Senate urged to give children adopted from overseas the same citizenship rights as those born in Canada 

2025/11/17 Leave a comment

Perhaps I am a bit thick, but parents of foreign-born adoptees have to commit to raising their adopted child in Canada and thus would most likely meet the residency requirement of 1,095 days within a five-year period.  

The direct route to citizenship for adoptees was in response to parental pressure to have a faster route than PR sponsorship. But making that choice meant the adopted child was considered the first generation born abroad, like any naturally born child born abroad.

Appears more a matter of identity and convenience rather than fundamental practicalities to me:

….Two lawyers specializing in citizenship have submitted a briefing paper to the Senate committee, which will consider Bill C-3 this week. They argue that the bill should exempt children adopted from abroad from the substantial-connection test. 

The paper’s co-author, Toronto lawyer Sujit Choudhry, who filed the successful constitutional challenge to the Citizenship Act on behalf of Lost Canadian clients, said it is “deeply unfair to the families of these children to treat them differently than children adopted domestically.”

“It also violates Canada’s international treaty obligations and the Charter,” he said in an e-mail. 

Its other author, immigration lawyer Maureen Silcoff, suggested that unless Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada addresses the issue it could face a legal challenge. 

“IRCC is fully aware of the issue. Adoptive parents and MPs have been advocating on their behalf for years. We do not understand their reluctance to address this issue at this moment, when C-3 is before Parliament. Amending C-3 would avoid unnecessary litigation.”

Don Chapman, a leading advocate for Lost Canadians, who is giving evidence to the Senate committee this week, said, “I don’t want to leave any child behind.” 

But he expressed concern that amending the bill in the Senate may lead to it being held up when it returns to the Commons. …

Source: Senate urged to give children adopted from overseas the same citizenship rights as those born in Canada

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Liberals, NDP bid to undo Harper-era rule on citizenship for Lost Canadians

2025/10/27 Leave a comment

The Liberals and NDP, along with government officials, are right to raise concerns regarding the amended Bill’s requirement for knowledge and language assessment along with security and criminality checks as these would likely not survive legal challenges.

However, there is no such impediment to the amendment requiring the residency requirement of 1,095 days within a five year period prior to the birth of a child. Nor is there any such impediment for requiring annual reports on the number of Canadians claiming their citizenship under the Bill’s provisions:

The Liberals and NDP are pushing for a citizenship bill to move forward without Conservative changes that would require security screening and language checks before children born abroad to foreign-born Canadians could qualify for a passport. 

Earlier this month, Conservatives, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, voted through a raft of changes to the government’s proposed legislation, known as Bill C-3. 

The bill aims to reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 that stripped people born into this situation, who are often known as Lost Canadians, of their automatic right to citizenship.

But the Conservative amendments to the Liberal bill – expected to go to a vote on Monday – would make people aged 18 to 54 clear several hurdles in order to inherit Canadian citizenship, putting them on roughly even ground with immigrants seeking citizenship. 

They would have to pass an English or French language test, be subject to security screening to check for criminal activity, and pass a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history.

Bill C-3 requires Canadian parents born abroad to demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside the country. They would need to spend a cumulative 1,095 days – the equivalent of three years – in Canada before the birth or adoption of the child seeking citizenship. 

The Conservative changes would require the 1,095 days to be consecutively spent in Canada within five years, and not made up of a few weeks, months or days over many years. …

Source: Liberals, NDP bid to undo Harper-era rule on citizenship for Lost Canadians

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Chapman: Bill C-3 corrects inequalities, brings Citizenship Act into compliance with the Charter

2025/10/14 Leave a comment

Written before the amendments made by the House immigration committee although I expect Chapman likely opposes all of the amendments based upon his previous writings and testimonies.

And in his criticism of the CPC and their procedural maneuverings, he neglects to acknowledge that the Liberal government and the NDP in previous parliaments poisoned the chalice by expanding the scope of the narrow S-245 to include removal of the first-generation cut-off, hardly an example of being “respectful of democratic institutions:”

…Last week, I watched the committee discussion with concern as the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre returned to a familiar, dogmatic and troubling playbook—one that elevates fear over fact, and partisan rhetoric over responsible governance. Dismissing expert analysis, disregarding a clear judicial ruling, and inflaming public sentiment may deliver short-term political gain.

However, the long-term cost is steep: the steady erosion of the institutions that underpin our prosperity, our unity, and the rule of law itself.

Democracy depends not only on laws and courts, but on a shared commitment to uphold them. When a political party becomes comfortable with unequal treatment under the law, distorts public discourse, or refuses to acknowledge and correct its own mistakes—these are not isolated errors. They are signs of weakened accountability and declining leadership.

The moral and legal imperative to enshrine equal rights in the Citizenship Act is clear. Equality rights cannot be optional. Canadians must be cautious not to follow the troubling path of democratic backsliding visible else where. A decade ago, few would have predicted how quickly democratic norms in the United States would come under pressure. Institutional decline begins quietly—then accelerates. As with financial markets, trust builds slowly but can disappear overnight. 

And in politics, fear remains an expedient and dangerous currency—too often spent more readily than truth. Leadership of any party—indeed of any party—must be about more than electoral calculus. It must be rooted in principle—be respectful of democratic institutions, guided by evidence, and committed to the rights, dignity, and equality of all citizens.

Bill C-3 is a necessary step in that direction.

Source: Chapman: Bill C-3 corrects inequalities, brings Citizenship Act into compliance with the Charter

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Courts unlikely to provide fifth extension to Ottawa to address Lost Canadians before November, says immigration lawyer

2025/07/15 Leave a comment

Extension unlikely to be needed as adequate time in fall session. Government should improve C-3 by adding a time limit of five-years to meet the 1,095 day physical presence requirement, not the current open ended provision (the Don Chapman specific airline pilot example in contrast to the vast majority of likely applicants):

Parliament needs to “just get on with it” and address the issue of “lost Canadians” through amendments to the Canada Citizenship Act, according to Jenny Kwan, NDP critic of citizenship and immigration.

She told The Hill Times that she wonders if a judge would have the patience to grant the federal government a fifth extension on a court order requiring action before the current November deadline.

“This is astounding. What the current situation is right now is that Canada’s Citizenship Act,
with respect to lost Canadians, is in violation of the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms], and [Bill
C-3] will make it Charter-compliant,” said Kwan (VancouverEast, B.C.).

“I don’t know how much patience [the judge] will have to continue to see delays in the
passage of the bill to make it Charter-compliant.”

