MPs eye support for expat voters as PROC study on special ballot challenges wraps

2026/01/29 Leave a comment

Working on an analysis of these voters by riding, province and country of residence. Unfortunately, but also understandably, we don’t have party breakdowns of expat votes given confidentiality concerns. Committee report not released yet. Stay tuned:

A House committee study on challenges related to special ballot voting—particularly the experiences of expat voters—is coming to a close, and Liberal MPArielle Kayabaga says she has her sights on what more the foreign affairs department can do to help Canadians abroad cast their votes after hearing that some are paying out of pocket to ensure their ballots are counted.

“One of things that we’re looking to see is how Global Affairs Canada can partner with Canadians that live abroad to stay engaged … especially when there’s an election, where people can get up-to-date information through the already existing infrastructures that we have as services for Canadians abroad,” Kayabaga (London West, Ont.) told The Hill Times.

“The goal here is to really figure out ways to make it easy for Canadians to participate electorally and do their civic duty,” whether at home or abroad, Kayabaga said. “We have put forward helpful recommendations that will increase access and improve the processes in which Canadians vote, especially those who are voting with a special ballot.”

The Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC) launched its study on special ballot voting on Nov. 6, 2025, and heard from 13 witnesses over the course of four meetings.

Last spring’s election saw the highest number of Canadians yet cast their votes by special ballot, use of which has more than doubled over the last decade. But it also saw some challenges, with multiple instances of domestically cast special ballots mistakenly left out of official vote counts, leading Elections Canada to launch an internal review. The agency published its resulting report, outlining three phases of changes it’s pursuing, on Dec. 15, 2025.

…Timothy Veale, director of Grits Abroad, and Daniel Scuka, a Canadian currently living in Germany, were the first to testify before PROC, and spoke to the barriers facing expat voters. Veale said he sees “three main barriers” overall: technical, as voting is done by snail mail, which is made more challenging during short, snap campaigns; structural, as international voters “have no direct representation in Parliament,” leaving many, “in effect, disenfranchised,” whereas some countries, like France, have “dedicated overseas MPs”; and political, in terms of a lack of will to effect change. He noted other diasporas, including French expats, “outvoteus by a wide margin.”

That disconnect is something Scuka, who works for the European Space Agency, also touched on, saying “few, if any, candidates commit time or resources” to engage international voters. Scuka supported Veale’s argument for the creation of dedicated MPs to represent overseas voters, and also noted the disconnect created by how votes are counted, noting his last address in Canadawas in Ottawa, a place he only lived for two years, and to which he feels little connection.

Multiple witnesses highlighted the onus put on international voters to ensure their votes are returned on time in the current mail-in system. Scuka said it “took several weeks” after the 2025 campaign began for his ballot to arrive, and he’s previously paid the equivalent of $60 to ensure it made it back in time. Both Veale and Scuka said they’re unsure whether their ballots were ultimately even counted last year.

Another witness, Lucia Kovacikova, a Canadian expert on expat voting currently teach ing in Wisconsin, said she, too, received her ballot “quite late inthe process” last election, and paid $120 to use a private carrier to ensure it got counted.

Kayabaga said reports of expats incurring fees in trying to vote are an example of something she thinks the committee can “look at and figure out ways to improve.”

Scuka said Elections Canada should automatically identify international voters as part of the list of electors it shares with candidates, and urged the committee to consider enabling “Elections Canada to offer any mix of in-person voting or ballot drop-off at consulates or embassies, ballot return via tracked courier envelopes that are potentially prepaid, and the issuance of ballots and returned material via a digital platform,” which would enable voters abroad to “track the status of their ballots.”

Per the Canada Elections Act, expats are allowed to drop-off sealed ballot envelopes at Canadian embassies, high commissions, or consulates, “a Canadian Forces base or to any place that the Chief Electoral Officer may designate.”It does not, however, currently provide for in-person voting.

As part of her remarks, Dalhousie University professor Lori Turnbull said she’d welcome “giving more thought to electronic voting” as an option for all Canadians, including expats—an idea Kovacikova backed. Turnbull also suggested Elections Canada could likely do more to engage voters abroad “well in advance” of an election.

Among the witness list were a number of experts on the voting experiences of other diasporas.

Appearing on Nov. 25, 2025, Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault highlighted that while there was comparative “high-interest” among international voters last election, “more than half” registered after writs were issued. Data shows the later people register, the lower the return rate, he said.

Global Affairs Canada’s Kati Csaba spoke to the support her department offers—support that’s impeded, though, by the fact “many Canadians living abroad aren’t in contact” with GAC. GAC’s current role, she said, “is simply to provide logistical support through Canada’s network of diplomatic missionsabroad,” including by answering “general questions” about voting (“more complex inquiries” are directed to Elections Canada), emailing or faxing applications to register on behalf of expats who need help, posting information on their website, and sharing relevant updates on social media.Voters can also use missions as their mailing address in receiving special ballots, or to drop off completed ballots, she noted.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper (St. Albert–Sturgeon River,Alta.) said following the study he overall feels assured that “the special ballot voting process is working.” “There may be some areas for some minor changes … with respect to seeing that special ballot kits are delivered in a timely manner for Canadians living abroad,” he said, noting as well that he still has some questions over how Elections Canada verifies that ballots it mails overseas are received by eligible voters. “That’s something that I think warrants some further examination.”

On the idea of adding MPs to represent international electors, Cooper was not convinced, and said he’s “not heard any real appetite for” such a change…

Source: MPs eye support for expat voters as PROC study on special ballot challenges wraps

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Recording of Research Matters event: Exploring citizenship trends and immigrant engagement in Canada and Australia 

2025/05/30 Leave a comment

ICYMI: Good webinar on recent trends in citizenship by Fung Hou of StatsCan (decline in naturalization along with “citizens of convenience” evidence showing little difference between citizen immigrants and non-citizen immigrants who leave Canada) and a Canada-Australia comparison by Li Xu of IRCC.

