Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 19th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Good morning.

Pursuant to the order of reference received by the committee on March 21, 2016, the committee will now proceed to the consideration of Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act.

We have three witnesses before us. I'd like to remind the witnesses that you have seven minutes for opening remarks. We will follow the order appearing on the notice.

Hence, Mr. Farber, you have the first seven minutes.

[Bernie M. Farber, Executive Director, Mosaic Institute]

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak about Canadian citizenship and Bill C-6. I'm honoured to be here in my capacity as the executive director of the Mosaic Institute.

The Mosaic Institute is a think and do tank that was founded in 2007. Our mandate is to create platforms for learning and dialogue amongst diverse Canadian communities to advance justice and peace. Our initiatives are a combination of dialogue, research, education, and action, and all of our activities are community-grounded with an empirical approach.

Our work strengthens Canadian civil society through emphasizing respect for each other, respect for human rights, good global citizenship, and community development.

Today, my friends, I hope to de-sensationalize some of the ideas about those seeking Canadian citizenship and what it means to be a Canadian.

Before I do so, I'd like to share a bit of my family history, which has served as a backdrop for my work in the field for the last 30 years. I have a visceral understanding of the refugee and immigration experience simply because I was brought up in its shadow. I understand in the heart of my hearts the value and power of Canadian citizenship. Both my parents left their ancestral homes not because they wanted to, but as a result of anti-Semitism and persecution.

My late mother, Gertrude, was brought to Canada as a child, driven from her village of Zaslav in Ukraine by violent pogroms. Canada then was a welcoming home. Arriving at Pier 21 in Halifax must have been a daunting experience for a six-year old child fleeing violence, who spoke no English and knew nothing about Canada.

She took well to her new home. Ottawa in the late 1920s was a hodgepodge of diversity. Made up of recent refugees and immigrants, their familial Jewish home in Sandy Hill, not far from this very place, was not uncommon. The spoken language was Yiddish. My mother never really lost her accent, since she spoke Yiddish at home and only learned English when she went to public school. My mother and the rest of her family thrived in Ottawa, working at the small vegetable stall opened by my grandfather in the Byward Market.

My father, Max, and his family were not so fortunate. Just prior to World War II, a young man from a small Polish village saw what many others refused to see, the real possibility of a war in which Jews would be targeted by the Nazi regime. Wanting to live, he took matters into his own hands and through stealth and luck he managed to stow away on a boat headed to the United States.

Velvel Farber, my father's oldest brother, made it across the Atlantic. However, like many others before him, he was apprehended upon arrival and was returned to Poland. Velvel was murdered in the death camp of Treblinka. Indeed, my late father suffered the brutalities of the Holocaust. At its tragic conclusion he had to face the tragic fact that he was the sole Jewish survivor of a small Polish village. Murdered in Treblinka were his first wife, two young children, and seven brothers and sisters.

Once again, this time following a heartless closed-door immigration policy, made infamous by Harold Troper and Irving Abella in their book None is Too Many, Canada finally reopened its borders to the stateless people of Europe, amongst them thousands of Jewish survivors like my father.

Both of my parents' immigration experience and the work I am involved with today at the Mosaic Institute have informed my life. I have learned much that may be helpful to this committee.

First, people love being Canadian. Whether they arrived yesterday or have been here for generations, there is something about this country that simply inspires. Our work has proven that our diversity is one of the reasons people quickly ascribe to and adopt Canadian ways of life.

In 2014 the Mosaic Institute received a grant from Public Safety Canada's Kanishka fund to conduct a study titled “The Perception and Reality of 'Imported Conflict' in Canada”. This research was conducted as part of Public Safety Canada's efforts to shed light on terrorism and how best to address it in Canada.

We asked this question. To what extent, if any, do Canadians with connections to countries in conflict import that conflict to Canada? After surveying 5,000 Canadians across the country and speaking to more than 220 Canadians connected to countries in conflict, we determined that, for the most part, Canadians do not import their conflict here.

In fact, one-fifth of the people we surveyed told us that they were no longer as one-sided about their conflict, that being in Canada had helped them to be empathetic and recognize larger factors driving these conflicts.

