Turning to my first point, arbitrary punishment, it's a fundamental principle of our criminal law that punishment be proportional and that it be deserved. Depriving dual citizens of Canadian citizenship because of suspected terrorist activities or even because of proven conviction for terrorist actions cannot meet this standard.
Such punishment will necessarily be arbitrary because, first of all, many individuals do not make an informed or independent choice about whether to become dual nationals. These choices are determined by their parents, by their states of nationality, by accidents of their birth, or by all three of these factors acting in concert. It's often very difficult to renounce citizenship. Some individuals who make good-faith efforts to be solely citizens of Canada may not have these efforts recognized.
Many dual Canadian and American citizens are currently discovering just how difficult it can be to renounce American citizenship. For example, as the United States moves to extend the extraterritorial reach of its tax laws, we've heard quite a lot about this. Finally, whether an individual will or will not be a dual citizen will principally be determined by the laws of another state. We ought not to let an unpredictable variety of other nations determine how Canadians are to be punished.
My second point is that denationalizing terrorists will allow some to escape the full force of the law. Terrorism is a global phenomenon. In the global fight against terrorism Canada has one of the strongest and best-resourced justice systems. We have strongly committed ourselves to the difficult and intricate work of prosecuting those who threaten our security in this way. Citizenship provides one potential basis for criminal prosecution. In some cases, severing the links of citizenship will limit Canada's capacity to prosecute individuals.
One of Canada's concerns in the global fight against terrorism is that some countries are not as vigorous in condemning terrorism as we are. Some places are seen as potential places of refuge for those who would perpetrate such acts against us. We must not act in a way that reduces our capacity to act against potential terrorists. Maintaining the bond of citizenship helps Canada maintain its legal jurisdiction over all individuals.
My third point is closely related to this one. It is that denationalizing terrorists will increase global and Canadian insecurity. I imagine that the point of stripping a terrorist of citizenship is to ensure that he or she can be deported, or if they are outside the country, to ensure that they can not return. There is of course a certain intuitive appeal to this, but it does not withstand scrutiny.
Global terrorism today does not respect international borders. We need no reminders of this. Banishing those we suspect of terrorism does not make us safer. It merely removes them from our surveillance, from our monitoring, and from our control. It will not, alas, ensure that we are safe from them. Indeed, it may make us less safe if they are sent away to quiet, dark corners of the world where it is easier to plot against us unnoticed. Our commitment to the international community must mean that we cannot simply deport the people we fear. This is an invidious form of global Nimbyism. There is no advantage to us as Canadians in pooling dangerous people in unruly places.
Finally, I wish to briefly address the route that the United Kingdom has taken in stripping terrorists of British citizenship. Britain amended its nationality law in 2002 and then again in 2006. It's now possible in Britain to withdraw citizenship from individuals on the basis that it's not conducive to the public good for their citizenship to continue. Under this new provision, between mid-2006, when it came into force, and mid-2011—which is the time when I have the most recent statistics I could find—the U.K. has initiated denationalization provisions against 13 people, primarily because of suspected links to terrorist activities. One woman is not in that category; she was found to be a Russian spy.
A number of these cases have not been successful denationalizations and they are still working their way through the courts in various appeal processes. The primary reason the appeals are so protracted is that the British courts are having enormous difficulties with the intricacies of the citizenship laws of other countries.
None of these individuals has faced a judicial process in relation to their alleged terrorism activities, although this may end because one individual, Abu Hamza, has now been extradited to the United States. It's notable that the U.K. was unable to strip Hamza of his citizenship because it was found that his Egyptian citizenship was no longer valid, since he had taken out U.K. citizenship. He has recently been extradited to the U.S. completely apart from citizenship and having solely to do with a will to prosecute terrorists.
The United Kingdom is an outlier in this case. Few countries have taken these kinds of actions. The 20th century history of denationalization, if we look at it by the numbers, is dominated by the National Socialists, the Nazi regime, in Germany and by the U.S.S.R.
I thank you for your attention this morning, and I welcome your questions.