Canadian Citizenship Values

The Government of Canada is quite, quite serious about the need to address a problem confronting not only Canada but other countries as well, who happen to harbour the presence of citizens, whether citizens by birth or naturalization, of a segment of the population having embraced terrorism as a value not quite recognized as a principle of good citizenship by the countries involved in protecting themselves from violent onslaught.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander and Justice Minister Peter MacKay attend an announcement regarding the government's reforms to the Citizenship Act at Pier 21 in Halifax on Friday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Andrew Vaughan)

Bill C-24 has been aptly enough named the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. It is legislation that will enable the government to revoke the Canadian citizenship of dual nationals convicted of treason or terrorism. Or who have engaged in armed conflict with Canada. And it is specific at this time to those called upon by what they consider to be a higher order than the law that is practised in Canada, to engage in violent jihad.

Though it would equally have applied to, for example, Sri Lankans of Tamil extraction who engaged in acts of terror; those in fact, where their actions took place in Sri Lanka, against the government that oppressed their Tamil population, never intending to take violent action against Canada or within Canada. And it would have included theoretically as well, those members of the Sikh terror clique who targeted Indo-Canadians in their battle against India for a Sikh homeland.




At the present time, in Canada and in fact around the world, it is monopolistically Islamists who present as a real and present terrorist threat to Western countries on several counts. One, is that they are accused by jihadists of sending their military to Muslim countries in combat of Muslim terrorists there, imperilling the ordinary citizens who become their victims. The other is that, as kuffirs, jihadists are instructed to target non-believers in a universal battle to achieve an Islamic Caliphate.

In effect, Bill C-24 is a belated response to the post-9/11 world, where it has become abundantly clear that violent Islamist jihad targets the West to inflict violence and terror in an ideological conflict meant to advance the eventual triumph of Islam conquering all other religious beliefs, political ideologies, social conventions, and/or systems of governance, and life in general, under a broad Islamist umbrella.

Totalitarianism inflicted through religious conviction and dedication to a dystopian ideal of one religion, one way of life, trumping all others, leading to a generalized global acceptance of Islamist conquest.

Canada, like Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Switzerland the Netherlands, has come to the understanding that it must enact such legislation to not only convince citizens that their loyalty must be undivided, eschewing any thought of violent upheaval, but to rid itself of those who can be disposed of in a return to their country of origin, generally Muslim states.

It is a reflection of a social contract existing within Canada that the state expects its citizens to be loyal and law-abiding, sharing social conventions and legal jurisdictions, along with the values of equality and security of the person, in lock-step with that of the country. In exchange, the country itself, through the Constitution and the laws of the land undertakes to provide all the social goods that represent a socially well-balanced nation's priorities, along with security.

Bill C-24 lays out the identification of the class of crimes constituting fundamental loyalty breaches to the country, inclusive of treason, terrorism and armed conflict against Canada. These are crimes that transcend those that ordinary laws are legislated to handle. The bill is meant to address a very specific type of crime, one where an individual has chosen to declare themselves allied with forces inimical to the welfare of Canada and Canadians.

As long as the offender has dual citizenship in recognition of Canada being a signatory to the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, that offender can be legally and rightfully stripped of Canadian citizenship. The minister of Citizenship and Immigration can exercise discretion to avoid the revocation of citizenship if there is any lingering doubt relating to a foreign conviction's legitimacy.

In which case the government could choose to accept foreign convictions emanating only from those countries designated as extradition partners under the Extradition Act or with which bilateral extradition treaties exist, signifying a level of trust in the legal systems of those other states. The purpose of Bill C-24 is to make Canada a safer country, and to add a layer of deterrence against terrorist acts engaged on by those with Canadian citizenship.

It represents legislation whose time has long since come as needed adjunct to current security assurances and due respect to Canadian citizenship entitlements and obligations.