Liberals call for new citizenship act for 'Lost Canadians'

The federal government is trying to reach a deal that could restore citizenship to thousands of so-called "Lost Canadians" — people who were stripped of their Canadian status through obscure sections of the Citizenship Act.
Proposals from opposition members of the Senate committee on citizenship and immigration to fix the problem go as far as a complete revamp of the 1947 Citizenship Act.
Omar Alghabra, the Liberal citizenship and immigration critic, said talks between the committee and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration are ongoing to help people who have been forced to leave the country, or whose livelihoods are in peril because they cannot work in Canada until their claims have been reviewed.

"We're in negotiations with the government about how to move forward, and I think there's a willingness to do something," Alghabra said.
Parliamentary secretary Ed Komarnicki said Diane Finley, the minister of citizenship and immigration, was open to listening to any proposals from opposition members.
"The minister has invited the committee to make some constructive, unanimous suggestions for amendments, and if that happens, we can move forward," Komarnicki said.

The Liberals are suggesting a two-step process: First to temporarily amend the Citizenship Act to allow all lost Canadians to be repatriated and then to rewrite the act to prevent future problems.
Finley said her department was dealing with 450 such cases, but new documents obtained by the CBC under the Access to Information Act show that nearly 4,000 Canadians have been stripped of their citizenship in seven years because of the act.
That has led to the call to re-evaluate the law, which took away the Canadian status of thousands of people including:

Warbrides and children of Canadian soldiers who were born abroad.

Anyone born abroad whose parents failed to sign a Registration of Birth Abroad form.

Anyone considered to have been born out of wedlock to a non-Canadian mother.

Those who may have fallen into several other categories.

In addition, it's believed there are thousands more people who are at risk of losing citizenship, but who have not yet been identified by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
The committee is also scheduling more hearings and plans to call federal senior staff members from Citizenship and Immigration Canada to testify about the current policy of denying citizenship.

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The federal government is trying to reach a deal that could restore citizenship to thousands of so-called "Lost Canadians" — cases in which people were stripped of their Canadian status through obscure sections of the Citizenship Act.

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