One of the reasons given for this attitudinal shift is that people were able to connect with others who have experienced conflict. Essentially they realized that they were not alone. The shared element of being Canadian gives people a common ground and the foundation upon which to build their lives.

We have also found that when citizenship is achieved, it is treasured and harnessed. I say harnessed because it becomes a vehicle by which people's lives are improved, work is rewarded, people are safe, and access to education and other social services is available.

Comparatively, Canadians are fortunate and new Canadians are the first to recognize this; 94% of people we surveyed feel attached to Canada, with 78% considering themselves first and foremost Canadian. This is almost eight in 10 of those surveyed. More new Canadians supported this statement than second- and third-generation Canadians. This is resounding evidence that the majority of those seeking Canadian citizenship do become personally connected to this country and in doing so, decide to contribute richly to Canada.

Some will dismiss my statements because of recent tragic events in this country. To them, the fact that a person perpetrated such acts in a manner connected to other acts around the world must mean that the person came to Canada with the intention of harming this country. To those with this view I would respectfully disagree. However, our research indicates that while people do not import their conflicts, they do import their trauma. When this trauma is left unchecked, it can lead to social isolation and a dissociation from Canada, particularly when it is exacerbated by other barriers, such as discrimination and economic exclusion.

But when Canadians are able to fully participate in society not only do their lives improve, but they also help improve Canadian society as a whole.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

You have 15 seconds.

[Bernie M. Farber]

Historically, immigrants and refugees who adopted Canada as their country of choice contributed to the development of Canada and its social, economic, and civil fabric. Today we stand on their shoulders.

To conclude, my work with the Mosaic Institute has proven my belief that Canadian citizenship is valued, earned, and that our diversity is indeed a source of our great strength. For these reasons we support Bill C-6 and the amendments put forward.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Sheryl Saperia, director of policy for Canada, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. You have seven minutes, please.

[Sheryl Saperia, Director of Policy for Canada, Foundation for Defense of Democracies]

Good morning, distinguished members of the committee.

On behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank focused on national security and foreign policy, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today.

My comments will focus exclusively on the provisions in the Citizenship Act that revoke citizenship for treason, terrorism, and armed conflict against Canada, which Bill C-6 seeks to repeal.

As I explained in my testimony on Bill C-24, I believe it is reasonable to predicate Canadian citizenship on a most basic commitment to the state that citizens abstain from committing those offences considered most contrary to the national security interests of Canada. Treason and armed conflict against Canada are actions clearly intended to damage the country as a national entity and political community. It seems fitting that one consequence of these crimes might be the loss of citizenship to the country the offender seeks to harm.

However, there are areas where the current law could be improved. Rather than repeal outright the provisions allowing citizenship to be stripped on national security grounds, I would propose several amendments. For instance, I recommended in my previous testimony, and in various newspaper publications, that the law should be amended to stipulate a tighter connection between the terrorist crime and the consequence of losing one's citizenship. Specifically I suggest the stripping of citizenship for terrorism be triggered only by terrorist offences in Canada, against a Canadian target, or when committed in association with a listed entity. Listed entities have been publicly designated by the Canadian government as terrorist organizations and are in effect public enemies of the state. Committing a terrorist act that meets one of those three criteria is, to my mind, a clear attempt to damage Canada, for which loss of citizenship is appropriate. If the terrorist act has nothing to do with Canada, the revocation of citizenship should not be the consequence.

I would also suggest an amendment with regard to foreign terrorist convictions. I can understand Canada giving credence to a terrorism conviction from a like-minded country with legal standards similar to our own, but while the original legislation was clear that the substance of the foreign offence would be examined to ensure its equivalence to a Canadian Criminal Code terrorist act, the law failed to require an assessment of the fairness of the process by which that conviction was achieved.

I would like to take a moment to address Minister McCallum's most vociferous objection to the current law, namely that it creates two classes of citizens: those with dual or multiple nationalities who are at risk of having their Canadian citizenship stripped, and those with only Canadian citizenship who may be punished in a variety of ways but cannot lose their citizenship.

