As already noted, there is no need to repeal the entirety of Bill C-24. And the Liberals do
not plan to repeal Bill C-24.
torontosm said:
The entire bill doesn't need to be repealed to eliminate the citizenship stripping clause.
Any petitions are premature at this stage. Parliament is not yet even in session and will not be until next month . . . and the number of high priority matters to be addressed with urgency is staggering. (The Conservatives left the house in great disarray . . . a huge part of the problem accommodating Syrian refugees, much like
both Conservative and Liberal Canadian governments have responded to refugee crises in the past, is that under Harper the infrastructure for supporting refugees was largely decimated, as if Canada would never again take in a large number of refugees.)
A petition to repeal Bill C-24 is also likely to be utterly ineffective. While the Liberals voted against Bill C-24, they did so in opposition to
some provisions in it, while expressing support for other parts of it.
Moreover, to be clear, as discussed in multiple topics in this forum, the Liberal campaign platform did
NOT promise to repeal Bill C-24, and indeed only promised to repeal a small portion of it related to the revocation of citizenship for criminal convictions (those provisions described as creating
two-tier citizenship), and otherwise the Liberal platform said that the Liberals would:
-- restore credit for pre-PR time toward qualifying for citizenship
-- remove unfair hurdles to grant citizenship
What the latter means is unclear.
In sum, however, it does
NOT mean the repeal of Bill C-24 itself.
Indeed, parts of Bill C-24 constituted clearly needed fixes for a range of problems in the previous version of the
Citizenship Act, such as clarifying provisions regarding citizenship by descent. But to a significant extent this also included revisions to the grant citizenship requirements, including in particular the clarification that qualification for citizenship is based on physical presence
not time resident in Canada.
The residency qualification provisions, in the former
Citizenship Act, were especially a serious problem which caused a great deal of confusion, a grossly disproportionate expenditure of CIC (now the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship) resources as well as Citizenship Judge time, serious inconsistencies in outcomes many of which were overt instances of injustice, and contributed to the creation of a huge backlog. For more than three decades Federal Court justices had been demanding that Parliament address the issues.
Very few Canadians would support walking back those fixes. Which is to say,
there will be no repeal of Bill C-24 as such. Certain provisions in the
Citizenship Act, as adopted by the Bill, may be repealed (section 10.(2) and related provisions in sections 10.1 through 10.7 perhaps, all related to the revocation of citizenship for criminal convictions based on acts committed while the individual is a citizen). Other provisions may be amended. The
Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act (referred to by many as "Bill C-24"), however, will not be repealed. It should not be repealed. Few Canadians would support repealing it.
At this stage it is very difficult to forecast what, if any revisions are likely to be made to the grant citizenship requirements. Even restoring the credit for pre-PR time, which the Liberal campaign platform said the Liberals would do, is not an easy change to make in any way that would provide a real benefit, a practical credit of use, unless the approach was to restore the previous 3/4 rule. But it is difficult to see the government restoring the former 3/4 rule entirely, since again it was a
residency requirement which was, simply, a nightmare.
It might be possible to implement a new 3/4 rule which is based on physical presence, not residency, but actually that can be a harsh rule for a significant number of immigrants whose employment or business causes them to be outside Canada extensively. This is common because, obviously, many immigrants have the experience and the contacts abroad to be a major asset to Canadian businesses with overseas business.
The new 4/6 rule is actually a somewhat more flexible and lenient approach than the 3/4 rule in this regard, as the 4/6 rule allows immigrants to spend significantly more time abroad and still qualify for Canadian citizenship . . . takes longer to get there, but at least an immigrant can get there despite employment which sends him or her abroad for up to a third of the time (old rule only allowed for one-fourth of the time).
I do not recall seeing details about what respective MPs said in committee (beyond some disastrous attempts by then Minister Alexander to explain things like the
intent-to-reside clause, in response to poorly composed questions), but among the speeches, statements, and questions by MPs in Parliament regarding Bill C-24 which can be
found here (if link works), there are those statements by MP John McCallum (now the Minister of
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship), in which, for example, McCallum
supported a number of provisions in Bill C-24.
