Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 16th, 2013

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

Oh, excuse me. I was only referring to Minister Kenny's response, which you referenced, that it's unfortunate that the citizenship of those who are mononationals cannot be revoked owing to the obligation not to create statelessness. It was that. I interpreted this to mean that were it possible to strip mononationals of citizenship, they would have done so, but if I misunderstood that, I retract it and I apologize. That was my inference from that statement.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The floor is still yours, Mr. Lamoureux and Professor Macklin.

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

When you impose a punishment on one group that you don't impose on another, that's a form of discrimination. It's as simple as that. There is nothing about the group upon whom that special punishment is being imposed that is different in a relevant way. Yes, they're different because they're dual nationals, but that's not relevant to the alleged grounds upon which citizenship is being revoked. In that sense it's arbitrary, it's discriminatory, and it's a violation, in my respectful opinion, of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The other point I want to get a comment on is that there's this perception that we have individuals abroad who are coming to Canada and acquiring their citizenship and the bill is going to be targeting those individuals who commit terrorist acts. One of the things that I think needs to be said is the fact that, from a terrorist perspective, many of them are homegrown. They are actually born here in Canada.

I'm wondering if you have any comments on that particular issue.

Do any of the other panellists?

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

It goes back to my point about the idea that if you strip citizenship from somebody and send them to another country where they hold citizenship, somehow they belong more to that country.

When you're talking about people who are born and raised in Canada, there are many people in Canada who are born and raised here who commit terrible acts for which they have been and deserve to be punished, but they are a product of Canada. Whether somebody acquires what are considered to be disloyal views to Canada, they nevertheless are born and raised in and are a product of Canada. They don't belong to some other country more just because they happen to also hold that citizenship.

Again, it is arbitrary and not logical to assume that, for example, Colonel Williams belongs more to Britain than he does to Canada, or that somebody who is born and raised in Canada and happens to be a dual national and who commits what is considered to be a terrorist act more broadly, not specifically against Canada but generally, somehow belongs more to that other country of which he or she is a citizen.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Weston.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm just timing myself because seven minutes goes so quickly.

Ms. Basnicki, when I heard you were coming before the panel, I asked how we could deal with you with the sensitivity that we need to. The hurt will always be there, and yet you've transformed that tragedy into something good by campaigning for peace and order and security for all of us who have not suffered the kind of tragedy that you have.

In light of what happened yesterday in Boston, and as a two-time Boston marathon runner, I just thought I would ask our group to do something a little bit extraordinary—to stop for 30 seconds and think about what you suffered, what Mr. Gupta suffered, and what happened yesterday in Boston, for the victims.

So I'm going to use 30 of my seconds for us to think in silence about that, if you don't mind.

[A moment of silence observed]

Thank you.

I'd like to try to condense what we've been hearing as a committee and to focus first on the clearly good things that our colleague Devinder Shory is trying to achieve. He has mentioned public support. The public support is to discourage terrorism in any of its forms. He's trying to increase the value of citizenship.

That's something you have written about extensively, Mr. Collacott, and that our minister has worked really hard on. He is trying to reward those people who are truly serving our country and putting themselves in harm's way. I think everyone in the room would agree with those motives.

We heard from the lawyers this morning. Professor Macklin, you've been very articulate that under section 15 of the charter and other kinds of equality provisions in our laws, there could be a problem in achieving his objectives.

So my first question is to the non-lawyers on the panel. You've made your case, I think, very well, Professor Macklin. What do you think can be done to this bill..., because the basis of the law—I speak as a lawyer—is in common sense and generally from the innate sense of justice that comes from people.

Let me ask you this, Mr. Collacott. You've given this a lot of thought. You're aware of the peril that the bill suffers in terms of its potential impingement upon equality provisions. We've heard this very often. It's not a secret. How would you deal with that and how do you think this bill can be saved or changed in order to accomplish those noble objectives that MP Shory wants to achieve?

[Martin Collacott]

Well, a number of people have raised the issue of arbitrariness and how it applies to people who have dual citizenship but not to those who don't. I think that's an issue we simply have to accept. Frankly, I would like to get rid of other people who commit serious crimes of terrorism against Canada even if they have only single citizenship. We can't do that. Should that prevent us from removing those we can?

We do remove people who have committed major criminal acts and who have failed to become Canadian citizens. We can't remove Canadians who were born here and who have no other citizenship. We're stuck with them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't act where we can act in serious cases.

I'll just comment on one of the things that Professor Macklin said.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Let me summarize what you've said. You're saying that the legislature is doing the most it can with what it has and therefore it should be safe from the potential attack under equality.

[Martin Collacott]

Yes, essentially.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Okay. Please go on, and forgive me for interrupting.

[Martin Collacott]

Professor Macklin characterized revocation of citizenship as cruel and either inhuman or unusual punishment. We have been doing that for people, particularly war criminals who have failed to declare their involvement in war crimes before they came here. I haven't heard her comment on that. We've been doing it for a limited number of reasons, a limited number of people.

I wouldn't want to downgrade the war criminal thing, but surely threats of terrorism against Canada are serious. In terms of deterrent, it might deter some young people who happen to have dual citizenship from going and taking training in Somalia or Afghanistan if they knew we were going to get tough on them and they weren't going to come back here and resume their studies, or do whatever they have in mind, when they were through blowing up people in other countries.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you. Can I ask Ms. Saperia or Ms. Basnicki to respond to that same question?

[Sheryl Saperia]

With regard to discrimination in the case of people who have dual citizenship versus people who don't, first of all, not all distinctions constitute discrimination. Canada has obligations under the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and we are bound by those rules. I should note that in that convention it says that there is no problem with a country having the right to remove a person's nationality if the person does things that are disloyal to the state and can cause harm to the state. This is fully within the bounds of that convention.

I'll say also that there's a very simple way to prevent your citizenship from getting taken away—don't commit terrorism, don't commit treason, and don't be involved in armed conflict against the Canadian Armed Forces. I don't see this as government arbitrarily seizing citizenship from people. I see this as something else. If you don't want to lose your citizenship, all you have to do is avoid the crimes I just mentioned. There is a very easy solution here.

You could even make a new concept. If you commit these crimes, you will lose your citizenship. You could make it almost a contractual obligation. You could include this in the citizenship oath, for instance, so that there's an understanding that if you commit these crimes, your citizenship is subject to be removed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I want to thank all four of you for coming and giving your comments to the committee today.

I will tell the committee that yesterday one of our witnesses for Thursday, the Maronite Foundation advised that they wouldn't be available. So we'll only have one witness for one hour, the B'nai Brith. We will therefore start the meeting 30 minutes later. At 9:15 the meeting will start.

This meeting is adjourned.