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.

[Nicole Girard]

The fast track for individuals working in the military is broadly in line with the allies. The proposal under Bill C-24 to extend that not only to permanent residents but also to individuals on exchanges is the most closely aligned with what they do in the United States, where they don't require you to have permanent resident status in order to have the opportunity to be fast-tracked for citizenship.

[Nicole Girard]

The proposed measures in the bill are limited to permanent residents and individuals on exchange to recognize their extraordinary service to the country. It doesn't extend to others. This is a function of the fact that when we did our homework and our comparative research on what other countries do, in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand they offer a fast track to individuals who work in their military only. Canada's proposed approach under Bill C-24 is in line with what those comparator countries do.

[Nicole Girard]

Citizenship officers are independent decision-makers now. They decide in the range of about 100,000 citizenship applications that deal with certain matters, including proofs of citizenship, adoption cases, and grants of citizenship to minors. They already make those decisions guided by criteria under the law, as they would be under the measures proposed in the bill. Certainly they would have additional training to take on these new functions that are proposed in Bill C-24.

[Robert Orr]

To add to that, I think the impact is going to be very significant in bringing down processing to under a year, estimated by 2015–16, with the new decision-maker model. With the new money, if we kept the current system, we would be down to only 14 months by 2017–18. I think that's on the chart that was distributed. It gives you some indication of the very significant efficiencies that would be accrued through Bill C-24.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you.

Switching gears again, I may have misunderstood the concept, and if so, I'd like the analysts or somebody to correct me. Under Bill C-24, I think individuals who have been accused of or charged with committing certain crimes in their country, with or without a trial, and who have maybe been jailed for whatever reason, can now—I don't remember which one it is and somebody can correct me—either be denied citizenship or have their Canadian citizenship revoked. It doesn't matter which one of those two it is; my question is about the fact that these individuals are being judged in Canada for what they may or may not have done in another country. They may or may not have had a fair trial or due process, because I know many countries where individuals don't have due process.

My understanding is that one of our honorary Canadian citizens, Nelson Mandela, would not be able to become a Canadian citizen after Bill C-24 passes, because he was charged with, I think, terrorism or treason in his country and was jailed for that. Does that mean he wouldn't be able to be a Canadian citizen? I want to know the rationale behind why we're...and who? Is it a Citizenship and Immigration Canada official, a bureaucrat, who would be given the task of being the judge, of assessing whether said country has due process and fair trials, and of making that decision? Is it going to be one CIC official who makes that decision on another country's judicial processes?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I would like to talk about people with temporary residency status. Under Bill C-24 periods of temporary residence will no longer be applied toward the meeting of the physical presence requirement for naturalization to become Canadians.

There are higher numbers and growing numbers of international students who come to Canada and are taxpaying members of our society while they're students because they're able to find work and then they, the lucky ones anyway, will find work on a temporary basis as they apply for permanent residence. We're seeing a growing trend toward a two-step migration process, especially with international students where they first come as students temporarily and then transition into permanent residents.

What is the rationale for this change, where it's inviting students from all around the world to come here and then saying the time they spent doesn't count?

[Nicole Girard]

That's quite right. In fact the measures proposed in Bill C-24 would make us more comparable with those like-minded countries. For example, the U.S. requires those requirements to be met for up to age 65. For the U.K., it's up to age 64.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

They wouldn't apply.

With respect to the language requirement in Bill C-24, how do we compare to other English-speaking jurisdictions, for example the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the United States? Are we comparable or are we even more stringent?

[Nicole Girard]

We certainly have now and would have under Bill C-24 accommodations for persons who may experience different difficulties, whether it's a learning disability, whether it's a speech impairment, whether the individual may be deaf. Those people can self-identify now at the start of the process, and they do.

We will continue to take on board the comments of the committee and stakeholders in terms of best practices on any other measures that we may need to look at in this area.

[Nicole Girard]

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Canada is one of the few countries, as part of our study, that we identified that don't have this ability to revoke that's proposed in Bill C-24. For example, like-minded countries like Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, all have such authority, as do most European countries that we looked at.

Many of these countries have broader, less defined powers than what is proposed in Bill C-24.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Thank you.

Now I'll talk about one of my favourite topics. Bill C-24 also provides the ability to strip citizenship from convicted terrorists who hold dual citizenship, or deems an application for citizenship to be renounced. Have you done any comparative studies with other western countries that have similar legislation? My understanding is that all western democratic nations have this power, and for some of them, the requirements for revoking citizenship are far less stringent than what is being proposed in Bill C-24. Could you please comment on that?

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, folks, again.

I want to explore the role of the citizenship judges in the process, and how they're used to improve it.

Can you confirm the role the citizenship judges will have in the faster processing model in Bill C-24?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Who will make those decisions instead of the judges under Bill C-24?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

All right, sir.

You mentioned integrity a couple of times. How do the changes in Bill C-24 affect the integrity of the citizenship program and the fraud that has been seen in the citizenship application process?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

That's not what I had understood, and it would appear that a number of lawyers, and perhaps even the Canadian Bar Association, do not have that understanding of the bill as it is currently worded. We will probably have an opportunity to hear from lawyers, and we will see whether the bill should be improved to better reflect your intent.

I would now like to talk about the fact that the time people spend in Canada as non-permanent residents will no longer be taken into consideration. If Bill C-24 is passed, students will no longer be able to use the time they spent in Canada while they were non-permanent residents. Even if they have worked and paid taxes for a number of years, they could no longer use the time they spent in Canada to become permanent residents.