New amendments to the Citizenship Act reinforce the value of citizenship and strengthen the integrity of Canada’s citizenship program. Citizenship fraud is a real problem with the RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigating several large-scale cases of residence fraud involving more than 3,000 Canadian citizens and 5,000 permanent residents.. The Government’s changes to the Citizenship Act would help fight citizenship fraud and uphold the value of Canadian citizenship.
Changes to the legislation include a new authority for the government to develop regulations to designate a regulatory body whose members will be authorized to act as consultants in citizenship matters and to monitor and collect information concerning citizenship consultants. Citizenship and Immigration Canada will also develop regulations to specify what information applicants must include in their applications, including identifying their representative or consultant. Failure to provide this information may result in the return of their application. This will help Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) enforce the new provisions relating to authorized representatives.
Amendments will also make it an offence for unauthorized individuals to knowingly represent or advise a person on a citizenship application or hearing for a fee. Once in effect, penalties will include a fine of $100,000 or up to two years in prison, or both in the case of an indictable conviction. The penalty for a summary conviction will include a fine of up to $20,000, or up to six months in prison, or both.
The new penalty for an indictable fraud offence will be a fine of up to $100,000 and/or five years in prison. The penalty for a summary offence will include a fine of up to $50,000 and/or two years in prison.
The penalties in the old Act had not increased since 1977 and were ineffective in deterring individuals from committing citizenship-related offences, such as misrepresentation. Under the old rules, an individual who commits citizenship fraud faces a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to one year in prison.
The new legislation will also add a provision to refuse citizenship to applicants who have made a material misrepresentation or withheld material facts, relating to a relevant matter, such as concerning whether they meet the eligibility requirements for a grant of citizenship. This provision is in line with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Under the change, applicants who are refused on this basis will be barred from reapplying for citizenship for five years.
Amendments will also make it an offence for an individual to counsel, induce, aid or abet anyone to directly or indirectly misrepresent or withhold material facts relating to a case. In such instances, penalties for an indictable conviction will include a fine of $100,000 and/or five years in prison and—for a summary conviction—a maximum fine of $50,000 and/or two years in prison.
Revocation is an important tool to safeguard the value of Canadian citizenship and to protect the integrity of the citizenship program. The Government of Canada is streamlining the citizenship revocation process. The new revocation model will be more efficient and less costly to the government, while maintaining fairness.
Previously, the citizenship revocation process generally involved three steps: the Citizenship and Immigration Minister, the Federal Court and the Governor in Council. Under the new model, the Governor in Council will no longer have a role, resulting in a faster, more efficient process.
Under the new model, the vast majority of revocation cases will be decided by the Citizenship and Immigration Minister, or his delegate. This will include cases involving residence fraud, concealing criminal inadmissibility, identity fraud or convictions of terrorism, high treason, treason or spying offences, depending on the sentence received.
However, given that war crimes and crimes against humanity cases raise much more complex issues of fact and law, these more exceptional cases, along with other cases involving security, other human or international rights violations and organized criminality, will be decided by the Federal Court. In these revocation cases decided by the Federal Court, the court could also be asked to make a finding of inadmissibility as well as deciding on the revocation.
This will allow for a removal order to be issued earlier in cases involving serious inadmissibility such as war crimes and crimes against humanity along with other cases involving security, other human or international rights violations and organized criminality. In addition to the above listed cases, membership in an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada will also be decided by the Federal Court.
There will also be a permanent bar against granting citizenship for individuals whose citizenship has been revoked because they were members of an armed force or organized armed group engaged in armed conflict with Canada. Those convicted of terrorism, high treason, treason or spying offences, depending on the sentence received, will also be permanently barred from acquiring citizenship.
Under the new changes, permanent residents with unfulfilled conditions attached to their permanent resident status will not be eligible for citizenship. Previously, there were no provisions in the Citizenship Act preventing conditional permanent residents from obtaining citizenship if they otherwise met the requirements. This posed the risk that a conditional permanent resident could acquire citizenship even though they had not fulfilled the conditions attached to their permanent resident status.
Unlike the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), the old Citizenship Act did not include explicit legislative authority to create regulations to support information collection and disclosure to CIC’s partners. With the passage of Bill C-24, the Government now has the authority to create regulations to support the sharing of information with partners which could assist decision makers at CIC in determining whether applicants meet requirements, thereby improving service to applicants. It could also help CIC conduct investigations where fraud or misrepresentation is an issue.