Source: Recording of Research Matters event: Exploring citizenship trends and immigrant engagement in Canada and Australia

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Canada to extend citizenship to children born abroad, restoring rights of ‘lost Canadians’

2024/05/24 Leave a comment

As largely expected following the Court decision and the government’s decision not to appeal, the residency requirement has emerged as the least objectionable and easiest connection test to manage among the available options. However, it is strange that Bill C-71 isn’t fully consistent with the standard physical residency requirement for new Canadians: “must have been physically in Canada for at least 1,095 days (3 years) during the 5 years before the date you sign your application.” This means a weaker connection test than warranted IMO and curious to see how the government justifies this difference and assesses the impact on the number of people affected.

At least the government is following the normal legislative process in making the change rather than the backdoor shortcut of S-245, to allow for proper committee consideration and debate. It remains to be seen how the Conservatives react on the substance given their legitimate opposition to the S-245 approach.

The number of persons potentially affected is large. Out of the estimated 4 million Canadian expatriates, about half are by descent (i.e., born abroad). Two-thirds of expatriates are living in the USA, with another 15 percent in UK, Australia France and Italy (2017). The number living in other countries has increased from 14 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 2017.

As we have seen in previous efforts to respond to “Lost Canadians,” the actual number of those who request citizenship proofs is relatively small: an average of 1,500 per year, 2009-22. So while the impact is potentially large, the actual numbers are likely smaller given that for second and subsequent generation expatriates in the USA and EU, largely integrated into their country of residence, Canadian citizenship may not be a priority. On the other hand, it is likely a higher priority for those in other countries with less secure conditions, with Hong Kong being a prime example, and where we see growth in expatriates.

Of course, all of these expatriates will have voting rights, another reversal by this government of the previous government’s five year cut-off. However, despite the talk about the right to vote, actual interest in voting in Canadian elections is minimal among expatriates.

It will be interesting to see what analysis, if any, IRCC provides on the potential impact on its citizenship operations.

Having become a grandparent to a child born abroad, I look at how our the change affects our grandson. Under the current first-generation cut-off, he would not be able to transmit his Canadian citizenship to any future child. Under C-71, he would have to 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada. So the obvious and easiest strategy for him would be to attend university in Canada and thus start the clock again. Personally, the first generation cut-off did not concern us as we accept that family trajectories and trees evolve and change.

It would be helpful for the government and CIMM to look at my and other scenarios to understand the potential impact of the lack of a timeframe for the physical residency requirement, particularly for temporary workers (TFWP and IMP) which are less straightforward that the situation of my grandson.

Following a court order, the federal government has introduced new legislation to restore the citizenship rights of “lost Canadians” born outside Canada and ensure it doesn’t happen to others in the future.

This legislation would automatically confer Canadian citizenship to persons born abroad to a Canadian parent who is also born abroad beyond the first generation if the parents can pass a “substantial connection test.”

“It will be the first time that the Citizenship Act is actually charter compliant,” said Don Chapman, a staunched advocate for lost Canadians, after Bill C-71 was tabled in Parliament on Thursday. ”It’s monumental. And it has huge ramifications.”

As a result of the first-generation limit, Canadian citizens who were born outside Canada cannot pass on citizenship to their child born outside Canada; neither can they apply for a direct grant of citizenship for a child born outside Canada and adopted, creating generations of so-called “lost Canadians.”

“We want our citizenship to be fair, accessible, with clear and transparent rules. Not everyone is entitled to it, but for those who are, it needs to be fair,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters.

“We wanted to take this opportunity to continue to minimize differential outcomes as much as possible for children born abroad…compared to children born to Canadians (in Canada).”

According to the proposed amendment to the citizenship law, parents born abroad who have or adopt children also born outside Canada will need to have spent at least 1,095 cumulative days of physical presence in Canada prior to the birth or adoption of their child to pass on citizenship.

Lost Canadians and their families launched a constitutional challenge in court last year of the two-generation citizenship cutoff rules. Click here to post your thoughts

In December, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that it’s unconstitutional for Canada to deny automatic citizenship to children born abroad because their parents also happened to be born abroad. It gave the federal government six months, until June 19, to repeal what’s known as the “second-generation cut-off” rule and amend the Citizenship Act.

With the looming court-stipulated June 19 deadline to roll out the new scheme, Miller said the government is unlikely to receive royal assent to the bill in time and will have to go before the judge to ask for an extension, which will cause further delays for affected children and grandchildren of Canadians to acquire citizenship and join families in Canada.

“We are still looking at a number of options. We don’t want an extension ad nauseum because there are people that are being prejudiced by this,” Miller explained.

“I have a very uncomfortable role in the interim at applying a test that really should be legislative. But it’s something that will have to speak to the court about. Again, we hope that this can be passed at all stages.”

In 2009, the then-Conservative government changed the citizenship law and imposed the second-generation cut-off on Canadians born abroad, after Ottawa had faced a massive effort to evacuate 15,000 Lebanese Canadians stranded in Beirut during Israel’s month-long war in Lebanon in 2006.

The $85-million price tag of the evacuation effort sparked a debate over “Canadians of convenience” — referring to individuals with Canadian citizenship who live permanently outside of Canada without “substantive ties” to Canada, but who were nonetheless part of the government’s liability.

As a result, the government abolished the then existing “substantial connection” regime and adopted a blanket rule that denies the first generation born abroad the right to pass on citizenship by descent outside Canada to the second generation born abroad.

In January, Ottawa decided not to challenge the court decision, but instead would repeal the existing law and put forward a new bill that’s compliant with the Canadian constitution.