First, that distinction is not arbitrary. It only exists because there is a law that prohibits rendering a person stateless. Second, for dual nationals who have chosen that status, often because of personal connection to, or benefit from, more than one citizenship, this is not a compelling argument. Dual citizenship was not forced upon them, and they are not being subject to discrimination as a result of any inherent trait. It is a choice they have made, just as they can choose to renounce their other citizenship, so as to be solely Canadian and therefore not subject to these provisions.

In cases where a Canadian citizen is also citizen of a country that does not enable renunciation of that citizenship, that's a different story. In that case, the minister or department could use their discretion to assess the extent of what I call the active relationship to that second citizenship. Does the individual maintain deep ties to the other country? Has the individual invoked any of the rights of that citizenship? Has the individual travelled with the passport of that country, or served in an official capacity only open to citizens? The less active that second citizenship, the weaker the argument the Canadian citizenship should be revoked.

In short, it is simply not always true that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. It is not an absolute category. Naturalized Canadians are Canadians only so long as they are not found to have lied on their citizenship application. Those who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide can have their citizenship removed as well. Consider also that naturalized citizens must pledge an oath of allegiance to the Queen as the personification of Canada. By committing treason, armed conflict, or terrorism against Canada, are they not renouncing that oath through their actions?

Canadians with more than one nationality have a very easy way to retain their Canadian citizenship under this law, do not commit criminal acts of treason, armed conflict, or terrorism that are directed at Canada as a country.

Lastly, if the government believes that our national security interests are better served by keeping dangerous terrorists in Canada where we can watch them properly, rather than potentially letting them loose in another country, I urge them to follow that commitment through. The safety of the Canadian public demands that if those involved in terrorism are to remain in this country, they need to be closely monitored while they are imprisoned and afterwards. Canada must develop a strategy for preventing convicted terrorists from radicalizing and recruiting members of the general prison population. The threat of Islamist prison radicalization is an important feature of modern counterterrorism, with prison being a unique incubator for violent radicalization. As more terrorists are incarcerated in this country, the related threat of prison radicalization will also rise. This issue is all the more potent now that there are Canadians who have travelled abroad to wage jihad, and whose narrative might be more compelling than that of a foreign recruiter.

If indeed we are going to keep in Canada those who have demonstrated their allegiance to the destruction of Canada, we cannot hide from developing the necessary strategies to protect the public from the consequences.

Thank you again for inviting me to appear before you today. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Saperia.

Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard, associate professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, you have seven minutes.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Hi, and thank you for inviting me to speak to you again. As the chair just said, I'm an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. My areas of expertise are in political theory and practice in immigration policy, and also multiculturalism.

I have focused the last two years of my research on the so-called power to revoke citizenship across democratic states in Europe and in Australia, and of course, in Canada. Bill C-6 proposes to undo the most controversial change, in my view, to the Citizenship Act adopted during the Conservative government's time in power. That is, the power to revoke the citizenship of those who commit a long list of crimes, including treason, spying, and terrorism.

When the Conservatives opened debate on Bill C-24 at this committee, I was invited to speak, and I spoke against it. I said that the power to revoke citizenship has absolutely no place in democratic states. I believe I used an expression that my colleague used, “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. I believe that. I said that citizens in a democratic state have the absolute right not to be expelled against their will.

It is only slightly an exaggeration that I have held my breath since the election of the Liberal Party, waiting for them to fulfill their promise to revoke the revocation bill. I am gratified by the content of Bill C-6.

I want to respond here briefly to three defences of the power to revoke offered by Conservative MPs in the House when this Bill C-6 was open for discussion. Then I'd like to offer a piece of advice to the Liberal Party about how to announce this bill when it finally passes into law.

The three Conservative objections that I'd like to consider are these: that revocation protects democracies and makes citizens safer; that in adopting a revocation law, we were finally catching up to states that permit revocation, mainly European ones; and that this has large-scale public support.

First, does revocation protect democracy and make a citizen safer? There is no evidence that is true—not one iota of evidence. The Canadian criminal justice system is an excellent one. I think we all agree with that, and it possesses the resources necessary to punish individuals who are convicted of all kinds of heinous crimes.

