Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Dec. 8th, 2010

[Nicole Girard]

That's okay. I was done.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Uppal.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

So you don't really know.

[Nicole Girard]

We don't have the statistics.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Uppal.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To start off, you mentioned that crown servants demonstrate a strong ongoing connection to Canada. I agree with you. How does this differ from the situation of Canadian expatriates?

[Andrew Griffith]

The starting point is obviously that when crown servants go abroad, they are directly serving Canadians, whether it be in trade, in a consulate, in immigration, in development assistance, in our military, or in anything like that. The nature of the work they do has a very direct connection to what the government is doing.

The second area, as I have mentioned, concerns those who are deemed residents for tax purposes. They pay Canadian taxes, which for many expatriates is simply not the case, for understandable reasons.

The third area--and this is where you really get the distinction between short-term expatriates and longer-term expatriates--is that generally people rotate in and out of Canada, so they will typically be abroad for three or four years, come back for three or four years, and go abroad again. So there is that ongoing connection to Canada. Those are some of the areas where, in general, there is the greatest difference between a crown servant serving abroad and an expatriate, whether working for a company or an international organization.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

There was some discussion about having this extended to people who work for NGOs or private companies. Are there any countries that extend that consideration right now?

[Andrew Griffith]

We haven't really seen that. When we look at the current bill as well as the provisions of Bill C-37 that are aimed at the crown servants and that have the first generation--we're essentially looking at New Zealand and the U.K.--we see that it's really focused on the crown servants. Again, it's the principle that they're employed by the government to do the government's work, which is to serve the people of the country, so they're the ones we look after.

We haven't done a further check to see if there are other people who are covered there, but when we look at the actual provisions, we can see that this is very narrowly written for crown servants, like the way that we would propose amendments to this bill or as written in Bill C-37.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Being a member of Parliament, you see so many different types of immigration files. I've seen a few where people have gone abroad, had children, and need to prove one way or another that the children are theirs. They need to submit a DNA test or some type of document. Will that be the situation here? Will some type of proof be needed?

[Nicole Girard]

Sorry, but was your question about the crown servant applying for their child? There would be a standard process when the parents want to apply for proof of citizenship for their child. They would have to furnish the regular documentation establishing their own citizenship, their situation, and whatnot. That would be fairly routine.

[Andrew Griffith]

Again, in the practical sense, I think, if they're working at our embassy or at a military office abroad, generally people would know that this person has been born. It's a small enough community that people would generally know, so the risk of fraud is probably a bit less than in other cases.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Those are my questions. I don't know if any of my colleagues want to share the time.

Rick, go ahead.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I've been contemplating, based on some of comments that Ms. Chow made, the whole issue of adoption. You may not have the answer here today, but I think we should attempt to deal with this before we hit clause-by-clause.

I learned about this through our experience of assisting in Haiti and Operation Stork. We wanted to do everything we could to bring adopted children back to Canada. One of the issues that arose in dealing with Haiti was that, as a ministry and a country, we have to abide by international obligations on adoption. Our intent to move forward with a potential amendment including adoption raises the issue of how we are going to deal with our international obligations with respect to adoption and Canadian citizenship.

[Andrew Griffith]

Maybe I can start and Nicole can supplement. Again, with respect to adoptions, as you know, there are two approval processes.

One is the domestic approval process, which is really run by the province, and the second one is the international one, which is done on our immigration side. The second one requires confirmation that the host country's regulations have been followed and that local laws and procedures have been followed, etc. That's really to make sure that from both aspects we cover the best interests of the child.

Certainly in the case of Haiti, the adoptions we were able to accelerate were the ones that had already been approved at the provincial level. Then we got a special provision to get essentially the head of the country to approve their going abroad. It was very unique.

One of things when we look at adoptions, of course, is that we have to ensure that we're always trying to compare the same situation, and this is where it all.... So the comparison, really, if you're born abroad, whether to Canadian parents or as somebody who's going to be adopted...those cases have to be treated equally in terms of ensuring that we're following Canadian law and comparability, and that's where it becomes a bit tricky.

There are other situations where you have border babies. In New Brunswick, for example, they sometimes go across the border for birth, so you also have to compare that kind of thing.

That's the challenge in trying to do this.

Nicole, do you want to elaborate a bit further on that? No?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I want to continue with something that Mr. Uppal touched upon. I want to know why we're creating a special category for crown employees. As part of their employment contract, the way you've stated it here, “they demonstrate ongoing attachment”.

What if non-crown employees also demonstrated ongoing attachment? Why would we decide to exclude those individuals?

[Andrew Griffith]

Again, there is I think a qualitative difference in the sense that somebody who is working for the government abroad is working daily on issues that are affecting Canada or Canadians, whether they be consular, immigration, trade, or military issues, or whatever. So you have that qualitative level: the nature of the work is fundamentally connected to Canadian interests. You have that layer, and that's probably the most fundamental layer, and then you add the other layers, which, again, are deemed to be residency, taxation, and rotating back and forth.

These ways of looking at things are the broad brush strokes that cover most situations. If there are situations where people living abroad have other ways of demonstrating connections to Canada and everything like that, there is enough flexibility in the various ways they can get citizenship for their children for them to be able to pursue those. Also, if they have that regular back-and-forth movement, they can certainly sponsor their kids to come back as permanent residents, and then citizenship is instant. You don't need to have a waiting period for that.

So there are other ways to deal with those situations. But there is a qualitative difference--not just the three bullet points--and I think that's an important element to consider.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So what you're saying is that there may be cases where that same standard would in fact apply even though the individuals happen not to be employees of crown corporations.

I like this whole idea of a residency requirement, and I think most crown employees would be able to meet residency requirements, but in your presentation, you initially said as a separate point that they were considered residents, and then you qualified that to say it was a meld of the first and second points, in that they're considered residents for tax purposes. I think it would be helpful if you could provide us with some sort of brief explaining what is the legal understanding of residency in those cases and how it differs when it's just for tax purposes.

I know that when it comes to diplomacy, there are international covenants and agreements that exist. Diplomats will often not be charged criminally in certain countries for certain activities. Is it because they are considered residents? I'm very unclear about how this applies. Because we're dealing with birth location, if in fact the diplomats are considered residents of Canada in certain ways, does that extend to spouses and, theoretically, does it extend to their family members, including children?

Then we have this whole idea that they're often working in embassies or consular sections that are considered the territory of their country of citizenship. Is a child born of someone who is a diplomat actually...? It's almost as if the children are cross-border babies. Is there some way that those particular birth locations are marked or noted differently?

We're getting into a whole series of areas where I'm not quite sure how we define our residents and residency requirements. If you could provide us with a brief, that would be tremendously helpful.

[Andrew Griffith]

Okay. We have noted your questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I think we have two undertakings, or is it three undertakings?

[A voice]

Two.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's two undertakings.

Would you give that information to the clerk?

Monsieur St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Very well. I have no further questions.