Canadian Armed Forces: Citizenship

Canadian Armed Forces Dept: As many critics have observed, it a bad idea from any policy angle. Treating the citizenship of dual and single-nationality Canadians differently is likely open to Charter challenge . Further, as an opposition MP noted, an act of war is not defined under Canadian law; and terrorism is notoriously open to disagreement depending on the beholder political standpoint. Relying on terrorism convictions handed down by judicially-challenged foreign courts is unlikely to be a smooth legal avenue for Canada to pursue, according to The Star. But enough about what critics think of the policy issues; let look at what the government itself says on the bill behalf. According to its title, C-425 is about honouring the Canadian Armed Forces, though the connection is murky. It tacitly involves Omar Khadr, the former child soldier whose current non-deportability as a Canadian citizen is seen by some Conservatives as an affront to the gravity of his actions in attacking coalition forces in Afghanistan and earlier this month, the House of Commons finished the second reading of a private member bill An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act, Honouring the Canadian Armed Forces that would revoke the Canadian citizenship of dual nationals who commit an act of war against the Canadian Armed Forces. According to Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney, the government thinks Bill C-425 should be amended to include acts of terrorism as grounds for citizenship revocation. As well, the bill is an affront to dual-nationality Canadians. Even though they re targeted in it only by default since stripping single-nationality Canadians of citizenship would violate international conventions preventing statelessness , this proposal comes on the heels of other recent acts and comments by the Harper government that can reasonably be seen to foster distrust towards immigrants and dual nationals. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.