Thank you, Bernie.
The intent to reside provision, on the face of it, on paper, doesn't sound so terrible. What's wrong with forcing people to sign a declaration that they're going to live in Canada? Except when you think of the impact it's going to have on new Canadians, it's going to create a polar vortex chill. I, the lawyer, will have to advise my clients that if they leave Canada because their child gets accepted into a university, they get a job overseas, they go to take care of a sick relative, they're taking a risk that their citizenship will be stripped from them, that some bureaucrat will speculate on what their true intentions were when they became citizens.
We think that's wrong.
My daughter applied to go to universities in the United States. She worked in Maine. Why shouldn't new Canadians have those very same rights? In our view, the whole concept of banishment, citizenship-stripping, for people who have....
On the one hand you say, they're criminals. Why should we have any sympathy for criminals? I absolutely agree. That's why we have a criminal justice system and we believe the full weight of the law should be thrown against anybody who commits a criminal offence. If they deserve to go to jail for life, so be it. But deporting, removing citizenship, banishing people, is un-Canadian. Our late Prime Minister Diefenbaker recognized this in the context that thousands of Japanese had their citizenship stripped from them.
Furthermore, we agree that citizenship should be revoked in cases of fraud. If someone lies about the process of getting to be a citizen, their citizenship deserves to be taken away, but otherwise that is totally unjust and unconstitutional.
As Avvy Go said before, the intent to reside provision is a violation of section 6 of the Canadian charter with regard to mobility rights. We think that all Canadians, whatever their origin, deserve a truly strengthened citizenship.
Thank you very much.