Source: Canada to extend citizenship to children born abroad, restoring rights of ‘lost Canadians’

The press backgrounder:

Bill C-71: An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2024)

From: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

The Citizenship Act contains a first-generation limit to citizenship by descent, which means that a Canadian citizen parent can pass on citizenship to a child born outside Canada if the parent was either born in Canada or naturalized before the birth of the child. Canadians born or naturalized in Canada before adopting a child born abroad can apply for a direct grant of citizenship for the adopted child.

As a result of the first-generation limit, Canadian citizens who were born outside Canada cannot pass on citizenship to their child born outside Canada, and cannot apply for a direct grant of citizenship for a child born outside Canada and adopted.

On December 19, 2023, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared that the first-generation limit for those born abroad is unconstitutional. The Government of Canada did not appeal the ruling because we agree that the law has unacceptable consequences for Canadians whose children were born outside the country.

The government is introducing legislation to make the citizenship process as fair and transparent as possible. Bill C-71 would

  • automatically remedy the status of any person already born who would have been a citizen were it not for the first-generation limit
  • establish a new framework for citizenship by descent going forward that would allow for access to citizenship beyond the first generation based on a substantial connection to Canada

Substantial connection test

Bill C-71 would allow a Canadian parent born abroad who has a substantial connection to Canada to pass on citizenship to their child born abroad beyond the first generation. It would also provide them with access to the direct grant of citizenship for their child born abroad and adopted beyond the first generation.

To demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada, a Canadian parent who was born abroad would need to have a cumulative 1,095 days of physical presence in Canada before the birth or adoption of the child.

Lost Canadians

The term “Lost Canadians” has generally been used to describe those who lost or never acquired citizenship due to certain outdated provisions of former citizenship legislation.

Most cases were remedied by changes to the law in 2009 and 2015. These changes allowed people to gain Canadian citizenship or get back the citizenship they lost. Despite this, additional amendments are needed to include other categories of Lost Canadians and their  descendants who did not benefit from the 2009 and 2015 changes.

Bill C-71 will restore citizenship to any remaining “Lost Canadians,” their descendants and anyone who was born abroad to a Canadian parent in the second or subsequent generations before the legislation comes into force. This includes people who lost their citizenship as a result of requirements under the former section 8 of the Citizenship Act.

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CANADIANS ABROAD: Overview of Recent Research and Implications for Public Policy

2024/04/29 Leave a comment

This report, commissioned by Senator Woo, essentially argues for more services and support for Canadian expatriates. While it contains some useful comparisons of provincial health care coverage and non-coverage, as well as provincial election regulations, it is disappointingly light on measures of connection to Canada, whether passport issued to Canadians abroad (no recent public stats apparently) or non-resident taxation (less than 32,000 in 2021).

In terms of the specific recommendations below, my thoughts are as follows:

  • Always good to have better and more comprehensive data, along with academic research. For the latter, important to have range of perspectives, from this stating the case for more services (as the report does) to more critical voices.
  • On the various recommendations for centralized information for “all information relevant to the Canadian diaspora,” this understates the complexity of compiling and maintaining such a data that incorporates federal and provincial information. The argument for the need appears more theoretical than based upon public opinion research.
  • As to the needs for a strategy, hard to argue against that but the challenge, as we seen in so many areas, strategies without serious implementation are more photo ops and virtue signalling than meaningful.
  • With respect to consular service, one needs to start at first principles in terms of the obligations and limits to consular service to manage expectations and costs. In general, Canada has been generous in recent crises in terms of family members and permanent residents, even in cases of long-term expatriates with minimal to no current connection to Canada
  • More nutty are the arguments regarding healthcare coverage, mental health awareness, and the medical care at home and abroad sections, especially given the strains our healthcare system in Canada is facing. Expats planning to return to Canada are responsible for reinstating coverage and the various provincial websites are easy to find and understand. Is it really a Canadian government responsibility to help expats deal with mental health issues among diaspora communities? There is some merit in studying the impact of the return of expats to Canada on healthcare given that they have for the most part not paid Canadian and provincial taxes but the issue of Canadians seeking medical services abroad is a completely separate issue as these are paid by individuals, not taxpayers.
  • On tax policy, unclear what exactly is the issue and what are they trying to advocate. Canadian taxation is based on residence and most expats don’t pay Canadian non-resident taxes although some who maintain property in Canada do pay property tax.
  • Expat voting is a classic case where the policy arguments are divorced from reality. The report makes the specious comparison between overall voting rates between Canadian and non-residents but not the more telling on that only 55,000 non-resident voters registered, a drop in the bucket compared to the overall number of around three million adult expats. The same concerns regarding the cost of maintaining an updating a database on federal and provincial voting regulations apply. And suggesting electronic voting from abroad when we do not have it in Canada, not to mention the potential cost and security risks, even more hard to justify.
  • The last three recommendations – economic development engagement, chambers of commerce, and cultivating the diaspora – already happen to some extent in every embassy that I had worked in. No doubt, could be improved and strengthened.

Overall, the author has an overly optimistic take on the interest and willingness of long-term Canadian expatriates to advance Canadian interests. The vast majority are living their lives in their country of residence, contributing to that country’s economy and society, with relatively few highly engaged in advancing Canadian interests. Those are largely known to embassies and consulates and Canadian interest groups. Again, more could be done but given limited resources and little hard evidence to demonstrate effectiveness, the case is weak.

Source: CANADIANS ABROAD: Overview of Recent Research and Implications for Public Policy

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To reverse brain drain, China should be more flexible on dual citizenship

2022/08/13 Leave a comment

Interesting arguments but likely overstates the importance of dual citizenship as a factor in facilitating a return of former Chinese nationals to China, particularly given Chinese government general repression (not limited to Uyghurs and Hong Kong) and control (e.g., COVID lockdowns):

Citizenship has become a sensitive topic in China. Every so often, you’ll see lists in the Chinese media – of film stars who hold foreign passports, or billionaires who made money in China but now hold foreign passports. On the Chinese internet, some of these individuals get labelled as unpatriotic, or worse.