What McCallum (on behalf of the Liberal Party) did oppose included the following:
-- expanding language and knowledge testing to younger and older applicants (now, for example, these apply to applicants up to the age of 64, whereas before only to age 55)
-- the elimination of credit for students and temporary workers (Liberal campaign platform explicitly promised to restore the credit)
-- the 4/6 rule
Regarding the 4/6 rule John McCallum stated (this was back at the second reading of Bill C-24, in 2014):
"The fourth point is that people now have to stay here four out of six years instead of three out of four. That is another scowl. What makes one think that people will be more Canadian just because we make them stay an extra year? One more year is extra time to wait. It does not necessarily make people Canadian or deter citizens of convenience. It is just another nasty move by the Conservatives to make the barriers bigger against nice people who want to become citizens of our country."
He went on to further express opposition to the additional 183 days times four calendar year requirement.
McCallum did agree there is a
citizenship-of-convenience problem, which was a particular pet peeve of the Conservatives, which in turn was one aspect of the Conservative's agenda widely supported by Canadians. But frankly McCallum's comments about this did not seem to indicate a grasp of why the Conservatives and most Canadians have a problem with
citizenship-of-convenience (McCallum seemed to think it is mostly, if not entirely, a problem about taking advantage of Canadian benefits, like health care, which is but a slice of what concerned Conservatives and the majority of Canadians).
Overall, however, McCallum's comments addressed to Bill C-24 were actually quite general and far more about the overall tone or style . . . in fact, McCallum emphasized that the government should have a sunny, friendly, welcoming citizenship policy
not the "scowling" policies emphasizing vigilance embraced by Bill C-24.
That, however, does not telegraph much at all about what the Liberals would actually do differently.
I have to mention Minister Alexander's response to McCallum (at same link as above, if it works). In fact it was so non-responsive I have to quote some of it:
Alexander:
"The member talks of sunny ways, and then he goes on to make one of the most partisan speeches I have heard in any debate in this place.
Is this the new Liberal Party, a party of ogres, a party of scaremongers, a party that talks down the Canadian economy, that talks about doom and gloom when we have had the top job creation record in the G7 and are the only country in the G7 to have an AAA credit rating from all agencies and a positive outlook?
The Liberals will not acknowledge these simple facts. It is terrifying to think of how newcomers to Canada would choose to understand this stream of consciousness presentation."
Alexander then went on in what was essentially a stump speech touting the accomplishments of the Conservatives relative to numbers of new immigrants and new citizens . . . not addressing a single actual issue (like the impact of taking away credit for students and temporary workers) . . . just touting statistics as accomplishments and concluding
"Is [the Hon. MP McCallum] aware of his utter hypocrisy?"
It is hard to imagine anyone other than a die hard Harper fan not applauding the fact that Alexander among many others are gone. It is even harder to imagine how anyone ever thought Alexander was one of the Conservative
rising stars.
In any event, bringing up this exchange was obviously a digression, but I pursued this for multiple reasons. One is that the exchange that took place illustrates how far off-the-point the Parliamentary debates can drift, which in turn illustrates it is not an easy venue for crafting the actual language of legislation. The real work, obviously, is done in the internal committee drafting stages and then later in the Parliamentary committee study phases.
This process was brutally truncated by the Harper Conservative.
This was a huge problem with Bill C-24: this was largely a Bill drafted by a very small, inner circle of advisers close to Harper, again, close to Harper and not Minister Alexander (and it may not have even involved Minister Alexander in anything more than a perfunctory capacity). Bill C-24 did not involve drafting by an informed and diligent committee based on stakeholder consultations. And then it did not get refined in the Parliamentary committee and debate process, since all this was largely cut-off . . . and even when a MP, like John McCallum, brought up specific issues, like opposition to the elimination of credit for pre-PR time, the Conservative response would not even address the issue obliquely, let alone directly or substantively.
This is to be expected. The democratic process is typically more messy than not. It takes time. There is wrangling and oft times the wrangling is more partisan than substantive. The Liberals will, I believe and hope, actually allow the Parliamentary process to work, so that issues will actually get addressed, so that there will be real committee study and consultations with stakeholders (both in the drafting phase itself, and then formally in the process of committee study), and real opportunities for amendments to be offered and actually considered. This will take time. This will demand public discourse. This will allow a significant amount of time for the public to submit commentary to the Members of Parliament. There is no need for a petition at this stage. A simple communication to an individual's respective member of Parliament recommending certain changes is more than sufficient activism at this very, very early phase in the new Liberal government (Parliament has not even returned to session as yet, and won't for nearly another three weeks, so obviously petitions are way premature).
