I see that Poilievre has borrowed another page from GOP politics - this time he’s going after birthright citizenship.
Birthright citizenship is really nothing more than “if you are born in Canada, you are deemed to be a Canadian Citizen. It’s really that simple - in a nation that was literally built out of immigration, it makes a certain amount of sense that we might look at citizenship through such a lens. Many of us were born here when one, or both parents, were not yet citizens themselves.
Frankly, when the subject comes up, nobody seems to have any idea what pressing problem Canada is facing would be solved by revoking birthright citizenship. Are there suddenly a whole bunch of citizens of Canada that are causing problems because they aren’t “Canadian enough” for Pierre’s tastes? Or is this a revisitation of Harper’s infamous “Old Stock Canadians” nonsense?
I’ve seen a few people whine about “anchor babies”, or “birth tourism”. Of those arguments, I am inclined to be more than a little suspicious that the people making that argument are doing so more because they don’t like the idea of people from certain cultural backgrounds. However, so-called “birth tourism” babies are hardly a large number of Canada’s births - some 5,000 or so annually, on a total birth rate of ~365,000 - and nobody has demonstrated that those 5,000 births are resulting in “a problem” for Canada.
Frankly, the problem I see with this is that it creates a whole subclass of people who are born in Canada, may live their lives here, and are denied citizenship because of their parents’ circumstances at the time they were born.
Additionally, it gives politicians with malicious intentions an easy tool upon which to make the lives of Canadians more difficult. Removing birthright citizenship suddenly means that a person who has lived in Canada their entire lives could have to prove not only their citizenship, but also that of their parents.
Consider some of the possible scenarios:
Someone travels to Canada for work reasons, and for one reason or another has a child while residing and working in Canada. Subsequently they decide to become a permanent resident. Does the child's status follow that of the parent? Or have we just created a situation where the child, having been born here to a person classified as "temporary" ends up effectively stateless?
Or, let's say the child becomes an adult (18 years old) when the parent finally gains Permanent Resident status. What then? Do we suddenly deport that 18 year old to a country they have no experience with?
Similarly, let's say that a child of a "temporary resident" grows up in Canada, and applies for citizenship under this new regime. Do we then demand that they go through the same process of applying for "Permanent Resident" status, and then on to citizenship a decade later? Do we demand that they apply through the same immigration system that they would have to apply through if they were coming from abroad, and they would have to "qualify" under the admission criteria? Does that make any kind of sense?
Let's consider the case of someone who has been born and grown up in Canada. Regardless of the status of their parents, they are asked if they are citizens. Now the question rests not on "where were you born?", but "who were your parents, and what was their immigration status when you were born?". I dare say most adults in the country would have a very hard time proving the citizenship status of their parents - especially if their parents are deceased, or their documentation isn't readily available.
It creates an environment where, like the US, a huge amount of energy is wasted on "finding illegal residents". This will stratify society further, making a subclass of people who live here, and may have done so their entire lives, who have no legal status. As we have seen in the US, that subclass of people becomes ruthlessly exploited by employers looking for cheap labour they can abuse.
I'm not arguing that our immigration systems are perfect or ideal. They need work - a lot of it. There is an honest discussion to be had around what immigration to Canada should look like, and how the various streams should flow. Stripping birthright citizenship from the equation creates problems, it does not solve them.
Poilievre's tirade doesn't make Canada a safer place, it makes Canada a much more dangerous place for the people who live here already.
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