by Golbon Moltaji
One of the Liberals’ well pronounced platforms while campaigning in 2015 was repealing the Conservatives’ Bill C-24, also known as the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. To that end, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-6, which would amend Bill C-24 and revert many of the requirements to become a Canadian citizen to what they were prior to the Conservatives’ intervention.
Some of these amendments are certainly a step in the right direction. For example, there is a proposed reduction to the amount of time permanent residents are required to have lived in Canada in order to become eligible for citizenship, from four out of six years to three out of five years. Supplementing this amendment is a measure to credit time spent in Canada on temporary status — such as on a work or study permit — as a portion of the three-year requirement. In addition, the new legislation would repeal the contentious provision that allows for the revocation of citizenship for terrorism, high treason, treason or spying offences.
However, during the Bill’s second reading in the Senate on Dec. 15, 2016, the eagerly-awaited Bill C-6 wound up being referred back to committee, postponing its enactment. What is more interesting is that the Liberal government has been “aggressively” enforcing Bill C-24, setting targets to strip 40 to 60 Canadians each month of their citizenship. To date, the Liberals have managed to strip 206 individuals of their citizenship since May 2015 — about 18 people per month. It seems safe to say a Canadian is not a Canadian unless born as one.
In June 2016, C-6 passed the House of Commons by a vote of 218 to 88. Nevertheless, the Liberals seem to be too lax when it comes to pushing Bill C-6 through the Senate. The irony here is that Bill C-24 could cost even Minister Maryam Monsef her citizenship, due to the accidental misrepresentation of her place of birth.
During the Dec. 15 Senate readings of Bill C-6, proponents of the Act — including Senator Omidvar — focused on romanticizing the concept of citizenship, fueling their pro-C-6 arguments with personal tales of belonging.
To quote Omidvar, “Before we get to the substance of the bill, I would like to start with some poetry, because if ever there is poetry in legislation, then I think it is in the lofty aspirations of citizenship.”
Perhaps there is some nobility in this but is waxing poetic really the best argument against right-wing speculations concerning potential foreign threats and terrorism should citizenship restrictions be lessened?
If anything, Senator Omidvar’s poetic portrayal of what being Canadian means to her (and apparently must mean to all of those who settle in Canada) merely emphasized the nationalistic and exclusionary outlook of citizenship, that Canada is a “protective” house for people to be welcomed into. Instead of elaborating on her own personal memoirs of emotional belonging, while making “mountains of a very strange Canadian culinary confection called peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” perhaps it would have been more to the benefit of Bill C-6 to dwell on the economic and social benefits that loosening citizenship requirements would incur.
Let’s face it; Canada is not this saviour that welcomes everyone to its home. This country is a colonial state that has a far longer history of imperial trade than it has in empowering minorities. Now, accordingly, if the way forward is to showcase this country’s ability and willingness to do the latter, those who support Bill C-6 and identify Bill C-24 as a law rooted in Conservative xenophobia might want to consider changing their sympathetic and poetic discourse towards newcomers and their struggles; that their rhetoric only re-establishes the patriotic viewpoint that advanced Bill C-24 in the first place.
In the meantime, Bill C-6 sooner or later becomes irrelevant for many of those who could benefit from its amendments as they will have passed the Conservative-established four-year mark. The likely fact remains that some of those awaiting eligibility for citizenship surely resent the ongoing efforts they must put forth to prove themselves to be “contributing subjects” while managing and surviving the indescribable stress from the threat of “losing status.”
The top-down view of current Senators towards immigrants, dual citizens and future citizens belongs in the past and does not describe the situation of the generation that Minister Monsef comes from. Demanding the state sticks with its promises does not require glorifying what struggles the “second-class citizen” goes through. It requires voracity and strength – the two things the Liberals and their independent senators have been particularly lacking.
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 9, No. 4 (January/February 2017).