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab (Halifax West, N.S.) tabled Bill C-3, an Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), in the House on June 5. The House rose for the summer on June 20, pausing the bill’s progress until Sept. 15, when the next parliamentary sitting begins.

If passed, the bill would reverse a change to the Citizenship Act made by then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper in 2009 that introduced a “first-generation limit” when it came to citizenship status. Since that 2009 amendment, a Canadian citizen who was born outside of Canada cannot pass citizenship status on to their child if that child was also born or adopted outside the country.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared in December 2023, that the first-generation limit was unconstitutional on the grounds that it unjustifiably limited mobility and equality rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At that time, the Court gave the federal government a deadline of six months to fix the law through legislation. This deadline was later extended on four occasions, with the current deadline set as Nov. 20, 2025.

Kwan described Bill C-3 as “a significant piece of legislation that needs to be done,” in an interview with The Hill Times. The bill is nearly identical to the former Bill C-71, which was introduced in May 2024, but died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued on Jan. 6, 2025.

Kwan argued that a Conservative filibuster in the fall sitting that delayed progress in the House contributed to death of Bill C-71. “Basically, nothing got through, and [Bill C-71] also died on the order paper. So, in this round, it will depend on whether or not the Conservatives will continue to play political games ahead of lost Canadians,” said Kwan.

The Hill Times reached out to Conservative MPs including citizenship and immigration critic
Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, Alta.) and Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, Sask.), a member of the House citizenship committee, but did not receive a response by deadline.

Bill C-3 would amend the Citizenship Act to automatically grant Canadian citizenship to anyone who would be a citizen today were it not for the first-generation limit. The bill would also introduce a “substantial connection test” for Canadian citizens born outside of Canada who wish to pass on citizenship to their children born abroad. Going forward, the bill would allow access to citizenship beyond the first generation, so long as the parent has spent at least 1,095 cumulative—not necessarily consecutive—days in Canada prior to the birth of their child.

Redekopp told the House on June 19 that Conservatives have significant issues with Bill C-3, and criticized the substantial connection test of 1,095 non-consecutive days as “not substantial at all.”

“It is a very weak way to commit to being a Canadian citizen and then to confer that citizenship onto children. It is not a real test of commitment because the days do not have to be consecutive,” Redekopp told the House. “Also, people need to understand the current situation in our country. They need to live here to understand how things are and some of the issues we have right now in our country … People do not know that if they are living in another country.”

Kwan argued that objections to the non-consecutive 1,095-day minimum don’t make sense.

“Take, for example, a person who’s a pilot, right? You travel all the time. You could be a seond-generation born and you’re a pilot. You fly out of Canada regularly as a pilot, and then that means you’re leaving Canada all the time. So, does that mean to say that they can never get a Canadian citizenship? That doesn’t make any sense at all,” she said.

“You have to recognize the fact that we live in a global society now. Canada is a global country, and people move. You have to make sure that is addressed in such a way that fits the times of today.”…

Source: Courts unlikely to provide fifth extension to Ottawa to address Lost Canadians before November, says immigration lawyer

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Lost Canadians bill could create 115,000 more citizens, says parliamentary budget officer

2024/12/20 Leave a comment

Hard to know whether my and other critiques over the lack of numbers by the government resulted in PBO doing the needed analysis. Overall population approach versus my mix of the same Statistics Canada study and passport-based approach but responds to the need for estimated numbers. About three times higher than my upper estimate.

The one assumption that may be questionable is to assume that the current average cost of citizenship proofs would apply to all. If there had been a time limit of five years to meet the residency requirement, that would be reasonable. Without the time limit, the share of more complex residency over multiple years and longer periods, would increase the complexity and cost. The PBO itself notes that “the take-up rate may be impacted by different factors which will affect the cost of the billI,” one of which would be the time period under which residency occurred.

It would have been helpful had the PBO provided a breakdown of the 115,000 by separate groups rather than just the overall number (c and d together would form the largest group) as well as more clarity on assumption based numbers (e.g., population growth rate):

  • “a) the number of Canadians by descent born outside of Canada between February 15, 1977 and April 17, 1981 and who have derived their citizenship from a Canadian by descent parent and did not apply to retain their citizenship before the age of 28;
  • b) the children of these persons;
  • c) the children of Canadians by descent who were born after the coming into force of the first-generation limit on citizenship on April 17, 2009; and
  • d) the number of adoptees of Canadians by descent.”

Given the highly uncertain status of the current Parliament following the Freeland letter, questionable whether C-71 will progress but the PBO analysis provides a more informed basis for discussion:

A bill to reinstate rights for what are known as lost Canadians could create around 115,000 new citizens in the next five years, according to a report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The report, published on Thursday, also estimates that it will cost the government $20.8-million over five years to implement the change, with $16.8-million coming in 2025-2026. The PBO presumes the law will come into force in April.

Bill C-71 was introduced by the government earlier this year after an Ontario court ruled it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to children born overseas to Canadians also born outside the country.

The bill reverses a change by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 that stripped children of a Canadian parent born outside Canada of their automatic right to citizenship.

The 2009 change was designed to crack down on what Conservatives called “Canadians of convenience.” It followed an outcry after Canada spent more than $80-million to evacuate 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon in 2006 during the Israel-Hezbollah war.

It has led to Canadians working abroad being denied the right to pass on their citizenship to their children. It has also meant that some “border babies” – born a few kilometres away in the United States – and Indigenous children born in communities straddling the border do not qualify for Canadian passports, despite living here.

The government, which has reduced its targets for the number of permanent residents to reduce pressure on housing and other services, has never publicly said how many new Canadians it expects the change in the law will create.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer based its 115,000 figure on estimates of the number of Canadians by descent living outside Canada and assumed that their numbers grow at the same rate as the Canadian population. The PBO included people who were adopted by a Canadian who could become citizens under the change.

“The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates a total net cost of the proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act to be $20.8-million over five years, beginning in 2025‑2026. The total number of persons that would be affected is estimated to be around 115,000 over the same period,” the report said.

Don Chapman, who has been campaigning for decades to restore rights to lost Canadians, said he did not think that all those gaining the right to citizenship under the bill who live abroad would opt to come to Canada. He said a lot of lost Canadians were already living in Canada, including children.

“It’s likely that most people who are eligible will not apply,” he said.

