Bill C-24 (Historical)

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act

An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Citizenship Act to, among other things, update eligibility requirements for Canadian citizenship, strengthen security and fraud provisions and amend provisions governing the processing of applications and the review of decisions.
Amendments to the eligibility requirements include
(a) clarifying the meaning of being resident in Canada;
(b) modifying the period during which a permanent resident must reside in Canada before they may apply for citizenship;
(c) expediting access to citizenship for persons who are serving in, or have served in, the Canadian Armed Forces;
(d) requiring that an applicant for citizenship demonstrate, in one of Canada’s official languages, knowledge of Canada and of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship;
(e) specifying the age as of which an applicant for citizenship must demonstrate the knowledge referred to in paragraph (d) and must demonstrate an adequate knowledge of one of Canada’s official languages;
(f) requiring that an applicant meet any applicable requirement under the Income Tax Act to file a return of income;
(g) conferring citizenship on certain individuals and their descendants who may not have acquired citizenship under prior legislation;
(h) extending an exception to the first-generation limit to citizenship by descent to children born to or adopted abroad by parents who were themselves born to or adopted abroad by Crown servants; and
(i) requiring, for a grant of citizenship for an adopted person, that the adoption not have circumvented international adoption law.
Amendments to the security and fraud provisions include
(a) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who are charged outside Canada for an offence that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an indictable offence under an Act of Parliament or who are serving a sentence outside Canada for such an offence;
(b) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who, while they were permanent residents, engaged in certain actions contrary to the national interest of Canada, and permanently barring those persons from acquiring citizenship;
(c) aligning the grounds related to security and organized criminality on which a person may be denied citizenship with those grounds in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and extending the period during which a person is barred from acquiring citizenship on that basis;
(d) expanding the prohibition against granting citizenship to include persons who, in the course of their application, misrepresent material facts and prohibiting new applications by those persons for a specified period;
(e) increasing the period during which a person is barred from applying for citizenship after having been convicted of certain offences;
(f) increasing the maximum penalties for offences related to citizenship, including fraud and trafficking in documents of citizenship;
(g) providing for the regulation of citizenship consultants;
(h) establishing a hybrid model for revoking a person’s citizenship in which the Minister will decide the majority of cases and the Federal Court will decide the cases related to inadmissibility based on security grounds, on grounds of violating human or international rights or on grounds of organized criminality;
(i) increasing the period during which a person is barred from applying for citizenship after their citizenship has been revoked;
(j) providing for the revocation of citizenship of dual citizens who, while they were Canadian citizens, engaged in certain actions contrary to the national interest of Canada, and permanently barring these individuals from reacquiring citizenship; and
(k) authorizing regulations to be made respecting the disclosure of information.
Amendments to the provisions governing the processing of applications and the review of decisions include
(a) requiring that an application must be complete to be accepted for processing;
(b) expanding the grounds and period for the suspension of applications and providing for the circumstances in which applications may be treated as abandoned;
(c) limiting the role of citizenship judges in the decision-making process, subject to the Minister periodically exercising his or her power to continue the period of application of that limitation;
(d) giving the Minister the power to make regulations concerning the making and processing of applications;
(e) providing for the judicial review of any matter under the Act and permitting, in certain circumstances, further appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal; and
(f) transferring to the Minister the discretionary power to grant citizenship in special cases.
Finally, the enactment makes consequential amendments to the Federal Courts Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Okay. Perhaps I could ask Mr. Bissett a question.

Mr. Bissett, you obviously have many years of experience insofar as immigration matters are concerned. You're probably aware that when Bill C-24 was introduced, the Canadian Bar Association prepared lengthy submissions. One of the issues that they were very much concerned about was safeguards in ensuring that Bill C-24 was consistent with the charter or, more specifically, with section 7 of the charter. I was wondering if you have any comments on that situation.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I'd like to thank everyone for appearing before the committee. Obviously, one of the issues that we did have surrounding Bill C-24 is that there was very little input from experts such as you, so I'm very grateful that we've been provided this opportunity to determine if there are any gaps in Bill C-6.

I wanted to follow up on the testimony that you provided, Mr. Gardee. I understand that you're very much concerned about revocation of citizenship. I'm not quite sure whether you were here in the first hour when Professor Macklin provided a mechanism that would deal with revocation of citizenship. I was wondering if you would have any comments, and if you can think of any proposed mechanism to make sure that there are safeguards in place.

