In less than two years since the new process started, the federal government has stripped the citizenship of 235 Canadians.
Imagine a woman who fled an abusive husband with her small kids and came to Canada without disclosing her broken marriage.
Fast forward 30 years. An immigration officer in Ottawa found out the woman used to be married and decided to revoke her citizenship because she had misrepresented herself in her citizenship application.
That was the case described by Sen. Elaine McCoy in a Senate meeting recently. “That’s what’s been happening,” McCoy said.
“I started getting very interested in this whole case and asked to see a copy of a revocation letter. Well, the story gets worse. The revocation letter is signed, ‘Yours sincerely, D1816,” she told the meeting, referring to the unidentified adjudicator who decided the case.
The independent senator representing Alberta was so disturbed that she decided to table a motion to amend the Bill C-6, the act to amend the Citizenship Act, to ensure a due process is established for those facing citizenship revocations on grounds of fraud and false representation.
The motion will be voted on in the Senate on Wednesday before the bill is sent back to the Parliament for a final vote.
Canadian law has allowed citizenship to be revoked on the grounds of fraud and false representation since 1947, but the former Conservative government introduced reforms to transfer the power from the Governor in Council (essentially Governor General acting on the advice of cabinet) to immigration officials.
Among other changes, the Liberal bill would remove the requirement that a citizenship applicant “intend” to continue to live in Canada, reduce the residency requirement for citizenship eligibility to three years out of four (versus four out of six) and restrict the citizenship exam and language test to applicants between 18 and 54 (versus 14 and 64).
Before 2015, the law used to require immigration officials to first go before the Federal Court to prove a citizen had obtained the citizenship through fraud before the person’s name was presented to the Governor in Council for the actual revocation.
However, the Conservatives left it to an immigration officer would both determine whether there was fraud and if citizenship would be revoked.
“It is mind-boggling that it is easier to lose citizenship than permanent residency,” said Meurrens. “A citizen whose citizenship is revoked should revert to permanent resident status, rather than immediately becoming an inadmissible foreign national,”
“Citizenship is the foundation of all rights in Canada. You just can’t take it away without access to due process,” said Omidvar, an independent senator representing Ontario. “We would like to swing the pendulum back to the centre.”
Camielle Edwards, a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, said the minister believes the system is constitutionally sound and has enough safeguards.
“We will carefully review and consider the proposed amendment once it has been voted on in the Senate,” said Edwards. “The end goal is to maintain the integrity of our system while also doing what we can to ensure that the necessary procedural fairness is in place.”
The current citizenship revocation regime is under a constitutional challenge in the Federal Court, which so far has stayed some of the citizenship revocation proceedings while the litigation is in process.
