I respectfully advise you to read the FULL ruling:
"....In my opinion, citizenship is a privilege only when it has not yet been obtained.....Once acquired, the rights flowing from citizenship have vested. Therefore, once acquired, citizenship is a right...”
Justice Gagné
Generally, if you have a link or citation to the "FULL ruling" please share at least the citation, especially if you purport to be offering a report based on the actual decision.
While I cannot provide a link, the case citation is: 2017 FC 473 (docketed and titled per the various applicants; such as, for example Docket T-1584-15 Abdulla Ahmad Hassouna v. The Minister Of Citizenship And Immigration Canada)
That noted, it appears you are not quoting the decision but rather blogger Elizabeth Raymer (and without attribution).
I would note, for example, that what you purport to be quoting from Justice Gagné's decision is the precise language used by the blogger. In contrast, this quoted language actually is taken from parts of separate paragraphs in the decision (first part of paragraph 75 and the latter part of paragraph 76) and overlooks other critical language necessary to understanding the meaning of these terms in context.
The distinction is actually important. While I will address this further below, if indeed you were following your own admonition to read the "FULL ruling," then you might have quoted the actual decision rather than a blogger, and to avoid misleading, included the following (from paragraph 155 on page 48 of the decision):
"[155] Citizenship or nationality is not a right guaranteed by the Charter."
So, to be clear, Justice Gagné ruled that
"Citizenship or nationality is NOT A RIGHT guaranteed by the Charter." (emphasis added)
In any event, the following is overtly wrong:
It looks like Justice Gagné reviewed the law against the Section 12 related to Crual and Unusual Punishment ONLY. Had the review been against other sections (it all comes down to the case), her conclusion may have been different.
Justice Gagné did address whether the revocation procedure will subject an individual to cruel and unusual treatment, in violation of Section 12 of the Charter. This was in Part IV.E. of the decision beginning on page 49 (overall, paragraphs 162 to 190, page 49 to 57).
However, Justice Gagné also addressed, for example, whether the revocation process will interfere with, or deprive a person of, his or her life, liberty or security, in violation of Section 7 of the Charter.
This was done in Part IV. D. titled:
Are any of subsections 10(1), 10(3), or 10(4) of the Amended Act unconstitutional as violating section 7 of the Charter?
(see paragraphs 127 to 161; found at page 39 to 49)
I quoted paragraph 155 above. It warrants repeating:
"[155] Citizenship or nationality is not a right guaranteed by the Charter."
Certified questions:
Justice Gagné certified the question as to whether the revocation procedure violates Charter Section 7 or 12, or Section 2(e) of the Bill of Rights.
Reminder: Justice Gagné did rule that it violates Section 2(e) of the Bill of Rights but does
NOT violate either Section 7 or 12 in the Charter of Rights.
Citizenship a privilege or a right:
There are compelling reasons why, in my previous post, I stated:
"However one characterizes what it is that citizenship is, as a privilege or a right, it is not like a license to sell real estate."
To my view, it is preferable to avoid using these terms relative to one another. After all, there are
rights which apply to and protect privileges, and the nature and extent of rights which apply to and protect this or that, typically determine to what extent the government can impinge that thing, not the label. In legal decision-making, the label (right or privilege) tends to come after the fact, after the decision-maker has determined what is required to grant or take away this or that thing. In popular discourse, there is an opposite tendency, to take sides, to assert that this or that thing is, for example, a
"right" and therefore the government should have to meet this higher hurdle for denying or taking this or that thing away.
A real estate license is, without a doubt, a "privilege." But nonetheless the government cannot terminate or take away a person's real estate license without due or fair process. In contrast, the right to liberty is perhaps one of the most fundamental
"rights" recognized as such, but here too, the government can take away a person's liberty, and again to do so the process must be fair.
The difference is more about the nature and extent of procedural safeguards protecting persons from unfair loss of either of these things, a more strict process required to deprive a person of his or her liberty, while the process for terminating a person's real estate license is not so strict.
In particular, outside discourse in jurisprudence, use of the terms "privilege" and "right" relative to one another to characterize an individual interest almost always obfuscates, conflates, and confuses vastly more than it illuminates. Even within the confines of discourse in jurisprudence, including official judicial decisions, these terms tend to be more confusing than helpful and their usage is often badly mangled.
In contrast, for most
things one might describe as either a privilege or a right, there are practical attributes, including legal status, regarding which there is usually some body of law (including decisional application) specifying the parameters for granting, issuing, withholding, limiting, infringing, or terminating that subject or thing. Thus, for example, in the hundreds of Federal Court decisions about granting citizenship, maybe a dozen or so refer to the grant of citizenship specifically as a "privilege." The vast majority of decisions address the various legal issues related to the parameters for granting or denying citizenship without relying on or mentioning that the grant of citizenship is a privilege not a right.
While Justice Gagné makes a good effort to avoid the pitfalls and misleading tangents which so often hinder the use of these terms, to some extent her language leaves the door open to the sort of misleading characterizations which too often entangle judicial references to "rights" and "privileges." Note several comments in this topic which tend to react to the characterization of citizenship as a right or privilege.
Whether it is one or the other is not really what is important. What is important is the parameters for granting, issuing, or denying citizenship (as in who and how a person becomes or is denied citizenship, which includes provisions governing who is a citizen by birth). What is important is the parameters for otherwise limiting or restricting or taking away citizenship once a person is a citizen (including revocation for fraud).
Justice Gagné repeats what has been oft cited and affirmed about the grant of citizenship: that a
grant of citizenship is a
privilege. She then goes on to describe what that means, first by stating this another way:
"Access to citizenship . . . is a privilege."
The significance of this is that Section 2(e) in the Bill of Rights has been held to
NOT be applicable to the granting of a mere privilege, "such as citizenship." (To my view it is curious that Justice Gagné cites what really is merely dicta from a decision which ruled that Section 2(e) does apply to an arbitrator's decision-making process, generally, but there was no violation of the right to a fair hearing in the particular circumstances of that case, which had nothing to do with citizenship.)
However, that tangent does not deserve much attention, since it is consistent with many other citizenship cases, including numerous revocation of citizenship cases from the old law (prior to Bill C-24).
The more general discussion related to the statement by Justice Gagné that
"once acquired, citizenship is a right,", found in paragraphs 76 to 79, is actually quite limited in how the term "right" is used by Justice Gagné . . . and it really is specifically, only about ruling that citizenship (as acquired) falls within the scope of
"rights and obligations" protected by the fair hearing requirement in Section 2(e) of the Canadian Bill of Rights.
Which leads this discussion back to the blunt statement Justice Gagné made in paragraph 155, which again warrants repeating:
"[155] Citizenship or nationality is not a right guaranteed by the Charter."
Let me say that neither pronouncement warrants a lot of attention. Again, it is not really all that important whether one describes citizenship as a privilege or a right, particularly in this context, since what really matters are the governing parameters, for granting or denying citizenship on the access to citizenship side of things, and the governing parameters (including procedures) for restricting or revoking citizenship.
