My question is: what does this ruling mean?
I've just never heard anything like it. It was in our local papers.
Prior to 2008/2010, revocation of citizenship was RARE. Proceedings to revoke citizenship were limited to the most egregious or high profile cases (such as individuals identified as connected to WW II Nazi war crimes). Indeed, during the years Harper was PM, more proceedings to revoke citizenship were undertaken than had been undertaken in ALL Canadian history prior to Harper becoming PM.
I am not sure whether your reference to never hearing about such things is about the particular grounds for revoking citizenship in the Vujicic case, or that you were not aware Canada would revoke citizenship for misrepresentations made in the course of immigrating to Canada (not just in the application for citizenship).
But I understand why learning that Canada might revoke citizenship for something that happened before becoming a PR might invite questions and concerns. Most of us make mistakes. In the course of applying for PR, many of us may have failed to disclose every detail IRCC could consider relevant or material. Does this leave us at risk for having our citizenship revoked?
For me personally, for example, in my application for PR I did not declare each and every commanding officer I had while I served in the military. This is basically what Helmut Oberlander failed to do when he immigrated to Canada in the 1950s. He became a Canadian citizen in 1960. Proceedings to revoke his citizenship began in 1995. Last I am aware, he has another appeal pending regarding . . . I am not sure, the fourth or fifth decision to revoke his Canadian citizenship.
The difference between Oberlander and me is that he failed to disclose being deployed with a Nazi kill squad during WW II (acting as a translator, probably as a teenage conscript, that is a Ukrainian drafted by the invading Germans), whereas I left out some short periods of time I was stationed at and attending this and that school prior to being deployed abroad.
Just for reference as to how complicated revocation of citizenship can be, here are SOME (not all) the proceedings involving the revocation of Oberlander's citizenship:
Oberlander v. Canada (Attorney General), [2016] 4 FCR 55, 2016 FCA 52 (CanLII) — 2016-02-15
Oberlander v. Canada (Attorney General), [2016] 1 FCR 56, 2015 FC 46 (CanLII) — 2015-01-13
Oberlander v. Canada (Attorney General), 2009 FCA 330 (CanLII) — 2009-11-17
Oberlander v. Canada (Attorney General), [2009] 3 FCR 358, 2008 FC 1200 (CanLII) — 2008-10-27
Oberlander v. Canada (Attorney General), [2005] 1 FCR 3, 2004 FCA 213 (CanLII) — 2004-05-31
Oberlander v. Canada (Attorney General), 2003 FC 944 (CanLII) — 2003-08-01
Am I at risk for having my citizenship revoked because I failed, in my application for PR, to disclose each and every command I served with while in the military?
I do not think so. (And I surely hope not!)
But it is not easy to clearly or definitively explain why not given the ruling about Oberlander's omission. Sure, the fact that he was drafted by the Germans, who invaded the Ukraine and conscripted many of its young men, resulting in serving with a unit that committed war crimes is a huge, huge difference, BUT there is NO allegation that Oberlander himself engaged in any war crimes. Which is to say that the revocation proceedings (his citizenship was first revoked in 2001 as I recall) against him are not based on war crimes but based on his failure to disclose he served with a unit which consisted of numerous individuals who systematically did engage in war crimes.
In any event, many may sincerely wonder what makes the difference between failing to disclose something thought unimportant and something which can be construed to be a material misrepresentation leading to the revocation of citizenship.
And this is itself a huge, and largely separate subject: what sort of misrepresentation, especially omission, will constitute grounds for revoking citizenship?
GROUNDS for the revocation of citizenship are specified in Section 10 in the Citizenship Act. See
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-29/page-4.html#docCont
Basically there is one ground:
FRAUD. That is, "false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances." This has, essentially, always been a ground for revoking citizenship.
There is a distinction in the grounds and procedure for fraud (misrepresentation, omission) based on what fact(s) or material circumstances were falsely represented or concealed, treating cases involving things like war crimes, engaging in organized criminal organizations, or engaging in terrorism, differently from those involving other circumstances, including treating fraud as to serious criminality the same as other fraud (such as misrepresentations about job skills in a PR visa app). Without wandering too far into the weeds, cases related to war crimes and such have a more direct path to deportation (at least technically).
