Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 2nd, 2007

[Clark Goodman]

It's the same 400.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

So there are 75 or so that you're actively working on, and these other 400 are in abeyance?

[Clark Goodman]

I think the 75 that are being referred to in here—Initially, I said we received 1,900-odd callers, and all but 75 received confirmation that they were indeed citizens. So it's two different things.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Okay. Mr. Goodman, you mentioned the promotional and advertising campaign. Can I ask why the department is undertaking this campaign? Why was the decision made to go ahead with that kind of campaign?

[Clark Goodman]

I can speak about the campaign itself; I can't really speak about the decision to do it.

From my point of view, we're trying to make sure that our websites are updated, that we now have, going into production, some promotional material around how to retain citizenship, how to prove citizenship, and such.

We had several documents out before in the past to assist people in submitting an application, either for a grant or a proof of citizenship, and what we've done is updated them to make sure they're more relevant.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

It would seem to me that undertaking a promotional or advertising campaign at this point would be some indication that the department seems to think there are potentially more people out there who may be affected by the kinds of circumstances that have come up. Has that been part of the decision-making process in the department?

[Mark Davidson]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll answer that, if that's okay.

Yes, we are certainly trying to ensure that individuals are aware. We've asked individuals to come forward if they have concerns about their citizenship. As Clark has indicated, the vast majority of individuals who have phoned that dedicated line have turned out not to have problems. As an abundance of caution, we felt it was a good practice to expand that message, not only on the website and through pamphlets, but also by beginning a new public campaign to bring that message even further to the fore.

We've also been working very closely with our partners in government and outside the government—for example, Passport Canada, Service Canada, and indeed the Mennonite Central Committee. Clark and I were at a meeting last week with 20 or so documentation workers from the Mennonite Central Committee in southwestern Ontario to talk about citizenship issues with them; this is also part of that expanded messaging we're undertaking.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

In terms of the numbers that Professor Edmonston brought to the committee, has the department discussed those as a potential bank of people who may face these kinds of problems? Clearly, not all of them have come forward, and we certainly don't have anywhere near those kinds of numbers in the system at the moment. Does the department recognize those as numbers that could indicate the potential size of the group of people affected by these kinds of problems?

[Mark Davidson]

The challenge with these numbers is that many of the figures are just unknowable—for instance, the number of individuals who are born outside Canada to Canadian citizens. The federal government does not have access to that number—indeed, no government has access to that number—whether they were born before 1947, between 1947 and 1977, or after 1977. We can't possibly know that. There was no obligation, and there is no obligation, for Canadian citizens to report their foreign births to the federal government.

We do know those cases who have approached us. We're aware of those individuals. We're working through those cases and trying to process them in as expedited and facilitated a manner as possible.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I'll follow up where I think Ms. Redden left off. Mr. Goodman also made a comment that the discretionary grants of citizenship referred to in subsection 5(4) happen in cases of individuals who have “a significant attachment to Canada and have lived here most of their lives”. I think that's the phrase from your statement, Mr. Goodman.

Can you tell us exactly how “significant attachment” is defined or determined, and what “most of their lives” means? Are there specific parameters considered around both of those issues? What kind of flexibility exists? How do you actually decide on that?

[Rosemarie Redden]

In most of the cases we're seeing, people have come to Canada as infants and have been here all their lives. Those are very obviously the types of people we want to help.

During review of the cases, the mechanism of subsection 5(4) has always been available as a tool to alleviate undue hardship in special cases. When we're looking at these cases, if somebody has not spent most of his life here, or 50% of it, but there are certainly circumstances that indicate hardship, we could nevertheless recommend a subsection 5(4) grant in that situation.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Have most of the 46 individuals who've already been granted citizenship in that way been here since infancy? Is that the criterion?

[Rosemarie Redden]

Not all of them were, but the majority of them were.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Basically it's people who have been here literally all of their lives who have been successful in the process so far.

[Rosemarie Redden]

They've been here most of their lives or they came in as children, if not as infants, because they were born across the border. They came in as children, but there have been a few others.

[Mark Davidson]

May I give an example? Mrs. Porteous had appeared here as a witness—

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Right. I think we're aware of her case.

[Mark Davidson]

She's the kind of case that has been resolved, even though she has not lived in Canada her entire life.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Is 46 an unusual number in terms of the use of section 5(4), from past experience in the department? How often has it been used in the past?

[Rosemarie Redden]

Typically, we do fewer than ten a year. Last year we did ten, and six of those were people who fall into the category of people we're talking about today. They had been erroneously admitted at some point in time with landed immigrant documents stating that this was Canadian first entry, things like that. But traditionally, the number has not been higher than ten, certainly in my experience since I've joined the Department of Citizenship or in the numbers we've had since 2001.

[Mark Davidson]

I'll just add one other thing. There's another group of section 5(4) cases. Rosemarie might know.

[Rosemarie Redden]

Yes, sorry. Thanks for reminding me, Mark.

There is one other group of cases for which we have been using this provision since 2001, as well, I believe, or 2002. These are the people who are adopted by Canadian citizens residing abroad. This is a temporary measure. We're using section 5(4) in order to have citizenship granted to those children, pending the passage of legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Siksay.

We'll go to Mr. Devolin.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I'm sure there's nowhere you'd rather be on a Wednesday afternoon.

Like Mr. Siksay, I must also leave a bit early. This is not a regular meeting time for this committee, so I apologize for leaving early.

We heard lots of witnesses who came forward during this process who gave some pretty compelling testimony. As a relatively new member of the committee, and as a lay person in this field, it seemed like what I would call a no-brainer, quite frankly. The evidence seemed overwhelming that they ought to be, that they were, Canadian citizens and that somehow, there was a glitch in the system. The department didn't look very good that day.

I appreciate the fact that you have to work with the legislation and the regulations you have, but we were certainly left with the impression that the department wasn't as sensitive as it could or should have been in different cases.

I have a couple of questions. This was one of the things that was brought forward. Someone goes in to get documentation for something, and they think they've been a Canadian for 50 years, and all of a sudden, some, possibly junior, person in an office somewhere tells them that, by the way, they're not even a Canadian citizen. I remember thinking that it would be like the receptionist in a doctor's office telling you that, by the way, it says here that you have cancer and you're going to die next week. That would never happen in a medical office, because there's an understanding that that kind of information is very traumatic, particularly if you're not even sure whether it's right.

So has the department taken any steps to make sure that your staff—your front-line staff and your staff in the main offices—appreciates this and appreciates that when they're talking to someone in this situation, they shouldn't just be blurting that information out? Quite frankly, I would almost think that the department should have a process on how that information should be conveyed to a person, and not in that haphazard way. Can anyone tell me what steps have been made in that area?

[Mark Davidson]

Thank you for the question. I'll ask Clark to answer part of it.

On the first part of your question, dealing with the legislation, citizenship law is exceptionally complicated. And it's probably one of the rare areas of public law in which decisions made by legislators decades ago, parliaments ago, generations ago, still have some sort of carriage. It's not an area that we see at all in the immigration world. We don't deal with the 1952 Immigration Act; it's just not part of our environment. Yet with citizenship, because citizenship can be passed on generation upon generation, those parliamentary decisions that were made in 1946 and 1976 have carriage.

So we do have to be conscious of that. That is just a bit of the context around your question. I'll ask Clark to reply to the second part.