More generally, and this is important, there is no evidence that states that presently possess the power to revoke citizenship are safer than those who do not. Indeed, recent events in Europe, for example, in Belgium, where the state possesses the right to revoke citizenship, including the right to render its citizens stateless, suggests the opposite. The fact that revocation would have targeted dual citizens only fundamentally undermines the equality to which the Canadian democratic state is committed, in ways in which I'm happy to elaborate in our discussion, and which in my view fundamentally undermines the security of Canadians.

Second, is it true that we were catching up to other states by adopting a revocation law? I have two things to say about this. First, it is profoundly relevant that where European states do permit revocation, these laws have been on the books for decades. In most cases, they were adopted before or after the two world wars.

Second, they are almost, with the exception of the U.K., entirely in disuse. The trend is toward abandoning these laws, not in adopting them, in spite of recent public discourse that makes the contrary appear true. We all know now that France has just recognized this and has backed down from adopting a revocation bill, having acknowledged that it is fundamentally democratic. Of course, it did so in the face of a devastating terrorist attack on its soil.

Truly, the advantage of the Liberal bill before us now is that it can be at the forefront of an international commitment, a recommitment to the right of individuals to their own nationality. It is a commitment adopted in international law to respond to the massive human rights violations, to put it mildly, that followed denationalizations during World War II, which my colleague spoke about earlier.

Three, what should we make of the claim that there's public support for revoking citizenship? It's not surprising that a bill like this would have widespread support. Punishing perceived criminals is very popular, but it is a feature of democratic states that the rights of minorities, especially unpopular ones, are not subjected to majority vote. The strength of the Canadian Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, are that they protect the rights of all Canadians regardless of how others feel about them.

I teach this in my introductory course on democratic theory. The people who are at issue here are individuals who have committed heinous crimes. They are the most hated of Canadians, but they're still entitled to have their rights protected. The strength of the criminal justice system in a democratic state is determined by whether it protects the rights of the criminal.

Regarding my advice, here is the context. For the past three years, like my colleague, and with the financial support of the Kanishka project at the Department of Public Safety, I have been studying the effects of counterterrorism policies on the Muslim community in Canada. In particular, I have been evaluating their responses to a whole range of policies that have been adopted in the counterterrorism era.

We have interviewed over 100 prominent Muslims from five major Canadian cities about a range of specific policies, including the recent use of security certificates, the expanded range of CSIS investigative powers, the passenger protect list, and of course Bill C-24, which permitted the revocation of citizenship.

We also asked questions about the experience of being a Muslim in Canada right now in this era of counterterrorism. So many of our respondents spoke of being devastated—and that is the language that they used, devastated—by the ways in which the pursuit of these policies has served to undermine the trust of Muslim citizens in the Canadian state.

Further, in their view, these policies, and just as much the discourse surrounding the adoption of these policies, has seemed to them to perpetuate an idea of Muslims as dangerous and disloyal citizens, and that they can and should be treated with suspicion and distress by others. They believe this discourse has created a climate in which discrimination against them has been made legitimate and in which it goes unpunished. They believe their charter rights are not protected.

Fundamentally Muslim Canadians believe the intent of Bill C-24's revocation clause was to permit and encourage discrimination against them. They believed that it would be used only against Muslims, and they could point to public discussions of people considered as possibly eligible for revocation, all of whom were Muslim, and they pointed to that as evidence of their claim.

The revocation of the so-called revocation bill presents the Liberal government with an opportunity to continue its mission to protect and rebuild an inclusive Canadian identity that can again underpin trust among citizens of all religions, races, and colours.

The language that it has chosen to announce this bill is just as important as the fact of it, if not more. When the Liberal government explains why it has gone forward in this case, it must stand up to declare that Muslim Canadians are full and loyal citizens. The language must be the lofty language of inclusion deployed throughout the entire Liberal election campaign.

I look forward to when the power to revoke has been put to rest.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Lenard.

Now the Liberal side has seven minutes for questions.

Mr. Ehsassi.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions.