What is of concern for most, however, is revocation for what is essentially ordinary fraud. That is, the question many ask is what makes the difference between failing to disclose something thought to be unimportant versus something which the Canadian government might construe to be a material misrepresentation sufficient to constitute grounds for revoking citizenship.
What constitutes a material misrepresentation constituting grounds for revocation of citizenship is
TECHNICALLY the same as what constitutes a material misrepresentation generally. Thus, one can look to scores and scores of IAD and Federal Court decisions over the years which closely examine and analyze what constitutes a material misrepresentation in a wide range of cases involving various aspects of Canadian immigration law, in addition to the dozens of decisions in citizenship revocation cases. That is, there is plenty of law and interpretation of law and application of the interpretations of the law related to alleged misrepresentation in immigration matters.
Again, in an effort to avoid wandering too far into the weeds in this regard, for our purposes here it warrants noting and emphasizing that even in the context of an allegation of misrepresentation in, say, a visa application, in practical terms IRCC has a fairly high bar for making such charges. IRCC typically treats scores of inaccuracies and minor omissions, and some not-so-minor omissions, as MISTAKES, not misrepresentation. Mistakes can still have a big impact on how IRCC perceives an individual's credibility, and bigger or more serious the mistake, the more negative impact it tends to have on the individual's credibility. BUT IRCC will rarely allege what one might call actionable misrepresentation UNLESS it is rather apparent there was a deliberate effort to mislead or conceal regarding a rather substantial fact or circumstance.
Thus, those of us who made some errors, whose PR applications contained an inaccuracy or two, or in which there was an omission (failure to disclose a brief employment for example; or my situation, failure to disclose ALL commanding officers I served with while in the military), have almost NOTHING to WORRY ABOUT . . . even in terms of whether the inaccuracy or omission might have triggered an allegation of misrepresentation.
FOR PURPOSES OF CITIZENSHIP REVOCATION the bar is practically much, much higher than that. This is a bit complicated if not convoluted because authorities, including Federal Justices, will emphatically state otherwise. The standard of proof, for example, is technically the same. There is, purportedly, NO higher standard for proving misrepresentation in a citizenship revocation proceeding than there is for other proceedings. In practice, however, at least historically, the citizenship revocation case tends to get scrutinized far more intently and critically than other misrepresentation cases.
While there was something of a draconian sweep of past grants of citizenship in the Harper era crackdown on fraud, resulting in the initiation of hundreds, perhaps thousands of proceedings to revoke citizenship or PR status, even in that it was largely (with some probable exceptions and unfortunate miscarriages of justice) focused only on the more egregious and obvious instances of outright fraud (most facilitated by a number of crooked consultants identified in the course of the aggressive investigations being conducted in that period of time). Typical cases involved the use of outright fraudulent Canadian addresses and employers by many individuals who spent very little time actually in Canada, and many of whom had similarly obtained PR status through a crooked consultant and phony job offers and such.
IT WAS NOT AS IF CIC DUG UP ORDINARY DISCREPANCIES OR OMISSIONS. THE SWEEP WAS FOCUSED ON OVERTLY FRAUDULENT SCHEMES.
Which is to say that even at the peak of efforts to expose false representations and omissions, the vast, vast majority of naturalized citizens were NOT affected even if there were significant inaccuracies or omissions in their immigration applications, from visa to citizenship.
Thus, generally, there is virtually NO RISK that IRCC will come across an omission or mistake and use that as grounds to revoke citizenship.
BUT what happens if IRCC decides to proceed with revocation? Say, for example, a disgruntled former spouse submits a "tip" to IRCC alleging that a naturalized citizenship was not in a genuine marital relationship when he or she was sponsored for PR, and there is enough circumstantial evidence to support suspicion the allegation is true.
What happens then . . . that will require yet another post.
To be continued.