Source: Lost Canadians bill could create 115,000 more citizens, says parliamentary budget officer

PBO Report: Amending the Citizenship Act (2024) 

    Filed under C-71, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

    Can new legislation help ‘Lost Canadians’ be found again?

    2022/09/27 Leave a comment

    Disappointing article on S-245 and “lost Canadians” that essentially uncritically take the position of Don Chapman and his assertion that “thousands” have lost their citizenship when the data does not support that and that the vast majority of cases were addressed in previous legislation.

    S-245 addresses a gap: “Bill C-37 of 2008, which repealed the age-28 provision and grandfathered all those Canadians who had not yet turned 28 to be included in the policy change, left out a small group of Canadians who had already turned 28, specifically those born in the 50-month window between February 15, 1977, to April 16, 1981. This small cohort of lost Canadians is the group for whom this bill was brought forward in this Parliament once again.”

    At a minimum, the CBC should have noted this rather than just taking Chapman’s statement at face value. CBC could also have asked CBC for data on the special procedures for persons caught in this situation (the data that I have seen on requests for proofs of citizenship indicates that the numbers of persons for which this is an issue has been consistently overstated).

    There is, of course, the broader issue of the first generation cut-off where again, CBC should have provided more context for that decision (e.g., Lebanese Cdn evacuation of 2006 and the number of evacuees who had minimal to no connection to Canada).

    Future stories on S-245 should address this imbalance by including outside experts, whether legal, academic or former citizenship officials, and ensure a diversity of views.

    And articles need to be more data and evidence-driven, rather than relying on personal stories and advocates, a tendency that CBC appears to be increasingly relying upon (have provided these comments to CBC and will see if any substantive reaction):

    When Pete Giesbrecht was summoned to his local police station on Halloween 2015, he had no idea he was 30 days away from being deported.

    His crime? He had not reaffirmed his Canadian citizenship before the age of 28 under a complicated, confusing and not well publicized section of the Citizenship Act.

    “They said, ‘No, actually, you have 30 days to leave the country. And if you do not leave willingly, we will fly you out with bracelets and all,’ ” Giesbrecht recalled recently from his home in southern Manitoba.

    He’s one of thousands of so-called “Lost Canadians” — people who, because of where and when they were born, are caught up in confusing sections of the Citizenship Act. It can result in a loss of citizenship that forces them to leave Canada for countries they’ve never really known. Others become stateless.

    The House of Commons will vote on new legislation this fall meant to solve the problem faced by Giesbrecht, although it doesn’t address a different issue affecting second-generation Canadians born abroad.

    Cut off from Canada at age 28

    Giesbrecht hopes the changes are passed — he and his family felt a mix of disbelief and anger over his impending deportation.

    “I had carried a citizenship for 29 years. So now to find out that that was done didn’t mean anything. That was a bit of a shock,” he said.

    At the time, Giesbrecht was a commercial truck driver living near Winkler, Man. He crossed the border more than 100 times a year for work.

    He had a Canadian passport, which he received before turning 28, but let it lapse because he had a FAST card, which certified he’d been pre-cleared to cross the U.S.-Canada border.

    His case was flagged when he re-applied for the card in August 2015.

    Since 1977, second-generation Canadians born abroad had an automatic right to citizenship, but those children had to meet certain conditions and apply to retain their citizenship by the time they turned 28. If they didn’t, they automatically and unknowingly lost citizenship.

    Legislative amendments in 2009 were supposed to fix that, but the changes didn’t apply to everyone and created new problems for others.

    Bill C-37 introduced a rule limiting citizenship by descent to the first generation born abroad. People born abroad in subsequent generations now have to become immigrants, or in some cases they can apply for a grant of citizenship, which can take years, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be accepted.

    The changes only affected people who had not yet turned 28 and didn’t help anyone who’d already lost citizenship.

    That’s where Giesbrecht got caught — he was born on Aug. 11, 1979, in Mexico. His parents were Canadian, but they were born in Mexico to Mennonites who had moved there to have less government interference in their lives. However, when he was seven, his family moved back to Manitoba near where his Canadian grandparents were born.

    Don Chapman, head of the Lost Canadians Society in B.C., says the problem was compounded because those affected weren’t told about the retention requirement.

    “Here’s the problem: He got a citizenship certificate. There was no mention on that citizenship certificate that he had to reaffirm,” Chapman said.

    New legislation aims to fix age-28 rule

    New legislation coming before Parliament this fall is meant to reinstate those affected by the age-28 rule who weren’t covered by Bill C-37.

    Bill S-245 has already passed in the Senate and passed first reading in the House of Commons before it recessed for the summer. If it becomes law, it will eliminate the requirement for people to reaffirm their citizenship by age 28. Those affected would be considered Canadian back to their dates of birth.

    “These are individuals who were born to Canadian parents and who only know Canada as their country,” said Sen. Yonah Martin, who represents British Columbia and is currently the deputy leader of the opposition in the Senate. She introduced Bill S-245.

    “They’re taxpayers. They had lived their lives as Canadians until this age-28 rule caught up to them because it wasn’t clearly communicated.”

    Giesbrecht’s Canadian-born wife started the process to sponsor him for citizenship. As a permanent resident, he had to prove a long-time connection to Canada. He’d spent thousands on lawyers when he heard about Chapman and the Lost Canadians Society from other Mennonites going through the same process.

    Chapman started advocating on his behalf and on Oct. 17, 2017, Giesbrecht received his Canadian citizenship — for a second time.

    “It means security. It means a future. It means hope for the children and a place that we are free,” he said.

    Pete Giesbrecht was told he had 30 days to leave the country after he unknowingly lost his Canadian citizenship due to a problem with the Citizenship Act.

    Giesbrecht knows of others he says are afraid to come forward, worried they’ll be deported and lose everything.

    “They have a life. They also have families. They have work. They have to give that all up,” he said. “That’s a very risky, very difficult thing to do.”

    Chapman says many Lost Canadians don’t find out about their status until they apply for a passport, move provinces and apply for health benefits or a driver’s licence, or are convicted of a crime.

    “Pete, he’s one of the lucky ones,” Chapman said.

    “There are thousands of people, actually many thousands of people in Canada, that are affected and might still not know it. And this [legislation] will make it so they are whole, as though they never lost their citizenship.”

    New rule created new Lost Canadians

    But, there’s another category of Lost Canadians the new legislation won’t address.

    The “second-generation cut-off” is a rule under Bill C-37 that permanently denies the first generation born abroad the ability to automatically pass on citizenship to their children if they are also born outside Canada.