Speaking of issues being addressed, though, leads back to the second reason to go into some detail about the exchanges between McCallum (Liberal) and Alexander (Conservative), and that is back to the 3/4 rule versus the current 4/6 rule. As John McCallum argued, the 4/6 rule adds an additional year to the timeline for the immigrant to become a Canadian citizen. That, McCallum argued, discourages immigrants (approaching them with a "scowl" not a smile).
In particular, as also quoted above, McCallum argued:
"The fourth point is that people now have to stay here four out of six years instead of three out of four. That is another scowl. What makes one think that people will be more Canadian just because we make them stay an extra year? One more year is extra time to wait. It does not necessarily make people Canadian or deter citizens of convenience. It is just another nasty move by the Conservatives to make the barriers bigger against nice people who want to become citizens of our country."
But the 4/6 rule is actually
more flexible if not lenient in some respects. In particular, it allows an immigrant to be abroad up to one-third of the time rather than just the one-quarter that the 3/4 rule prescribes. McCallum went on to say, about Bill C-24 and the physical presence requirements:
McCallum:
"Let us say that someone comes in as a landed immigrant, works for the Royal Bank — we can name any company — and that Canadian company then wants the person to work in the U.K., India, or wherever. That person as a Canadian could do it, but as a landed immigrant could not for more than a certain time."
Actually the 4/6 rule allows more flexibility for such individuals, even though it makes the overall timeline to qualify for citizenship longer (especially for those who might otherwise be given credit for pre-PR time).
In any event, the question about whether the Liberals should revise the
Citizenship Act naturalization requirements, to go back to the 3/4 rule for example, is not all that easily answered. It will require some study and some debate, study open to input from stakeholders, the public, and from immigrants . . . something which simply did not happen when the Conservatives changed the law.
This is just the surface of one issue which the Liberals will need to wrestle with if and when they tackle making substantive changes to the grant citizenship requirements.
A blanket repeal of Bill C-24 (the
SCCA) is not a realistic approach. And actually there is very little, if any prospect of that happening.
Some by the way observations:
By the way, there was a substantive exchange regarding the
intent-to-reside provision in Bill C-24. The NDP, per MP Craig Scott, raised Lorne Waldman's concerns regarding this provision. The Hon. John McCallum in essence dismissed Waldman's concerns . . . stating, for example (regarding the argument that the
intent-to-reside clause could be used to revoke citizenship for naturalized citizens who later go to work abroad)
"I do not take this risk . . . too seriously." This provision was not among the Liberals'
". . . plethora of other reasons to oppose [Bill C-24]."
Another aspect of the second reading speeches/statements which may be of interest to some can be found by comparing the statements of Minister Alexander with those by Costas Menegakis, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister (and like Alexander, no longer in Parliament). While statements by Menegakis were also puncuated by partisan shots (and to be fair, McCallum did take some partisan shots as well), the substance of statements by Menegakis stands heads and shoulders plus some above statements by Minister Alexander himself. No comparison. One wonders whether Chris Alexander spent much time at all trying to understand what Bill C-24 even said, let alone what it meant.
In particular, Menegakis' comments directly address reasoning behind both the 4/6 rule, the 183 X 4 CY rule, and that these are based on physical presence rather than residence.
In the meantime the Syrian refugee crisis and Canada's effort to bring 25,000 refugees to Canada
this year (with not much to this year left) is taking up much of the oxygen. Between this pressing matter and the urgency with which the Liberals are addressing some key economic issues, including prospective tax relief for
middle-class Canadians, it is clear there are a number of matters with much more priority for the Liberals than fixing flaws in the
Citizenship Act or otherwise revising grant citizenship requirements.
That said, The Star is reporting that Minister McCallum has said the government is giving top priority to
removing two-tier citizenship "by the spring, if not sooner." The question is whether such legislation will include comprehensive changes to the
Citizenship Act or be narrowly drawn legislation directed at this specific issue. I suspect the latter, but that is just my guess and it is largely based on the complications I discuss above, that it is not clear the 3/4 rule as such is the better rule, and that such issues as this will likely require more study before revisions are brought forward for Parliamentary action.
