OPINION
Monday, August 31, 2015 7
Second Class, Second Rate
Early thoughts on second class citizenship in Canada.
jermain virgo › contributor
I
n m ay 2015, Bill C-24—ironically titled the
‘Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act’—
came into effect. For the first time ever, Canada
imposed a tiered level of citizenship. While
the government has touted the bill as a cost-effective method for fighting terrorism, legal experts
around the country have suggested the main effect is
the creation of a second class of citizens. This poses
great concerns for all Canadians and fundamentally
changes what it means to be a Canadian citizen.
Under the new bill, Canadian citizens who have no
other citizenship and no right to obtain citizenship
from another country have become the First Class.
This First Class is not directly affected by the bill.
However, the Second Class—Canadian citizens who
hold dual citizenship or Canadian citizens that have a
right to obtain citizenship from another country—are
now at risk of losing their Canadian citizenship.
The grounds for revocation are currently limited to
acts of terrorism and treason, which may seem like
reasonable grounds at first glance. Section 10(2)(b) of
Bill C-24 permits the Minister to revoke a Canadian’s
citizenship if she
commits “a terrorism offence as
defined in section
2 of the Criminal
Code—or
an
offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada,
would constitute a terrorism offence as defined in that
section—and sentenced to at least five years of imprisonment.” The problem is that the bill “… impose[s]
exile as an additional form of punishment. It imposes
levels of citizenship rights for the first time in Canada.
It is unfair and discriminatory.” Essentially, Second
Class citizens are punished twice for the same crime.
Yet this violates one of the oldest, most essential legal
principles: the rule of law, which states that every citizen shall be equal under the law. As a Canadian citizen, whether you are a white male or a black woman,
a young person or an old person, a dual, naturalized, or native citizen, you are supposed to be treated
equally under the law. That is what it means to have a
Canadian citizenship: equal rights, equal protections,
equal punishments. Bill C-24 violates those principles and in so doing violates Canadian citizenship as
a whole. Moreover, Canada prides itself on being one
of the most multicultural and welcoming countries
in the world. To allow the creation of Second Class
Citizenship is not only foolhardy, but a grotesque violation of all that it means to be Canadian.
Second, whether or not you believe committing
an act of terrorism or treason is grounds for losing
one’s citizenship, the method Bill C-24 relies on to
determine what constitutes terrorism is faulty. This
is because first, it is not Canada but other countries
that decide the definition of terrorism, and second the
definition of terrorism is often grounded in political
context. During times of political strife many governments frame competing political groups as terrorists and levy false charges against them. This means
Canadians who have done no wrong could be stripped
of their citizenship. For example, Nelson Mandela,
who was awarded Canada’s highest accolades and
given honorary citizenship, was falsely convicted
of what could be considered an act of terrorism and
sentenced to life in prison by the South African government. Under Bill C-24 Mandela could be stripped
of his citizenship and exiled. A law that would punish
one of the greatest human rights activists for being
framed by a corrupt foreign government is certainly
not a law worth having.
Third, the bill does not criminalize conduct
in Canada pre-dating the relevant sections of the
Criminal Code but includes that conduct abroad. This
has the strange effect of allowing citizens convicted
of terrorism against Canada in the past immunity,
so long as the offence was committed in Canada. For
example, citizens convicted of terrorism during the
1970 FLQ crisis would retain their citizenship even
though Canada was the direct target, but anyone
committing the same conduct abroad would lose
their citizenship (CBA 24). That is simply absurd.
Fourth, according to Section 10.1(2) of the bill, “If
the Minister has reasonable grounds to believe that a
person, before or after the coming into force of this
section and while the person was a citizen, served
as a member of an armed force of a country or as a
member of an
organized armed
group and that
country or group
was engaged in
an armed conflict with Canada” he may revoke that person’s citizenship. This means people who were suddenly and
involuntarily drafted to fight against Canada could
lose their Canadian citizenship even if they never
saw active duty, were vehemently against the conflict, and vacated as soon as possible. This is counterintuitive, especially since many immigrants come to
Canada precisely to escape that sort of violence.
Moreover, it is not clear what constitutes an
“armed conflict with Canada.” If a member of a political group you were with threw a shoe at a Canadian
“It imposes levels of citizenship
rights for the first time in Canada.”
ê Photo credit: bccla.org
delegate, couldn’t that be construed as an armed conflict with Canada? Are we going to strip people of
their citizenship for poor (but non-injurious) political behaviour and acts committed by third parties?
Just how widely may the bill be interpreted? Nobody
knows. Which is why the fifth point of interest is the
incomprehensible language of the bill.
According to the Canadian Bar Association, “Bill
C-24 uses excessive cross-referencing within the Act
and to previous citizenship legislation to the point
of near incoherence. This results [in] the legislation being inaccessible to the public as well as many
public servants, politicians, lawyers, and judges,
delayed processing times for citizenship applications
and an increased backlog, and an increased burden
on Canadian courts. Plai