citizenship by convenience

[Politren]

sreech339
how do you feel about all the sponsored parents and grand parents coming here... all their lifetime they worked and payed taxes abroad just to end up coming here and using the health care and other benefits in Canada after the sponsoral obligation from their kids expires.
What they have contributed to Canada to use the health system here severely when they get older.
Are they also CoC , because they are using the system big time also without being living here most of their lives?

 

[Politren]

Well healthcare in BC is not free it is $1,800 per year for a family of 3 or more
unless you have $22k or below annual gross income then it is free.

This represent just a fraction of all the benefits the poor people worth as a burden for the economy here. I am getting for example regular subsidised dental interventions I got no idea how many thousand of dollars is in total up until now. I don't pay anything because I am poor here. Just imagine the whole picture with all the benefits we use on a regular basis and how much actual burden we are for the economy.

 

[alok4best]

Well it surely is an interesting discussion going on here.
My background: I am newcomer to Canada myself. I am an Indian and have lived few years of my life in UK and Germany before arriving here.

Now, I really don't know how COC as a concept would fare when taken through the trial of legality. But I totally understand the feeling behind this concept, and why some people are raising this issue. But from where I look at it, I find it really weird that someone can get a Canadian citizenship just after living a few years at stretch and clearing a citizenship exam. Some of you might not agree with me, but for me Citizenship means much more than a certificate or a passport. Citizenship means that I am emotionally invested in a country.

For me, nationality is not just about privileges and a powerful passport.
Let me tell you an example. I have a colleague at work. She is an Indian by birth, but a Canadian citizen for past few years.
I was just pulling her leg one day by throwing some simple questions about Canada. I was amazed to find that she could not even tell me the number of provinces in Canada. She did not even have a clue of approximate population of Canada. Looking at this, I did not even bother asking her more about some recent Canadian history. Now to me, she is clearly a COC. Being an Indian, I would be absolutely furious if someone came to India, lived a few years and obtained Indian citizenship even when they had no clue of what India, as a country is.

I have seen some immigrants giving some really stupid reasons about why they became Canadian citizens, one of it being that on Canadian passport they can travel almost everywhere Visa free. Having seen such people, I can totally understand why some of the Canadians are unhappy about the current state of affairs.

Unfortunately, COC, as a concept, is so complex that it will be really really difficult to put it in definition. But, in principal I totally agree that Canadian citizenship should have more value. And that it should not be so easy to obtain it. Citizenship should not merely be about living a certain number of years and clearing a stupid test. Immigrants should be asked to invest themselves in Canada, make sacrifices, like giving up their original citizenship to show that they really value and take pride in Canadian citizenship. Such steps would also take care of people who abandon Canada after becoming citizens, and keep this passport as a backup for a rainy day.

Restricting mobility post citizenship is really not a solution. It will be tyranny. Putting a ban on dual citizenship and taxing based on citizenship are surely a way to fix some of the issue, if not all. A number of countries already don't allow dual citizenship, and for some good reasons. India being one such country.

 

[Politren]

alok4best
Fighting against the CoC is just like fighting against the corruption at the very high levels.
Many people realize that the corruption is bad but almost everyone knows that it will always be there.

Here the actual problem is that even proper legal definition doesn't exist.
The actual prove in a legal sense is mission impossible simply because the intentions of one person can always change during time.

Even the Conservative MP Tilson admitted that being CoC is a right, hence Perfectly Legal.

Being sponsored parent or grand parent here is just another example of couple of thousand people per year who will end up using the health system without any taxes being payed here.

The whole issue is full with subjectivity.

 

[screech339]

sreech339
how do you feel about all the sponsored parents and grand parents coming here... all their lifetime they worked and payed taxes abroad just to end up coming here and using the health care and other benefits in Canada after the sponsoral obligation from their kids expires.
What they have contributed to Canada to use the health system here severely when they get older.
Are they also CoC , because they are using the system big time also without being living here most of their lives?

Sponsored parents / grandparents are not much different from CoC. While they are not CoC by definition, they are no difference from CoC in that they are also accessing free medical care that they never paid a dime in their entire working years to the system. That is why I prefer sibling sponsorship of working age (say max age 45) over pgp. They at least can find work and contribute to the system.

 

[Politren]

Sponsored parents / grandparents are not much different from CoC. While they are not CoC by definition, they are no difference from CoC I that they are also accessing free medical care that they never paid a dime in their entire working years to the system. That is why I prefer sibling sponsorship of working age over pgp. They at least can find work and contribute to the system.

Voala , I guess you also realize how broad span is the so called CoC, that's why there is simply no way to put it in a well formed definition in order to cover the huge scope of scenarios. Many people who live here are also under the same broad class of CoC but all the attention is biased toward just a fraction of the problem.

