citizenship by convenience

[Politren]

Why do you think the conservatives offer work visa express. This was made to compete with other countries who offer work visas faster. One of the main complaints from immigrants while they would love to come to Canada, slow work visa processing time, made them choose elsewhere. The work express visa was introduced to compete for talents.

The actual problem is that when these talents come here and start to know some reality details they end up choosing another destination for their careers. Nobody will run away from here if Canada can offer what the abroad destinations offers. So Canada end up loosing the battle with the other destinations.

 

[screech339]

The actual problem is that when these talents come here and start to know some reality details they end up choosing another destination for their careers. Nobody will run away from here if Canada can offer what the abroad destinations offers. So Canada end up loosing the battle with the other destinations.

Most talents want to start getting work experiences. Once they have enough work experience, they will look else where regardless of what Canada offers. If they like and choose Canada, they will stay. If they don't like it, they are welcome to look else where. No one is stopping them. The only difference is they wont be able to take Canadian citizenship with them (had Canada have a 10 year requirement like swiss).

It is no different from a recent grad. A grad will take the first available work just to get work experience. Naturally,the grad will job hop quickly between jobs to get the higher income.

Your pay grade will not go up much when one decided to stay at the same job for 25 years as compare to someone who job hopped in last 25 years. If I had stayed at my first job today, my pay would be no way near what I make now.

The point is immigrants will always look for better jobs including outside Canada, regardless of citizenship. So why should immigrants treat Canada as a stepping stone if citizenship will give them better jobs outside Canada.

 

[Politren]

Most talents want to start getting work experiences. Once they have enough work experience, they will look else where regardless of what Canada offers. If they like and choose Canada, they will stay. If they don't like it, they are welcome to look else where. No one is stopping them. The only difference is they wont be able to take Canadian citizenship with them (had Canada have a 10 year requirement like swiss).

It is no different from a recent grad. A grad will take the first available work just to get work experience. Naturally,the grad will job hop quickly between jobs to get the higher income.

The politics are aware that if Canada has similar presence requirements like the other big first world destinations it would not be good for Canada as a competitor.
Even the Conservatives increased the physical presence only by one year to make it 4, but at the same time to be lower with the other competitors.
Be sure that they were also pretty well aware that increasing significantly the physical presence it would totally kill the CoC issue, but they didn't do it.

 

[ZingyDNA]

Except eliminating citizens of convenience won't lower my taxes by tens of thousands a year! Not anywhere close to that. Where did you get those numbers from??

IMO Canadians of convenience only cost me 10 dollars a year, maybe 100... But that's just my guess and I won't broadcast it like you!

I ask anyone on this forum criticizing my views this....if you could lower your taxes and save tens of thousands a year by eliminating citizens of convenience, wouldn't you want to do so?

 

[surgi]

there are 2 questions here. this citizenship by convenience is it something which happens before immigration or after immigration? the second question if this person chose to immigrate to Canada with the intention to get citizenship by convenience what are his goals?

 

[Politren]

there are 2 questions here. this citizenship by convenience is it something which happens before immigration or after immigration? the second question if this person chose to immigrate to Canada with the intention to get citizenship by convenience what are his goals?

surgi
first of all like dpenabill mentioned above, there is no formal definition or category of "Citizenship-of-Convenience." Only the Canadians born abroad can be considered like CoC, the Canadians born here can do the same thing but nobody will blame them.

Maybe there are different types of CoC (again this is only for those Canadians born abroad), for me the most brutal example of CoC are those who never lived here but using the weakness of the RQs to prove the opposite and get their citizenships.

Now I realized that getting Canadian citizenship and for some reason (emergency, study, work,...) that Canadian go abroad, he is labeled as CoC.

By the way do you see how absurd is the whole "problem".

We are discussing something which has no legal definition and it's perfectly legal.

 

[surgi]

for the issue of lebanese deportaion in 2006 in reality about half of those were in vacation time and were visiting their families means around 7000 were planning to return back to Canada within one month. here is the source:

Although the term was used by others (such as Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun) earlier during the conflict in Lebanon, it was made most prominent by posts by Garth Turner, a then Conservative MP for Halton, on his blog, and the subsequent reactions. Turner questioned the fairness of paying CAD$75,000 for each evacuee, saying, among other things, "that’s a hell of a lot of money to donate to people who do not live here, don’t pay taxes here, and may never come here again in their lives." The actual cost was about $6,300 for each evacuee ($94 million for 15,000 people). (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/11/24/lebanon-cost.html)

The National Post has asserted, that of the 15,000 evacuated, about 7,000 may have returned to Lebanon within a month of being evacuated. ( http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=fb2d75ab-8880-4945-8537-1508186a4964&k=61921)

I think Mr Tilson should know that those 7000 are not citizens of convenience at all and they were only in vacation when the war started. The scenario here make the politician to say half the truth to achieve his goal.
Another problem instead of stripping certain type of Canadians a fundamental right in the human rights charter and the constitution ,they would any Canadian of double nationality to pay the expenses of deportation back home if it was necessary.