One of netizens’ latest targets is Harvard physics professor Xi Yin, a China-born prodigy who has been quoted as saying he has no plans to return to his native country at present. A US citizen now, Yin is also married to an American woman.

China does not allow dual citizenship. The line of reasoning seems to be that the authorities don’t want to create a group of people who enjoy too much privilege, or potentially allow criminals to evade punishment. Critics say it is a way of ensuring citizens’ loyalty or maintaining a monoculture.

But much of the rest of the world has moved on, with more countries embracing dual citizenship against the backdrop of globalisation. Back in the 1960s, only one-third of countries allowed dual citizenship. Today, 75 per cent do.

Perhaps China should follow suit. It would help reverse the brain drain from the country.

Around the time Deng Xiaoping launched the reform and opening up policy, students were sent abroad to study, in countries including the US, Canada and the UK. This trend did not always pay off. In 2007, China Daily reported that, between 1978 and 2006, 1.06 million Chinese went overseas for studies and more than 70 per cent chose not to return. At that time, China probably suffered the most severe brain drain in the world.

To tackle the problem, Beijing has increased investment in higher education, and research and development. It introduced programmes such as the Thousand Talents Planto lure back leading Chinese talent. Under the plan “sea turtles”, or returnees from overseas – in Chinese, the two terms are homonyms – may receive a one-time bonus of 1 million yuan (US$148,400). However, the programme has reportedly delivered mixed results. Not nearly enough sea turtles swim home.

As China grew rich, it became common practice among affluent families to send children abroad for further education. Between 2015 and 2019, 80 per cent of these students did return. Yet, China is still losing first-rate talent. In recent years, a reported 80 per cent of Chinese PhD students in the US have been reluctant to return.

Many developing countries in the world lose talent to the US, but China probably suffers more, especially in the realm of hi-tech. Those bright Chinese minds working at the cutting edge of American technology might also be hampering China’s own tech ambitions.

Indeed, China’s hope of dominating artificial intelligence may be threatened by the brain drain. According to a study conducted by MacroPolo, a think tank run by the Paulson Institute, Chinese researchers accounted for a quarter of the authors whose papers were accepted by a prestigious AI conference in 2019.

However, three-quarters of the Chinese authors were working outside China, and 85 per cent of those were working in the US, at tech giants such as Google or universities like UCLA.

Source: To reverse brain drain, China should be more flexible on dual citizenship

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‘If we are not Canadian, what are we?’ How a 2009 law is leaving some children stateless

2021/12/14 Leave a comment

Not unexpected but the Act does have a provision to address statelessness. Would be interesting to have the data on the extent of its its application rather than just highlighting individual cases (which highlight issues).

The previous retention provisions were hard to administer consistently and fairly (“substantial connection” not as simple as it sounds), and there are advantages to clarity provided by the first generation limit.

From a policy perspective, the focus was on providing equal treatment for those born in Canada and immigrants who became naturalized Canadians.

And ironic that some expatriate Canadians complain about having to pay for healthcare should they return to Canada to give birth to “restart the clock” when more than a few thousand foreign women do so as “birth tourists.”

But a useful reminder that expatriates need to consider citizenship implications more closely when planning to have children.

After numerous failed attempts to conceive a child, including a lost pregnancy through in vitro fertilization, Emma Kenyon and her husband were grateful and thrilled for the arrival of their first baby.

On Dec. 5, healthy six-pound, two-ounce Darcy was born at a public hospital in Hong Kong. However, a bureaucratic nightmare for his Canadian expatriate parents has just begun.

As new parents, the nursing mother and her husband, Daniel Warelis — both foreign-born Canadian citizens who grew up in Greater Toronto — must fight to find a way to bring their stateless child home.

“I don’t think any country, especially a country like Canada, should allow little babies to be born stateless to Canadian citizens. It’s a travesty,” said Kenyon, 35, who was born in Tokyo while her father was working there for the Bank of Nova Scotia.

“The most important thing for us is that Darcy is not stateless as soon as possible.”

This week, the couple joined five other Canadian families to launch a Charter challenge against a rule in Canada’s citizenship act that denies the transmission of citizenship by descent to these foreign-born kids if both their Canadian parents also happened to be born overseas.

The previous Conservative government changed the law in 2009 and imposed the so-called “second generation” cut-off against Canadians born abroad after Ottawa’s massive effort to evacuate 15,000 Lebanese Canadians stranded in Beirut during a month-long war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006.

The $85 million price tag of the evacuation effort sparked a debate over “Canadians of convenience” about individuals with Canadian citizenship who live permanently outside of Canada without “substantive ties” to Canada but were part of the government liability.

“Citizenship is about more, far more than a right to carry a passport or to vote. It defines who we are as Canadians, including our mutual responsibilities to one another and a shared commitment to the values that are rooted in our history like freedom, unity and loyalty,” former federal immigration minister Jason Kenney said then.

“That’s why we must protect the values of Canadian citizenship and must take steps against those who would cheapen it.”

Although the law included limited exemptions for children born overseas if their parents are abroad serving in the Canadian military and for the government, critics had warned it would create two tiers of citizenships — those born by birth in Canada and those by descent — and that children of some Canadians might end up stateless.

Now, a generation later, according to the lawsuit filed on Thursday, the impacts of the law passed 12 years ago are felt by Canadians such as Kenyon and Warelis.