Every low end employee is also part of the CoC scope (Not enough tax contribution while using much more benefits here).

There is simply no solution to fight all the scope of CoC.

 

[Lux et Veritas]

Well it surely is an interesting discussion going on here.
My background: I am newcomer to Canada myself. I am an Indian and have lived few years of my life in UK and Germany before arriving here.

Now, I really don't know how COC as a concept would fare when taken through the trial of legality. But I totally understand the feeling behind this concept, and why some people are raising this issue. But from where I look at it, I find it really weird that someone can get a Canadian citizenship just after living a few years at stretch and clearing a citizenship exam. Some of you might not agree with me, but for me Citizenship means much more than a certificate or a passport. Citizenship means that I am emotionally invested in a country.

For me, nationality is not just about privileges and a powerful passport.
Let me tell you an example. I have a colleague at work. She is an Indian by birth, but a Canadian citizen for past few years.
I was just pulling her leg one day by throwing some simple questions about Canada. I was amazed to find that she could not even tell me the number of provinces in Canada. She did not even have a clue of approximate population of Canada. Looking at this, I did not even bother asking her more about some recent Canadian history. Now to me, she is clearly a COC. Being an Indian, I would be absolutely furious if someone came to India, lived a few years and obtained Indian citizenship even when they had no clue of what India, as a country is.

I have seen some immigrants giving some really stupid reasons about why they became Canadian citizens, one of it being that on Canadian passport they can travel almost everywhere Visa free. Having seen such people, I can totally understand why some of the Canadians are unhappy about the current state of affairs.

Unfortunately, COC, as a concept, is so complex that it will be really really difficult to put it in definition. But, in principal I totally agree that Canadian citizenship should have more value. And that it should not be so easy to obtain it. Citizenship should not merely be about living a certain number of years and clearing a stupid test. Immigrants should be asked to invest themselves in Canada, make sacrifices, like giving up their original citizenship to show that they really value and take pride in Canadian citizenship. Such steps would also take care of people who abandon Canada after becoming citizens, and keep this passport as a backup for a rainy day.

Restricting mobility post citizenship is really not a solution. It will be tyranny. Putting a ban on dual citizenship and taxing based on citizenship are surely a way to fix some of the issue, if not all. A number of countries already don't allow dual citizenship, and for some good reasons. India being one such country.

You use the example of 1 Canadian/Indian to highlight COC, hardly a large sample.
Not everyone doesn't know anything about Canada in fact I know more about Canadian history than some people who were supposedly born and lived in Canada for their entire lives. Should these people be stripped off their citizenship?
Insofar as banning dual citizenship, most developed countries allow it (with the exception of Japan). Even South Korea now allows it under circumstances. The world is evolving and we should be moving ahead. As for India, it is a racist country marred by the caste system and many other processes of stratification. It is hardly a good example for other countries. More countries are in fact starting to allow dual citizenship. I already covered citizenship based taxation and why it's a bad idea. It doesn't solve anything with the US being a case in point as the only country aside from Eritrea that implements this cruel system.
Finally, most countries allow naturalization after a certain point in time and implement testing procedures like Canada. This is not unique to Canada. You say : "Immigrants should be asked to invest themselves in Canada, make sacrifices, like giving up their original citizenship to show that they really value and take pride in Canadian citizenship. Such steps would also take care of people who abandon Canada after becoming citizens, and keep this passport as a backup for a rainy day". How would abandoning their citizenship translate into greater loyalty, and by working and studying and spending money in Canada for years they have made sacrifices and invested dearly. You just like our Pakistani friend torontosm are blinded by right-wing propaganda. Dear oh dear you South Asians make me laugh. If you're so patriotic you should've stayed in India then why are you in Canada?

 

[Lux et Veritas]

Folks this whole CoC thing is fuelled by right-wing propaganda pure and simple, and Harper being the demon that he was exploited it.
I'm sure these very same Tory-loving rich upper-class conservatives themselves have another passport from Europe etc either due to ancestry or naturalization (I know a few myself) and yet they choose to stigmatise others.
For people who argue that citizenship should have more value, you are venturing into the realm of the philosophical. I'll use myself: I am not a nationalist as I find nationalism to be the refuge of the foolish. I am all for abiding by the law of course and if someone has issues with how the laws are implemented they should criticise the enforcement agencies not the laws or the people who follow them. I just find it funny when immigrants who are now citizens try to make things harder for newcomers lol especially if they are from South Asia: South Asians are repeatedly discriminated against in the West and yet.... oh well.
I don't think citizenship should have any added sentimental value especially in this day and age: the construct of the nation-state is evolving and the world is becoming more dynamic and diverse. Using a monolithic, backward and racist country like India as a beacon for Canada and the US is laughable, especially when most Indians are looking to leave India either to live in the West or the Gulf countries.