First of all, I'd like to ask Mr. Farber a few questions. Allow me to start off by saying welcome back to Ottawa. We are very happy to have you here, given your rich experience that has obviously informed your work at the Mosaic Institute.

I was going over the testimony that you provided back in 2014, I believe it was, and you were very articulate. At one point, when you were considering Bill C-24, you did say that Bill C-24 will, “make citizenship not a rewarding end to their long and difficult journey, but an unreachable destination filled with roadblocks and diversions.”

I was wondering if you could kindly explain to us if you've had the opportunity to review Bill C-6, and if there was anything in particular that stood out for you and is of interest to you.

[Bernie M. Farber]

Thank you for the question. The statement I made back in regards to Bill C-24 has not changed.

I would like to reiterate what my colleague Professor Tamara Lenard has stipulated.

When people like immigrants, refugees, stateless people come to this country, they're not looking for ways not to become citizens. They're not looking for ways in which they can throw roadblocks and involve themselves in criminal terrorist activities. It's not to say that the odd one might, but truly we should not be using a cannonball to stun a flea.

The fact of the matter is that if somebody commits a criminal act, and let's make no mistake about it, a terrorist act is a criminal act, then they fall under criminal law, and they should be handled by criminal law. If citizenship becomes the goal that everybody must reach, and there's impediments put in the way, especially if those impediments are pointing at or targeting one specific group of people—and again the professor is quite correct, the group of people that it was targeting in Bill C-24 were the Canadian Muslim population, I've seen no evidence to suggest otherwise—we have to retrench, and we have to look back.

I have to say that I was both amazed and quite gratified that a decision was made by the minister to revoke that concept and put back into law the importance in the power of citizenship.

When my late father came here he was stateless. What does that mean to be stateless? He didn't revoke his Polish citizenship. He was just not interested in continuing to be a Polish citizen, so he became a Canadian citizen in incredible ways. He had a little flagpole in the front of his grocery store, and every Dominion Day, as he called it, he would raise the flag. He became a strong citizen, and everything that I've seen, from Muslims to Somalis to Southeast Asians, all these new immigrants who have come here, all I've seen is them embracing Canada. That, to me, is what we should be looking at: the glass half full, not the glass half empty.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

Now, in your opening remarks today you noted that the Mosaic Institute has been at the forefront of spearheading research. One thing you touched on was the study or survey referred to as “The Perception and Reality of 'Imported Conflict' in Canada”. You had the opportunity to touch on some of the findings, but could you kindly elaborate on what the findings of that study were and how it should inform the work of this particular committee?

[Bernie M. Farber]

As you see, we're looking at a 200-page book with about 60 recommendations, but in a nutshell, the key finding was this. I think it's an important distinction to make. In no way do immigrant and refugee communities come here with their imported conflict. As a matter of fact, one of the key areas that we concentrate on at Mosaic is to provide platforms for communities that are in conflict with each other here in Canada, mostly diaspora communities.

We present platforms and encourage platforms whereby they can engage in civil dialogue. We brought together Jews and Muslims, we brought together Armenians and Turks, and Greeks and Cypriots, and Chinese and Tibetans to speak, to engage each other—mostly young people.

Here's one thing that I can tell you. When they are together, yes, they speak about their trauma. They speak about what it was like to come to this country after being involved in such traumatic situations in their own country. But their conflict and anger and angst is not what they concentrate on. They concentrate on trying to deal with those feelings of trauma, and they do it within a Canadian context. They speak civilly to each other. They speak peacefully to each other, even though they are at loggerheads.

What is the lesson that we learn from this? We learn that if you can actually bring people to the table who are in conflict, who have had these historical conflicts—and the chair, I think, can testify to this as well, because he and I worked very closely in bringing Jews and Ukrainians together and have been very successful in doing so. It sometimes takes a generation or two. Are we going to lose some along the way? We are. Sadly, we are. Does that mean we just throw out the baby with the bathwater? Of course it doesn't.

I think that we have to look forward. I think we should be proud of who we are as Canadians, and if from time to time we have to lay down the law—literally lay down the law—then that's what we do.

