The House of Commons has voted to send a private members' bill that would strip dual nationals of their Canadian citizenship if they commit acts of treason to a parliamentary committee for study.
Despite opposition concerns over the controversial bill, a majority of NDP and Liberal MPs voted to pass the bill at second reading Wednesday night.
But NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison warned his party still has serious concerns about the legislation that will have to be dealt with at committee.
In particular, Garrison argued the bill would create two different categories of citzenship because it would only apply to people who hold multiple citizenship.
"Two-tiered citizenship is a very important concern and a very unusual step in Canada," he said. "We've normally treated all citizens equally, all citizens alike, so we want to discuss that issue. Obviously, we're concerned about national security, and anything we can do to promote national security (we'll support), but at the same time we have to protect the value of Canadian citizenship and make sure it's equal for all."
Acts of treason
Bill C-425, An Act to Amend the citizenship Act: Honouring the Canadian Armed Forces, was put forward by Conservative MP Devinder Shory.
It's designed in part to strip people with multiple nationalities of their Canadian citizenship if they commit any act of treason against Canadian Forces.
But in recent weeks, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has thrown his weight behind the bill and has promised to amend it at commitee to include terrorism as an act that would lead to a dual- or multiple-national losing his or her citizenship.
Kenney says the motivation is not to create two tiers — in fact, he says he would like to strip any person of Canadian citizenship who commits terrorism or treason. But he says the law won't allow this.
"I, in principle, would like to apply this legal principle of deemed renunciation of citizenship from serious violent traitors or terrorists, whether they have one or multiple nationalities, but we have a legal obligation under the International Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons — we cannot render someone stateless," he said Wednesday.
"So if they have only Canadian nationality and we were to take it away we would be in violation of the international convention, so that's why we are limited to applying this to people of dual or multiple nationalities regardless of whether they were born in Canada or emigrated here."
That explanation likely won't placate some human rights advocates who have expressed concern the bill and Kenney's proposed amendment are knee-jerk reactions, and could be found unconstitutional. They argue the Charter of Rights and Freedoms promises all citizens will be treated equally.
And they contend that defining terrorism in international contexts is difficult if not impossible to do. Kenney disputes that argument and says the issue will be dealt with in his amendment when the bill is before the Commons citizenship and immigration committee.
Garrison questioned why the bill was presented as private member's business rather than government legislation, since Kenney feels so strongly about it.
"Instead of introducing this as a government bill and bringing through that channel, they're bringing it through back channels," he said.
"We've seen this many many times, they're not always well thought out, they're not always well planned, and we start tacking things on one by one and that's the kind of thing we'll have to deal with when it's at committee."
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