 

[Leon]

Still not sure how CoC are supposed to be hurting Canada. Mostly these are healthy young people and they didn't come to abuse health care. If they spend 4-5 years in Canada in order to get citizenship, they are working and paying taxes in the meantime, hopefully paying more than they are getting back and if they aren't because they can only find a low income job, even better that they leave and cease being a burden on Canada's social system.

After they leave, they are happily making a lot of money working somewhere else and far too busy to come flying to Canada to abuse health care every time they have a runny nose. If their kids should choose to study in Canada, yes, they get subsidized tuition but it also makes them a lot more likely to settle in Canada because getting a job in Canada is an uphill battle if you studied elsewhere so the parents may see that the kids have a better chance at making it with Canadian education and all.

 

[torontosm]

Folks this whole CoC thing is fuelled by right-wing propaganda pure and simple, and Harper being the demon that he was exploited it.

Why is is that when someone disagrees with you, you automatically assume they have been brainwashed by right wing propaganda? Isn't it equally likely that you have fallen prey to Trudeau's liberal nonsense? It's rather presumptuous of you to dismiss people so flippantly when you can't even seem to counter common-sense based arguments.

 

[Politren]

torontosm
Better read once again the post from Leon and stop being worried about something which will never stop.
You can't even give a proper legal definition and prove of what exactly is CoC.

 

[torontosm]

torontosm
Better read once again the post from Leon and stop being worried about something which will never stop.
You can't even give a proper legal definition and prove of what exactly is CoC.

A legal definition will be crafted when this is recognized as a problem that needs to be addressed. And, this will be recognized as a problem that needs to be addressed when enough awareness is raised amongst the population that drives them to contact their respective representatives. That's how change happens.

If we all adopted your attitude, stuck our heads in the sand and said that this is something which will never stop, Canada would never progress.

Finally, you seem to be really confused. On April 1st, you wrote the following "I fully support the current rules, and I have repeated that several times. I love the current rules because this is the effective way to fight against the so called Canadians of convenience." And now you think that CoC aren't even a problem? What changed in the last month?

 

[h3a3j6]

Still not sure how CoC are supposed to be hurting Canada. Mostly these are healthy young people and they didn't come to abuse health care. If they spend 4-5 years in Canada in order to get citizenship, they are working and paying taxes in the meantime, hopefully paying more than they are getting back and if they aren't because they can only find a low income job, even better that they leave and cease being a burden on Canada's social system.

After they leave, they are happily making a lot of money working somewhere else and far too busy to come flying to Canada to abuse health care every time they have a runny nose. If their kids should choose to study in Canada, yes, they get subsidized tuition but it also makes them a lot more likely to settle in Canada because getting a job in Canada is an uphill battle if you studied elsewhere so the parents may see that the kids have a better chance at making it with Canadian education and all.

Well said.

 

[Politren]

A legal definition will be crafted when this is recognized as a problem that needs to be addressed. And, this will be recognized as a problem that needs to be addressed when enough awareness is raised amongst the population that drives them to contact their respective representatives. That's how change happens.

If we all adopted your attitude, stuck our heads in the sand and said that this is something which will never stop, Canada would never progress.

Finally, you seem to be really confused. On April 1st, you wrote the following "I fully support the current rules, and I have repeated that several times. I love the current rules because this is the effective way to fight against the so called Canadians of convenience." And now you think that CoC aren't even a problem? What changed in the last month?

As I wrote earlier in this topic my understanding for CoC is regarding those who have been all the time abroad and who used the weakness of the RQs to submit fabricated prove that they were all the time here.

Now according to some other understandings here CoC is something different. But this is perfectly natural because the whole thing is full with subjectivity.

The sponsored parents and Grand parents are causing much more severe damage but they are welcomed. Do you see how absurd the whole debate about the CoC is. It is full with such individuals in Canada who doesn't contribute enough but are using all the benefits.
All low end workers are practically a much bigger burden here because they don't pay enough taxes simply because they are poor.

 

[ZingyDNA]

Jee786, I don't understand the point of the majority of your posts. You seem to be confusing the topics of dual citizenship, PR's and CoC. I am not a CoC of Pakistan because I have not been receiving any sort of benefits from Pakistan. See the difference?

But you still have Pakistani citizenship, right? If one day you decide to move back there permanently, you'll still be able to receive social benefits like any other Pakistani citizen, right? How is this any different from the so-called Canadian of Convenience?