pidruchney20030407brochure.html

DO YOU KNOW THAT
if you came to Canada as an immigrant, you can still be stripped of your Canadian citizenship by revocation (denaturalization) and deported (shipped out) without a full opportunity to defend yourself in accordance with the Constitution and traditions of justice of Canadian law ???
Well, it's true, and that's the law in Canada today in the Citizenship Act !
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Worse yet, Canada's Parliament is proposing a new Citizenship Act (Bill C-18) with an extra stripping power ("annulment") by Cabinet, and making the evidence against you more secret.
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So you don't have the same protection of due process or rights in the courts that are given to Canadian-born citizens, or refugees or murderers.
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The Canadian Bar Association says *
"Revocation or annulment of citizenship are amongst the most serious penalties that the state may invoke against its citizens. The consequence.... can include loss of any status.... and removal from Canada. These consequences are obviously severe and require strict adherence to due process, procedural fairness and appropriate appeal rights." In addition Bill C-18 introduces abhorrent "secret evidence rules" which cannot be appealed or reviewed.
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- are discriminatory and create inequality and second-class (two-tiered) citizenships because they apply only to immigrant citizens, and not to born-in-Canada citizens;

- create a 'stateless' person through "denaturalization" [stripping of citizenship];

- are unconstitutional for several reasons including the penalty of deportation which is a "cruel and unusual punishment" and which also creates real logistical, diplomatic and international problems, as well as splitting up of families;

- deprive a citizen of the fundamental and basic rights of a full, open and fair trial;

- deny a citizen the "due process" of personal service and full rights of appeal;

- are punitive in requiring findings to be on an onus of a "balance of probabilities" instead of "beyond a reasonable doubt" as in a customary criminal trial;

- breach the right to have a full court trial instead of a truncated "trial" in a strange kind of a "two-part/split-level" court/cabinet non-judicial process;

- breach the right to a penalty set by a court after full trial, instead of by the Cabinet, which is a political body and which decides on deportation in private without the citizen's right of representation.

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You can ask the Government to:
[1] rescind the whole of Part 2 of Bill C-18, and
[2] rescind Section 10 revocation and the deportation sections in the current Citizenship Act.
[just in case the current Act stays in place] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[2] Hon. Denis Coderre, Minister of Citizenship,
House of Commons, Ottawa, KIA 0A6. Fax:[613]947-3448.

[3] The Prime Minister, Right Hon. J. Chretien, House of Commons, Ottawa, KIA 0A6; Fax:[613]941-6900.

[4] Write a letter to the editor of your newspaper, bringing its attention to this bad law which is destructive of our democracy and basis of justice.

Bill Pidruchney, 2337 - 85 St., Edmonton, AB T6K 3H1
Fax:[780]450-8862, Email: [email protected]

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* "Submission on Bill C-18 Citizenship of Canada Act" - National Citizenship and Immigration Law Section, Canadian Bar Association. November, 2002.
Website: http://www.cba.org/CBA/pdf/c18submission.pdf

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DO YOU KNOW THAT

Act Urgently !