    It also eliminated the ability to gain citizenship by showing a “substantial connection” to Canada. Now, those second-generation children have to be sponsored by their parents to come to Canada as permanent residents, then apply for citizenship like any other immigrant.

    Critics say it has created two classes of Canadian citizenship — one for Canadians born in Canada and one for those born abroad.

    “What’s discriminatory about the Citizenship Act is that there is no way that people can rid themselves of this second class status no matter how close and deep their ties to Canada are,” said Sujit Choudhry, a constitutional lawyer in Toronto representing seven families living in Canada, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, who are all affected by this rule.

    Choudhry filed a constitutional challenge in December 2021, asking that his clients’ children be granted citizenship and that this section of the Citizenship Act be struck down. The case will be before court in April 2023.

    ‘I’m not Canadian enough’

    Victoria Maruyama is angry about the way her family has been treated because of where she and her children were born.

    “I grew up [in Canada] like everybody else. Why am I being treated this way? Why are you treating my children this way? And why can’t we just come home like everybody else?” Maruyama, one of Choudhary’s clients, asked in a recent interview from her home in Nagoya, Japan.

    Maruyama was born in Hong Kong and received Canadian citizenship through her father, who had previously immigrated from Vietnam. When she was a toddler, the family returned to Edmonton, where she attended school. She later got a degree at the University of British Columbia.

    When she was 22, she moved to Japan temporarily to teach English and met her husband, a Japanese national. They married in 2007.

    She was seven months pregnant with their first child when Bill C-37 took away her right to pass on citizenship to her children unless they were born in Canada.

    “The shock of it, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not Canadian enough,’ ” Maruyama said.

    Their second child was also born in Japan two years later. The family has moved back to Edmonton from Japan several times so she could apply for citizenship for her children and sponsor them as immigrants.

    All of those applications have been denied.

    “Their grandparents helped build the stupid railroad … It makes me angry. Really angry.– Victoria Maruyama, whose children aren’t considered Canadian because they, and Maruyama, were born abroad”

    A 2018 letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said the children were rejected because “they are not stateless, will not face special and unusual hardship if you are not granted Canadian citizenship and you have not provided services of exceptional value to Canada.”

    They returned to Japan in July 2019 because her husband had a job offer, but she says the family would like to live in a more multicultural and accepting society and be closer to her aging parents.

    The children are “very aware that Canada is rejecting them,” Maruyama said. “[But] they feel Canadian. It’s just part of their identity.”

    “Their grandparents helped build the stupid railroad … It makes me angry. Really angry.”

    Stateless babies

    In an even more extreme case, if a Canadian born abroad has a baby in a country that doesn’t provide citizenship at birth, that child is stateless.

    This means no country is responsible for their legal protection and they can’t get a passport. They have no right to vote and they often lack access to education, employment, health care, registration of birth, marriage or death and property rights.

    That’s the situation for Gregory Burgess, who was born in the U.S. to an American father and Canadian mother. He got citizenship through his mother, grew up and went to school in Alberta where his ancestors settled after fleeing what is now Ukraine many generations ago.

    “It’s basically bureaucratic terrorism … I believe Canada is better than this.– Gregory Burgess, on the various applications needed to get his infant son Canadian citizenship”

    He and his wife, a Russian citizen, are on work visas in Hong Kong. Their son was born there last October. Since neither parent is a citizen or permanent resident of Hong Kong, their son has no status.

    “The children are the victims,” Burgess said recently.

    Burgess says because he was born outside Canada — and can’t automatically give his child Canadian citizenship — he was told by an IRCC agent that his wife should apply for Russian citizenship for the baby. If that is rejected, he can then go through the process with Canada. However, there are no guarantees it would be successful.

    However, Burgess doesn’t want his son to have Russian citizenship; he wants him to be Canadian.

    “It’s basically bureaucratic terrorism. It’s horrible. It’s adversarial,” he said of the various applications he’s already made on behalf of both his son and his wife. “I believe Canada is better than this.”

    Burgess is one of Choudhry’s clients and part of the constitutional challenge. The lawyer says Canada could fix the family’s situation if it would add back the ability for a second-generation child born abroad to prove a “substantial connection” to the country.

    “This law creates hierarchies of Canadians based on where they were born,” Choudhry said.

    In the meantime, he said Citizenship and Immigration Minister Sean Fraser could grant Burgess’s son citizenship by acknowledging the “special and unusual hardship” the family is facing.

    CBC requested an interview with Fraser several times, but a spokesperson said he was unavailable.

    However, in a statement, his department said there is a “discretionary mechanism” for anyone who doesn’t qualify for citizenship, including a special process if someone is stateless. The department said those cases are assessed individually.

    Source: Can new legislation help ‘Lost Canadians’ be found again?

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    Bill S-230: It’s Time to Restore Citizenship to “Lost” Canadians. Limited numbers although rhetoric continues

    2021/07/09 Leave a comment

    This issue continues to attract more political support than is warranted given that the major issues were dealt with in citizenship legislation in 2009 and 2014.

    The Bill concerns a small cohort of second-generation Canadians born inside a 50-month window, from February 15, 1977, through April 16, 1981, so those who had already turned 28 when that age 28 rule was repealed through Bill C-37. 

    Despite all the earlier and current rhetoric regarding the large numbers affected, IRCC officials advised SOCI of the numbers:

    • Following the 2009 changes, about 17,500 applied and were granted citizenship;
    • Following the 2015 changes, about 600 applied and were granted citizenship;
    • Since 2014, there were 109 persons who applied for a discretionary grant to address particular hardship situations. 105 have been granted with four still under review;
    • Estimates of remaining cases are in the order of a few hundred.

    Substantively, given the small number remaining in the window, discretionary grants are the appropriate response. What is clear from the numbers, is that the actual number of “Lost Canadians” who wish to claim Canadian citizenship is small, contrary to earlier and current claims.

    It is unclear why Senators wish to pursue this when there are many more substantive citizenship issues that warrant attention.

    The contrast between these small numbers and the inflammatory, often fact-free and exaggerated rhetoric of long-term advocate Don Chapman in his opening statement and subsequent comments is striking. Opening statement below gives the flavour (highlights some of the more egregious assertions):

    Don Chapman, Head, Lost Canadians: Thank you, honourable senators. I’m honoured to be in the presence of all of you. I admire your social and moral engagement in serving Canada to make it a better and more inclusive country. We’re on common ground.

    Bill S-230 is a continuation of recommendations the Senate made 13 years ago.

