Senate could fix practice of citizenship revocations without hearings
OTTAWA — The Senate could come to the rescue of Canadians who are being stripped of their citizenship without a hearing.
Independent Sen. Ratna Omidvar, who is sponsoring another citizenship-related bill in the upper house, says she’s hopeful the Senate will amend the bill to do away with a law that allows the government to revoke the citizenship of anyone deemed to have misrepresented themselves.
It’s a law that could potentially ensnare Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, who revealed last week that she was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she’d always believed.
The law, part of a citizenship bill passed by the previous Conservative government, was denounced by the Liberals when they were in opposition but lawyers say they’ve been aggressively enforcing it since forming government.