A Victory for Grassroots Liberals

Telegdi Applauds Government on Changes to Citizenship Act

For immediate release to all outlets. Date: October 31, 2002

Twenty years after the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, six million naturalized Canadians who are citizens by choice and not by birth, will have the protection of this Charter if their citizenship is challenged.

The new legislation, Bill C-18, proposes a new revocation process that involves moving to a fully judicial model where the Federal Court Trial Division would make the finding about misrepresentation in the acquisition of citizenship and issue the revocation order. The person or the Minister may appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Appeal and with leave to the Supreme Court. The Governor-in-Council no longer plays a role. The Bill removes from Cabinet, made up of politicians, a task for which they are unqualified - acting as a court of appeal on questions of fact and law - and transfers that task to the actual courts of appeal, where it belongs.

In response to the new Bill, Mr. Telegdi said:

"The proposed Bill if passed would correct a severely flawed citizenship revocation process that goes back to the dark days of Canada�s immigration history and abuses such as the Chinese Head Tax, the Asian Exclusion Act, the internment of thousands of Canadians during the wars, the forceful repatriation of Canadians of Japanese ancestry and a policy of none is too many for the Jews.

The Bill would end the present draconian process whereby politicians decide on revocation in the Star Chamber of Cabinet without the rights of representation for the person whose citizenship is being revoked.

The proposed Bill allows for a normal judicial process with appeal rights in compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This Bill is good news for six million naturalized Canadians, citizens by choice and not by birth.

I commend the Honorable Minister Denis Coderre for recognizing the demands of the grass roots to change citizenship revocation from a political to a judicial process."

Mr. Telegdi has been fighting for years to get the Government to change the revocation process so that legal rights of life liberty and security of person of naturalized Canadians are protected through their access to the principles of fundamental justice in the courts. Along with the large majority of groups that made submissions to the House and Senate Committees (representing concerned Canadians from a wide variety of ethnic, national and religious backgrounds), he supported amendments that would have allowed appeals with leave, to Bill C-16, the revised Citizenship Act, proposed by the Minister last year.

He resigned as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in May 2000 when the Government did not support these amendments and voted against his own government on final reading. He appeared before the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs along with Liberal M.P. John Bryden and Leon Benoit of the Canadian Alliance to speak against passage of that Bill. Since that time he has continued his fight for citizenship rights for all naturalized Canadians.

In 2001 he tabled a Private Members Bill (C-373) to amend the Citizenship Act (revocation of citizenship) and reintroduced the same Bill (C-271) on October 29, 2002, seconded by Inky Mark on both occasions. His Bill would change the present Act by allowing for the right of appeal with provisions for the appeals and applications to be available for past as well as future cases.

Mr. Telegdi has had many speaking engagements and meetings across the country with representatives and leaders of virtually all the ethnic communities in Canada. He has worked diligently to make naturalized Canadians aware of their citizenship rights and to inform them as to how the present Act denies them equal rights. His central message is clearly expressed in a "Citizenship Rights Update" communication to these groups:

"It is unacceptable that twenty years after the institution of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we still have a situation whereby the security of citizenship of naturalized Canadians is not guaranteed in legislation."

More recently, he was instrumental in drafting and promoting the resolution to make citizenship revocation an independent judicial process, free of political interference that was introduced by the Kitchener-Waterloo Riding Association at the 2002 Liberal Party of Canada Ontario (LPCO) annual meeting. This resolution was the first choice of the South West Region Policy Workshop and the sixth overall of the ten resolutions the LPCO selected to go to the next Liberal Party National Convention.

An identical resolution sponsored by Kitchener-Waterloo�s twin riding of Nanaimo-Alberni, was the first choice of the Social Policy workshop by the Liberal Party of Canada (B.C) at their 2001 policy convention and chosen seventh overall of the resolutions they will send to the next National Convention.

The exclusively judicial revocation process proposed in the Bill represent a huge victory for grassroots Liberals who overwhelmingly support these changes and for the millions of immigrants and refugees whose citizenship will no longer be vulnerable to revocation by a political process.

For Mr. Telegdi this issue was the Rubicon on which he staked his political career. If passed, the proposed Act would vindicate his sacrifices and hard work in fighting for citizenship rights.

Mr. Telegdi�s position on Citizenship Rights is available on his website at www.telegdi.org.

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