[Ihsaan Gardee, Executive Director, National Council of Canadian Muslims]

Good afternoon, honourable Chair, and respected members.

On behalf of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, I'm pleased to have this opportunity to offer the committee our organization's perspective on Bill C-6 and the Citizenship Act.

Briefly the NCCM is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit grassroots organization that is a leading voice for Muslim civic engagement and the promotion of human rights. Our mandate is to protect the human rights and civil liberties of Canadian Muslims, promote their public interests, build mutual understanding between communities, and confront Islamophobia. For over 15 years, we have worked to achieve this mission through activism in four primary areas, including community education and outreach, media engagement, anti-discrimination action, and public advocacy.

At the outset, the focus of NCCM's submissions today will be on the provisions in Bill C-6 that repeal the grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship as related to national security. We do not take a formal position on the bill's other proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act.

As a civil liberties organization, the NCCM supports the proposed legislative changes under Bill C-6 in order to remedy the problematic and legally dubious elements introduced by Bill C-24. Specifically, in our view and that of many other respected Canadian human rights organizations, including Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to name a few, removing the grounds for revocation of Canadian citizenship that relate to national security upholds Canada's democratic ideals and ensures the protection of our deeply cherished and hard-won civil liberties.

The law as it exists today has created, in essence, two classes of citizenship. That dual citizens are more vulnerable to losing their citizenship means that some individuals and groups are less Canadian than others and therefore are less deserving of equal protection of the law. This is completely antithetical to the equality rights guaranteed by section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, namely equality before and under the law, and equal benefit of the law. In effect, exposing dual citizens to banishment, something not faced by Canadians holding no other citizenship, makes dual citizens unequal before the law.

The Citizenship Act allows for a dual national found guilty, and incarcerated for a national security-related criminal offence, to be punished again with banishment through citizenship revocation and deportation. In our view, and that of many legal experts, this is inconsistent with the rule of law and the protections of the charter.

Aside from these human rights concerns, there is also the larger context to the social implications of the citizenship revocation provisions, which our organized is cognizant of, as we regularly receive and hear the concerns of Canadian Muslims. Simply stated, these laws do not exist in a vacuum and have harmful consequences. Stripping dual citizens of their citizenship for national security reasons unfairly targets immigrant and racialized groups, particularly those belonging to Muslim communities. It does little to enhance our national security by effectively unloading our problems on the doorsteps of other countries, many of whom may be our allies in the fight against violent extremism.

Make no mistake, the implications of the current law also go beyond dual citizens. Canadian Muslim individuals, families, and the broader community have been disproportionately affected by ostensible anti-terrorism measures enacted in the name of national security. In some cases, citizenship revocation proceedings have been commenced against individuals who were born in Canada and held only Canadian citizenship, merely because it was theorized that they would be able to obtain citizenship in a foreign country through their parents, even though they had never held such foreign citizenship or even lived in a foreign country.

This is an astonishing and deeply draconian and archaic development. Such an arbitrary and dangerous interpretation and implementation of the citizenship revocation provisions speaks to the urgent need to repeal them.

It is in this context that we remind the committee of what the Arar commission report warned about in 2006:

Given the tendency thus far of focusing national security investigations on members of the Arab and Muslim communities, the potential for infringement on the human rights of innocent Canadians within these groups is higher.

Since 9/11, Muslims have been living under a microscope and are subject to heightened suspicion, which is perpetuated by negative stereotyping and discrimination in Western countries, including Canada. The potential reliance on terrorism convictions outside of Canada to revoke citizenship further exacerbates the issue. Had the citizenship revocation provisions been fully in effect, it is not difficult to imagine that someone like Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy could absurdly have been stripped of this citizenship after being convicted in what was widely described as a flawed legal process. That should give us all pause.

Ultimately, while Canadian Muslims benefit as much as our fellow citizens from our shared national security and public safety, Canadian Muslims also pay a higher cost for any benefit that may be derived from national security measures. This is also true when we take into consideration the impact of other national security measures, such as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2015.

