Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 14th, 2016

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

I'll add to that. It's important that whatever the fraud or misrepresentation was, it was actually material, in the sense that had it been known, the person would not have obtained citizenship.

There's the other dimension of it that might be considered, and here there is some comparative data from other states such as France and others. One could consider putting a statute of limitations on it, as with many things where we have statutes of limitations. After a certain period has passed, we think it's inappropriate to continue subjecting somebody to a risk. We do that in the criminal law. We do it in the civil law. One might consider doing that with respect to citizenship revocation as well. It's another factor to consider.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

For those people who committed war crimes in the Second World War or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, some of that information comes out 10 or 20 years after they became citizens. There are things like this. Should their citizenship be revoked or should they be left here?

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

You may decide that there's no statute of limitations for war crimes or crimes against humanity. You may decide that there ought to be a statute of limitations for misrepresentation with relation to some lesser issue that might be grounds for revocation. Of course, this is something that one would have to consider more carefully than I'm able to provide in this response.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Keeping Canadians safe is very important to me and my colleagues. Given your testimony, what changes would you recommend making to Bill C-6 so that the safety and security of Canadians are safeguarded? Anybody can answer that.

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

I'm not sure citizenship is the optimal place to be trying to achieve the goal of protecting the security of Canadians. I think we might consider our criminal laws and our other security regimes. The role of citizenship in that is limited. I'm not saying it's absent, but it's limited, and one shouldn't overstate it or try to use it for a purpose for which it's not intended or for which it's not suited.

[Andrew Brouwer]

I'll agree completely with that. I don't think the Citizenship Act is the right place to be looking for measures that will protect Canadians. We have criminal law. We have security measures.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Another question I have is in regard to what can be done for language skills. The minister was here last Tuesday. Consultation was not done on the language skills. Language skills are vital to success in this country and to integration in the society. Language skills protect the individuals.

I can give you my prime example. When I came here 42 years ago, I had to buy somebody lunch every day because he could translate my stuff to the employer, right?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

It's funny, but it wasn't funny at that time.

What can be done so that people are properly protected? Should more money be put on the table? What can be done so that people learn one of the languages and then have the language skills so they are not socially or culturally isolated and can find a job or go to school? What can be done from the government side to make sure that people are protected properly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Unfortunately, Mr. Saroya, you are over time at this point, and we will have to continue.

Mr. Sarai, you have five minutes.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I was going to ask a few other questions, but maybe I'll ask a question to help my colleagues on the other side and some others who don't understand why we want to change Bill C-24.

You're all lawyers, and I'll ask you to put your minds in a devil's advocate or a reciprocal mode. What if other countries were to adopt Bill C-24, not Bill C-6 but the original bill, similar to Great Britain and Australia, or as France was about to do, and a Canadian born from Canadian parents here was adopted and moved to and became a citizen of Australia—moved there for a job—but later became radicalized by a crazy ideology, became a terrorist there, and blew up something? Do we think that as Canadians we would like it if after he was convicted there, they were to revoke his citizenship and say that he was born in Canada and we should take him back? Do you think Canadians would like that?

I would like to hear from the Bar Association first and perhaps Professor Macklin afterwards.

[Christopher Veeman]

Well, the submissions of the bar are in support of the repeal of the national interest revocation provisions. I think the answer is probably no. Canadians wouldn't want to see that happen and to have people being sent back in that scenario.

I'll pass it on.

[Prof. Audrey Macklin]

I take your question to be rhetorical. It's a version of the reciprocity. I explained that if somebody is a Canada-U.K. citizen, the country that ends up with them is simply the last one to get to the revocation of citizenship. There's obviously an arbitrariness to that.

Your question draws on the ideas of to whom do we belong and what does belonging mean? We often talk about “belonging” in a very rich sense when we talk about what we expect people to experience as Canadian citizens, but when it comes to removing them elsewhere, we rely on the purely formal possession of legal citizenship as a valid basis upon which to deport them, because they really belong “over there”. I think your question exposes that fault line in how we use and understand citizenship.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

My other questions are more technical. The CBA has recommended that income taxes not be a requirement in the last three years. Can you tell me what the logic is behind not requiring you to pay taxes in Canada or for proof of that for citizenship being exempted?

[Christopher Veeman]

The reasoning behind it is that the Income Tax Act contains its own enforcement mechanisms, and imposing or requiring that for citizenship applications is really trying to enforce the Income Tax Act through the Citizenship Act, which we don't think is a good approach.

Also, we raised the issue of the potentiality that someone could, for example, think that they weren't required to file their income tax report and then would submit their citizenship application saying that they didn't think they were required to file. It later turns out that they should have and they were supposed to file. Is that a misrepresentation for the purpose of their citizenship application? Could they have their citizenship revoked for that mistake in their knowledge of the Income Tax Act? That's what the reasoning is there.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Here's my next question. For a citizen whose citizenship may be revoked under Bill C-6 due to fraud or misrepresentation on an application, you're stating that they should revert to permanent resident status rather than being inadmissible foreign nationals. What steps define that?

One example would be a war criminal who didn't state that they were a war criminal. I think that would probably be an appropriate person to be declared inadmissible. Others may just be somebody like an uncle of mine who I know overstated his age to get into the military in World War II and then wanted to come to Canada. He was 15 and wanted to be 17, so his records all showed that; perhaps today the rules might say that he was fraudulent when he came to Canada. For those, it may be pertinent to either remain a citizen or to at least be a permanent resident.

