The Liberal Government continues to hit the reset button on the Harper DecadeTM.
Mohamad Hashem of Al Jazeera has written about the "mixed reaction" to the announcement by Minister McCallum to turn back the clock to the time before Harper ("TBH") and canvassed the revocation of the revocation clauses as well as the re-instatement of the pre-PR credit. In my mind, the revocation clauses were political in nature and not consequential:
Others, such as Raj Sharma, a Canadian immigration lawyer, describe the CPC's position as "dog-whistle politics"
"They're signaling to their base that they they're tough on [terrorism]. That was pandering to the gallery, done for political purposes," he told Al Jazeera.
The other, and there's no other way to characterize it, but dumb change contained within C24 was eliminating the pre-PR credit:
Other changes proposed by the current government include allowing citizenship applicants to count up to a year's worth of the days they spend in Canada as non-permanent-residents (PR).
This will affect people like international students who, under Bill C-24, are not allowed to count their non-PR days in Canada.
"You've gotten a degree here - that's four years," Sharma told Al Jazeera. "After that you get an open work permit and work here.
"After two years with skilled work experience, you apply for permanent residency, [which] might take a year or two to process. Under [C-24] you'd have to wait another four years minimum to apply."
As a consequence of their "principled position" a convicted terrorist will be a Canadian again.
Finally, I think citizenship can be renounced, and doesn't require the formality of signing off on a 5 page form.
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