Canada: Bill C-24, if passed, will create second class citizens

[Hildegarda]

This may be important to some of our Canadian members, not to mention it's horrible overall.

_http://carl-acaadr.ca/articles/70

February 26, 2014
The federal government is trying to pass a law that will increase barriers to obtaining citizenship and take away rights from countless Canadians holding dual citizenship. On February 6, 2014 the federal government introduced Bill C-24, which is aimed at dismantling key aspects of Canadian citizenship as we know it. The law will make citizenship more difficult to get for everyone, and will potentially make it impossible for some of our most vulnerable permanent residents, grandparents, and low-income immigrants, to become Canadians. And, more than ever before, the law will make citizenship easier to revoke — by replacing an in-person hearing before an independent judge with a review by an anonymous government bureaucrat who never sees or hears the citizen.

The law will divide Canadians into two classes of citizens: first class Canadians who hold no other citizenship, whose citizenship is protected forever; and second class Canadians – dual citizens, who can have their right to live in Canada taken away from them by the federal government. Even those born in Canada are at risk of losing citizenship. In some cases, Canadians may not even be aware that they possess another citizenship. Someone born in Canada who has a spouse, parent, or grandparent from another country could be a citizen of that country without ever having applied for it. The proposed law would put them at risk of losing Canadian citizenship if the Minister asserts that they possess, could possess, or could obtain another citizenship. The burden would be on the Canadian citizen to prove otherwise to the Minister’s satisfaction.

Citizenship will be harder to get

The proposed changes to the Citizenship Act will create unfair barriers to citizenship and make citizenship inaccessible to many. The proposed law will:

Grant government officials authority to deny citizenship on sheer speculation that an applicant does not intend to reside in Canada in the future;

Extend the formal residency requirement during which an applicant must live as a permanent resident in Canada from 3 to 4 years. This represents a hardship, since processing times for citizenship are extremely long. Applicants today wait 4-6 years to become citizens due to government delay and inefficiency, and may have to wait even longer under the new system;

Make it harder for students, workers, and refugees to become citizens by denying them the ability to count any of their time in Canada prior to becoming permanent residents when applying for citizenship;

Extend the costly language testing process to include applicants aged 14-64, rather than applicants aged 18-55, as under the current system. Under the new proposed law, children and grandparents would have to pass difficult language tests or risk never becoming citizens;

Dramatically increase the cost of applying for citizenship by tripling the application fee, which will be added to the new cost imposed on applicants a year ago when the government privatized language testing. As a result, the price of applying for citizenship will now cost 4 times more than it did in 2006;

Remove a right of appeal to the Federal Court for refused citizenship applicants – continuing a theme of greater bureaucratic control over citizenship decision-making and less judicial oversight over the process.

Citizenship will be easier to take away

The proposed changes to the Citizenship Act will create second-class citizens with fewer rights than other Canadians, whose citizenship will be more insecure. The new law will:

Replace the right to an oral hearing before an independent judge in most revocation proceedings with a written review by a bureaucrat acting under the direction of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration;

Put all naturalized citizens under the implicit threat of having their citizenship revoked, by making it possible for government officials to strip someone of citizenship if they believe that person never intended to live in Canada. This could happen if a naturalized Canadian decides to study, accept a job, or even move in with a romantic partner outside of Canada. In contrast, Canadian citizens by birth never have to worry that time spend away from Canada might put their citizenship status at risk;

Allow officials to take away a person’s citizenship based on criminal convictions that occur outside of Canada, regardless whether the regime or judicial system under which the person was convicted is undemocratic or lacks the rule of law;

Bring back the ancient punishment of exile or banishment – abandoned centuries ago – by allowing government officials to strip citizenship from dual citizens based on certain convictions in Canada even though the citizen will already have been properly punished by the Canadian criminal justice system. This will include Canadians who were born in Canada.

 

[loreta]

Thank you for this information, Hidegarda. This is horrible. I hope this law will not pass. I hope!

This planet is becoming an inferno for many, many people.

I would like to hear about Canadians, how this law can touch them in any ways. I am a Canadian, my husband also but I have also the Spanish nationality. So I risk to loose my Canadian nationality and become a second class citizen. And my husband also, because he is married with me.

How come this is possible, to pass a law like this one? Canada is a rich country in fact because of all the immigrants. Reading the text you put I had a very bad feeling, like reading something from the Nazis.

 

[Sol Logos]

Thank you for this information, Hidegarda. This is horrible. I hope this law will not pass. I hope!

This planet is becoming an inferno for many, many people.