“We never imagined, even if there were different rules for second generation Canadians, that two people who are Canadians and grew up in Canada, and there’s no direct pathway for their children to become citizens,” said Warelis, who was born in New York while his father was working there for a global public relations company.

“As time goes on, there will be more and more Canadians who potentially can’t pass on their citizenship,” added the 36-year-old, who worked for the federal government before travelling to Hong Kong for an international career in 2016 with his wife.

“Citizenship is about more, far more than a right to carry a passport or to vote. It defines who we are as Canadians, including our mutual responsibilities to one another and a shared commitment to the values that are rooted in our history like freedom, unity and loyalty,” former federal immigration minister Jason Kenney said then.

“That’s why we must protect the values of Canadian citizenship and must take steps against those who would cheapen it.”

Although the law included limited exemptions for children born overseas if their parents are abroad serving in the Canadian military and for the government, critics had warned it would create two tiers of citizenships — those born by birth in Canada and those by descent — and that children of some Canadians might end up stateless.

Now, a generation later, according to the lawsuit filed on Thursday, the impacts of the law passed 12 years ago are felt by Canadians such as Kenyon and Warelis.

“We never imagined, even if there were different rules for second generation Canadians, that two people who are Canadians and grew up in Canada, and there’s no direct pathway for their children to become citizens,” said Warelis, who was born in New York while his father was working there for a global public relations company.

“As time goes on, there will be more and more Canadians who potentially can’t pass on their citizenship,” added the 36-year-old, who worked for the federal government before travelling to Hong Kong for an international career in 2016 with his wife.

Under the citizenship law in Hong Kong, now part of China, Warelis said his son is ineligible for citizenship by birth on the island because neither he nor his wife are citizens there.

Prior to 2009, the second generation born abroad automatically obtained Canadian citizenship by descent, but ceased to be Canadian citizens at age 28, unless they applied to retain their citizenship and register as a citizen, and either had lived in Canada for at least a year before or established “a substantial connection with Canada.”

However, Ottawa abolished the “substantial connection” regime and replaced it with the second generation cut-off as a blanket rule that denies the first generation born abroad the right to pass on citizenship by descent outside Canada to the second generation born abroad.

“This case is about modern Canadian families, who are deeply Canadian and have travelled to pursue opportunities to work and study or have fallen in love and had children. And they just want to come home and bring their children with them,” said Sujit Choudhry, lawyer for the litigants.

“And this very blunt law, which is completely unnecessary, is standing in their way.”

The lawsuit — including applicants who currently live in Canada, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, and the U.S. — claims the law created two classes of Canadian citizenship: one for Canadians born here and one for Canadians born abroad.

While Canadians born in Canada could pass their citizenship to their children born abroad, Canadians born abroad could not similarly do so.

As a consequence, it argues, the first generation born abroad have a second-class citizenship because of the circumstances of their birth, which “were entirely beyond their control” and which they are powerless to change.

The litigants are asking the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for an order to rule the second generation citizenship cut-off unconstitutional and that the same citizenship rights be afforded to them and their foreign born kids.

According to the 2016 census, 32 million of Canada’s 34.5 million population were Canadian citizens, including 8.2 million who weren’t born in Canada. Of those, said Choudhry, 183,000 were born abroad and obtained citizenship by descent.

Unlike Canada, he said, in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, the first generation born abroad can themselves pass on citizenship to their kids born abroad if they meet a “substantial connection” requirement, usually satisfied by some period of residence in their home country. The idea is to restrict the indefinite transmission of citizenship abroad by non-resident citizens.

“None of them would have had this blanket ban,” said Choudhry.

Litigant Roy Brooke, who was working for the United Nations in Geneva when he and his wife had their first child in 2010, was unaware of the second generation citizenship cut-off until a year later when he got a letter from immigration officials that his child would have no right to pass on citizenship to offspring born outside Canada.

He said there wasn’t a choice for the family to return to Canada at the time and for the baby to be delivered in the country because, as non-resident Canadians, they had no provincial health insurance here and didn’t have an obstetrician or gynecologist.

Fortunately, Brooke, 51, and his wife, 48, were both born in Ontario — him in Toronto and her in Goderich — and their child was granted Canadian citizenship by descent. The family returned and settled in Victoria, B.C., in 2011 to raise the child in Canada, as the couple had always planned.

Brooke said the second generation cut-off will make it more difficult for his child to follow his and his wife’s footsteps and “must trade off career against family.”

The concern over second class citizenship status for his family and others prompted Brooke to lobby the federal government, reaching out to the offices of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the immigration minister for legislative changes to amend the citizenship cut-off rules.

Both former cabinet ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock were on board for the amendment, said Brooke in his affidavit filed in the Charter challenge.

“Everybody that I have spoken to knows that this is a flawed piece of legislation. Everybody knows that this is a legislative overreach. Everyone knows that this is a series of perverse and unintended consequences. Yet here we are,” said Brooke, an executive director of a not-for-profit organization that works on environmental issues.

“It’s going to affect millions of people. And once people start finding out, it’s also going to put a chill on people’s ability and interest in living, travelling and working overseas and all to no purpose.”

While Kenyon and Warelis are still unsure of what future may hold for their newborn, Victoria Maruyama, another litigant, has already had an uphill battle trying to acquire Canadian citizenship for her two children, both born in Japan, where she met her Japanese husband, an Air Force pilot, while she was teaching English there in 2002. The couple married in 2007 and have two kids, both Japanese citizens.

Born in Hong Kong to Vietnamese and Hong Kong parents, Maruyama moved to Canada with her family in 1980 when she was a year old. She got her Canadian citizenship by descent through her father and grew up in Edmonton.

In 2017, she brought her children to Canada on visitors’ visas with the intent to raise them in her homeland. She made a plea to the immigration minister for Canadian citizenship for her kids’ while fighting to get them into public school and access to health care.