NCCM strongly believes that repealing provisions that revoke citizenship for national security related criminal offences is both a necessary and critical step in protecting the constitutional rights of Canadians. It is imperative, as a democratic and free society, that Canada upholds equal treatment for all under the law. At the same time, the NCCM supports measures that effectively enhance security and public safety while respecting civil liberties and the protections afforded under the charter.

To be clear, all Canadians agree that people should be held accountable for the crimes they commit. There is no question that the offences listed under the existing act are serious crimes; however, these crimes are appropriately punished by the criminal justice system, founded on a robust and transparent adversarial system and due process. In stark contrast to this principle of fundamental justice, the power to enforce banishment, as the law currently stands, is profoundly unjust and discriminatory.

In keeping with the spirit of Bill C-6, we would also like to take this opportunity to encourage Parliament to, at best, repeal or, at worst, significantly amend other harmful pieces of legislation that threaten the principles of democracy, equality, and the rule of law. Bill C-6 would have little meaning if the same principles are undermined through other legislative measures such as the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, and if any changes made to these are only cosmetic in nature.

As mentioned, given the disproportionate impact that previous security measures and legislation have had on Muslim communities, it is not unreasonable that they fear they will be the collateral victims in a web of unchecked power and unbridled information sharing, if not the direct targets of unfair scrutiny.

The temptation to create more powers of enforcement, detention, and punishment to make the general population feel safer can be appealing, but represents a slippery slope in a liberal democracy. The Citizenship Act provisions for citizenship revocation—

[Debbie Douglas, Executive Director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)]

OCASI, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, welcomes the amendments introduced in Bill C-6. I was here for Bill C-24, and it's good to be back.

We hope it will remove certain barriers to citizenship, particularly for disadvantaged groups, such as racialized immigrants and refugees, and immigrant and refugee women, children, and seniors.

We welcome the potential for the bill to move toward a more inclusive and accessible citizenship process and remove the two tier citizenship created as a result of changes introduced through the previous Bill C-24. We are pleased that the present government made the repeal a priority and has moved so quickly to bring this forward.

Bill C-24 extended the residency eligibility from three out of the previous four years to four out of the previous six years. It required six months of physical presence in Canada for each of the four out of six. It took away the pre-permanent residence credit that could be counted toward residency to a maximum of one year for those legally in Canada prior to becoming permanent residents, such as refugees, international students, live in caregivers, and in Canada, sponsored spouses.

Bill C-6 will change the residence requirements to three out of five while maintaining the six months physical residence requirements for each of those three out of five years. It returns the pre-permanent residence credit of up to one year.

The bill reduces the waiting time required to become eligible for citizenship and allows immigrants and refugees to become citizens more quickly. It will let them participate more fully in Canadian society to become full members and to contribute to their full potential. This is particularly important for refugees who may not have any other country in which to turn to for protection, and it will meet practical needs such as a passport for travel.

Reducing the time is especially important for future citizens, such as live-in caregivers, other migrant workers, and international students. They would have been living and working in Canada for a certain period even before they became permanent residents, getting to know the country and the people, and contributing to the communities in which they live, including by paying local taxes.

Maintaining the strict physical presence requirements removes any discretion, even if extraordinary circumstances have forced potential applicants to travel for too many days.

OCASI supports the proposed residency eligibility period of three out of five years and supports allowing applicants to count at least one year in Canada before becoming a permanent resident.

We do not support the strict physical presence requirement. We recommend a citizenship judge should be allowed to exercise flexibility to approve an application when an applicant has met all other requirements and has a compelling reason for missing certain days of physical presence in Canada, particularly for applicants who are otherwise stateless.

On the issue of language, Bill C-24 extended language and knowledge test requirements from those aged 18 to 54 to those aged 14 to 64, thus extending it to more people. Older applicants may very well learn English or French enough to function, but have difficulty in passing the test. Those with limited formal education and literacy will have the most difficulty in passing the test. Learning a new language and passing a test is often difficult as one gets older.

OCASI believes it is important to encourage and support all residents, including older residents, to learn one of the official languages and acquire knowledge about Canada, but making this a condition of citizenship would exclude many from full participation in our society. Given the general vulnerability of older people, we should support improving access to citizenship so more residents have secure status and the additional rights, entitlements, and protection citizenship would give them.

