Some of you have been here before for Bill C-24. Welcome back. All of your presentations are legal, but I can understand why: you're all lawyers.
I want to ask a question on the issue of revocation, which deals with terrorism. It's happening more and more, particularly in Europe, but it has happened here.
Canadians want to feel safe. I just want to outline—you probably already know this, but I'll outline it anyway—three other jurisdictions that have similar legislation to Bill C-24, and if we have time, perhaps you could comment on them.
In the United Kingdom, under the provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981, a natural-born British citizen could have their citizenship revoked if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good to do so and the person would not be rendered stateless. Naturalized citizens of the United Kingdom could have their citizenship revoked if the Home Secretary is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good to revoke citizenship because the person engaged in conduct seriously prejudicial to the U.K.'s vital interests and the Home Secretary had reasonable grounds to believe that the person could acquire another nationality.
The latter provision, which would leave a person stateless, came into effect two years ago. The term “conducive to the public good” includes involvement in terrorism, espionage, serious organized crime, war crimes, or unacceptable behaviours.
In France, where it's still being dealt with—their legislation has passed through the lower house and is now in the Senate—the French law allows naturalized citizens to have their citizenship revoked if doing so will not render them stateless.
All states seem to be concerned with the issues that you've raised on statelessness.
Article 25 of the Code Civile provides that citizenship may be revoked for persons convicted of certain crimes related to national security; however, citizenship can only be revoked if it was acquired less than ten years before the conviction, or 15, depending on the crime. In other words, I suppose there's the issue of fraud, which I don't recall any of you having commented on.
The current debate in France is over a new legislative proposal to allow for revocation of the citizenship of natural-born French citizens with another citizenship when they are convicted of a crime of a serious attack on the life of the nation. The law passed the French lower house of their parliament in February and is now before the Senate. It's quite controversial. It hasn't passed, that I know of.
Following the passage in both houses, the law would require a constitutional amendment, and this in return requires a two-fifths majority vote in their two legislative houses together. That may not happen.
In Australia, there were changes in December of last year. Dual-national Australians may lose their citizenship for national security reasons. The specific grounds for losing citizenship are engaging in specified terrorist-related conduct, fighting for a declared terrorist organization, and being convicted of a specified terrorism offence.
These laws seem to be similar to what was put forward in Bill C-24, although the French law may not happen. I'll ask particularly the representatives from the Canadian Bar Association—maybe we'll start off with Mr. Veeman—whether you have any reaction to this. I expect you're going to say, ah, but we have the Charter of Rights, although to my knowledge there's no jurisprudence on that subject as of yet.