Citizenship and Residency

Much has been made in the media recently of comments made by MP Garth Turner about evacuating Canadian citizens from Lebanon.

Garth, along with an amazingly vocal bunch of simpletons seems to think that we shouldn't be evacuating Canadian Citizens from Lebanon - based on the reasoning that many of these people *gasp* LIVE in Lebanon full time.

There seem to be two arguments rolling around. The first asserts that these people live abroad, pay taxes elsewhere and are not generally part of the fabric of Canadian society. The second, more irrational and paranoid view, fears that we may be importing a bunch of "terrorists".

First of all, it takes several years of residence in Canada to gain citizenship. Second, Canada does not have "levels" or "grades" of citizenship. A citizen is a citizen - period. This country is not Orwell's "Animal Farm" where "some are more equal than others" - a citizen is a citizen - period. If we extend evacuation to Canadian citizens in a warzone, it's not a conditional "only if you live in Canada" situation.

If you wish to argue about paying taxes and whether these people should be beneficiaries of government services, I'll point out that the Income Tax system obliges a Canadian living abroad to pay taxes in Canada if they retain material assets in the country. (For example, a house, bank accounts etc.) In an emergency such as we have in the Middle East today, it's a little hard to say how many of those people have Canadian assets - and frankly, I don't think it matters.

The argument about importing terrorists is simply fearmongering. The people making that assertion have done no more than buy the George W. Bush line. If any of those people are demonstrably members of illegal organizations, then they can be denied entry into the country, or detained at the border until their circumstances are sorted out. Of course, I suspect that there's no real evidence for most of the evacuees - so like other citizens, we have to assume that they are innocent until proven guilty.