 

[screech339]

Are you saying that there are no such people that "only wanted Canadian citizenship" for insurance purposes only. Use it for medical care, bail out, access to social benefits when needed.

I had a case of a Canadian guy born in US (born to canadian parent), lived there all his life. He is now in Canada sponsoring his American wife for PR. He admitted to me that he is only staying in Canada long enough until his wife gets canadian citizenship. Once the wife his citizenship, they will head back to US. Now why would a guy go through all that trouble just so his wife can get Canadian citizenship.

Oh I know, he wants his wife to get access to Canadian health care for any medical emergencies. So worries about spending a dime on health care anymore.

If this doesn't spell CoC, I don't know what is.

 

[Politren]

Are you saying that there are no such people that "only wanted Canadian citizenship" for insurance purposes only. Use it for medical care, bail out, access to social benefits when needed.

I had a case of a Canadian guy born in US (born to canadian parent), lived there all his life. He is now in Canada sponsoring his American wife for PR. He admitted to me that he is only staying in Canada long enough until his wife gets canadian citizenship. Once the wife his citizenship, they will head back to US. Now why would a guy go through all that trouble just so his wife can get Canadian citizenship.

Oh I know, he wants his wife to get access to Canadian health care for any medical emergencies. So worries about spending a dime on health care anymore.

If this doesn't spell CoC, I don't know what is.

What should we do in such situations... I guess first of all we have to be sure that this Canadian is born abroad and if that is the case, can we call 911 to report this serious crime?
The CoC can be even in our neighborhoods, this is scary.

 

[screech339]

What should we do in such situations... I guess first of all we have to be sure that this Canadian is born abroad and if that is the case, can we call 911 to report this serious crime?
The CoC can be even in our neighborhoods, this is scary.

It doesn't mean they don't exist. There are always going to be CoC's. Just like there are always homeless people in Canada. Is homeless illegal? No. But we all want to get rid of it as much as possible. Right? So why not implement measures so we can at least reduce their numbers.

 

[torontosm]

IMO Canadians of convenience only cost me 10 dollars a year, maybe 100... But that's just my guess and I won't broadcast it like you!

Except you just did.

Regardless of the number, I'm not happy even paying $0.01 extra to support someone who I believe is abusing the system. You may be more naive/generous than I, but I would wager that the majority of Canadians would support my position (lower taxes by eliminating scammers) than yours.

 

[surgi]

surgi
first of all like dpenabill mentioned above, there is no formal definition or category of "Citizenship-of-Convenience." Only the Canadians born abroad can be considered like CoC, the Canadians born here can do the same thing but nobody will blame them.

Maybe there are different types of CoC (again this is only for those Canadians born abroad), for me the most brutal example of CoC are those who never lived here but using the weakness of the RQs to prove the opposite and get their citizenships.

Now I realized that getting Canadian citizenship and for some reason (emergency, study, work,...) that Canadian go abroad, he is labeled as CoC.

By the way do you see how absurd is the whole "problem".

We are discussing something which has no legal definition and it's perfectly legal.

Yes of course it is absurd but for sorrow this is the language of some politicians in this country trying to marginalize a group of people in our society. they wanted to create 2 types of citizens one with intent to reside and the other without it. We are in phase to correct all these absurd measures done by Bill C-24. I opened this topic to clear up thing around this vague term used by conservatives trying to divide Canadians as said by Trudeau .

In reality there is marketing on the net for citizenship by convenience . I do not like to put website links of so many companies which offer European citizenship of some countries and they say clearly invest 150000 euro and you will get citizenship after 6 months without residency obligation. The passport will allow you to enter 140 countries without visa. This is a real citizenship by convenience. In Canada many doctors ,pharmacists,engineers came as skilled federal workers and spent hundereds of thousands dollars to pass exams trying to get a license. After many years of hard work and hundreds of thousands dollars spent the responsible bodies refuse to give them a license and they can not find a job. Those people if they leave searching to work in their own career and they have their children living in Canada they consider this as Canadian of convenience??!! They should stay in Canada doing what? Even Tilson himself contradict his own speech :
I quote :

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to ask a question to Mr. Green and Mr. Kurland, in particular, and it has to do with subclause 1(8) of Bill C-6, which repeals the requirement that a person intend to reside in Canada if granted citizenship. This was established in Bill C-24. Are you concerned that Canadian citizenship might be sought by those looking for a citizenship of convenience, without the intent of living in Canada once it's obtained?
It appears there are many citizens who get their citizenship and then they're gone. They go to Saudi Arabia and make a lot more money there. I don't mean to pick on Saudi Arabia, but they go to another jurisdiction where they make substantially more funds than they do here.
One of the witnesses in the first round gave the example of Lebanon. In July of 2006 there were 34 ship evacuations of Canadian citizens who left Lebanon. That's ships; that's not individuals. There were 34 ship evacuations and 65 air evacuations. It's interesting to know that many of the people who had the air evacuations, even though it was paid for by the Canadian government, wanted the travel points. That amounts to approximately 15,000 Canadians at a cost of about $75 million. Many of those people returned to Lebanon when things settled down. That's just one example.
That section is gone. I think it was raised by Mr. Wong about this whole issue of citizenship by convenience. It's a great thing to have a Canadian passport. Many people on this planet would love to have a Canadian passport.
Those are my questions for Mr. Green, and then Mr. Kurland.

