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Moving forward: Harper plan on reducing Service

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Roca View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Roca Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Moving forward: Harper plan on reducing Service
    Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 8:38am
There is an interesting article in the GlobeandMail today, but I couldn't read it (used all my free articles). But it seems like Harper wants to reduce consular services for anyone with dual citizenship. It gives us an idea of where this gov really wants to go: Banning Dual citizenship.

Enjoy (if you can read it).
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winnipeg-mb View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote winnipeg-mb Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 10:54am
Topic: Moving forward: Harper plan on reducing Service
Posted: Today at 8:38am By Roca
There is an interesting article in the GlobeandMail today, but I couldn't read it (used all my free articles). But it seems like Harper wants to reduce consular services for anyone with dual citizenship. It gives us an idea of where this gov really wants to go: Banning Dual citizenship.

Enjoy (if you can read it).
Here the link, canadian politics getting more & more intresting everyday...
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EasyRider View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote EasyRider Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 12:27pm
What's the big fuss?

In your second country of dual citizenship e.g. in a home country Canada is not obliged to bail anyone out. You're on your own in the other country, represented under the other nationality in such scenario. Or am I wrong? Al least, it's how it usually works with countries that don't restrict having another nationalities, but don't have bilateral agreements in area of handling other citizenship. The same usually applies to travel to 3rd countries-- nationality a traveler chooses to enter a country provides with assistance in emergencies.

If they want to work it this way, I'm fine with it. But if they want to cut services to Canadian passport holders residing in 3rd countries, that would be ridiculous. I haven't heard of any country doing anything like that.

Did Canada actually have to evacuate anyone from Lebanon, if those people were also Lebanese citizens or it was much more a humanitarian action? What if Canada refused to evacuate and then people would have died? If people's lives were actually in acute danger, then Canada can congratulate itself on being a humanitarian champion and using resources for something good this time. If not, then it was a mistake made by Canada. I get a sense that if I'll get into trouble in my own country being a Canadian, I'll get very little assistance from Canada, if any, anyway.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote akella Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 1:00pm
Originally posted by EasyRider EasyRider wrote:

What's the big fuss?

In your second country of dual citizenship e.g. in a home country Canada is not obliged to bail anyone out. You're on your own in the other country, represented under the other nationality in such scenario. Or am I wrong? Al least, it's how it usually works with countries that don't restrict having another nationalities, but don't have bilateral agreements in area of handling other citizenship. The same usually applies to travel to 3rd countries-- nationality a traveler chooses to enter a country provides with assistance in emergencies.

I also thought this is the default principle - i.e. if you hold dual passports (say: A & B), and entered country X using passport A - you can only expect consular assistance from passport A country. And in a dual national at home country scenario - one is exempt from any non-home country assistance.

This must be in some international treaties as I remember reading this somewhere.

Anyway, another low class political move.

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RobertB View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote RobertB Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 7:35pm
use http://hidemyass.com to read articles from the globe and mail, Toronto Star, etc.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dpenabill Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 11:20pm

Observation: not sure why the Globe and Mail is making this news. This discussion began, including in remarks from Harper himself (although a lot of the impetus was apparently the work of a particular Conservative MP, Garth Turner) almost immediately after the Canadian government spent $94 Million to evacuate approximately 14,000 Canadians from Lebanon during the surge in hostilities there in 2006; the media reported that nearly half of those Canada paid to evacuate returned to Lebanon within barely a month. Other sources argued that a large percentage of those evacuated never lived in Canada, as in Canadian citizens by birth, born abroad to a Canadian citizen. Several years ago the Citizenship Act was indeed amended in direct response to this, such that now being born to a Canadian citizen abroad does not automatically make the child a Canadian citizen unless one of the parent's was born in Canada or was a naturalized Canadian citizen.

For an example of earlier stories about this issue, see a McCleans piece written by Luiza Ch. Savage in August 2006, titled "O Canada, do we stand on guard for thee? What does the government owe dual citizens who live elsewhere?"

In any event, this was among the topics being discussed in early 2012 and, according to some sources was specifically to be addressed in the promised reforms for both immigration and citizenship, including specifically the Citizenship Act, which the Minister of CIC at the time said would be introduced to Parliament by the fall of 2012.

So why now the Globe and Mail is making this appear to be news in 2014, is a bit of a mystery to me.

Observation: there is a dark side to this story, having to do with this government's lack of transparency, and with its exploitation of issues like this, a blatant attempt to leverage fear and bias among some Canadians.

See, for example, the authorative report by a Senate Committee regarding the Lebanon situation in particular, found in   this pdf report (this was issued in May 2007). Even the Senate committee was stonewalled in its effort to obtain relatively basic information from this government. Peter McKay stating, at one point, "I cannot give you those figures. I probably would not, if I had them . . . "

Major crises, disasters, large-scale emergencies in the world inevitably have an impact on Canada, Canadian security interests, Canadians abroad, and so on. And these things cost big bucks. In the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsumani, Canada spent hundreds of millions of dollars, a very large portion of that in humanitarian aid.

