World Sikh Organization: Letter to the Prime Minister

June 24, 2005

Dear Prime Minister,

The World Sikh Organization of Canada Supports the Recommendation in the 10th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration -- Citizenship Revocation: A Question of Due Process and Respecting Charter Rights.

We endorse the changes to the citizenship revocation process proposed in the committee's report and urge the government to incorporate all of them into the new Citizenship Act. We urge the government to keep its promise made in the speech from the throne to modernize the Citizenship Act without further delay.

As a group that is mainly comprised of naturalized Canadians and that was barred from Canadian citizenship by the political decisions of past governments, we want to see the revocation process depoliticized and decisions to take away a person's citizenship made by the courts with a fully judicial process. We are deeply concerned that our citizenship be protected by Sections 7 to 14 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the committee recommendations will achieve this goal.

"By its very nature, the process of citizenship revocation is unfair. It only applies to naturalized citizens creating a two-tiered system of citizenship." Tarlochan Binning, Guru Nanak Sikh Society of Port Alberni, evidence given to the Citizenship Committee in Victoria , BC in 2003

Under the present revocation process, the Minister of Citizenship, following a review by the Federal Court where the judge's opinion is based merely on a balance of probabilities, makes a recommendation to Cabinet to revoke a person's citizenship. Politicians thus act as the final court of appeal and make the final decision in secret with no representation from the person concerned. Sikhs across Canada expressed their deep concerns to the citizenship committee about this process.

Until 1962, Canada had an immigration policy that excluded people based on race and nationality such as the Asian Exclusion Act. Sikhs were excluded under the Continuous Journey Provision of the Immigration Acts of 1908 and 1910 that made it impossible for anyone from India to come to Canada.

We remember the shame of the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, when 376 mostly Sikh men looking for work in Canada were forcefully confined for two months aboard the boat as it lay off Vancouver harbour. The BC Supreme Court eventually upheld a federal exclusion order and escorted by a Canadian war ship, the boat was forced to sail back to Calcutta where a riot ensued and 29 people were shot and 19 died.

Canada has become a truly pluralistic society. Today over six million people or 20% of the Canadian population, including most of the estimated 450,000 Sikhs, are foreign born and this proportion is bound to increase as immigration continues to make up most of the population growth. We need a Citizenship Act that reflects this reality and makes Canadians by choice feel secure in knowing that they are first class citizens.

The legal sections 7 through 14 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must apply to cases of citizenship revocation.

A. S. Sahota
President
World Sikh Organization

CC:   Hon. Joe Volpe, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
        Stephen Harper, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
        Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Quebecois
        Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party
        Hon. Joe Fontana, Minister of Labour and Housing
        Hon. Andrew Telegdi, Chair, Standing Committee on Citizenship & Immigration
        Bill Farrell, Clerk, Standing Committee on Citizenship & Immigration