Beyond Allegiance: Toward A Right to Canadian Citizenship Status

ABSTRACT

Canada grants citizenship expansively to most persons born subject to its territorial jurisdiction. Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms also treats naturalized and native-born citizens as equals. But new distinctions have emerged that threaten the equal status and rights of Canadian citizens. Here, I argue that the reemergence of the dormant historical norm of citizenship as allegiance is being used to cast citizens deemed disloyal out from Canada’s protection and supervision. First, I historically trace the erosion of equal citizenship status and rights in Canada under the guise of protecting native-citizens from security threats. Second, I offer a normative argument against the recent practice of denaturalizing Canadian citizens for their actions or questionable allegiances. I conclude with a preliminary recommendation for protecting the citizenship status of Canadians from revocation.

KEYWORDS:

• Allegiance
• citizenship
• Canada
• right
• equality
• status

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jocelyn Kane, Patti Tamara Lenard, and Andrew Robinson for their comments on an early draft of this article presented at the 2017 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, and the anonymous reviewers for the American Review of Canadian Studies for their helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Citizenship and migration scholars are also noting an increase in requirements for citizenship acquisition based on tests of allegiance, including loyalty oaths (Goodman 2014, 26–31).

2. Canadian Supreme Court rulings in 1997 (Benner v. Canada) and 2004 (Augier v. Canada) clarified that children can inherit Canadian citizenship from either parent, making the practice of jus soli citizenship in Canada more egalitarian and ending discrimination based on the gender and marital status of one’s parents (Harder and Thomarat 2012, 69).

3. From a comparative perspective, it is important to note that Canada joined other Western liberal democratic governments in reviving citizenship revocation proceedings in the 2000s (Gibney 2017, 366–367). But in Canada, the restructuring of the “conservative” party in Canadian federal politics were also at play leading up to the Harper government’s decision to prioritize this issue. Harper’s Conservative government was the heir to a merger between the right-wing Canadian Alliance and a weakened Progressive Conservative federal party that made more restrictive immigration and citizenship policies a priority that they had not assumed under previous Progressive Conservative governments (Laycock 2002, 90–91; Tolley 2017). By contrast, earlier Progressive Conservative leaders defended citizenship rights for those whose loyalties were suspect (John Diefenbaker) or who were suspected of committing atrocities abroad (the Mulroney Government’s response to the war crimes issue) (Veugelers 2000, 96, 108; Boyer 2015, 141, 179; Tolley 2017, 101).

4. “Our military make sacrifices. Sometimes, they even make the ultimate sacrifice. As parliamentarians, it is our duty to give them all the recognition they deserve. Therefore, acknowledging this exceptional contribution by speeding up citizenship approval would be welcome” (Groughé 2013, 14,221).

5. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership, Canada’s citizenship appears to be less of a privilege than an irrevocable grant, as evidenced through the government’s support for Bill C-6. This may even be true of honorary citizenship. Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has resisted calls to revoke the honorary citizenship of Aung San Suu Kyi in light of her inaction in the face of Myanmar’s violation of the human rights of the Rohingya people resulting in their forcible expulsion from the country in 2017 (Glavin 2017). A symbolic revocation of this honorary award of Canadian citizenship would make the statement that the ideal Canadian citizen acts to protect human rights, signaling to the world that honorary citizenship is not a right, but a privilege contingent upon exemplary behavior. Justin Trudeau has so far dismissed such an action as a “symbolic gesture” that would not help the lot of refugees (Aiello 2017).

6. In the United States, these exemptions only apply to diplomats listed in the State Department Diplomatic List. They do not apply to service staff, whose children would be entitled to U.S. citizenship at birth. Even the children of diplomats on the blue list can receive legal permanent resident status at birth in the US (US Department of Homeland Security 2016).

7. Naturalized US citizens can lose their American citizenship if they committed war crimes (Weil 2013, 178–180). Immigrants to the U.S. who receive expedited naturalization based on their U.S. military service can also be denaturalized if they are dishonorably discharged less than 5 years after their enlistment (Stock 2012, 87).

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Michael Sullivan

Michael J. Sullivan is Associate Professor in the Graduate International Relations Department at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. His work has appeared in Restorative Justice, Politics, Groups and Identities, Social Politics, the Journal of Identity and Migration Studies, International Journal of Children’s Rights, Boston Journal of Law and Social Justice, Texas Law Review and Philosophia Christi.