    Senators, Lost Canadians is the Canadian version of the British Windrush scandal, except ours is mostly off the radar, far larger, affects way more people and is one of the biggest scandals in Canada’s history. Now, that probably sounds presumptuous, especially after the horrific discovery of the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children. To explain why I make the comparison, those children, including all Indigenous people, are part of the Lost Canadian narrative. There are at least 15 categories of Lost Canadians, and Indigenous and First Nations are just one. But their story is our story and our story is their story. It’s about a country that has and continues to turn against its own people. Since Confederation, Canada has not always embraced Brown or Jewish people or other subgroups. Canadian history was written to conveniently include a colossal fabrication, which has produced heinous results. To know the truth, you must understand the history of citizenship.

    Senators, you and the MPs are the guardians and caretakers of our collective identity called citizenship. You’re our parents, we’re your children and the family’s dysfunctional. Picture a neighbour befriending kids from all around but then secretly abusing their own children. That’s how it is for Lost Canadians. Canada welcomes people from around the world, but not us, your own children. To be clear, we’re pro-immigration; Canada needs people. But why are long-standing Canadian families rejected while immigrants are welcome? Why can’t there be room for everyone?

    In 2003, in my first House of Commons Citizenship and Immigration Committee testimony, I described myself as a Canadian in exile. Years later and after numerous rejections, I actually considered declaring refugee status in my own country, and I wasn’t the only Lost Canadian so desperate. Regrettably, this horror show is ongoing. It’s about identity, belonging and culture.

    Indigenous Canadians are proud of who they are. I’m proud of who they are and admire their perseverance in standing up for what is right. Canada wrongly tried to strip them of their identity, with deadly consequences. Be forewarned: They are not the only category of Lost Canadians who died due to the neglect.

    Now think of citizenship as being a member of a family. It’s the fibre of your being. How would you feel if your parents booted you out? Picture a six-year-old, born in Canada and extremely proud of being Canadian. Psychologically, how is that child affected when they discover that their own country or family doesn’t want them anymore? That child was me. How deplorable that this is still happening to other children, with the obvious devastating results. Their hurt lasts a lifetime.

    Now flip the coin. How does it feel being the Canadian parent of a minor child being rejected? I know this too because, as an adult, after 47 years, Canada finally said I could go home with citizenship, but on condition I leave behind my minor-aged daughters. Today, some Canadian citizen parents are in the same boat, forced to explain to their kids why Canada doesn’t want them.

    Lost Canadians is not about immigration. It’s about citizenship and rights. Please make the distinction.

    Also, senators and MPs are appointed or elected to represent Canadian citizens. The problem is you don’t really know who is or is not a citizen, yet citizens are your constituents. So who exactly do you represent? The legislation remains a Rubik’s cube of confusion. Maybe it’s you, a family member, a grandchild or someone you know that’s a Lost Canadian. Roméo Dallaire lost his citizenship, as have other parliamentarians.

    Question: If you’ve been aware of ongoing Lost Canadian abuses, why were you silent? Personally, I don’t think you were fully aware, but it wasn’t for my lack of trying to tell you. Going forward, no excuses, you now know. As for citizenship, Canada, the country you represent, is violating three United Nations human rights conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it’s already broken promises made on gender equality at the recent G7 summit. Maybe that’s because citizenship is not and has not been Canada’s priority. Take the name, IRCC. Immigration and refugees come before citizenship, the latter being the bastard child. For Lost Canadians, Canada’s outcasts, that’s exactly how it feels.

    Bill S-230 is a much-needed fix. Thank you to my good friend Senator Martin and to Senator Omidvar. But for importance, the age 28 rule is third in priority of the five remaining Lost Canadian deficiencies. For the complete fix, Bill S-230 would need amendments that I’ve included, and the fixes are relatively simple. But absent that, tiered citizenship and unequal rights remain. Are you okay with that? It’s certainly against the Charter. That said, if amendments would delay the passage of this bill, then please pass it as is. Just don’t ignore other desperate Lost Canadians still in limbo, like children. As an airline pilot, I’d never ditch in the Hudson River and knowingly leave people behind. As overseers and protectors of Canadians and their identity and citizenship, please don’t you leave anyone behind either.

    With urgency, put forward another Lost Canadians bill so that women have equal rights; that all Canadians are able to prove their substantial connection; that naturalized Canadians don’t have more rights than other Canadian citizens. Make it so that every naturalized Canadian, not just 99% of them, be deemed to have been born in Canada so that they too can confer citizenship to their children. Canada’s war dead must be recognized as having been the Canadian citizens they were.

    After that, together, let’s work on introducing a mint-fresh, inclusive and Charter-compliant Citizenship Act. That’s what this committee recommended 13 years ago in your report on Lost Canadians, and then you promptly forgot about it, just like Canada did with the age 28 rule.

    Now there are MPs and Canadians who believe the Senate is irrelevant. They’re wrong. For me and the hundreds of thousands of other Lost Canadians, we regained or qualified for citizenship because of wonderful and compassionate senators like yourselves, from all sides of the aisle. You were our saviours as Bill S-2 was our first parliamentary victory, and it was unanimous. Now let’s do it again, in the Senate today, with Bill S-230. Make it the first bill to correct these egregious wrongs, and then introduce a brand new, Charter-compliant national identity, making Canada the beacon of light to the world for its vision, its inclusiveness, its values and for its positive actions on human rights and equality.

    Honourable senators, citizenship could be one of your greatest legacies. I look forward to working with you, and thank you.

    Source: https://sencanada.ca/en/Content/Sen/Committee/432/SOCI/55289-e

    And the earlier statement in the Senate by Senator Omidvar

    Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill S-230, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians), introduced by our colleague Senator Martin.

    Before I comment on this bill, I would like to mark June 1 as a transformational day in the Senate. We have passed Bill S-4. We have held on to tradition where we have needed to, but we have also gone with confidence into the future. I want to thank our colleague, Senator Marc Gold, for his dedication to bringing this to our chamber.

    I am the official critic for Bill S-230. I always think of a critic as someone who has something to object to. In truth, there is very little to object to in this bill, so I stand very much as a supporter of this long overdue piece of legislation.

    When I became a senator in 2016, I started to get emails from Canadians who knew of my interest in citizenship. I heard the term Lost Canadians for the first time. I have to be honest, I was, frankly, lost when I heard that terminology because those of us who have found Canada know what a privilege it is to be Canadian. To have inadvertently lost your citizenship — because of what I can best describe as bureaucratic missteps and fumbling and lost opportunities — is unimaginable to me.