Younger applicants aged 14 to 18 would still be in high school, and in that process will be learning one of the official languages as well as about Canada. It was never clear to us why Bill C-24 reduced the age requirement to 14 years. Reversing this requirement is the right thing to do.

OCASI supports the proposed amendment to require language and knowledge tests for those aged 18 to 54. We also ask the committee to recommend that particularly older applicants, and I will add here particularly older refugees, should be allowed the use of an interpreter in the interview with the citizenship judge to satisfy the knowledge requirement. This element was in place before the Bill C-24 changes.

Through Bill C-24, the previous government changed citizenship application rules in 2012 to require up-front proof of language ability. We suggest that the requirement for up-front proof also be eliminated. Many potential applicants have been excluded from applying for citizenship because of this requirement. For example, applicants who have been working in more than one job to support themselves and their families, and who therefore have found it difficult to also fit in language classes, have not even attempted to take the test. Some others could not afford the testing fee. Yet others live and work in communities that don't have a test centre. Those who don't have the time or money to travel to a test centre have not been able to take the tests either.

We have heard from immigrant and refugee settlement workers that because of a variety of difficulties, their clients are opting to wait until they are older so that they can apply for citizenship without having to take a language or knowledge test. Refugees, especially refugee women in particular, are those who are most impacted. Often they have met all other requirements for citizenship. These are Canadian residents who are living and working here. They are part of our communities. They are contributing to Canadian society in many different ways, and yet they are excluded from citizenship because of this language requirement.

OCASI asks the committee to consider a recommendation that would remove the up-front proof of official language ability. Instead, we ask you to recommend that having met all other criteria, the citizenship judge should be given the flexibility to determine through an interview if the applicant has sufficient official language ability and knowledge of Canada to satisfy these requirements of citizenship.

Other amendments in Bill C-6—

[James Bissett, Former Ambassador, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I might add that my interest in the subject is from my experience as head of the Canadian immigration service for five years and having spent most of my public service career dealing with immigration and refugee issues.

I have been before the committee before, and I have to confess that I defended Bill C-24. I defended it on the basis of two provisions that I think are important: the first was the length of time it takes to acquire Canadian citizenship, and the second was whether we should take away the citizenship of dual citizens who commit acts of terror or treason.

I can see no valid reason for extending the length of time for citizenship. I think the most compelling reason seems to be that—and the members of the committee will probably appreciate this—it enables them to vote in elections, but other than that I don't see a strong reason. I think many Canadians feel the same way. It's a short time to grant the precious gift of Canadian citizenship to people who have been only here for three years.

If members of the committee found themselves by chance as immigrants in let's say India or Egypt, in 10 years would they feel that they knew enough of the language, the customs of the country, the rights and responsibilities, and the social and political institutions of those countries to be able to vote in elections? I rather doubt it. That's what we're expecting the immigrants that are coming here to Canada to do, that in three years they should be able to know all of those things and also the obligations and the responsibilities of citizenship.

This coming year we're going to be letting in roughly 300,000 new immigrants. They're coming from roughly 190 different countries, and many thousands of them are coming from countries that have no traditions of democratic government. They don't have that opportunity. They haven't had it, and I think it's naive to think these people will be ready in three short years to accept all of the responsibilities of citizenship.

The reduction of residence encourages what is becoming more and more common, and that is the citizens of convenience: people who spend just enough time in Canada to acquire citizenship and then go back to live in their home country.

The Asia Pacific Foundation has estimated there are roughly 2.8 million Canadian citizens outside of Canada. Many Canadians remember that in 2006, with the trouble in Lebanon, we had 15,000 Canadians from Lebanon brought back to Canada at the expense of the taxpayer of roughly $94 million. Shortly after events in Lebanon settled down, 7,000 or more of those people returned to Lebanon.

On the question of whether we strip citizenship from dual nationals, I remind the committee that not everybody in Canada who's a legal permanent resident and applies for Canadian citizenship can get it. We don't let criminals, who have serious criminal records, obtain citizenship. We don't allow people who've even been charged with crimes against humanity to accept citizenship. Those qualifications to be met ought to be met as well for people who acquire citizenship later on and then commit horrendous acts of terror against their own citizens.

