Citizenship and Immigration committee  The reasoning behind it is that the Income Tax Act contains its own enforcement mechanisms, and imposing or requiring that for citizenship applications is really trying to enforce the Income Tax Act through the Citizenship Act, which we don't think is a good approach. Also, we raised the issue of the potentiality that someone could, for example, think that they weren't required to file their income tax report and then would submit their citizenship application saying that they didn't think they were required to file.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There are only some situations where that would happen. It's where somebody misrepresented in their PR application and then became a citizen. Under the act now, they go back to being a foreign national. Our submission is that they should go to permanent resident status so that they can have an appeal.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, the submissions of the bar are in support of the repeal of the national interest revocation provisions. I think the answer is probably no. Canadians wouldn't want to see that happen and to have people being sent back in that scenario. I'll pass it on.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They're set out on pages 6 and 7 of the test from that manual. These apply, for example, to a person who is travelling on business, but their family lives in Canada and their children go to school here and they have a house or a residence here. It depends on whether they've centralized their mode of existence—that's the language from the case law—in Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I think that's the thrust of the submission. Under section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, officers can be delegated the authority to grant exemptions, and that's how we would approach this as well.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The position of the Canadian Bar Association would be that citizenship should be revoked in cases of misrepresentation and fraud, but that there should be some consideration available for someone who has been in the country for a long time and is established, and where the revocation could have a serious effect—for example, on their job.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  This was a submission we made at the time that Bill C-24 was coming into effect. We're still proposing, in what we call the “hard cases”, that there be a provision to allow the department to grant citizenship. The test that existed prior to Bill C-24 I described as a bit of a vacuum.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Prior to Bill C-24, applicants could take the knowledge test with an interpreter. So the knowledge test was really a test of their knowledge and not necessarily of their language ability. Our submission was that requiring people to take the knowledge test in an official language amounts to a second-language test.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  My only additional comment is that to my understanding, the processing fee is intended to be a cost recovery model. From our point of view, we like to see fast processing of citizenship applications. In terms of addressing the issues of access, perhaps something like a waiver on humanitarian grounds could be considered, but we would not necessarily support the reduction of the fee if that's going to negatively affect processing times.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think my reaction is more of a practical one, in the sense that I'm not sure how the revocation of someone's citizenship actually makes us safer. I think the problem of terrorism—

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but people will find a way back into the country. It's better to keep them in a jail, which, if they're convicted of a terrorism crime, is probably where they're going to end up.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I haven't studied that legislation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, it's certainly possible that there could be differences, if you have to have a decision-maker assessing those questions. This type of analysis is undertaken in the context of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, section 25, where people can make an application to remain in Canada as a permanent resident on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear. I'm assuming that everybody has the submission. I'm proposing to highlight some of the points that we make in the submission, but it's there for you to review at your leisure. Over the time I've been practising in this area, it's possible to discern two phases in Canadian citizenship law.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We all share the goal of strengthening Canadian citizenship. In the CBA's view, a full public debate on this topic is very important. We understand that the last time there were significant amendments to the act in 1977, the government published a white paper and cross-country forums were organized to make sure that all citizens of Canada were able to be involved in the discussion.