The bill would reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s government in 2009 which stripped children of a Canadian parent born outside Canada of their automatic right to citizenship
Ottawa is preparing a bill to reinstate rights for “lost Canadians” after an Ontario court ruled it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to children born overseas to Canadians also born outside the country.
The 2009 change was designed to crack down on what Conservatives called “Canadians of convenience.” It followed an outcry after Canada spent more than $80-million to evacuate 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon in 2006 during the Israel-Hezbollah war. The federal government has until June 19 to act, after Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice ruled in September it was unconstitutional to deny Canadians born abroad the right to pass on their citizenship to their foreign-born offspring. Ottawa chose not to challenge the ruling.the government changes the law by that date and establishes a test for ties to Canada, foreign-born children of foreign-born Canadians – even if they have never stepped foot in Canada – could qualify for citizenship.
The federal government’s decision to draft its own bill follows its frustration over a lack of progress by an amended Conservative private member’s bill to address the issue of “lost Canadians” by ending the second-generation cutoff rule. The Liberals support the Conservative bill. “It is wrong to create two classes of Canadians,” she said. “When it became obvious that the Conservatives will continue playing games with the lives of lost Canadians and their families by doing everything they can to block passage of legislative fixes, I approached successive immigration ministers to call on them to bring in a government bill and have been pushing for action ever since.”
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