    In June 2016, I rose in the chamber as the sponsor of the citizenship bill, Bill C-6, and I drew a picture of Canada and its citizenship as a house with a strong roof, a strong door, a lot of windows to let the sunshine in, but also to keep danger out. I believe that metaphor still stands today, but the foundations of this house are grounded in a few principles.

    First and most important is equality amongst citizens. Equality sees all Canadians — by birth or naturalization, mono-citizens or dual citizens, whether citizens of 50 years, 10 years or 1 month — treated equally under the law. Equal rights, equal responsibility and, when necessary, equal punishment. These are not aspirational goals. This is the floor; the absolute foundation of how equality is expressed in Canada.

    Second is the principle of facilitating citizenship, making it accessible for those who qualify. I think of this again as the main family room of the house: a big fire blazing to keep out the wretched cold and a big, welcoming door. However, for a few Canadians, the fire has lost its warmth, and they were inadvertently expelled, banished, so to say, from this house.

    Many have lived in Canada for years, as Senator Martin has pointed out, without even realizing they may not have Canadian citizenship any longer. Although legislative fixes have tried to bring citizenship back in different ways, it has never captured everyone. This is a true example of the unintended, negative impact of legislation that we deal with in so many different ways.

    When I rose to speak on Bill C-6, which was an omnibus citizenship act, former senator Willie Moore, who was with us, asked me whether or not Lost Canadians would be brought back into the fold. Sadly, I had to say to him, no, that was out of the scope of the bill.

    After Bill C-6 was passed, former Senator Eggleton took it on and was almost ready to table the bill when his resignation date approached. Again, the bill was left orphaned, in a way. Since that time, Don Chapman and others have been talking to Senator Martin, Senator Jaffer and all of us to try to bring this back to our attention. I am incredibly grateful to Senator Martin for taking this bull by the horns and bringing our attention to it.

    As we know, and as Senator Martin has explained, our immigration system is incredibly complex. Immigration law is complex. Within immigration law, there is citizenship law that is incredibly complex. It sometimes catches people in a net from which it is hard to escape.

    As Senator Martin has explained, it’s a narrow bill. In 1977, the government introduced a new Citizenship Act. Under that act, children born abroad on or after February 14, 1977, received their Canadian citizenship if one of their parents was a Canadian citizen, regardless of their marital status.

    However, if that Canadian parent was born outside Canada and, therefore, the child was what we would call second generation, the child had to apply for citizenship by the age of 28. If they did not put an application by age 28, their citizenship was taken away from them, often without them ever realizing it.

    Later, in April 2009 — many years later, still trying to catch up on the problem — Bill C-37 changed the Citizenship Act again and repealed the age 28 rule. However, the bill didn’t completely deal with Canadians who were born abroad between that narrow window of 1977 and 1981, and who turned 28 before Bill C-37 became the law. Some of these individuals were well informed enough and applied for their citizenship. Others simply fell in between the cracks.

    Senator Dalphond asked the question, how many are these? I’m also curious. My information is that there are definitely not thousands. There may even be just a few hundred. But I hope we all recognize, even for just a few hundred, how important it is to be able to be franchised as Canadians.

    Many who were born overseas but raised in Canada had an entrenched life in Canada. They went to school here; they have jobs and families here. Their roots are firmly here. They have paid income taxes. But they were unaware of the issue — just as I’m often unaware of when my driver’s licence expires, and then I have to really struggle to regain it — which certainly happens to people. We are talking, as I said, about a few hundred people, at most.

    The government relies, as Senator Martin has stated, on ministerial appointments. Every time I’ve spoken to every successive immigration minister, they have said, “It’s not a problem. I can deal with it. Send me the file.” But, colleagues, that is not a systemic way of dealing with an injustice of this kind. We need a law. Even though Byrdie Funk — someone whom I admire a great deal — and Anneliese Demos — the same — even though they had the agency, the voice, the capacity to advocate for themselves, I worry about those who do not, who cannot get the minister’s attention or that of his department. I think it is time for us to fix this in a systemic manner.

    There are severe consequences for having to wait to get formal recognition back. While waiting to get your citizenship, you can’t have a social insurance number. You may not be able to get a job. You may not be able to travel. Likely you’re not able to travel because you don’t have a passport. You have limited access to health care. All this at the same time when there is always the threat of deportation hanging over you.

    In the case of Byrdie Funk, it is not clear whether all her years of contribution to the Canada Pension Plan will be honoured when she gets her pension.

    Bill S-230 will allow citizens who were born abroad and have built a life here to prove that they are Canadian and that they have the right to pass citizenship onto their children. It will not lead to a perpetual passage of Canadian citizenship to generations who may never live in Canada. This does nothing for third-generation Canadians.

    Honourable senators, I urge you, in short, to support this bill and send it to committee for further study. Lost Canadians have already waited too long. Let’s bring them back into the Canadian fold sooner than rather later. Thank you.

    Source: https://www.ratnaomidvar.ca/speech-on-bill-s230-its-time-to-restore-citizenship-to-lost-canadians-2/


    Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

    Time to put an end to tiered citizenship

    2019/08/13 Leave a comment

    The usual tired commentary by Chapman, with minimal information on the cases he sites, which presumably relate to the first generation limit on transmission of citizenship, introduced by the Conservatives and maintained by the Liberals.

    So I suspect the Canadian parents in the cases cited were themselves born outside Canada and thus their children, also born outside Canada, were caught by the provision as foreseen.

    The purpose was, after all, to avoid citizenship transmission independent of any residency in Canada, provoked in part by the 2006 Lebanese Canadian evacuation, where minimal to no connection to Canada nevertheless meant costly evacuation (and when the situation became calm, many returned to Lebanon).

    The changes did include provisions to address statelessness, where the process is likely time consuming and where there may well be some administrative issues that should be addressed.

    “Thousands and thousands.” Where is the evidence?

    Justin Trudeau is a hypocrite.

    Case in point: On June 17, he met with Michelle Bachelet Jeria, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. In a Prime Minister press release: “During the visit, Prime Minister Trudeau and High Commissioner Bachelet will discuss efforts to protect human rights and promote gender equality around the world. They will underline the importance of the international rule of law, and emphasize how countries must continue to work together to protect the world’s most vulnerable and make sure everyone’s rights are equally respected.”