He knows that they leave Canada because they find somewhere else better jobs and better salaries. So they want to deprive them from this right too!!! You are not allowed to leave Canada for better chances??!!! It is unfair and as you said absurd!!!

 

[surgi]

Are you saying that there are no such people that "only wanted Canadian citizenship" for insurance purposes only. Use it for medical care, bail out, access to social benefits when needed.

I had a case of a Canadian guy born in US (born to canadian parent), lived there all his life. He is now in Canada sponsoring his American wife for PR. He admitted to me that he is only staying in Canada long enough until his wife gets canadian citizenship. Once the wife his citizenship, they will head back to US. Now why would a guy go through all that trouble just so his wife can get Canadian citizenship.

Oh I know, he wants his wife to get access to Canadian health care for any medical emergencies. So worries about spending a dime on health care anymore.

If this doesn't spell CoC, I don't know what is.

you know what are you doing? you are telescoping the idea. You judge millions of people just for your american guy??!! or even thousands of people like that. I think some politicians do the same thing.

 

[torontosm]

He knows that they leave Canada because they find somewhere else better jobs and better salaries. So they want to deprive them from this right too!!! You are not allowed to leave Canada for better chances??!!! It is unfair and as you said absurd!!!

So let me sum up your position. You are saying that doctors and skilled immigrants voluntarily move themselves and their families to Canada. No one has promised them a job, and with the smallest bit of effort, they could learn that there are not a lot of jobs available in Canada and that their qualifications are not transferable,

During the next 4 years, they (as expected) struggle to find jobs and perhaps avail social benefits like welfare. During this time, the kids go to school for free, families get free healthcare, they drive on roads, are protected by police and fire personnel, all without paying a dime. Then, once the passports are obtained, these individuals leave CAnada immediately and never pay any taxes again. However, when they want surgery or medical treatment, or when the kids want to avail subsidized university, they return to Canada.

Don't you see how flawed this entire picture is? Canada is a country, not a charity. At the end of the day, someone has to bear the cost for all of this. I'm tired of being one of the people left holding the bill for this nonsense.

If you want to leave Canada, fine. But don't expect Canada to open up its already overburdened healthcare, international resources and universities to you whenever you want. You have to return here, live here and earn the right to use these facilities again.

 

[Lux et Veritas]

Great discussion folks and thanks Dpenabill

Here are my responses to some of the points:

1. Some people say it should take longer to get Canadian citizenship and cite Switzerland. OK that's not for me to decide, but I would suggest that countries like Switzerland and Austria still have many immigrants (some who stay and some who leave). I happen to know several Swiss and Austrian guys here in Canada after getting their citizenships a short while back. It's also easier to get Australian citizenship than Canadian (at least currently), though that could change, and yet the Aussies (who are usually seen as more xenophobic for some reason) haven't complained about this "convenience" issue.

2. Citizenship should not be based on where someone is born. In fact, there are studies that show that naturalised citizens are more likely to be loyal than people who just happened to be born in a place, as they have come to better appreciate the value of their host country. I would say birthright tourism is more of a problem than CoC.

3. I wouldn't say Canada's passport or proximity to the US are the main reasons. Some people just want to have greater security (especially if they come from some war-torn politically unstable region like the Middle East). Others like me genuinely left Europe purely to get valuable experience here, which I have. Motives differ and so do intentions, and these also can change for every person. To have a government force an individual to declare intent is so absurd that I'm not sure why it's even open to debate: it cannot be proven or unproven, and can easily change according to circumstances.

4. I fully agree with Politren: for most people it's about jobs and opportunities. In my case I got my citizenship months ago, and I love the place. To the point where I learnt about Canadian history even before having my citizenship exam etc as I find this country very interesting. Canada didn't educate me, didn't invest in me, but I still chose to devote several years of my life to get a good experience whilst benefitting the country. Now that I have a good opportunity elsewhere, I'm still keen on staying in Canada and am applying here just because I love this place, but if I don't get the jobs (which is possible), what am I supposed to do? Lose my citizenship because I chose to earn a living elsewhere rather than leech of the taxpayer here? Dpenabill and Screech I'm very interested in knowing what you guys think about this.

TorontoSM: your problem is only looking at the worst case scenario. Not everyone will come back to leech off the country. Personally if i had a child, I'd rather educate them in Europe or the US since their universities are much much better. The healthcare/medical treatment is a non-issue- if you leave Canada you can't claim medical treatment in fact you have to turn in your OHIP card if you're in Ontario and the same applies in other provinces. If they come to reside in Canada again they will still have to incur significant financial expense- you may have noticed Vancouver, Toronto, etc aren't exactly cheap. Your analysis is flawed in other words.