When the kids’ visas expired in 2018, they left. A few months later, they returned from Japan just to show the family’s commitment to settle in Canada. After the immigration minister refused her citizenship plea, she applied to sponsor her children to Canada as permanent residents at the advice of immigration officials. They went back to Japan to wait for the decision.

A refusal letter came in early 2020 from an immigration officer, who wrote: I am not satisfied that your sponsor will reside in Canada if a permanent resident visa were to be issued and as a result, it would be contrary to the regulations to issue you a permanent resident visa or allow you to become a permanent resident.

“There is no doubt that I have a substantial connection to Canada. I lived in Canada for 21 years, including my formative years,” sighed Maruyama, who is still teaching English in Tokyo.

“My two younger sisters do not face the same legal restrictions that I do in passing on citizenship abroad because they were born in Canada … Our substantial connection to Canada is the same. I am as Canadian as they are. Yet, they have more rights than I do, simply because of their place of birth.”

Warelis agrees, “If we are not Canadian, what are we? We don’t have another home.”

Source: ‘If we are not Canadian, what are we?’ How a 2009 law is leaving some children stateless

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Parties should target the millions of voters outside Canada

2021/09/07 Leave a comment

Never supported expatriate voting for those with minimal to no connection to Canada which the current law allows.

Tax, passport and other data indicates that the number with strong connections to Canada is much lower and the 2.8 estimate is from an Asia Pacific Foundation study that included those under 18 and Permanent Residents (not just citizens).

Experience from other countries indicates a relatively small portion of expatriates vote given their greater connection to country of residence or other factors: less than 10 percent with the exception of France):

It’s estimated that 2.8 million Canadians live outside the country, yet Elections Canada expects as few as 34,000 expatriates will vote in Canada’s 44th general election on Sept. 20.

As polls tighten, and political parties try to expand their support, Canadians like me who live abroad are another source of voters Liberals can tap in order to secure a majority mandate — or the Conservatives can use to pull off an upset win. They just need to mobilize us, which the pandemic has actually made easier.

Despite attempts by former prime minister Stephen Harper to restrict the voting rights of Canadians who’ve lived abroad for more than five years, now, any adult who’s lived in Canada at some point in his or her life is eligible. Whether they agree with them or not, these are the rules the parties should consider as they strategize.

To maximize their chances of forming government, political parties spend campaigns energizing their supporters, or enticing undecided ones, to cast a ballot for their candidates.

Traditionally, they can count on about 60 per cent of eligible Canadians to vote. In the last election, 67 per cent of electors, or about 18 million Canadians, cast a ballot.

But despite efforts by political parties, in the past five elections, voter turnout has never exceeded 70 per cent. This leaves parties with limited ways to increase their bases.

But one way is to add voters. According to Nik Nanos of Nanos Research, the Liberals were denied a majority in the last election after losing 13 ridings by a total of 22,599 votes.

Canadians living abroad must register or request a special ballot to vote, mail it in, and vote where they last lived. Elections Canada is expecting a surge in these types of votes from inside the country, given the reluctance to vote in person during a pandemic.

This has changed the way political parties are campaigning. Large rallies and other traditional activities have been modified to meet public-health restrictions, which vary in degree across the country.

Much of the campaign is online, and this makes social media, organic and paid, more important. Digital tactics, which include encouraging mail-in ballots, make it easier for political parties to reach Canadians outside the country, who’d normally be left out.

Parties assign regional campaign chairs to groups of provinces and territories. Meanwhile, the estimated 2.8 million Canadians living abroad exceed the populations of nine Canadian provinces and territories, although it’s unlikely that campaign resources have been dedicated to engaging these millions of expats.

In contrast, Democrats Abroad, for example, actively supports voter registration, while keeping Americans who live abroad informed of key programs and policies.

Canadians live all over the world, but by analyzing past voting habits, we know where to target them.

In the 2019 election, most special ballots were requested from the U.S. and the U.K., and many fewer from China, Hong Kong, Australia, and Germany.

While we might not know how Canadians abroad vote, we know that millions of them have the right to vote and never have.

In a tightening race — and in an online campaign driving mail-in ballots — this is an opportunity for parties to gain voters. With some small changes in messaging targeted at key overseas locations, it could make all the difference.

Max Stern is a former employee of the Liberal Party of Canada, and a graduate student and communications consultant living in Brooklyn, New York.

Source: Parties should target the millions of voters outside Canada

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Douglas Todd: China drops hammer on Hong Kong residents holding Canadian passports

2021/02/02 Leave a comment

Given that, according to an Asia Pacific Foundation poll that a majority of Canadian citizens resident in Hong Kong had only lived in Canada for 4 to 5 years (“Canadians of convenience” to use the previous government’s phrase), will be interesting to see how many return and when:

The leaders of Hong Kong are pressuring about 350,000 residents who hold Canadian passports to make an ultimate decision about their citizenship.

Under the thumb of Mainland China — which does not allow dual citizenship — the territorial government is squeezing people who have been living and working for decades in the financial hub while holding passports from other nations, most commonly Canada.

China’s authoritarian leaders, Lee speculated, are cracking down on dual passport-holders in Hong Kong in retaliation against Western politicians who have been criticizing the regime, particularly for crushing democracy advocates in the special administrative region, which became part of China in 1997.

Residents of Hong Kong who don’t renounce their second passports so they can retain the same rights as citizens of China run the risk of losing many economic and travel privileges, said Lee.

They could soon be treated like any other foreigner in the territory of 7.5 million, which is also home to an estimated 100,000 people with American passports and 85,000 with Australian passports.

Canadian immigration lawyers Sam Hyman and David Lesperance say many people with Canadian passports live in Hong Kong because they can make much more money in the turbo-powered financial centre while not being subject to Canadian income taxes, which are higher.

