C-24 revocation rules put into effect today

[dpenabill]

So, in my example, if the person has renounced his/her citz from country X, would that satisfy this law/clause? Or will revocation still apply?

If and when this comes up in an actual case, which might not happen for many years, or may never happen, it is very difficult to predict how the government will attempt to apply this law, let alone how the courts will rule on such an issue.

Some may advance a specific interpretation which will definitively answer this question. My view, in contrast, is that this question cannot be answered until there is a real case presenting these facts . . . and again, that may never happen . . . and even when the government advances its interpretation and application of the law, it is certain to be litigated at some length in the courts before there is any definitive interpretation.

Even though the government may have revoked more citizenships under Harper than all other revocations by previous Canadian governments combined, this still totals less than a hundred to date in nine years, and with only a very few exceptions these are all for very well documented cases of fraud (almost all cases in which the affected citizen has conceded the fraud). The new grounds for revoking citizenship are not going to open any flood-gates. Revocation will continue to be rarely imposed.

I mention this because in this context, many if not most of the more or less obvious potential issues with this legislation are not likely to be addressed any time soon . . . perhaps not for a very, very long time.

It should be remembered that this legislation is intended to have a prophylactic effect as much as it is intended to be an in fact used tool . . . it is intended to discourage, to chill, involvement in the kinds of activities which could result in prosecution and conviction for the types of offences covered . . . and in some respects, if not to a large extent, my sense is that this government wants this legislation to be a looming vague threat hanging over people's head precisely to discourage certain types of activities . . . perhaps even what many consider to be more aggressive activism (such as environmental activism) rather than what most people think of when the term "terrorism" is used (or related terms).

Thus, there is a significant degree to which the scope and applicability of this legislation is probably deliberately vague and open . . . so that individuals curb/censor their own behavior more than the government can actually enforce.

There is another side to the new process which is part of this government's march into non-transparency . . . currently all revocations are effected by an Order notice of which is published in the Privy Council database. Names of the affected person are not included, but for every revocation of citizenship to date, there is a public record . . . and going back to 2002, these are readily accessible online, so any one can go and count all the revocation cases to date. (I have done this for Harper's government, but I forget the total.) The new procedure will in effect be an internal decision and it will be entirely discretionary whether the government makes the revocations public information readily accessible. Probably will be accessible through ATI requests going forward, but not readily accessible like it is now. The government is closing more and more doors, pulling the curtains closed on more and more of what the government does.



By the way, the Program Delivery Instructions for the revocation changes are online now: See "Coming into force of new elements of the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act".

 

[dpenabill]

Some further observations about revoking citizenship:

This post is largely in response to a query posted yesterday, but soon deleted (for fairly obvious concerns), which will be addressed below. But it may be worth first outlining the general issue of citizenship revocation.

Grounds and procedures and practice regarding proceedings to revoke citizenship are discussed in numerous topics in this forum.

In particular, there are numerous topics in the forum regarding the 2009 to present investigatory sweep aimed at revoking citizenship for those who made misrepresentations, or otherwise engaged in fraud, in the course of obtaining PR status or applying for citizenship, including:

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t118196.0.html

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t77208.0.html


There are also several topics discussing the changes in the law pursuant to the SCCA (Bill C-24), relative to the revocation of citizenship, including:

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/c24-revocation-rules-put-into-effect-today-t297379.0.html

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t297396.0.html

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t248637.0.html

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/-t298725.0.html

There are more than those I reference above.

Both the Liberals and the NDP have promised to repeal some of the new provisions governing the revocation of citizenship, including in particular those which would revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted of certain criminal offences (so far limited to terrorism or treason related charges, but the Federal Court ruling by Justice Rennie, under appeal still, stated that Parliament has the general power to specify grounds for revoking citizenship, including for grounds based on criminal acts), including for such acts committed while lawfully a Canadian citizen, if the individual has, or is entitled to have, citizenship in another country . . . . thus, not just those with dual citizenship, but anyone who possibly could have citizenship in another country . . . for example, one of the so-called Toronto 18, who the government has commenced revocation proceedings against, was born in Canada to Canadian citizens, neither parent at the time a citizen of any other country, and he himself never having any other citizenship; but even though the parents who were born in Pakistan had given up Pakistani citizenship when they became Canadian citizens, about a decade ago Pakistan changed its laws essentially entitling a child to Pakistani citizenship if the child's parents were born in Pakistan, regardless of the fact that the parents were not citizens of Pakistan at the time the child was born.

Thus, the election tomorrow may affect the extent to which the Minister of CIC retains authority to revoke lawfully obtained citizenship based on criminal acts. A new government might also revisit the procedures adopted in the SCCA for revoking citizenship.

Or those could become unfulfilled campaign promises, as so many campaign promises do . . . especially for minority governments whose hands are somewhat tied in terms of which of their campaign promises they can actually follow through with.

In any event, however, fraud or misrepresentation, in either the process of becoming a Permanent Resident or during the citizenship application process, will certainly continue to be a basis for the government to revoke citizenship. Prior to the Harper Conservative government this power was so sparingly exercised that revocation of citizenship was rare, limited to more or less the most egregious cases, almost all involving serious involvement or at least complicity in the commission of very serious war crimes or crimes against humanity in conjunction with substantial misrepresentation (mostly by omission, as to activities or positions which could have alerted Canadian authorities to such involvement) in the process of immigrating to Canada.