I would like to hear about Canadians, how this law can touch them in any ways. I am a Canadian, my husband also but I have also the Spanish nationality. So I risk to loose my Canadian nationality and become a second class citizen. And my husband also, because he is married with me.

How come this is possible, to pass a law like this one? Canada is a rich country in fact because of all the immigrants. Reading the text you put I had a very bad feeling, like reading something from the Nazis.

I've been thinking a bit on this idea of citizenship lately and from some angles its not at all that good. Sorry about this long spiel on this topic, it's just this concept of citizenship interests me, so this might be valuable for others or not. I agree though its a horrible proposal probably all about money with the sums all added up. My general feeling is that citizenship is a fraud sold to us as something we need when I feel we'd all actually function better in small modern tribes of strong communities and families.

Anyway, say in Australia, being born here and registered by my folks makes me a kind of quasi-citizen before I grew to a point where it's considered (by the state) that I have sufficient awareness to choose independently (I think that's 18 YO but don't know for sure the age). Before that time anyway I'm deemed a ward of the state under paren patriae jurisdiction, which basically means if my parents are seen by (the state) to be incapable of looking after me (by state standards), I can be taken away and "looked after" by the state. The state then is my father (paren patriae), and still is because if I'm seen (by state standards) to be mad, I can be taken away against my will. Well I must be mad if I don't agree with the state!

So once I get to an age to "choose" then I'm legally allowed to revoke citizenship but I can't do that unless I have another citizenship from another nation because that's the legal regulation - how convenient. So basically I can't decide to revoke citizenship altogether. I would say this is the same in Canada too - they won't be revoking anyone unless they have another citizenship that is, which is the case.

So essentially by not revoking this (which I wouldn't as there's worse citizenships titles I could choose to be under) and just living in Australia, this is considered wilfully taking benefits of the Australian citizenship.
This then binds me contractually to the laws of my "sovereign" (government). Taking benefits like having the right to vote (but no right not to vote here in Australia) and having a drivers licence is meant to be my acceptance of benefits and thereby agreeing the government is my superior authority.

Simply inhabiting this geographic space and living on it in a way that avoids me being locked up (like I would be locked up driving without a licence anyway), it is legally assumed that I'm ok with sacrificing natural rights such as the right to choose what I want to do without harming others and the right to inhabit land without harming others. I exchanged these rights for the "benefits" of being a citizen, which in a nutshell the biggest selling point is basically government protection, like prisons to lock up bad guys that drive around without licences and having the army around ready to stop other nations threatening my peace like Iraq who were all set to make all those weapons of mass destruction that could have hit Australia.

Seriously though simply put it's no different to a mafia protection racket, you can choose not to pay but your shop will be bombed - not really a choice in my books.

What's interesting though is this from a lawful point of view is not a valid contract. It's like me signing a deal that says I'll pay the mafia $500 a day to protect my shop (while being told if I don't sign they'll bomb my shop). So in some sense citizenship which is an accepted title granted on our implied agreement (contract) to fulfil obligations (terms of contract like paying taxes and voting etc.) happens under duress. If I agree even implicitly under threat its not binding and this means its not valid. Which kind of means basically too that citizenship can't be revoked as it was never technically valid to be revokable to begin with. Really valid I mean if law in courts was truly impartial.

All in all its just dropping another level down creating fear and distress and real harm to people and families by revoking dual citizenship title holders and dumping people. It's probably just a way to pay less government benefits like pensions and healthcare and prison (still considered a benefit) so the numbers look better on the balance sheets. Its a worry.

I wonder, there must be some serious economic issues predicted if they're pulling those stunts.

 

[mabar]

This may be important to some of our Canadian members, not to mention it's horrible overall.

I think is important to all over sea americans and so other related associations, as well as every nation members that their country is subjected to USA polices regarding FATCA and issues related in this thread: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,34814.0.html, countries that had signed such agreement of collaboration are taking measures to prevent American sheep” going away from the fence.

So for example –in that thread-, angelburst29 post, mentions that Banamex USA, a subsidary of Citibank will close acccounts from –as I understood- all american citizens living in Mexico by June 30!!. What?? I am not affected and I am dumbstruck!! and somehow scared of how evil/draconinan/orwellian/ things are evolving quite quickly.

An option, to attain mexican citizenship, but that is not that easily either, and of course you will loose privileges/problems/rights and you may/would by default acquire others.

Added: I wrote that I am not affected, but ... I suppose I may not be affected directly because I am not american nor canadian, but all this kind of measures affect us to all in general from colloraries.