I think the primary argument used against revocation of citizenship has been the usual argument that it creates two classes of citizenship. I don't buy that argument because it's inherent in the very nature of citizenship that there is going to be more than one class. There are the natural born Canadians. There are the citizens who apply and receive it by meeting the naturalization requirements, and then you have a third category of dual citizens. You already have three categories of citizenship.

As a matter of fact, some natural Canadians can have their citizenship revoked under the provisions of Bill C-24, because many thousands of Canadians today have derived another citizenship through their father or their mother. If your father was a German citizen, you have automatic citizenship of Germany. So you have natural citizens as well as those who are naturalized who can be affected under the old Bill C-24 law.

I think there is also a fundamental, inherent difference, whether we like it or not, between natural-born and naturalized citizens. A natural-born citizen acquires citizenship by accident, by birth. They have no choice in the matter. A naturalized Canadian has to apply for citizenship. It's a voluntary choice and an option they have. It also requires a formal undertaking, an oath of allegiance to the new country. Natural-born Canadians don't have that choice, and they can't lose their citizenship. There are no penalties, that is true, but a naturalized Canadian has taken an oath of allegiance to their country, has made a choice to become Canadian, and if they violate that oath and that allegiance, it seems to me logical that there should be penalties attached to it.

Certainly we're not the only country that takes citizenship away from dual citizens who've committed or are suspected of having committed acts of terror. In England, for example, the Home Secretary has the power to strip the citizenship of a dual citizen without giving reasons, or, if they do give a reason, it's a very vague one—

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I was going to ask a few other questions, but maybe I'll ask a question to help my colleagues on the other side and some others who don't understand why we want to change Bill C-24.

You're all lawyers, and I'll ask you to put your minds in a devil's advocate or a reciprocal mode. What if other countries were to adopt Bill C-24, not Bill C-6 but the original bill, similar to Great Britain and Australia, or as France was about to do, and a Canadian born from Canadian parents here was adopted and moved to and became a citizen of Australia—moved there for a job—but later became radicalized by a crazy ideology, became a terrorist there, and blew up something? Do we think that as Canadians we would like it if after he was convicted there, they were to revoke his citizenship and say that he was born in Canada and we should take him back? Do you think Canadians would like that?

I would like to hear from the Bar Association first and perhaps Professor Macklin afterwards.

[Christopher Veeman]

They're set out on pages 6 and 7 of the test from that manual. These apply, for example, to a person who is travelling on business, but their family lives in Canada and their children go to school here and they have a house or a residence here. It depends on whether they've centralized their mode of existence—that's the language from the case law—in Canada. It depends also on the extent of the absence from Canada. If you've got a large gap, it may be harder to justify.

The last factor that's listed—and this is again from the citizenship processing manual prior to Bill C-24—is what is the quality of their connection with Canada? Is it more substantial than that with another country? For example, if your constituent is more established in the Gulf, then it would be harder for him to be accepted as a Canadian citizen.

[Christopher Veeman]

This was a submission we made at the time that Bill C-24 was coming into effect. We're still proposing, in what we call the “hard cases”, that there be a provision to allow the department to grant citizenship.

The test that existed prior to Bill C-24 I described as a bit of a vacuum. Nobody really knew, but there were multiple different tests that were applied. As a compromise position, we proposed what IRCC had in citizenship policy manual 5, which were some allowable exceptions to physical presence in Canada. They're set out there on pages 6 and 7.

It's a bit more of a nuanced assessment of the persons's connection to Canada, and potentially could allow someone like your constituent to qualify for citizenship. On the other side of the coin, the physical presence test makes things very black and white for officers who are processing cases. I think that may have contributed to the speed with which they can process them. There's a bit of a trade-off in terms of having discretion on the one hand, to allow those cases to be processed, and the fast processing that everybody wants. CBA's position is that there are those cases where deserving potential citizens should be heard.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Can you also comment on the question of humanitarian and compassionate grounds being considered at all stages of citizenship revocation? There have been changes made with respect to Bill C-24 related to that. In your experiences, why is it important that humanitarian and compassionate reasons be considered, and at what stages should they be considered?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I would like to thank all the witnesses for their thoughtful presentations, as well as for the written presentations.

I'm not going to rehash some of the issues that were brought forward with Bill C-24 because we now have Bill C-6, which I'm very happy about. More to the point, there are issues that we need to focus on and address with C-6 that still need to be remedied.

