluid and complex. As governments try to reinforce a strong sense of Canadian identity, they come up against this reality — which is particularly the case for the more well-educated and trained immigrants that we aim to attract, and who tend to be more mobile.

Whether it be to pursue opportunities in their country of origin, or go back and forth to pursue business and other opportunities, citizenship policy has an impact on diaspora linkages and mobility. Make it too restrictive and the linkages may be underdeveloped — make it too easy and citizenship may be instrumental, without attachment.

Hopefully, once the draft bill is tabled, both parliamentary and public comment and discussion will engage in a broader debate about what kind of citizenship approach we want.

The citizenship review: what to watch for | iPolitics.

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Citizenship Act Reforms

2013/10/17 Leave a comment

General announcement of proposed revisions to the Citizenship Act, as announced in the Speech from the Throne. Details will be of course in the actual bill, timing not yet public:

Canadians understand that citizenship should not be simply a passport of convenience. Citizenship is a pledge of mutual responsibility and a shared commitment to values rooted in our history.

  • Our Government will not hesitate to uphold the fundamental rights of all Canadians wherever they are threatened.
  • To strengthen and protect the value of Canadian citizenship, our Government will introduce the first comprehensive reforms to the Citizenship Act in more than a generation.

Full Speech | Speech From The Throne

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