From the CBC:
“Feds won't appeal landmark
citizenship ruling for 'Lost Canadians'”
The federal government will not
appeal a court ruling that found part of Canada's Citizenship Act to be
unconstitutional. Last month, an Ontario Superior Court justice found the
federal government violated Charter rights with its "second-generation
cut-off" rule, which denies automatic citizenship to children born abroad
if their Canadian parents were also born abroad. In an interview with CBC News
Sunday, lawyer Sujit Choudhry confirmed federal government representatives
informed him last week that there would be no appeal. Ottawa had 30 days to appeal the ruling — a
deadline that passed on Thursday.
"My clients are relieved.
It's been a long, hard fight," said Choudhry, who is representing families
affected by the law. Choudhry filed a constitutional challenge in December
2021, suing the federal government for denying his clients the right to
transmit their citizenship to their foreign-born offspring. Critics have long
said the law creates two tiers of citizenship, creating different rules for
Canadians depending on whether they were born abroad. In her December ruling,
Ontario Superior Court Justice Jasmine Akbarali agreed, writing that
foreign-born Canadians born abroad hold "a lesser class of citizenship
because, unlike Canadian-born citizens, they are unable to pass on Canadian
citizenship by descent to their children born abroad." The case is lauded
as a win for up to 200,000 "Lost Canadians" — groups of people not
considered citizens because of gaps or contested interpretations of citizenship
law.
The second-generation cut-off was
created in 2009 as part of a crackdown by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's
government on Canadian citizens who lived permanently outside of the country.
The move came in response to an $85-million evacuation of 15,000 Lebanese
Canadians stranded in Beirut during the 2006 conflict between Israel and
Hezbollah. In her ruling, Akbarali noted public anxiety over the Beirut
evacuation, but wrote "the highest the evidence goes is to show that some
people were concerned about it... there is no evidence to demonstrate that
there are citizens without a connection to Canada, nor that if any such
citizens exist, that their existence or citizenship creates any kind of
problem."
Federal government must act The
federal government has six months to repeal the second-generation cutoff in the
law — a move that will require either fresh legislation, or potentially the
passage of a bill already being debated. Senate Bill S-245 was amended
in committee to remove the second-generation cut-off rule and replace it with a
"substantial connections test" to pass on citizenship to the children
of foreign-born Canadians who were born abroad. In her ruling, Akbarali
described S-245 as a "head start" for Parliamentarians to amend the
Citizenship Act law to make it fully constitutional within six months. How
the federal government will respond is unclear. The office of Immigration,
Refugees and Citizenship Canada Minister Marc Miller declined to comment. The
court also ordered the federal government to grant citizenship to the four
foreign-born children of three Canadian families involved in the case. Choudhry
says they received certifications of their citizenship last week. "They're
beyond elated," he said.
^ This is great news. It was dumb
to limit Canadian Citizenship to the 2nd Generation born outside Canada. ^
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/no-appeal-lost-canadians-1.7090649
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