Citizenship and Immigration committee  What I would like to see—you might even want to do this—is to have an amendment added to the act so that the wording of the act would conform to your understanding of it. Right now the act sets an equivalence on the basis of offences, not on the basis of acts. Your understanding is that if a terrorist act is committed abroad it would be considered a terrorist act here.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In fact I've done so for the interpreters. I've made a few typographical corrections here, so....

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You are welcome to have the version I already have. I could also e-mail you a better version.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm going to answer that question in English. How the law will work out in practice we'll have to see, but of course it's possible. As a lawyer in private practice, I can tell you of an experience that I see. Many people who are citizens now come here as refugees. They then get permanent residence, then they get citizenship, and then they go back for family or whatever.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Exactly. Well, that's what international standards means. It means—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Fair enough.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I acknowledge that some legal systems are legal systems in name only, where the judges are not independent; they take directions from the government. They may not even decide the cases in front of them; somebody else decides them. And for some of these systems, you have to question every single judgment in every single case because the system itself is not fair.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, I wouldn't say get rid of it completely. I would say get rid of it for a Canadian citizen, if you commit the offence after you are a citizen, that is. But if you've committed the offence before you're a citizen and it meets the test of international standards, which I acknowledge in some countries will never happen, and you are a dual citizen, then it makes sense conceptually in that context.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, in fact this was something I had addressed in my text. It's definitely a problem. Indeed, I don't see even that a standard is left for bureaucrats to assess. If you're convicted of one of these offences abroad then this means that you can lose your citizenship. Now, we heard from the previous question or statement that the member of Parliament said, don't commit the crime, you won't have a problem.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, if I may say so, in my view, this is a glaring defect in the bill and needs some form of remedy. The language is very simple, which can remedy it because it's found in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that already says the conviction has to be in conformity with international standards.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for asking me to be here today on behalf of B'nai Brith Canada. I'm going to talk only about the revocation provisions in the bill because B'nai Brith Canada has a lot of experience with them. The proposed changes to the Citizenship Act in this area are a mix of good and bad news.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I suppose all members of Parliament should be concerned at all times about that issue, absolutely. I would say that generally, when the government endorses a private member's bill, it would be useful to have a Justice charter scrutiny on it. Of course we have some whistle-blower litigation right now indicating there's been a problem with that scrutiny, and it could probably be enhanced, but it certainly is better than having none at all.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —on the meaning of citizenship, which is different—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I was interested in your comments about the process, which relates to your question. I'll try to connect the two. There's been a long history—over 10 years now—of various governments introducing amendments to the Citizenship Act to deal with revocation, for example, Bill C-16, BillC-18, and BillC-37, which have some good suggestions in them that we like.