Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 31st, 2023

[Uyen Hoang, Senior Director, Legislation and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

What I can share with you today is with regard to the requests for statelessness. Since 2013, we have received eight applications.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

That's some helpful information.

You referred to the substantial connection test that we talked about. In your opinion, would there be value in having an amendment like this on that particular part of the Citizenship Act?

[Nicole Girard]

Madame Chair, I'm not going to express an opinion other than to recognize that it's open to the committee to legislate. However, what I want to get across for the committee's consideration is that, generally, we would expect the applicants under these provisions to be children in the vast majority of cases. The only reason the prohibitions are there is on the off chance that it is a young adult who is applying, but that would be an even more exceptional circumstance to an already exceptional situation.

The one other element for the committee's consideration is that, when we put together the original provisions for subsection 5(5), they were based on criminality-type prohibitions that are broadly in line with what our international convention obligations are. I'm not certain how any change would affect our compliance, because we're just seeing this amendment for the first time.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Thanks.

I can appreciate that. Again, the whole reason we're here is the unintended consequences. The last thing we would want to do is create new unintended consequences, so I appreciate that.

On this subject of statelessness, just to help us out a little bit, could you help us out with an example of the kind of person...? Like you said, it's younger people. Can you give us an example of how a person would end up in this subsection 5(5)? What's an example of the type of person?

[Nicole Girard]

In general, the example would be.... A child can derive citizenship by descent from either parent. The situation may be one where the child of a Canadian is born abroad. If they're born in Canada, or whatever the situation is, they automatically have citizenship from birth in Canada. Therefore, it would be a situation where a child is born abroad and where they may have a Canadian parent, for example, who is already born abroad in the first generation. That's my personal situation and the situation of many people we all know.

If you're the first generation born abroad, you're not able to automatically pass on your Canadian citizenship to your child born abroad, hence the discussion we've had in this committee about the helpfulness of a connection test on the parent.

The statelessness will arise when the other parent is not able to transmit another citizenship, for whatever reasons, due to the laws of the country that this parent comes from. We know there are places in the world where persons who are stateless come from. It's those kinds of examples and cases. Some countries have laws where you may be able to derive citizenship by descent from a grandparent, or parents may have multiple citizenships. They may not only have one. That's the reason why....

Really, a case of true statelessness for the child of a Canadian would be rare. I'm not saying that it hasn't happened because, as you've just heard, we've had a small number of applications since 2013. However, it's rare because you would derive citizenship from both parents and sometimes the grandparents as well.

Thank you.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I have just one further question.

Those eight case examples.... Generally speaking, are those types of things approved? What would be a typical expectation in a case like that?

[Uyen Hoang]

Thank you for the question.

In terms of the status for those eight applications I spoke about, one has been approved, one has been refused and six are pending decisions.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

I'm good for now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Seeing no further debate, we will....

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm sorry. I was going to ask.... You said that in 2013, there were eight cases.

[Uyen Hoang]

That's since 2013.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

It's since 2013. Okay. I was thinking there were six people waiting since 2013.

Since 2013, there have been eight total cases involving this. You said there are six pending. I'm not asking you who they are for. I don't want to know. You said one was accepted, one was refused and six applications are still pending.

Can we find out how long they have been pending? Is that possible to know? I'm just asking if these are very recently made applications in the last few months, or if some of those have been pending for five years plus and might need a waiver.

[Nicole Girard]

Madam Chair, we don't have that information at hand, but we can endeavour to obtain it and provide it to the committee as soon as is feasible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Larouche.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In the proposed amendment to subsection 5(5), it says “any other Act of Parliament”. Is it appropriate to write “under [...] any other Act of Parliament”? Does this open the door to too broad an interpretation?

Is one of the officials able to answer my question?

[Nicole Girard]

Madam Chair, I thank the member for her question.

As I mentioned earlier, the application of this provision is very limited. The proposed amendments would have even more limited application, if I can put it that way.

Moreover, given the committee's deliberations and consideration of a new connection test allowing access to citizenship for those born abroad to second and subsequent generation Canadian parents, this is a provision that, in the future, will apply to far fewer cases than the eight we've seen so far and that my colleague mentioned.

I hope my answer has given you a better idea of the scope of the provision and the proposed amendment.

Thank you.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, that answers my question.

At first glance, “any other Act of Parliament” seemed broad in scope, but you explained the limited scope of it all quite well. That's fine with me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Kmiec.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I was going to ask about the conditions of statelessness again, just to follow up on something, because you said this was only under 18. There's this ugly practice in certain parts of the world of using child soldiers. They would be under 18. It would be a series of very unusual circumstances if you were to find yourself there. Since there are only eight cases and six are still pending, is the case of statelessness...? You described the conditions it could be under.

Am I to understand they would be countries that do birth citizenship or lineage, like Germany only does? You have to prove that you have some type of German ancestry. There's this large population of permanent residents of Turkish heritage. There's quite a large population of ethnically Polish people who live in Germany but cannot become citizens of Germany. In those situations, a child born there to a Canadian parent would be potentially stateless.

I'm trying to understand. Is that one of the countries where you could find yourself in a situation of statelessness, or is it more like in Dubai, which simply has a group of citizens? Again, you cannot be naturalized as a citizen in Dubai if you are from overseas.

Is it those types of countries? I'm trying to understand this statelessness at birth that you could experience.

[Nicole Girard]

Without trying to hold myself out as an expert on other countries' citizenship legislation, because I wouldn't want to do that or mislead this committee, I can for the committee's consideration agree with the member that the kinds of circumstances where statelessness may arise would more likely relate to a birth abroad where the country does not have citizenship by birth on soil, which tends to be less common outside of North America to begin with. It may be where the Canadian parent is already first generation born abroad and is, therefore, not able to transmit automatic citizenship, and where the other parent due to any number of circumstances, which could include the kinds of circumstances the member has described, is also not able to transmit citizenship to the child. Furthermore, none of the grandparents on either side are having a citizenship to transmit to that child. This is why the cases of statelessness tend to be more exceptional. There are some, but they tend to be more exceptional.

Just to be clear, statelessness is not really an issue where you have access to a citizenship but you don't really want to apply for it. You wouldn't necessarily be considered stateless in that situation. It's a situation where, in the circumstance I've described, the child does not have access to citizenship through descent or through birth on soil.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

In this case, statelessness truly means you don't even have the right to apply for citizenship in another state.

[Nicole Girard]

That's correct.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Do you have to prove that to the department?

[Nicole Girard]

Yes. The member is correct in the sense that in the subsection 5(5) grant, one of the criteria is that the person must be stateless. That's who the safety valve is available for. Some evidence has to be provided. Ultimately, if the parent is a first generation born abroad, that's not difficult to demonstrate, nor if the other parent comes from a community where it's known internationally that those populations are stateless.

In any event, there is a requirement to demonstrate that, and different types of proof could be accepted.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

You mentioned our international commitments regarding persons who experience statelessness. Is the definition of statelessness used in the Citizenship Act in any way related to the one used in the additional protocol for the safe third country agreement, or are they using two different versions of statelessness? I know that in the protocol there's an update to it. I'm just wondering if they're the same or different.