    Woah, wait a minute, Trudeau’s government is currently violating three UN Human Rights Conventions: the Rights of the Child; the Reduction of Statelessness; and the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. I’m the head of the Lost Canadians, the driving force behind several bills on citizenship, including several court challenges. How shameful for Canada to be an abusing nation, and how disgusting that taxpayers have no choice but to fund it.

    And I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that most Canadians are completely unaware.

    Cutting to the chase, Trudeau’s statement that, “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” is pure hogwash. In citizenship law, some Canadians have more rights than others. Tiered citizenship exists. Naturalized Canadians have more rights many Canadian-born citizens. Some children born to a Canadian citizen parent have been denied basic rights, like attending school or getting health care—something that doesn’t happen to children of naturalized Canadians.

    Babies like Chloe Goldring and Rachel Chandler were born stateless, despite having a Canadian-citizen parent. Rachel is now 10 years old. Her father fought for over nine years trying to get the government to accept his daughter. She recently got approved—not as a citizen mind you, but as a Permanent Resident (PR).

    Ten-year old Akari Maruyama wasn’t so lucky. Her Canadian mother could only get her daughter ‘temporary’ resident status. The result was that Akari and her sister were denied healthcare in Alberta.

    As signatories to several UN Human Rights conventions, it’s a human-rights violation to refuse children health care; or not letting them live with their parents; or to deny them a national identity. Children are never to be made stateless, and they must be able to attend school.

    The Trudeau government has violated all the above.

    Cleary, the U.S. is not alone in abusing children. The difference: Canada targets youngsters with citizen parents, the U.S. does not.

    Seriously, had Rachel or Akari been adopted by any Canadian, had they been abandoned, or if their parent had been naturalized, they’d immediately qualify for citizenship. Their only guilt was being born to a Canadian parent.

    And they’re not alone. Thousands and thousands of other children are in the same boat, they simply haven’t been discovered by IRCC. Most of their parents have no idea that amended citizenship legislation put their little ones at risk.

    For Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer, one must question their motives. Why are they silent when it comes to children of Canadians and ongoing human rights violations? They can’t claim ignorance, as 11 years ago, the Conservatives passed the offending legislation, which prompted Trudeau nine years ago to issue a press release saying: “The rules regarding Canadian citizenship must remain consistent with the values of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

    So what did Trudeau do about this once he held a majority government? Legislatively, nothing. But he did welcome tens of thousands of refugee children with absolutely no connection to Canada. Kudos, but what about first welcoming children of Canadian citizens?

    Trudeau then restored citizenship to terrorists who had their Canadian status stripped away for being, well, terrorists. For should-be Canadian kids like Rachel and Akari, the Liberals did nothing, except to enforce the offending laws keeping them out.

    In another situation, it took less than a week for the prime minister to grant asylum and PR status to Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun. Barricaded in a Thai hotel, she drew global attention after launching a social campaign about the lack of rights for Saudi women. Taking notice, Trudeau quickly rolled out the welcome mat. By doing this, he risked further upsetting Saudi-Canada relations. Just months earlier Saudi expelled Canada’s ambassador, then withdrew its own ambassador after Canada’s foreign ministry tweeted support for several Saudi women’s right activists. Saudi followed through by selling Canadian investments, then ordered their citizens studying in Canada to leave. It was quite a gamble.

    For Alqunun and the Syrian kids, the world was watching. Trudeau looked like a saviour.

    Also watching, but in Canada, were Rachel and Akari’s parents, whose daughters got little to no media attention. Could that be why  Trudeau and Scheer didn’t come forward? I pleaded with both sides for compassion, but no dice. They did, however, put me on their Christmas card list, which included a picture of each leader with their respective “Canadian” children. I wondered what they’d do if one of their kids had been turned away?

    The other UN Convention being violated is the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Just over a year ago, Bill S-3 received royal assent, giving Indigenous women the right to pass Indian status to their grandchildren. Ojibwa Canadian Joan Valliere could now confer Indian status to her two granddaughters, but she couldn’t confer citizenship. Why? Because the gender inequality that existed in the Indian Act and deemed unconstitutional by the courts was corrected legislatively, but only in the Indian Act. The Citizenship Act still allows gender discrimination, making it impossible for Joan to pass citizenship onto her now ‘Indian status’ grandchildren.

    That led to another Charter challenge. At risk are Sec. 15 and 28. To win, Trudeau will have to undo his father’s signature accomplishment—the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

    Regarding the meeting between Trudeau and Bachelet, I don’t know how it went. My guess is that Bachelet left Canada not knowing that the leader she met with is a human rights abuser, albeit with a reputation as a human rights leader.

    For Trudeau, it made him look good.

    For the Canadian public, they remain mostly unaware.

    For Rachel Chandler and Akari Maruyama and countless other should-be Canadian children, they remain as outcasts and victims.

    Shameful.

    Source: Time to put an end to tiered citizenship

    Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

    Our Canadian war dead deserve the honour of their citizenship

    2019/06/06 1 Comment

    Largely a repeat of previous columns, with Chapman remaining in denial about Canadian soldiers being British subjects at the time. The distinct Canadian citizenship, versus British subjects resident in Canada, only became a legal reality upon the implementation of the first Canadian citizenship act in 1947:

    Over the course of both world wars, 111,000 servicemen wearing Canadian uniforms gave their lives, their last full measure of devotion. Our government calls them Canadian heroes but not Canadian citizens. They’re embraced as British Subjects only.

    That means the Brits fought all our infamous “Canadian” battles — from the Somme, Arras, and Vimy Ridge during the First World War, to Dieppe and D-Day in the Second.

    This is an egregious rewrite of history, perpetrated by former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King — the force behind deliberate deceptions as to the origin of Canadian citizenship.

    That means the Brits fought all our infamous ‘Canadian’ battles

    In 1867 our first governor general announced, with pride, that Canada had just created a new nationality. Over time, often controversial legislation evolved further the definition of Canadian citizenship. In 1943 as a rallying cry to the soldiers heading into war, Ottawa published a booklet saying they were fighting as “citizens of Canada,” a widely accepted belief, both then and now. Numerous Supreme Court decisions upheld this as truth.

    Nonetheless, like a magical sleight of hand, in January 1947, King had himself sworn in as Canada’s first-ever citizen. While historic nonsense, today’s government buys into it, thus refusing to accept our war dead.

    This June 6, on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, will we be honouring Canadian or British soldiers?