Since Harper became Prime Minister there have been many, many more cases of revoked citizenship than the number in all of Canada's history prior to Harper becoming PM. There are purportedly up to hundreds more still in process.

The most common ground for revoking citizenship now is misrepresentation in either the application for PR or in the application for citizenship, most based on misrepresentations or omissions related to residency (including as to address history or employment history, as well as to absences in particular).

Thus, and for sure under the current government (which is likely to come to an end soon after tomorrow, but which may continue depending on the outcome of the election), any naturalized citizen who engaged in misrepresentation or fraud in the course of applying for either PR or citizenship, is forever at risk of proceedings to revoke his or her citizenship. Even if there is a different party in government soon, this risk continues but it is uncertain how zealously it would be pursued (my guess: not nearly so zealously as by the Harper gov't, but more so than it was previously).

Historically, but only since 2008/2009, CIC (in conjunction with CBSA and the RCMP) has largely pursued these cases based on a broad, sweeping investigation the parameters of which are not public information. It is likely this has included some database queries to correlate certain criteria, such as postal codes, telephone numbers, employers, and other information which an electronic search query could flag as identical or closely related to already identified suspect addresses, telephone numbers, employers, or consultants (mostly unauthorized and a few, now formerly authorized consultants).

Thus, anyone who had been assisted in becoming a PR or a citizen by certain consultants, those who eventually were tied to various schemes or means of deceiving CIC, quite likely had their immigration history and citizenship application scrutinized closely by investigators looking for misrepresentations. Typically this was about individuals using an address, telephone number, or name of employer, which was also being used by others already identified as engaging in fraud or as provided by a consultant. (For example, it turned out that one consultant alone had provided the same phoney home address, including telephone number, for several dozen citizenship applicants.)

I assume that CIC, CBSA, and the RCMP have already identified the overwhelming majority, if not just about all of the cases which this approach would target for investigation. Anyone who has not yet received the letter is not likely to be targeted in the future due to that investigatory sweep.

Who might be targeted going forward: going forward, for anyone who did make misrepresentations, including misrepresentation by omission, or who otherwise engaged in fraud, and again this is relative to becoming either a PR or a citizen, there is always the risk of being reported by someone who, for whatever reason, knows enough to substantiate the report and is motivated to, in effect, turn-the-person-in. That is, for example, the vindictive ex-spouse, business partner, or in-law, among others (a former friend who helped but now desperately in need of money?), who knows and who might tell.

Leading to the query posted yesterday (which I attribute to "anonymous" recognizing, given the deletion, the person posting the query wants to distance himself or herself from the issue):

[quote author=Anonymous]
Can they strip someone from their citizenship if the way they got to Canada in the first place was marrying someone and giving them money for the sponsorship?!? Has anyone done it? What do they do with these people then?
[/quote]

Yes they can.

I have not seen any revocation of citizenship cases based on alleged marriage of convenience, but the published orders issued by the Governor in Council do not disclose any detail by which the public could identify the subject (reflecting internal identifiers only), so we only see reasons or grounds indicated in cases which have gone through a judicial process. (And now, under the SCCA, the process is concealed even more so from the public eye.) I have not noticed any based on misrepresentation related to the genuineness of the relationship for sponsored PRs.

It is worth emphasizing, again, that it has only been since 2009 that the government has made a broad effort to investigate fraud, relative to either PRs or citizens who were PRs, beyond a very few cases against those alleged of war crimes or similar backgrounds (mostly involving history of military or related activities that was not disclosed in the process of immigrating to Canada). In contrast, since 2009 the Harper government has greatly expanded the scope of investigating backgrounds, and it appears there are several dozen cases, perhaps a few hundred even, which do indeed involve misrepresentation in the process of obtaining PR status.

The thing about misrepresentation or fraud in obtaining PR status, it is grounds for both revoking citizenship and terminating PR status. So the ultimate outcome for someone the government determines to have done this is loss of status in Canada, and deportation (subject to certain limitations regarding who can in fact be deported; there are, for example, H&C reasons why a person without legal status in Canada might, nonetheless, not be subject to deportation).

Obviously, this example is a prime example of the risk from a potential hotline tip report by an individual who is either vindictively motivated or is someone with a strong sense of doing what is right who has learned of the fraud.

The huge difference, a really huge difference, is that under the SCCA's revised revocation procedure, the practical burden of proof is probably significantly if not greatly less than it was prior to the changes in procedure. Technically "beyond the balance of probabilities" is the standard, and long has been. But the practical reality was that previously the courts demanded some rather substantial amount of proof before revocation might even be considered. This is to say, regardless who forms the next government, the risk of being, in effect, prosecuted for misrepresentation and losing citizenship and PR status, is significantly greater going forward than it was in the past. My sense is that some judicial challenges, both generally and likely to come anytime (as pursued by others already being affected), as well as particularly available to the individual affected, may have a dramatic impact on the scope of what the government may go after, but at this stage the outcome of the judicial challenges (including as to the procedure itself) is speculative.

Additionally: Obviously, misrepresentation or fraud in obtaining either PR status or citizenship is a crime and may result in criminal proceedings, perhaps a period of free room and board in a secure facility. This is not often seen, but in recent years there have been some individuals prosecuted criminally for making misrepresentations in a citizenship application.