Canada’s Immigration Minister has sidestepped questions on whether over 100,000 potential new citizens, beneficiaries of Bill C-3, will undergo criminal record checks, take citizenship tests, or even be required to speak an official language.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner accused the Liberal immigration minister, Lena Diab, of using “word salad” to get around Conservatives’ direct questions about the potential for fraud and security threats in Bill C-3, during a parliamentary immigration committee on Thursday.
The bill would amend the Citizenship Act to grant Canadian citizenship to individuals born abroad who are descendants of immigrants who became Canadian citizens. Without the bill, there is a first-generation limit, meaning those born in another country are only automatically citizens if one parent was born in Canada.
The Liberals introduced the bill following the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s finding that the first-generation limits in the Citizenship Act violated Charter equality and mobility rights. The Liberal government did not appeal the decision, opting instead to expand citizenship criteria.
Hellbound and Down 