“The Chinese government is basically saying if you want to continue to live and work in Hong Kong, you’re going to have to make a choice,” Hyman said.

In the 1990s, a wave of middle-class and wealthy Hong Kong residents moved to Canada and obtained passports, but many returned to their homeland. There are fewer people from Hong Kong living in Canada in recent years (about 215,000) than there were in 1996 (241,000).

Greater Toronto has 100,000. Metro Vancouver, with 71,000, has the most Hong Kong-born residents per capita outside of East Asia.

If full-time residents of Hong Kong with Canadian passports end up being treated like foreigners, Lee said, they would lose certain rights to owning property and would have to regularly report to officials for work visas.

There is also a distinct chance, Lee said, that a person who tries to enter any region controlled by China with a Chinese passport, while also being found to secretly hold one from Canada or another country, could be arrested.

Even though holding a Canadian passport is supposed to offer people diplomatic protection, observers say China’s officials are increasingly treating someone as a Chinese citizen based simply on their ethnicity and family history.

China has recently jailed Hong-Kong residents who thought they were protected by their Canadian passports, including billionaire Xiao Jianhua and Falun Gong practitioner Sun Qian. Many of those arrested renounced their Canadian citizenship, reportedly under duress.

It’s hard to predict how many will turn their back on Canadian citizenship in order to stay in Hong Kong, agreed Lee and Hyman.

For many, Hyman said, it would mean giving up a lifestyle as transnational migrants — people who travel back and forth between countries doing business and buying real estate, but with varying degrees of loyalty to each place.

Many Hong Kong residents, Hyman said, obtained Canadian passports in the 1990s because they wanted to feel they had a haven, including for property, in the event China failed to live up to its commitment to give Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy until 2047.

“For many a Canadian passport was their fallback position,” Hyman said.

An Asia-Pacific Foundation poll found the majority of people holding Canadian passports in Hong Kong had only lived in Canada for four or five years. Many did not tell Chinese authorities they had a second citizenship.

The study found 46 per cent considered Canada their home “sometimes” or “all the time.” But 37 per cent of Hong Kong-born Canadians stated they would “never” consider Canada home. The survey was conducted before democracy protests swept Hong Kong in 2019-20, which caused China to arrest many activists and impose much more severe restrictions.

Even though Hyman considers China a “rogue” nation, the immigration lawyer said its move to extend its long-standing ban on dual citizenship over Hong Kong is in some ways not dissimilar to many European countries, which also don’t permit more than one passport. Canada, he said, only began approving them in 1977 and the U.S. in 1990.

Many Hong Kong residents have favoured Canada as destination of choice because of its generous and relatively undemanding approach to immigrants, Hyman said, including minimal requirements about residing in the country.

And, unlike the U.S., say Hyman and Lesperance, Canada does not impose tax on citizens based merely on their nationality.

Canada contains more residents with roots in Hong Kong than any region outside Asia: 215,000. In contrast there are about 200,000 Hong Kong immigrants in the much larger U.S., 96,000 in Britain and 87,000 in Australia.

Source: Douglas Todd: China drops hammer on Hong Kong residents holding Canadian passports

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John Baird, Nigel Wright head up new group to organize right-leaning Canadians abroad

2021/01/27 Leave a comment

Of note. Canadian political parties to date have been inactive compared to the parties of other countries where expatriate voting rights have been longstanding such as the US and UK:

A new group headed by some prominent Conservatives aims to mobilize right-leaning Canadians living overseas — and marks a changed attitude toward longtime expat voters after the Supreme Court of Canada significantly expanded their voting rights.

“It’s one of the last truly untapped areas of the electorate,” John Baird, former Conservative cabinet minister, told the National Post. Baird is the honorary president for the new group, called Canadian Conservatives Abroad (CCA).

Baird said expats “overwhelmingly” don’t vote in elections, and noted the estimated three million Canadians living abroad is equivalent to about 30 electoral ridings. About 20,000 expat voters were registered ahead of the 2019 election.

The push to form the group is in part motivated by a 2019 Supreme Court decision that ruled it was unconstitutional to bar Canadian citizens from voting if they’ve lived outside Canada longer than five years. That prohibition had been in place since 1993 (though sometimes enforced loosely), but the Liberal government lifted it with Bill C-76 in 2018.

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Conservatives fought against allowing longtime expats to vote and cracked down on the practice, alleging people were using loopholes to get around the five-year rule. Embracing the expat vote is somewhat of an about-face, but it’s also a recognition that the prohibition isn’t coming back and the Conservatives are missing an opportunity by not organizing among this population.

The CCA will be modelled after similar organizations for Americans (Republicans Overseas), Britons (Conservatives Abroad) and Australians (Australian Liberals Abroad). Democrats Abroad, which organizes overseas for the U.S. Democratic Party, is another well-known example.

Nigel Wright, a former chief of staff to Harper, will chair the CCA’s executive committee. The group is based in London and the leadership team includes Conservatives spread around the world, according to a news release.

The CCA will operate independently of political parties, but look for supporters of both federal and provincial conservative parties. “We’re starting with a solid base in the U.S., U.K., the Middle East and Asia,” Wright said in a statement.

Baird said he expects the CCA will be primarily focused on voter education, mobilization and assistance with administrative hurdles, but it will also organize virtual events and other forms of networking for overseas Conservatives. Another goal is to help drive Canadian policy discussions on global affairs from a right-wing perspective.

“We’re a group of volunteers that are just getting started, so we’ll see what form it takes,” Baird said. “It’s an exciting opportunity.”

The CCA’s first event will be a discussion on the establishment of a “CANZUK” alliance between Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom that would aim to coordinate matters of migration, education, free trade and foreign policy between the countries. The event will be held to coincide with the upcoming Conservative policy convention in March.