    Canadians don’t seem to care — a stark contrast to our southern neighbours. If the U.S. rejected their war dead, Americans would be screaming — and rightly so. In Canada, the Lost Canadians organization is almost alone in embracing our heroes as also having been citizens.

    During the Harper years we filed a petition asking the government to recognize them. The Conservatives refused. Next came the Trudeau government, responding similarly. Interesting how both sides publicly and eagerly embrace “our” soldiers, like on Remembrance Day or the 75th anniversary of D-Day, but behind the scenes with double-standard clarity, they snub with equal enthusiasm.

    Don’t our Canadian heroes deserve better?

    Mackenzie King’s racist and anti-Semitic ways are well documented. Catering to his base, he wanted to rid Canada of what they considered to be “undesirables.” Targeted were Asians, starting with Japanese-Canadians. In the mid-1940s Mackenzie King’s cabinet issued an Order in Council cancelling their citizenship. The Supreme Court upheld that Order in 1946, leading to 4,000 people first being stripped of their Canadian citizenship and their legal rights, then deported. Seven hundred were children born in Canada.

    How can you cancel citizenship in 1946 if it didn’t exist till 1947? You can’t in law, but you can through grandstanding and creating false narratives.

    To explain King’s about-face, it had everything to do with getting rid of the Japanese-Canadians. At the time, in 1946, the United Nations considered the deportation of one’s own citizens to be a “crime against humanity,” especially after what had just happened in Germany. To avoid running afoul of international opinion, King cancelled the citizenship of Japanese-Canadians. Almost 4,000, most of them born or naturalized Canadians, were sent to Japan. Almost immediately afterwards King had himself sworn in as “Canada’s first Canadian citizen.”

    It was a lie then, and it’s a lie now. The problem is that for 72 years, Canada has denied citizenship to people born before 1947, saying it didn’t exist until then.

    Lost Canadians has advocated for legislation to correct the pre-1947 citizenship anomalies. To date there have been seven bills correcting most of the citizenship problems. But not, as of yet, for those who gave their lives for Canada in the world wars.

    This D-Day, who will you be honouring? Every Canadian prime minister should be proud to call Canada’s fallen heroes “citizens.” Whomever is buried in the Tomb of Canada’s Unknown Soldier should not be a foreigner.

    Filed under Citizenship, Citizenship Act Tagged with , ,

    ‘Not Canadian enough:’ Edmonton woman’s girls denied citizenship under 2009 law

    2019/02/27 Leave a comment

    As expected, the introduction of a first generation limit results in children of Canadian citizens born outside of Canada cannot pass on their citizenship to their children.

    The previous retention provisions were difficult to administer consistently and resulted in situations where citizens with minimal to no connection to Canada could pass on their citizenship to their children as the 2006 Lebanese Canadian evacuation demonstrated.

    And the solution of applying for permanent residency has the advantage of starting the clock again for the child and his or her children.

    IRCC should, of course, process such Permanent Residents applications quickly:

    A woman in Alberta says she feels like she’s not Canadian enough after her daughters were denied citizenship.

    Victoria Maruyama was born in Hong Kong and, because her father was Canadian, has been a Canadian citizen since she was a baby. When she was a year old, the family moved to Edmonton where she grew up.

    At the age of 22, she went to Japan to teach English.

    “I met my kids’ dad,” Maruyama said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “The plan was just to teach English throughout Asia, move around from one country to the next, but he kind of scotched my plans.”

    She was seven months pregnant with their first daughter, Akari, in 2009 when Conservative government amendments to the citizenship laws took away her right to pass on citizenship to her children unless they were born in Canada.

    By that time, it was too late in her pregnancy to fly back to Canada. Her second daughter, Arisa, was also born in Japan.

    The girls are now seven and nine years old and, despite moving back to Edmonton almost two years ago, Maruyama is still fighting for them to become Canadian.

    “We had to struggle to get my kids in school. We had to fight to get them health care. They had no health care for months. Then they had it for six months and then they were stripped of it again,” she said.

    “It should be my right to come home with my children and for them to be educated and … have health care and vaccinations and all those basic things.”

    A January letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada notes Akari and Arisa were rejected because “they are not stateless, will not face special and unusual hardship if you are not granted Canadian citizenship and you have not provided services of exceptional value to Canada.”

    Officials with the federal department said in a statement that decision-makers determined that criteria for citizenship have not been met.

    “As part of the determination, the best interests of the child were considered,” they said in an email. “However, sufficient evidence was not provided to demonstrate that the children have been denied access to basic services in Canada.”

    Maruyama’s lawyer, Charles Gibson, has filed an application for a judicial review in Federal Court. He argues that the rejection is unlawful and that the Citizenship Act is discriminatory.

    “It creates two classes of Canadian citizens,” he says in court documents. “One class that can perpetually pass on or inherit Canadian citizenship and one that cannot. The Citizenship Act precludes the applicant’s mother from passing … on her Canadian citizenship to the applicant.

    “As a result, the applicant has suffered a great deal of hardship.”

    Don Chapman, an advocate for “lost” Canadians, said the law also goes against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada signed in 1990.

    “You have the right to live in the country with your parents. You have the right to an education. You have a right to medical. You have a right to seek legal guidance if the country won’t do this,” he said.

    Chapman said there are many expat Canadians who could find themselves in the same situation.

    “It’s a problem that’s going to explode.”

    When Justin Trudeau was citizenship and immigration critic, he promised in a March 2011 news release to change the “anachronistic” law.

    But Morgan said the Liberal government still hasn’t addressed the loophole for second-generation Canadians born abroad.

    “It means there’s only one group of Canadian citizens that have a litmus test to get their kids in,” he said. “If the kids had been abandoned, the kids would be Canadian. If you or me or any other Canadian adopts the children, they have a right of citizenship. If Vicki had been an immigrant Canadian and then naturalized, her kids would be Canadian.”

    He said the Maruyama family is caught in the middle of the 2009 legal changes.

    “There’s Trudeau going a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and no, no and no,” said Chapman, who noted the Conservative Opposition has also been silent on the issue. “They all talk about refugees and immigrants, but no one is talking about this.”

    Maruyama said if they aren’t able to get citizenship, her girls could apply for permanent residence status as immigrants — a possibility confirmed by the federal Immigration Department.

    “They would have a higher level of citizenship than me because they (could) … pass on citizenship to their children,” she said. “But me living here 20-some years is not enough.

    “Not Canadian enough.”

    Source: https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/not-canadian-enough-edmonton-womans-girls-denied-citizenship-under-2009-law

    Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

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