On the issue of revocation, I think we've dealt with that. On the issue around independent and impartial hearing, I think we have the full sense of it. On the issue around statelessness, we have full sense of it as well.

There are a couple of other issues that were not touched upon due to time limitations, I think. One is the issue of knowledge of official languages. I know that was in the brief from the Canadian Bar Association. I wonder whether or not you could elaborate on the requirement to pass a knowledge test in one of the official languages. Would it amount to double testing, and what is your remedy for this issue?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Chairman, speaking through you, my understanding of these three jurisdictions and of Bill C-24 is that this would happen after a conviction—not before a conviction, but after a conviction.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Some of you have been here before for Bill C-24. Welcome back. All of your presentations are legal, but I can understand why: you're all lawyers.

I want to ask a question on the issue of revocation, which deals with terrorism. It's happening more and more, particularly in Europe, but it has happened here.

Canadians want to feel safe. I just want to outline—you probably already know this, but I'll outline it anyway—three other jurisdictions that have similar legislation to Bill C-24, and if we have time, perhaps you could comment on them.

In the United Kingdom, under the provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981, a natural-born British citizen could have their citizenship revoked if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good to do so and the person would not be rendered stateless. Naturalized citizens of the United Kingdom could have their citizenship revoked if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good to revoke citizenship because the person engaged in conduct seriously prejudicial to the U.K.'s vital interests and the Home Secretary had reasonable grounds to believe that the person could acquire another nationality.

The latter provision, which would leave a person stateless, came into effect two years ago. The term “conducive to the public good” includes involvement in terrorism, espionage, serious organized crime, war crimes, or unacceptable behaviours.

In France, where it's still being dealt with—their legislation has passed through the lower house and is now in the Senate—the French law allows naturalized citizens to have their citizenship revoked if doing so will not render them stateless.

All states seem to be concerned with the issues that you've raised on statelessness.

Article 25 of the Code Civile provides that citizenship may be revoked for persons convicted of certain crimes related to national security; however, citizenship can only be revoked if it was acquired less than ten years before the conviction, or 15, depending on the crime. In other words, I suppose there's the issue of fraud, which I don't recall any of you having commented on.

The current debate in France is over a new legislative proposal to allow for revocation of the citizenship of natural-born French citizens with another citizenship when they are convicted of a crime of a serious attack on the life of the nation. The law passed the French lower house of their parliament in February and is now before the Senate. It's quite controversial. It hasn't passed, that I know of.

Following the passage in both houses, the law would require a constitutional amendment, and this in return requires a two-fifths majority vote in their two legislative houses together. That may not happen.

In Australia, there were changes in December of last year. Dual-national Australians may lose their citizenship for national security reasons. The specific grounds for losing citizenship are engaging in specified terrorist-related conduct, fighting for a declared terrorist organization, and being convicted of a specified terrorism offence.

These laws seem to be similar to what was put forward in Bill C-24, although the French law may not happen. I'll ask particularly the representatives from the Canadian Bar Association—maybe we'll start off with Mr. Veeman—whether you have any reaction to this. I expect you're going to say, ah, but we have the Charter of Rights, although to my knowledge there's no jurisprudence on that subject as of yet.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

My question is for Ms. Macklin.

I would like to touch on the revocation of citizenship for acts that demonstrate the [Inaudible--Editor] “Canadian values” that was introduced to the Citizenship Act by Bill C-24 and that Bill C-6 proposes to remove. In an op-ed in the Toronto Star on April 25, 2013, you likened this provision to the “medieval practice of banishment”.

Could you discuss how allowing a politician to revoke citizenship for a vaguely defined [Inaudible--Editor] of values opens the door to a slippery slope of grounds for revocation and opens the provision to a likely challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms if it is not removed from the act?

[Christopher Veeman, Executive Member, National Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association]

Thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear.

I'm assuming that everybody has the submission. I'm proposing to highlight some of the points that we make in the submission, but it's there for you to review at your leisure.

