Proposed law would strip Canadian citizenship for acts of war

OTTAWA – A Conservative MP wants to reward permanent residents serving in the Canadian Armed Forces with faster citizenship and revoke the citizenship of people who engage in acts of war against Canada.

“Canadian citizenship is an honour and a privilege,” said Devinder Shory, who represents Calgary Northeast, in a press release. “Those who put themselves on the front lines for Canada deserve to be acknowledged, while those who repudiate their citizenship by committing violent acts against Canada’s armed forces should not be able to retain it.”

Shory’s private members bill was debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Bill C-425 would allow permanent residents who have signed a minimum three-year contract with the Canadian Forces to gain citizenship one year earlier than normal.

While citizenship is generally a requirement to join the Canadian Forces, permanent residents can receive a citizenship waiver if they have specific skill sets needed.

The second, and more contentious part of the bill, would see people stripped of Canadian citizenship if they fight against the Canadian Armed Forces. The provision would apply to dual citizens, citizens who are also a legal resident of another country or permanent residents of Canada who have applied for citizenship.

Shory commissioned a poll last year which suggested 80 per cent of Canadians would like to see citizenship be revoked in such cases.

SOUNDOFF: Do you think Canadians who fight in a war against Canada should lose automatically their citizenship? 

As the proposed law reads, a Canadian who engaged in an act of war would be deemed to have made an application to renounce their citizenship, which would then kick-start the legal process already in place under the Citizenship Act.

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The applicant would then have the opportunity to plead their case before a citizenship judge and can appeal to the federal court and the minister of citizenship and immigration.
Currently, citizenship can be revoked if someone obtained their citizenship by fraud, false representation or concealing material circumstance that could have affected their eligibility.

Shory’s bill is the latest in a series of Conservative measures concerning citizenship.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney last fall announced that the government would be revoking the citizenship of 3,100 citizens who obtained it fraudulently – unveiling a citizenship fraud tipline at the same time.

On Tuesday, Kenney’s office praised Shory for introducing Bill C-425.

“The government of Canada is committed to strengthening the value of Canadian citizenship,” said Kenney’s press secretary Alexis Pavlich. “We appreciate MP Shory’s initiative in introducing this bill. We hope to see this bill go forward to committee for further review and study.”

Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s office said he looks forward to discussing the issue of expedited citizenship further and supports measures that can stregthen the Canadian Armed Forces.

But the bill raised red flags for NDP immigration critic Jinny Sims, who said Citizenship and Immigration Canada has enough problems handling the applicants they have.

“At the same time as we are saying if you do this you can get your citizenship quicker, there are people who applied for their citizenship two, three or four years ago and who are still waiting,” Sims said.

Just as worrying, according to Sims, are the revocation provisions outlined in the bill.

“There are so many undefined terms in there that we just don’t use in Canada,” she said.

Not only are the terms undefined, they are unnecessary, said Queen’s University law professor Sherry Aiken.

“To strip someone of citizenship is a very serious sanction indeed and to the extent someone is culpable of acts of war there are more than enough tools in the existing arsenal of prosecutorial prospects to deal with it,” said Aiken, pointing to the Criminal Code as an example.

Aiken also said the current citizenship revocation process has proven to be a very difficult procedure even with respect to proven Nazi war criminals.

Despite the “cumbersome” process of revoking citizenship, Toronto-based immigration lawyer Sergio Karas said there needs to be a clear legal way to address this issue.

“They have basically used Canada as a passport of convenience,” he said of people who would be caught committing war acts against Canada.

Karas anticipated the number of Canadians who would be sanctioned under Bill C-425 would be relatively low and would involve people caught red-handed in the battlefield.

A military expert said both the measures in Bill C-425 are highly symbolic, but may prove tough to implement, especially the measures aimed at revoking citizenship.

“If nothing else it raises some very interesting questions and I think it is a debate worthwhile having as Canadians,” said Christian Leuprecht, an associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University.

Among the questions posed by Leuprecht: what is the standard of proof when it comes to war acts, where would Canada send revoked citizens, what happens if their other country rejects them, and would the law apply in a domestic conflict within Canada’s borders?

It will be up to MPs to decide whether Shory has the answers they need to support his bill.