The proposed grounds for citizenship revocation can be grounded in the political context. In many countries, allegations of terrorism are used to punish political opponents. They are facilitated by low thresholds for convictions and unfair trials, and harsher sentences can be applied. All you have to do is equate these to Canadian law—under which, as I said, Mr. Fahmy's charges would be equatable to a Canadian charge under our legislation—and you're caught by the legislation. Once again, the minister may have a hearing or may not.
I said I would discuss the appeal rights. Under the legislation as proposed, you would have to get leave to appeal to the Federal Court, which means permission to go to court. I would like to explain the difference between what an appeal is and what leave for judicial review is.
A leave to appeal, which is a very difficult test—and only 15% to 20% of the cases in Federal Court are granted leave—is a very legalistic test based on errors of law and judicial oversight. The Federal Court judge cannot substitute their decision; they cannot receive new evidence; and they can't make any findings on humanitarian grounds, so it's a very legalistic paper process. It has nothing to do with the full appeal based on new evidence or other circumstances surrounding the case. There is no in-person hearing. The lawyer or the person concerned can only make in-writing submissions on leave to appeal.
I think it's very important that this committee understand there is no review, because I've heard government workers say, “Well, it can be reviewed at the Federal Court.” It's leave to appeal, which is very limited in scope and doesn't allow for any substantive review of new evidence and doesn't allow a substituted evaluation, whereas an appeal would allow those. As I said, a parking ticket would give you more rights in court than these provisions do.
Today, for example, in the newspaper, the Toronto Star, Ottawa has declared a charity organization to be a terrorist organization. It's called IRFAN, the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy. This is an example. Many Canadians have donated to that charity. If you donated to that charity, to take a broad perspective of what terrorism is in Canada, you could be caught under the provisions of section 83 of the Criminal Code for having funded an organization.
The humanitarian wing of this organization provided money to help children and the needy. Again, this is an up-to-date example of the type of activity this minister might categorize as being under these provisions, but we don't know if somebody else in the future may consider this type of activity. Funding and donating money would be covered under the provisions of terrorism under the act. This is an example out of the paper today.
As well, the five-year sentence is specifically for terrorist attacks—all other sentences under the legislation talk about life sentences— inside Canada or overseas. As we can see from the cases of many Canadians who are overseas dealing with these types of situations, usually the penalties would be much greater than five years. So five years is almost a slap on the wrist for this type of activity, and that should be seriously reconsidered.
Thank you.