Our next research, by the way, is on this very issue of perceptions and realities in relation to radicalization in Canadian mosques. I'm not doing the research, but my view is that we may find that there is more myth than reality when it comes to the question of whether or not there is actual radicalization going on in the mosques.

But again, we are in the nascent stages of putting this together, and I hope that in the not too distant future we can present our findings on it as well.

Thank you.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I have one minute? That's fine; I'll conclude my questioning, then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Mr. Tilson, you have seven minutes, please.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

All three of you have addressed the issue of the revocation of citizenship, and there are obviously different views among the three of you. The comment, of course, that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian seems to be the justification for Bill C-6 in repealing the relevant section of Bill C-24.

Ms. Saperia and a witness on Tuesday morning raised the issue of the oath, which says:

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

That's important for dealing with the statement that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, because if you're born in Canada, you don't take that oath. If you're a new Canadian, you have a choice. The law, notwithstanding Bill C-6, still allows revocation for fraud and for misrepresentation.

I would like all of you to comment on that. Perhaps we'll start with Ms. Saperia, although most of what I've said has been in her statement.

Maybe I'll go further, however. Is it really proper to repeal the clause in Bill C-24, or should it be amended?

We'll start off with you, Ms. Saperia.

[Sheryl Saperia]

Thank you.

I do not believe that the provisions should be repealed, and I do believe they should be amended to ensure the tightest possible configuration of the law, because revocation of citizenship is indeed a very serious consequence. My remarks focused on how to strengthen the law. For instance, on the terrorism side of it, I felt that it might be too broad and there might be cases where committing a terrorist act that had absolutely no Canadian connection is therefore not a crime against Canada as a country. Therefore, the revocation of citizenship may not be the appropriate response.

But in cases where the crime is not just a crime under the Canadian Criminal Code but a crime against Canada as a national entity, I felt that by virtue of a person's actions that might forfeit the right to Canadian citizenship. This has nothing to do with discrimination. This has nothing to do with putting up roadblocks, certainly not for any particular community. This is about people's actions. What they choose to do has certain consequences, which may include the revocation of citizenship.

Citizenship is simply not an absolute category. It is and always has been a legal construct, so, as you point out, there already are cases in which citizenship can be revoked. It is not the case that the law introduced, for the first time ever, a mechanism for revoking citizenship. There are already categories that exist. This simply created another one, which again I feel was fitting given the crime.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Professor Lenard, I suspect you'll disagree with that. Perhaps we could hear what you have to say.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

I have three things to say. One is that dual citizens of Canada don't all come to their dual citizenship by taking an oath. Some of us were born that way. I understand from your comments that you're comfortable discriminating against naturalized Canadians only.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

No, I didn't use the word discrimination.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

That's what that is. Agreeing that the nature—

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I challenge you on that. I take offence that you're calling that discrimination.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Discrimination in the sense.... You're imbuing a negative attitude toward that, but you're discriminating in the sense of making discriminations that put Canadians in two different kinds of categories: the set of Canadians who have a full set of rights to be protected by the Canadian state and those who don't. I myself take offence with that.

Second, if we're focusing only on naturalized citizens, it's useful to point to the United States in this case. The United States has a long history of Supreme Court jurisprudence that says that naturalized Americans and naturally born Americans must be treated 100% equally once they have citizenship. In that sense, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, or an American is an American is an American. That's one thing.

Also, I think it's worthwhile to consider the danger of the slippery-slope argumentation that is going on here, which is of course that there are some people who are comfortable with revocation for citizenship in cases of fraud. I think even in those kinds of cases, it needs to be very carefully circumscribed, but I wasn't asked to talk about that.

The precise danger here is that, if you allow for revocation in cases of fraud, you say, well, we've already got it on the books, so we'll let it into some other cases. We'll allow for revocation in cases of certain kinds of crimes. You can see exactly how that goes. That's called a slippery-slope argument, which means that we have every reason to expect that we would go down the U.K. route and say, well, okay, is statelessness really that bad? We'll just keep them in Canada and they can be protected in Canada even though they don't have Canadian citizenship.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Farber.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

That means your slippery slope is incredibly dangerous.