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The Canadian government is set to introduce a new law that will make it harder for immigrants to obtain Canadian citizenship.
As things stand, a person needs to be physically present in the country for 1,095 days of the four years from their application date. If the remainder of Bill C-24, introduced by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander in February and also known as the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, comes into effect, people seeking permanent residence will need to stay for 1,460 days, and at least 183 days every year, for a period of six years.
The new law also makes it difficult for people who may have planned to gain a Canadian passport and work in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – immigrants from politically unstable Arab nations typically try and offset the high cost of living in Canada with income from the Gulf.
The bill also increases fines on residency fraud to C$100,000, a 10,000% increase from C$1,000. Immigrants seeking citizenship will also need to file Canadian income tax.
The Canadian government has also imposed tougher enforced tougher language conditions and knowledge-of-Canada standards – people between the ages of 14 and 65 will need to pass the knowledge and language test. Currently, only applicants between the ages of 18 and 54 have to do write the tests.
Canadian MPs John McCallum and John McKay criticized the conservative government for proposing the new bill and argued that it could create different classes of citizens.
Speaking to the Al Arabiya, McKay said, “Our starting proposition is: A citizen is a citizen is a citizen, whether you are naturalized or born here. The revocation of citizenship for naturalized persons should only be done on the basis of a judicial intervention, not an administrative intervention, because a judicial intervention at least has the privileges and the rights of a court system”.