Child permanent residence

[screech339]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/08/09/birth-tourists-believed-to-be-using-canadas-citizenship-laws-as-back-door-into-the-west/

This is one article. It also state why the birth tourism goes unreported so the statistics are hard to come by.

Screech339

 

[screech339]

Here is another link. But this is in regard to US birth tourism. Since it is happening in US, you can say it is happening here in Canada too.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/birth-tourism-citizenship-of-convenience-360292.html

It posted that according to Center for Immigration Studies is estimating that of the 300,000 children born to undocumented residents in US per year, 40,000 are to tourists.

300,000 born to undocumented residents, in other words, illegal residents, are having newborns in US, along with tourists. That is a huge number.

Now imagine the case in Canada. I would not be surprised that the actual cases are much higher than what people realized.

Screech339

 

[screech339]

If you want to say that the numbers of cases of birth tourism are too low to warrant attention, how many cases of PR marriage fraud did it take to get government to impose a 2 year conditional PR for newlyweds with no children. I don't have statistics of how many PR marriage fraud cases happening a year but I feel safe to assume that it is a lot lower than the cases of birth tourism per year. So far I have come across a number saying 200 birth tourism cases in Canada a year. I think 200 is still too high a number and can be reduced. Did we have more than 200 cases of PR marriage fraud. That I don't know as I don't have the numbers on me but I do think it is much lower than 200 cases of PR marriage fraud per year.

Screech339

 

[frege]

Frege,

By having a debate with you, you can bring good insight to my initial proposal. So you see I am being flexible in coming up with possible solutions to solving problems/eliminating unintended consequences. So I came up with these possible solutions to the birth tourism problem. What are your ideas in removing the birth tourism?

My concern is the issue of newborns of illegal immigrants/birth tourism happening in Canada. My suggestions are for the purpose of eliminating Birth Tourism and/or illegal immigrants delivering newborn in Canada. After considering my initial proposal to citizenship laws by restricting birthright citizenship to Canadian/PR parents only. It does leave other people in Canada that are legitimately living here, mainly people here on Student and Work visas. So I made different options, each with its effects of it. So please tell me which option is the best option to removing birth tourism in Canada.

Option 1: Initial: Birthright citizenships to parents of Canadians/PRs only.
Pro: 100% eliminate birth tourism
Con: People on Student/Work visas are left out.

Option 2. Birthright citizenship to parents of Canadians/PRs. If parents are not Canadian/PRs, the pregnant person delivering the newborn must be on Provincial Health Care at time of birth.
Pro: Includes people on Student/Work visas.
Con: Do not eliminate birth tourism 100%, since not all provinces have 3 months residency requirement. They can all go to Alberta for example to by-pass this loophole. Fed government cannot dictate how provinces handle their health care since health care in under provincial jurisdiction. Also pregnant people can keep extending their TRVs in Canada long enough to deliver newborn.

Option 3. Birthright citizenship to parents of Canadians/PR and those holding student/work visas only and those on student/work visas must be on provincial health care at time of birth.
Con: Does not eliminate birth tourism 100% as pregnant women will apply for student/work visa to by-pass the loophole.

As for providing statistics on the number of cases of birth tourism, it is hard to obtain/collect data on it due to patient/doctor confidentiality. It is probably one of the under-reported cases. It's the same for finding statistics on abortions performed in Canada. You won't find it but we all know it is happening. Even if we are able to come up with statistics, a lot of the cases go unreported. It is like the statistics on number of cases of rape. We all know the problem is much bigger than reported.

So please tell me which one of the options listed above will help solve the birth tourism? If you can't help me solve the birth tourism, like the saying goes, you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Screech339

Screech,

We have a wonderful democratic tradition, and you haven't shown what harm is being caused by it, beyond a feeling that it's "unfair." I think your proposals will actually be far more unfair for any children born here who are deprived of citizenship. The details might differ from one case to the next, but anybody born here might end up growing up here - just because the parents are on visitor status or here illegally when the child is born doesn't change this. You can't tell that when the child is born.

So I don't want any exceptions to the rule.

 

[screech339]

Screech,

We have a wonderful democratic tradition, and you haven't shown what harm is being caused by it, beyond a feeling that it's "unfair." I think your proposals will actually be far more unfair for any children born here who are deprived of citizenship. The details might differ from one case to the next, but anybody born here might end up growing up here - just because the parents are on visitor status or here illegally when the child is born doesn't change this. You can't tell that when the child is born.

