Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - November 2006
Last week, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Solberg told a Commons committee that his department is reviewing dual citizenship to ensure that Canadian citizenship �means something�, and that the country is not �just a port in a storm" for the three million plus Canadians living abroad.
Solberg believes Canadians would find it unfair for non-tax paying Canadians living abroad to spill back into the country at retirement and swamp Canadian social programs. Solberg wants to look at the responsibilities around dual citizenship, citizenship, and the obligations that Canadians who reside in Canada and abroad have toward their country.
While Solberg says that Foreign Affairs is studying the issue, spokesmen for the Foreign Affairs department and CIC say there is no wide-ranging study taking place in either department regarding dual citizenship and the number of Canadians living abroad.
Experts are accusing the government�s response on Canadian citizen�s living abroad limiting to �vague musing about a review of dual citizenship� that miss the problem at hand. At present, Statistics Canada has no estimated of the number of expatriates, including dual citizens, living abroad.
One study by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada recently estimated there are 2.7 million Canadian citizens living outside the country - nine per cent of the total population at home. That puts Canada ahead of the United States, China, India and Australia for the proportion of nationals living abroad.
Senior researcher Kenny Zhang of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada says that if the �if the Canadian government has a problem with citizens living abroad for the balance of their working lives, and then returning in retirement for medical care and other social services, the solution has little to do with dual citizenship.�
Zhang�s research sees how expatriate Canadians foster economic, trade and cultural ties that have significant economic benefits for Canada. The numbers of expatriate nationals are growing and will continue to grow and as China and India continue to become global economic powerhouses, the countries will draw back their own diasporas home �- including many thousands of naturalized Canadians.�
Restricting or ending dual citizenship might make it more difficult for Canada to attract or retain skilled immigrant workers from the 90 or so countries that permit it.
Don DeVoretz, an economist at Simon Fraser University, doesn�t see the benefits of the Canadian Diaspora. DeVoretz sees the policy question as �can we rig it better so that the benefits accrue to Canadians?�
Source: www.cnews.canoe.ca