Over the time I've been practising in this area, it's possible to discern two phases in Canadian citizenship law. The law was largely unchanged after the major rewrite in 1977—with the exception of the lost Canadian issue in 2009—until Bill C-24 came into effect. Leading up to Bill C-24, the perspective of practitioners in this area was that the system was in its “Byzantine” phase, if you can use that word. I say this because nobody knew what the legal test was for residency and how you qualified to become a citizen. There was a problem with the jurisprudence. The courts couldn't solve that problem, the processing times were backlogged, and Canada's interests were not being served by the old system.

The CBA supported the efforts in Bill C-24 to improve that situation. To its credit, Bill C-24 did fix a lot of those problems. The definition of residency was clarified, so we now have the physical presence definition. The decision-making process was streamlined, and also the government committed resources to processing. All those things led to the decline in processing times that we've seen.

Back in 2014 the CBA opposed many of the other parts of Bill C-24. While Bill C-24 brought citizenship law out of its Byzantine phase, in the view of some practitioners it moved it in a sort of Kafkaesque direction where, as we've heard, a person can have their citizenship revoked by a government official without any hearing. In a point that wasn't touched on yet, section 13.1 was introduced into the law, which allows the department to suspend processing of an application essentially indefinitely. These are features that in our view do not support the rule of law. Another thing we heard under the changes that came in with Bill C-24 was that the system of appeals for citizenship matters was changed to judicial review instead. From the point of view of practitioners, that's an inferior system. As we've heard, you need to get leave, and in all cases where you don't get leave, you don't get reasons. People can get an application refused, and they don't have the opportunity to get an appeal with reasons.

Our section supports many of the aspects of Bill C-6 that reverse some of those changes, in particular the national interest revocation. We were strongly opposed to that. Rather than listing all the points that we do agree with, which are in our brief, I want to point out some of the things where we think the bill can be improved.

The first one has already been touched on today by Professor Macklin, and also by the minister in his remarks last Tuesday, which is the question of ensuring there is a fair and independent process for persons subject to revocation of citizenship for misrepresentation or fraud. Professor Macklin outlined that, so I'm going to skip over parts of this. Our solution for this problem is slightly different from what Professor Macklin has proposed. The overall goal is the same, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to at some point have their case considered on humanitarian and compassionate grounds prior to the revocation of their citizenship. In our view, it may be appropriate to consider granting the department official that discretion when they're reviewing the case and have that decision directly reviewed by the Federal Court on a reasonableness standard.

In some situations under the current law, people can have their citizenship revoked for misrepresentation, and they go directly back to foreign national status. This is the case where the misrepresentation occurred in their permanent residency application, and then they subsequently obtained citizenship.

We say that all persons who have their citizenship revoked should revert to permanent resident status, and then have an appeal before the Immigration Appeal Division to retain that status and try to remain in Canada.

In our brief we have advocated, in terms of the grant of citizenship process, for some residual discretion to grant citizenship in deserving cases where people cannot meet the physical presence test, despite strong connections to the country and a desire to become Canadian citizens. In 2014 we proposed certain definitions that might be used.

I'll just give you a couple of examples of cases that might be problematic. A pilot who lives in Canada but is flying overseas for work may have trouble meeting the three in five standard. Just as an aside, the three in five standard is an improvement from the four in six. It's slightly more flexible, but still, there may be these hard cases that will arise.

[Andrew Brouwer, Senior Counsel, Refugee Law, Legal Aid Ontario]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be back before the committee.

I work for Legal Aid Ontario, or LAO. Legal Aid is the country's largest legal aid plan. Our mandate is to ensure access to justice for the most vulnerable and marginalized Ontarians. We do that through staff legal services, community and specialty legal clinics, and of course, funding private bar lawyers on certificates to represent our clients. Legal Aid Ontario helps almost 4,000 low-income Ontarians each day, accessing justice in the areas of criminal, family, immigration and refugee, and poverty law matters.

Legal Aid Ontario also has a law reform mandate directed to the core goal of access to justice for the most vulnerable. We have a number of key priority areas in the area of refugee and immigration law. Those are, first of all, equal access to and effective protection of charter rights; protection of mentally ill non-citizens; protection and promotion of the rights of the child; domestic implementation of international human rights law; and access to and protection of citizenship, particularly for naturalized Canadians.