Should there be a two-step mechanism? Or is it a hearing process that you're proposing? What would be the appropriate mechanism to determine if one reverts to a being permanent resident or an inadmissible foreign national?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 20 seconds.

[Christopher Veeman]

There are only some situations where that would happen. It's where somebody misrepresented in their PR application and then became a citizen. Under the act now, they go back to being a foreign national. Our submission is that they should go to permanent resident status so that they can have an appeal. Those issues could be dealt with at the Immigration Appeal Division. Also, there could be some agency consideration at the stage of citizenship revocation itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

I'd like to thank our panel of witnesses for their informative briefs and answers to questions posed by the committee.

We will now suspend for two to three minutes to allow the next panel of witnesses to appear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Our meeting will resume.

The second panel today consists of Mr. James Bissett as an individual; Ms. Debbie Douglas, executive director, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants; and Mr. Ihsaan Gardee, executive director, National Council of Canadian Muslims.

We will start with Mr. Bissett, for seven minutes, please.

[James Bissett, Former Ambassador, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I might add that my interest in the subject is from my experience as head of the Canadian immigration service for five years and having spent most of my public service career dealing with immigration and refugee issues.

I have been before the committee before, and I have to confess that I defended Bill C-24. I defended it on the basis of two provisions that I think are important: the first was the length of time it takes to acquire Canadian citizenship, and the second was whether we should take away the citizenship of dual citizens who commit acts of terror or treason.

I can see no valid reason for extending the length of time for citizenship. I think the most compelling reason seems to be that—and the members of the committee will probably appreciate this—it enables them to vote in elections, but other than that I don't see a strong reason. I think many Canadians feel the same way. It's a short time to grant the precious gift of Canadian citizenship to people who have been only here for three years.

If members of the committee found themselves by chance as immigrants in let's say India or Egypt, in 10 years would they feel that they knew enough of the language, the customs of the country, the rights and responsibilities, and the social and political institutions of those countries to be able to vote in elections? I rather doubt it. That's what we're expecting the immigrants that are coming here to Canada to do, that in three years they should be able to know all of those things and also the obligations and the responsibilities of citizenship.

This coming year we're going to be letting in roughly 300,000 new immigrants. They're coming from roughly 190 different countries, and many thousands of them are coming from countries that have no traditions of democratic government. They don't have that opportunity. They haven't had it, and I think it's naive to think these people will be ready in three short years to accept all of the responsibilities of citizenship.

The reduction of residence encourages what is becoming more and more common, and that is the citizens of convenience: people who spend just enough time in Canada to acquire citizenship and then go back to live in their home country.

The Asia Pacific Foundation has estimated there are roughly 2.8 million Canadian citizens outside of Canada. Many Canadians remember that in 2006, with the trouble in Lebanon, we had 15,000 Canadians from Lebanon brought back to Canada at the expense of the taxpayer of roughly $94 million. Shortly after events in Lebanon settled down, 7,000 or more of those people returned to Lebanon.

On the question of whether we strip citizenship from dual nationals, I remind the committee that not everybody in Canada who's a legal permanent resident and applies for Canadian citizenship can get it. We don't let criminals, who have serious criminal records, obtain citizenship. We don't allow people who've even been charged with crimes against humanity to accept citizenship. Those qualifications to be met ought to be met as well for people who acquire citizenship later on and then commit horrendous acts of terror against their own citizens.

I think the primary argument used against revocation of citizenship has been the usual argument that it creates two classes of citizenship. I don't buy that argument because it's inherent in the very nature of citizenship that there is going to be more than one class. There are the natural born Canadians. There are the citizens who apply and receive it by meeting the naturalization requirements, and then you have a third category of dual citizens. You already have three categories of citizenship.

As a matter of fact, some natural Canadians can have their citizenship revoked under the provisions of Bill C-24, because many thousands of Canadians today have derived another citizenship through their father or their mother. If your father was a German citizen, you have automatic citizenship of Germany. So you have natural citizens as well as those who are naturalized who can be affected under the old Bill C-24 law.

I think there is also a fundamental, inherent difference, whether we like it or not, between natural-born and naturalized citizens. A natural-born citizen acquires citizenship by accident, by birth. They have no choice in the matter. A naturalized Canadian has to apply for citizenship. It's a voluntary choice and an option they have. It also requires a formal undertaking, an oath of allegiance to the new country. Natural-born Canadians don't have that choice, and they can't lose their citizenship. There are no penalties, that is true, but a naturalized Canadian has taken an oath of allegiance to their country, has made a choice to become Canadian, and if they violate that oath and that allegiance, it seems to me logical that there should be penalties attached to it.

Certainly we're not the only country that takes citizenship away from dual citizens who've committed or are suspected of having committed acts of terror. In England, for example, the Home Secretary has the power to strip the citizenship of a dual citizen without giving reasons, or, if they do give a reason, it's a very vague one—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 10 seconds, Mr. Bissett.

[James Bissett]

—saying that it was conducive to the public interest.

Finally, there's a 2014 government report—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Mr. Bissett, unfortunately your time is up.

[James Bissett]

—that CSIS is aware, or their security forces are aware, of 130 Canadians abroad who are associated with ISIS and other terrorist groups: 80 have come back.