Citizenship and Immigration committee  I am Nicole Girard, director general of citizenship and multiculturalism branch at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Nicole Girard. I am the director general responsible for the citizenship and multiculturalism branch at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. As the chair has mentioned, I am accompanied here by my col

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. There are some key differences. This bill opens up section 9 of the act, which relates to the renunciation of citizenship. The key differences between renunciation and revocation of citizenship under section 10 of the act are as follows. Canadian citizens can renoun

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's absolutely correct. I'll make a couple of comments and then I'll ask Mr. Stevens to add comments if he wishes. We do that review. I think the question has been raised at this committee with regard to whether these provisions would be applying equally to Canadian citizens

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The short answer to that question is no. The amendments to the bill contemplate a threshold of a minimum of five years. Where a minimum of five years or more is imposed, someone could be subject to the provisions of the bill, but not in a situation of five years less a day.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As members of the committee may be aware, terrorism offences under the Criminal Code cover a wide range of conduct. There is a maximum range for the offences, and it varies. For example, participation offences, which involve the offence of knowingly participating in any activity

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not sure I can give a definitive answer on that. We're not aware that the past provisions were ever used. You heard me mention in the speech that some of the aspects were a little bit more limited in scope and had to do with particular circumstances of declared wars, which d

Citizenship and Immigration committee  You're quite right, the amendment that's proposed is to enable the minister to have some discretion to deal with an important issue that's been raised by this committee and by witnesses. That is where a citizen may be caught up by the provisions as described in the amendments, bu

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I may, there are a number of ways in which the bill and the amendments before the committee for consideration provide key elements of due process, and they are as follows. First of all, there are limited circumstances in which the provisions of the bill would apply under the

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sorry, I'm not really aware of whether that's the case or not. I think that would be something a committee would be more aware of than perhaps a government official.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'll ask my colleagues from Justice to jump in, but the first point—and it was raised this morning—is that who is a citizen and how citizenship is accessed and how citizenship may be lost is a creature of statute, the Citizenship Act.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I guess the only suggestion I could make is the one Minister Kenney has made already. There's a bill before the committee that deals with a serious subject matter, and there are a number of amendments that are proposed to deal with some of the issues that have been raised with re

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I would just like to clarify your question. You want to know why we are insisting that these provisions apply only in cases where individuals have another citizenship?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If I understand your question correctly, you're asking more about what justifies the application of these provisions to dual citizens.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That goes back to the objective of the second part of the private member's bill, looking at circumstances where an individual who has Canadian citizenship and another citizenship has made a choice to violently demonstrate their disloyalty and has made a conscious choice to violen