Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 28th, 2014

[Nicole Girard]

Under the bill, our decision-making system will change from a three-step to a single-step process during which the minister or the citizenship officers designated by the minister will make decisions on the vast majority of citizenship applications. The only exception will be cases where an officer cannot approve a citizenship application because they are unsure whether the applicant meets the residency criteria.

Those cases will always be referred to citizenship judges, who will make a decision for a five-year transition period. If necessary, that period could be renewed by the minister once the five years are up. So judges will be in charge of those specific cases. Decisions relating to all other cases will be made by the minister or the citizenship officers designated by the minister. Of course, citizenship judges will still have the very important task of presiding over all citizenship ceremonies, which are the final step in becoming a Canadian citizen.

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

Currently, since citizenship judges are making rulings on citizenship, the minister or his delegates can appeal the judges' decisions. Right?

[Nicole Girard]

Yes.

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

Who could appeal a decision rendered by the minister or his delegate? Is the possibility to appeal or the appeal process being eliminated, in a sense? How is this going to work?

[Nicole Girard]

The option to review a negative decision is not being eliminated. You should keep in mind that Canadian citizenship is granted to the vast majority of applicants. However, should the minister or a delegate make a negative decision, the applicant could ask the federal court to review it.

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

Who could appeal?

[Nicole Girard]

The applicant.

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

So the applicant could appeal, but that right is currently limited to the minister or his delegate. If the decision is rendered by one of those two, the applicant could appeal. Correct?

[Nicole Girard]

Exactly.

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

No one else would be able to do that. For instance, if citizenship is granted, no one else could appeal the decision. I assume that the minister would not appeal his own decision.

[Nicole Girard]

Exactly.

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

Thank you.

As for the power to revoke citizenship, was the recommendation to empower the minister to grant or revoke citizenship made by the department itself? Could you tell us that?

[Nicole Girard]

The minister and the government make their decisions based on the advice provided by the department and based on other considerations the government may want to take into account in those cases, but I could not comment any further on this issue.

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

My understanding from the discussion earlier is that the minister could grant citizenship without having to provide his reasons for doing so.

[Nicole Girard]

Actually, under the bill, the minister could grant citizenship only in exceptional circumstances and according to the prescribed criteria. As the minister mentioned, two criteria must be satisfied in order to grant citizenship in exceptional circumstances: the individual must have provided services of an exceptional value to Canada or suffered exceptional hardship.

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

Who determines whether the service provided to the country qualifies as exceptional? Is it left to the minister's discretion?

[Nicole Girard]

Yes, but it is up to the individual to establish the specific circumstances that apply in their case.

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

Nevertheless, there is a subjective dimension involved. The minister could attribute the decision to one of the criteria, without necessarily stating publicly what service warranted that the person be granted citizenship.

[Nicole Girard]

Indeed, the decision is discretionary.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to discuss the language requirement for young people between 14 and 18 years of age.

What happens when the teenager fails the test, but their parents and other family members pass it? Could that cause problems when the family travels, for example? Is the 14 year old automatically granted citizenship even though they failed the language test?

Could you kindly provide some insight as to the procedures or safeguards provided for in the bill to ensure that children aren't separated from their families or prevented from obtaining the same travel documents as their families, say?

[Nicole Girard]

That's an important question that we are giving serious consideration as we prepare for the possible passage of the bill.

Regardless, as the minister mentioned earlier, certain patterns have emerged through the project undertaken by the Historica-Dominion Institute. The institute administered the test to 57,000 students from grade 7 to grade 12, and the majority passed the test. That tells us that high-school students should have a good degree of knowledge in that regard.

However, as part of our preparations, we are going to pay special attention to the knowledge test administered to young people as compared with the one given to adults.

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

So it will be tailored to young people? It won't be the same test?

[Nicole Girard]

Possibly. That's one of the options we're considering as we work out the implementation.

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

Very well.

You said the majority of students should pass the test. While I appreciate that the test should not be a problem for the majority of students, the issue lies with the minority who won't be successful.

So I will repeat my question. In the event that a 14 year old fails the test when the rest of their family has passed, could it cause problems when the family travels abroad or in other situations?

[Nicole Girard]

I would add this to my answer. As mentioned earlier, the current system gives people who failed the test the first time a second chance to write it, and at least half of them pass the second time around.

I think the scenario you are describing would be extremely rare.