Source: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/john-baird-nigel-wright-head-up-new-group-to-organize-right-leaning-canadians-abroad

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How the language of migration put expats on a pedestal – and left immigrants in the dust

2020/04/20 Leave a comment

Good discussion on the changing meanings of immigrant, migrant and expat. The greater distinction, in my view, is between immigrant and migrant/expat, as the former means settling more or less permanently with a more formal pathway to citizenship, whereas migrant/expat is more temporary, with the distinction being more with respect to socioeconomic status:

Growing up in Hong Kong, I was constantly surrounded by people from around the world. From the UK to South Africa and Canada, I was exposed to a number of different cultures in my day-to-day life, especially in school. But it wasn’t until middle school, where acquaintances would casually use two distinct terms to define either affluent or poorer areas of the city, that I really began to take notice of the significance of the language of immigration.

Based on what I observed, it was clear that whenever someone referred to a person as an “expat”, they generally tended to be middle to upper-class native English speakers, working in professions such as banking, tech, education or creative roles. When it came to the word “immigrant”, the term tended to apply loosely to both blue-collar workers, and those desperate to flee their birth country in order to make “a better life” for themselves.

Around a month ago, while FaceTiming a friend who had just moved back to Singapore from London, the extent of those differences became even more pronounced. In the middle of our chat, he mentioned a print magazine called Expat Living, and how bizarre it was that among other publications, it was still considered a best-seller in the country despite the dying print media industry. It led me to think about the marketing power of the word “expat” – clearly a symbol of financial value in society. It placed them on a uniquely aspirational pedestal.

Expats are praised for daring to move to a new country, while immigrants feel pressured to get approval from citizens and assimilate for survival. Whether it’s a conscious or subconscious decision, there’s no denying that these terms represent the double standards in society’s view on immigration. It’s not so different here in London, where even after seven years of living here, I’m still confronted by the same forms of hypocrisy, especially in the language the media uses in stories about immigration. Prior to this pandemic, for example, a simple search for the terms “immigrant” would typically pull up more divisive and sensationalist headlines.

In popular media, the word “immigrant” often showcases individual storylines of struggle, hard work and overcoming hardships. On Instagram, a search for accounts and posts hashtagged with “immigrant” reveal feeds of documentary-style visuals and text about sacrifice and injustice. Clearly, there’s a heavy sense of activism connected to the immigrant experience in the media, in contrast to the image of luxury and privilege that is seen to come with being an expat.

Why? When it comes to the way people treat both groups, the narratives the words we use to describe create an unconscious bias. There’s a general feeling that immigrants are associated with negative qualities about their birthplace, whereas expats are commended for living in a country outside of their own. The meanings we’ve ascribed to these words have a lot to do with connotations about certain races and class systems.

Look at the etymology of the word​ “expat” (the short form of “Expatriate”), for example. It derives from the Latin terms “ex” (out of) and “patria” (fatherland). By definition, an expat is just someone who moves to live in a country they weren’t born in. Interestingly, the term was most commonly used in the 20th century to describe British servants who were often sent to work abroad against their will. According to Sophie Cranston, a lecturer in human geography at Loughborough University​, who spoke to The Atlantic about the changing meaning of terms like expat, it was only in the early 90s, that it came to mean what it does now: a descriptor for (typically wealthy) westerners living abroad.

With immigration being brought up more on social and mainstream media, it’s also important to note that these terms are being reclaimed. The term “migrant”, which is sometimes used in place of “immigrant” and often bears the same connotations (although the definitions vary from place to place), seems to have been reclaimed.

In 2015-16, immigration became the hottest political topic in the UK due to the European migrant crisis and Brexit. The Leave campaign heavily focused on villainising immigrants in the media, using anti-migrant propaganda and anti-migrant sentiments to create fear towards them, which subsequently led to their unfortunate victory.

The negativity has since inspired a rise of people from immigrant backgrounds to create movements reclaiming and redefining the meaning of being an immigrant. Groups like Migrants in Culture and Migration Collective are both optimistic examples of how immigrants have used the power of art, statistics, and culture to express different realities and examine issues regarding immigration in the UK.

Migrant Journal, a monthly print and digital magazine with a social media platform that focuses on the experiences of people, goods, and information around the world and the positive impact they have on various spaces, has also embraced the word “migrant”. The design of their issues are illustrative, with cerebral stories and minimal details that bring a smart and thoughtful impression to “migrant” labels. They’ve shown that beyond the stories of people, other things such as objects, spaces and fine art can express the immigrant experience in media in a highbrow manner.

Contrastingly, there’s a rise in using social media to poke fun at “expat” realities and stereotypes. For instance, the popular meme Instagram account @hkmehmeh was founded by a Korean woman who identifies as an expat living in Hong Kong. Her account uses popular internet culture with a mix of Cantonese slang and relatable “Hong Kong” sayings to create humorous memes that put a light-hearted spin on living in the city from an expat perspective. The account’s satirical integration of expatriate stereotypes and local culture makes it entertaining for all people who reside in the city – there’s no discrimination with her memes. As a Korean expat, her presence is inadvertently broadening the image of “expat” and diminishing the assumption that expats can only be white people.

While these labels once showed the double standards of the language of migration, they’re beginning to break away from strict definitions. By forging cultural visibility for terms like these, we create opportunities for more open conversations about questioning the need for labels, their effect on our unconscious bias and reclaiming these terms in a positive way.

Platforms that enable positive outlooks on reclaiming negative labels can unite people rather than split them apart. Hopefully, more of this kind of action will allow people to see that regardless of your identity, anyone who immigrates to another country shares more similarities than differences and that labels shouldn’t limit or define anyone in what they want to achieve.

Source: How the language of migration put expats on a pedestal – and left immigrants in the dust

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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