So I don't want any exceptions to the rule.

Thank you for your input and thoughts on the debate. You are very passionate about the current birthright citizenship. It is good to very very passionate about a subject matter. Unfortunately you are willing to turn a blind eye to the issue of illegal immigrants and birth tourism in order to maintain the status quo of the birthright of citizenship, despite the evidence/numbers I have provided to back up my claim. I was even flexible in taking your situation into consideration. It's a victimless crime right? Doesn't harm anyone? Who cares that there are people gaming the system. It's okay that taxpayers will cover the unpaid medical bill to cover cost of newborn delivery. Anyway I have been graceful of having a debate with a thoughtful person like you and glad that we now know where each other stand on amendments to the birthright citizenship clause. Thank you very much.

Screech339

 

[frege]

It's true that I've always felt strongly about this topic.

I was even flexible in taking your situation into consideration.

As I said, I had never thought about the topic personally in relation to myself, simply because the idea that I might not be Canadian had never been raised in any context by anybody. Obviously, you didn't raise it directly with regard to me, but your citizenship scheme, which may well end up being Tory policy, would have made me non-Canadian.

It's just another example of how far away from what's best about our Canadian political traditions our current government has taken us.

 

[screech339]

but your citizenship scheme, which may well end up being Tory policy, would have made me non-Canadian.

The issue of birth tourism and people taking advantage of our citizenship birthright is a non partisan issue. The Federal Government regardless of stripe needs to fix this loophole. It may be that the Conservative government be the only one willing to take on the issue, much like the "passing of the torch" of citizenship for generations that gotten abused. The Liberal government had their chance to fix the generational issue, but they didn't and probably don't want to, to protect their votes. I honestly don't care who's in government so long as they can close the loophole. Had we lived next door to Mexico, we would be screaming bloody murder for any government to close the loophole. But since we are not having such a huge problem like the US is having, it's moot point to change it eh? Does it take 200 cases of birth tourism or does it take 300,000 cases to justify amendment the citizenship clause? It is sad that it would require a huge scandal like the Canadian Lebanese bailout incident to expose the ill-intended problem when we can nip it at the bud before it becomes a problem. It is sad that it is human nature to keep things the same until a disaster happens to get anything change.

More and more countries are changing/amending their citizenship laws to reflect todays reality. Our economy has become a global economy. Not only countries in Europe are changing but also Australia and New Zealand. As our economy has pretty much become global as we expand our economy, our citizenship law become more suspectible to abuse. We need to protect our citizenship from such abuse.

Screech339

 

[screech339]

It's just another example of how far away from what's best about our Canadian political traditions our current government has taken us.

Need to preserve Canadian Traditions eh?
1. Marriage that defined a marriage between man and woman only.
2. Denomational Public School Funding.
3. Lifetime job employment.
4. Annual Seal Hunt off Atlantic coast.

What's happening today.

1. Canada had changed the definition of marriage mainly due to the increased acceptance of gay people and coming to terms with that in today’s reality.
2. More and more districts are strapping the denomination schools, mainly public funding of Catholics and Public schools. Newfoundland, for example, did away with that and fund only public schools.
3. With our economy growing and expanding along with increased population, there is no such thing as a lifetime job, at least outside of senior members in unions.
4. Even though the annual seal hunt still continues, it is usually kept up due to keeping tradition that lasted since the 1500’s. The reason to keeping it ranges from it being a tradition or to keep the seal population low. Other say to strap it as there is no market for it anymore. Whatever the reasons are, it is costing federal government money in supporting it.

The list above is just some example of Canadian traditions. It goes to show that just because it is tradition, doesn’t mean we have to maintain it despite their reasoning. Just because the birthright citizenship without any conditions is a traditional, doesn’t mean it makes sense in today’s reality. Canada is a progressive country. Rules/laws that made sense in the past, do not necessarily means it still be applied now to today’s reality. Remember the US birthright citizenship at the time of the 14th amendment was meant to give slaves freedom. Now US don't have slaves and since it is part of the US consititution, it is impossible to change it now. Fortunately we didn't make it a part of our consitution and we can amend it to avoid US's mistake.

Screech339