Regarding the costs incurred in the Lebanon situation, the government simply refused to even gather the relevant date, let alone divulge it, which would allow for a reasonable assessment of real costs. There is no question, the events in Lebanon hit during the tourist high season there, and many Canadians there were not, as has been characterized by some (again, apparently it was Garth Turner who elevated the public perception of it) as "Canadians of convenience," but were indeed business persons and Canadian tourists temporarily in the country, caught in a sudden cascade of violence.

What is particularly disconcerting is that there is no effort to distinguish the total cost imposed by providing assistance to Canadians living abroad, as opposed to just traveling temporarily abroad, but rather this jingoistic alarm about how much "Canadians of convenience" are costing the Canadian taxpayer.

I do not know (as again the government plays games with such information) but my sense is that other costs associated with Lebanon, such as costs related to Canadian military maneuvers apart from the evacuation itself, were probably as great if not greater.

What I am suggesting is that the amount of additional cost, compared to the full gamut of costs incurred by Canada, would probably draw yawns and not motivate the Conservative base, but this government consistently chooses to obfuscate, if not outright conceal, real information, and rather engages in rhetorical jingoism to marshal support for its agenda and continuing its mandate. Headlines about $94 million to evacuate Caadians many of whom had littel or no connection to Canada are one thing, but if the total extra cost for the so-called "Canadians of convenience" amounted to a few dozen million out of several hundred millions spent overall, not such a big splash of a story.

And the amendment of the Citizenship Act is just one of the measures pursued by the government in response to this.

A lot of what underlies the issue about leaving Canada after applying, which many here believe is a wrong-headed policy, has to do with this issue.

And, at some point, given that the Tories have been promising reforms to encompass the residency requirement, among other recurrent promises, but they never do, one has to wonder if even these are not just part of the continuing rhetoric to motivate the core Conservative constituency, and are not really of much if any priority to this government.




In any event, this story is not news, but it is a reminder of how this government operates.


Bureaucracy is what bureaucracy does, or When in doubt, follow the instructions. Otherwise, follow the instructions.



BTW: Not an expert, not a Can. lawyer, never worked in immigration
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dpenabill View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dpenabill Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jan 2014 at 11:28pm
Relevant "data" not date:
Quote Regarding the costs incurred in the Lebanon situation, the government simply refused to even gather the relevant [data, not date], let alone divulge it . . .

Other typos as well, but this aspect is of particular concern, and I felt it needed to be corrected, since at this very moment CIC appears to be obfuscating if not concealing primary data regarding the processing of citizenship applications; that is, this highlights the unhappy fact that this is not an isolated problem, but is a pervasive manner and method of governing under Stephen Harper. Some think this works. I have no idea how they reach such a conclusion.   
Bureaucracy is what bureaucracy does, or When in doubt, follow the instructions. Otherwise, follow the instructions.



BTW: Not an expert, not a Can. lawyer, never worked in immigration
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote michels Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2014 at 3:52pm
For Lebanon evac, 14000 were evacuated out of 44000.. And I know by that time that PRs also were among the evacuated and close relatives who got asilium who were nor PRs nor Citizens.. 
I got the info from One of those PRs who used to frequent this site, he returned back to sell his house and business and the events broke.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote links18 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2014 at 7:50pm
This would mean that Canada would have to "recognize" dual citizenship. In other words, it would treat its own citizens who also hold another citizenship differently from those who do not. It would create two classes of citizens.

Now, when you are in a country that you are a citizen of, they generally do not care if you are also a citizen of another country. They will treat you as a citizen of that country. In other words, the other country cannot protect you, because the country you are in will simply treat you like one of their citizens.

Does that make any sense at all?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote in_cdn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2014 at 8:03pm
This is too complicated and controversial ! And more often that not they will not say it openly but the problem they REALLY have is with "certain" countries and the accompanying possibility of dual citizenship.

Try seeing if they can wag their tail and pull that on a Western European country or the US - like saying you have to ONLY be Canadian and cannot be American or Danish or British or something like that ?

Then, people who "look more like them" will cry foul and hit them on their knuckles ! And they could never do a partial list where people from some countries cannot hold dual citizenship while those from "preferred" countries could hold it. It would then be tantamount to OPEN racism. Now, they may practice it in quiet "off the record" ways everyday. But, nobody would wants to officially do such things in the 21st century. Don't they have an "image" to protect ! ?

If not from a true commitment to a sense of equality but more from wanting to seem politically correct, they will NEVER implement such a thing and get downgraded forever in the eyes of the world.
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