Citizenship and Immigration committee  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.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There's widespread suspicion, but no formal evidence that they were coordinated. We only know that the U.K. government was entirely unwilling to have a conversation about what happened as a result of having denationalized those individuals.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It was Somalia.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I could speak about this at great length and I'm happy to send the extra data to you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I agree.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll be happy to do that. The United States and Australia both considered this within the last four years and turned it down. The United States Supreme Court declared that once an individual in the United States has citizenship it cannot be revoked. It's for life in perpetuity and the United States has stayed committed to that.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm happy just to say that I think there are two problems. One is that I don't think we should trust other judicial systems. In general, the judicial systems that are making accusations of these crimes are untrustworthy from a Canadian perspective. Second, I think if it's a Canadian, looking at eradication of Canadian citizenship, then he or she is entitled to Canadian due process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for inviting me back to speak to the committee. I have many things to say, as do many people here, but I'll respond directly to Mr. Bissett's comments, for the purposes of discussion. The act, as it is currently written, proposes to permit the right to revoke citizenship in cases where an individual who possesses dual citizenship engages in a range of “acts against Canada”, and where they allegedly fraudulently attain citizenship in Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think that's exactly the spillover effect. The reason to have high-quality temporary labour migration programs, the reason to have fair refugee consideration strategies, is that, as I said in my opening comments, these people will find ways to cross borders. If you want to keep track of them and if you want to adjudicate their cases fairly, you need to have transparent and legal procedures by which they can make their cases to Canadian immigration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for that question. I am grateful to be able to say what I think, which is yes. I wrote that sentence yesterday, that Canada is a world leader, and then I added, using track changes, “but this is at risk”. I think you have identified features of that risk. The reason we were a world leader was that we abandoned racial considerations when admitting immigrants, but—and I've been writing about this a lot—some of the most recent changes, in fact—and I don't even know how to say this—are nearly completely crazy to me.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for your question. I feel in general very wary of moving activities that are essential to state interests to private companies. I have a general reluctance to think that giving various visa companies, which are charged with basically just collecting the data a lot of authority over the immigration system.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  —is consistent with my claim that accountability and transparency are owed to Canadians. Other key features of a fair appeals procedure are the following. It must be rapid. The U.K.'s took eight months. It must be conducted by a centralized office so that trends can be monitored effectively and to ensure, crucially, that the appeal is not conducted in the same office where the original application was made.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's fine, so long as this doesn't count toward my time. I'd like to thank all of you for having me here today. It's a real pleasure. I look forward to saying things that warrant your inviting me back in the future. I'm assistant professor of applied ethics at the graduate school of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sir, did you say three minutes?