We applaud the government today for introducing Bill C-6 so very early in its mandate, and we support much of what's in the bill. We're particularly pleased about the provisions scrapping the intention to reside requirement and removing the power to strip citizenship for national security grounds. We also support the changes to the language and the residency requirements for naturalization.

That said, in our view the bill's not perfect. There are some significant problems and gaps that we hope this committee can address. Of particular concern to us are five areas. I've handed out a summary in English and French of the specific recommendations we have, and I hope those are before you. I'll just go through very briefly what we're suggesting.

The first issue I know has been a topic of a great deal of debate. I'll rely on Professor Macklin on the issue of the revocation process. Legal Aid Ontario shares Professor Macklin's position on the best remedy for that, and I know that Minister McCallum has also expressed interest in looking at how to reform that provision.

The second is with respect to remedies for refused citizenship applications. Bill C-24 stripped refused citizenship applicants of their right to appeal refusals to the Federal Court, and introduced instead a remedy of judicial review by way of leave. That change imposes unjust and costly barriers to access to justice, particularly in an area that really goes to the core of what it means to be a member of society. Leave requirements in Federal Court can double the time it takes to get a remedy and double the cost of seeking that remedy; and leave refusals, as I'm sure you know, are made without reasons by the Federal Court judge, which does an injustice to the individual applicants who naturally will perceive the leave requirement as being arbitrary. They don't know why they get refused. We therefore urge the committee to amend Bill C-6 to reverse the amendments that were introduced in section 20 of Bill C-24 and return to the Federal Court appeal provisions that existed before.

Our third area of concern is with respect to the first generation born abroad limitation. We were very pleased to hear Minister McCallum affirm before this committee that there should be one class of citizen. There's no place in Canadian law, in our view, for provisions that treat citizens born on our territory differently from those who are naturalized. My grandchild will be a Canadian citizen no matter where she's born. Mr. Virani's grandchild—he is my MP—will not be, unless she's born on Canadian territory. That's an unjust distinction. We ask, therefore, that the committee amend Bill C-6 to include a provision that strikes down the first generation born aboard provision in section 3(3) of the Citizenship Act.

The fourth area of concern is with respect to the residency calculation. We supported the change to the residency requirements that were set out in Bill C-6. We ask that they be expanded so that credit can also be given for Canadian residency to those who have made a refugee claim that's been found eligible but are waiting to have their hearing. As you know, there is a massive backlog right now. People are waiting for three or four years to have their claim heard. They should get credit for that time.

As well, those who have been accepted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds at stage one should also get credit for the time. It's a two-stage process, and people sometimes wait for years to get the final approval. That period of delay is not the fault of the applicant; it's a problem at Immigration, which is just taking too long to process them. We ask that they also get half-time credit for that period.

Finally, I'd like to ask the committee to consider seriously the issue of statelessness and how this act can be amended to deal with the stateless within Canada.

We are certainly hopeful that the new government's renewed recognition of the importance of international law and global engagement will result in our signing the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, but there is something that we can do right now with this act to make sure that we are better protecting stateless persons and coming into better compliance with international law and norms.

We have three recommendations.

The first, which is critical, is to include a definition of “statelessness” within paragraph (a) of subsection 2(2) of the act. We ask that this include both de jure or legal statelessness as well as de facto statelessness. Practically speaking, the whole point of dealing with statelessness and assisting stateless persons to get protection is to make sure that every member of society has a connection to a state.

Concerns have been expressed by various people, including in a case in the U.K. called Pham, which shows the problems when we have an overly legalistic and narrow definition of statelessness. We are proposing the following definition, which is also included in the materials handed out. It's that “stateless” means that the person is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law and includes both de jure and de facto statelessness.

I've handed out a little printout from the website of CIC, which includes this government's understanding and definition of those two terms, de jure and de facto.

The second provision with respect to statelessness is that we're asking for an amendment to subsection 5(4) of the act, the provision that allows discretionary grants of citizenship in special cases. We propose that statelessness be identified specifically within the act as a factor that would justify a grant of citizenship under subsection 5(4).

Finally, we are proposing an amendment to section 10 of the Citizenship Act, the revocation process. We propose adding a restriction on revocation when it might result in a person's becoming stateless, whether de jure or de facto. We believe this would provide a very significant protection against an unexpected result of a revocation decision, and we ask that you seriously consider it.

Those are my submissions.