Bill to Strip Citizenship for Treason

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Actually, the way I see it the two tier system is created by the person deciding to hold citizenship in more than one country. From the quote, it says it would only affect Canadians who also hold citizenship in another country. It does not say it doesn't affect Canadians who were born here.

I was born in Canada and only hold Canadian citizenship. However if I were to move to the UK and become a British citizen as well, I could risk my Canadian citizenship if I were to commit treason.

I could see this happen. I know of immigrants who have children born in Canada, so those children are Canadian citizens. I have also seen those people move back to their original country with those children. The kids end up having dual citizenship. If one of those kids commits treason, they would also risk losing their Canadian citizenship.

I could also see this being a case where you could avoid this by renouncing your UK citizenship. I wouldn't recommend this; as there are obvious benefits to holding both, and the odds of you commiting treason are likely low. But that is your choice; to be 100% Canadian or 50-50. (Like I said not a bad thing; I'd become a UK citizen if I could.)

How about the kids who are citizens of another country because their parents made them citizens of another country while they were children and really had no choice?

[Rathji]

I like the idea of losing citizenship, but with the obvious variance in the penalty that could be assigned to any arbitrary person, it isn't a reasonable penalty.

Figure out a way to throw the book at them for sure, but to institute a penalty like this would be absurd and a waste of resources, since it obviously wouldn't stand up to a challenge.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Actually, the way I see it the two tier system is created by the person deciding to hold citizenship in more than one country. From the quote, it says it would only affect Canadians who also hold citizenship in another country. It does not say it doesn't affect Canadians who were born here.

I was born in Canada and only hold Canadian citizenship. However if I were to move to the UK and become a British citizen as well, I could risk my Canadian citizenship if I were to commit treason.

I could see this happen. I know of immigrants who have children born in Canada, so those children are Canadian citizens. I have also seen those people move back to their original country with those children. The kids end up having dual citizenship. If one of those kids commits treason, they would also risk losing their Canadian citizenship.

I could also see this being a case where you could avoid this by renouncing your UK citizenship. I wouldn't recommend this; as there are obvious benefits to holding both, and the odds of you commiting treason are likely low. But that is your choice; to be 100% Canadian or 50-50. (Like I said not a bad thing; I'd become a UK citizen if I could.)

If you are a natural born canadian of canadian parents even if you renounce your citizanship you have an absoloute right to get it back apon re entry into Canada, the only way this works (and even then I don't think it does) is if in future you put a catch into the application for new immigrants, something along the lines of
'I agree that in the event of me being found guilty of treason my citizanship is renounced'
The goverment cannot take away citizanship from a canadian that it hasn't given citizanship to in the first place (ie any natural born canadian)
This law would have to create a two tier form of citizanship

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

The goverment cannot take away citizanship from a canadian that it hasn't given citizanship to in the first place (ie any natural born canadian)

How is it that a natural born Canadian hasn't been given citizenship? I guess I must be missing that point, as I would think that while there isn't an immigration process; the child is still being granted Canadian citizenship.

[driveway]

This is a titanic waste of government time and energy. In the history of Canada there have been two people tried and convicted of treason: Louis Riel and Kano Inouye.

This is essentially the same thing as a Bill condemning alien abductions.

[Rerun]

Thought I would post this since its probably helpful to the discussion to know exactly what constitutes treason under Canadian law....




Section 46 of the Criminal Code of Canada has two degrees of treason, called "high treason" and "treason." However, both of these belong to the historical category of high treason, as opposed to petty treason which does not exist in Canadian law. Section 46 reads as follows:

"High treason

(1) Every one commits high treason who, in Canada,

(a) kills or attempts to kill Her Majesty, or does her any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, maims or wounds her, or imprisons or restrains her;

(b) levies war against Canada or does any act preparatory thereto; or

(c) assists an enemy at war with Canada, or any armed forces against whom Canadian Forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between Canada and the country whose forces they are.

Treason

(2) Every one commits treason who, in Canada,

(a) uses force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Canada or a province;

(b) without lawful authority, communicates or makes available to an agent of a state other than Canada, military or scientific information or any sketch, plan, model, article, note or document of a military or scientific character that he knows or ought to know may be used by that state for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or defence of Canada;

(c) conspires with any person to commit high treason or to do anything mentioned in paragraph (a);

(d) forms an intention to do anything that is high treason or that is mentioned in paragraph (a) and manifests that intention by an overt act; or

(e) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) or forms an intention to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) and manifests that intention by an overt act."

