During the last election, the Conservative Party told the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, that it supported changes to the citizenship revocation process in the Citizenship Act proposed in the recommendations of the 10th Report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration called, Citizenship Revocation: A Question of Due Process and Respecting Charter Rights.

In his address to the Committee on May 10, 2006, Minister Solberg did not even mention this issue. When several committee members asked him why this matter was not on the government�s agenda, he replied that it was not a priority of his government to make changes to the Citizenship Act, the reason being that there was no consensus on this in the committee or across the country

Andrew Telegdi, M.P. challenged this statement, pointing out that the report received all party support in committee, including all the four Conservative members, was concurred unanimously in the House and the recommendations represented the views of the vast majority of witnesses that gave evidence to the committee on this matter. Solberg�s final response was that his government will not be held hostage to one issue.

Prominent conservatives like Diane Ablonczy their citizenship critic in the last Parliament, and Peter Goldring have both publicly expressed their belief that Charter Rights should protect the citizenship of the more than six million naturalized Canadians and that citizenship revocation should be made by the judiciary and not politicians.

There�s not lack of consensus that this is another conservative flip flop.

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Contact: Reevin Vinetsky 613-996-7890