It is also illegal for a Canadian citizen to do any of the above outside Canada.
The penalty for high treason is life imprisonment. The penalty for treason is imprisonment up to a maximum of life, or up to 14 years for conduct under subsection (2)(b) or (e) in peacetime.


There have been numerous examples (see bolded part) of people committing treason in Canada. For some reason or other they haven't been charged with treason.

[GP_Matt]

Wasn't Louis Real exonerated? I mean, all the guy wanted was a rectangular shaped piece of property when the government wanted him to have a square one.

[Rathji]

So if they never get charged with treason, what is the point of spending time to increase the penalty for treason?

Wouldn't it make FAR more sense to increase the penalties for the things they do get charged with, or perhaps looking into why people are being charged with other things instead?

Originally Posted by Rerun

Why is this always your attitude? ... as in why bother making changes to the law unless we are in a crisis situation because surely there is something more important that needs to be done?
Has the government EVER done anything that you agree with?

To address this question, this is clearly a case where the solution that is being proposed is NOT the correct solution because it would never have any impact on any case that we would like it to.

You act as though MPs go and sit in the House of Commons for 4 years straight, only coming home for 2 weeks of vacation a year and have tons of time to debate stupid things that get proposed. The reality is there is limited time to propose, debate, modify, debate again, and vote on these Bills.

Why would you support wasting time on a Bill that:

a) will never impact anyone because the conviction rate for the offense is astronomically microscopic

and

b) Doesn't actually address what you have identified as the real problem, which appears to be that people are not getting charged with treason when they probably should be.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Yes but with a name like Undercover brother you're probably a man of color and the second we start turning away minorities from the army, we're goddamn lost.

Joking aside, thank you for your service

nope pasty and white, but thank you.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by ken0042

How is it that a natural born Canadian hasn't been given citizenship? I guess I must be missing that point, as I would think that while there isn't an immigration process; the child is still being granted Canadian citizenship.

Nope, if you are born in canada to canadian parents you are inherantly canadian, the goverment has nothing to do with it. The most they get to do is register you.
I, on the other hand, had to ask the goverment, they got to decide if I was good enough to be a canadian.
In order to take away citizanship the mechanism would have to be built in to the application process, therefore only apply to those applying for citizanship (which is quite clearly who this foolishness is aimed at)

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Why would you support wasting time on a Bill that:

a) will never impact anyone because the conviction rate for the offense is astronomically microscopic

and

b) Doesn't actually address what you have identified as the real problem, which appears to be that people are not getting charged with treason when they probably should be.

I would support any change in the law that gives the government the ability to revoke a person's Canadian citizenship if that person is convicted of treason.
Frankly I'm surprised that they don't currently have that ability and since they don't its long overdue.

As to why they are not charged with treason... I have no idea why not. Seems like a slam dunk to me. If you are a Canadian citizen and you are spying on your own country and giving/selling secrets to a foreign power, you are committing treason. Off with their heads!

[Itse]

This might be of interest in this thread. Quite a few interesting characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ted_of_treason

(Edit: not a complete list, obviously.)

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Yes but with a name like Undercover brother you're probably a man of color and the second we start turning away minorities from the army, we're goddamn lost.

Joking aside, thank you for your service

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

nope pasty and white, but thank you.

I found a pic of undercoverbrother...

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I would support any change in the law that gives the government the ability to revoke a person's Canadian citizenship if that person is convicted of treason.
Frankly I'm surprised that they don't currently have that ability and since they don't its long overdue.

As to why they are not charged with treason... I have no idea why not. Seems like a slam dunk to me. If you are a Canadian citizen and you are spying on your own country and giving/selling secrets to a foreign power, you are committing treason. Off with their heads!

I would support measures to make citizanship harder and take longer to get, it makes far more sense to have a liberal immigration process with a quick deportation when it turns out they are no good.

As to treason there are only two countries I really worry about for that, China and Israel, and our current goverment has already bent over and dropped trou' for both of them so it is somewhat hypocritical for them to get all up tight when a citizan decides to do independantly for an envelope of cash what the goverment is quite happy to do for a truck load of dosh.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I found a pic of undercoverbrother...

thank god my skinny legs are not in the picture.