Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 96 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada of Transnationalism

5 Descent, Territory and Common Values: Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada Elke Winter

Introduction1

Integrating the expression of ethnic diversity within the homogenizing logic of the nation state is a complex process. For many years, Canadian multicultural citizenship was portrayed as a role model for other countries in this regard (Runnymede Trust: Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, 2000; Kymlicka and Opalski, 2001). Recently, however, earlier steps towards the liberalization and multiculturalization of immigrant integration policies have been abandoned in many countries (Vertovec and Wessendorf, 2009). Several European states have introduced new citizenship tests that measure immigrants’ adequate skill of a national language, civic knowledge and value compatibility. Canada, too, has recently redressed the boundaries of its citizenship with respect to both legal status and identity. While, comparatively speaking, multiculturalism remains a staple of Canadian citizenship, ‘multicultiphobia’ (Ryan, 2010) – which had been superseded by fears of Québécois separatism in the second half of the 1990s (Winter, 2011) – has an increasing impact on what it means to be a Canadian citizen in the new century. This chapter traces changes in Canadian citizenship from the incep- Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright tion of the ﬁrst Citizenship Act in 1947 until the present day. Its focus is two-fold. First, it places Canadian citizenship legislation in the context of the country’s complex ethnocultural heritage and composition: its position as a British outpost in North America, its multinational composition and – increasingly – its pioneering but highly ambivalent experimentation with renationalizing citizenship in the age

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 96 Redefining Citizenship in Canada of transnationalism. Second, in a slightly subordinate argumentation stream, it shows how Canada’s citizenship legislation is accompanied by changes in citizenship education in preparation for the naturalization process. Specifically, the chapter argues that four phases of citizenship legislation and naturalization process can be identified. The first is characterized by the wish to create a Canadian citizenship that is distinct from its British predecessor. This phase was initiated by the enactment of Canada’s first Citizenship Act in 1947 and by programmes of citizenship education for three target groups: immigrants, youth and Aborigi- nal peoples. A second phase – starting in the mid-1960s – witnesses the de-ethnicization of citizenship through a number of institutional changes, including a revised Citizenship Act in 1977, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 and the Multiculturalism Act in 1988. A third phase starts in the late 1980s, when Canadian politics became increasingly influenced by both economic neo-liberalization and increasing concerns about national unity. While economic neo- liberalization led to the ‘cheapening’ of both nationalization procedures and citizenship education, the fear for national unity reinforced a ‘shal- low’ definition of citizenship and brought citizenship legislation to a halt for more than 20 years. A fourth phase of citizenship legislation was introduced by the Con- servative Party in 2006. It started after a wave of multinational conflict ebbed away. The question whether Canada was originally constituted by the British and French ‘founding nations’ and Aboriginal peoples or the confederation of ten equal provinces (with considerable powers such as health care, education and natural resources) and territories has been the object of heated debates, including a (failed) referendum on the independence of the French-speaking province of Québec in 1995. In 2008, amendments to the Citizenship Act were passed in parliament. A new citizenship study guide and test were introduced shortly after- wards (in 2009 and 2010, respectively). These new legislations, so it will be argued, are circumventing – or even overcoming – multinational conflict and renationalizing pan-Canadian citizenship by redressing the boundaries of what it means to be Canadian. They achieve this by giv- Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright ing new meaning to the typical markers of citizenship, such as territory, descent and shared history/values.

Mid-1940s to mid-1960s: nationalizing citizenship

Although Canada became an autonomous nation state through the British North America Act in 1867, it continued to maintain close ties

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 97 to Great Britain both legally and with respect to identity and culture. Its founding document, the British North America Act, remained an act of the British Parliament until it was ‘patriated’ in 1982, and the British monarch continues to be Canada’s head of state. With the passing of the Canadian Citizenship Act, S.C. 1946, c.15 and its implementation on 1 January 1947, Canada was the first Commonwealth country to obtain separate citizenship status (Kaplan, 1993, p.7). With respect to citizenship as a legal status, the Citizenship Act 1947 was a clear break from past legislation. It involved two major changes, namely ‘the con- version of Canada from a British Dominion to an independent nation’ (Garcea, 2003, p.2), which was a change in the status of the country, and a change in the status of the Canadian people, which ‘relates to the transformation of Canadians from British subjects ...to full fledged Canadian citizens’ (Garcea, 2003, p.2). As such, ‘the 1947 Citizenship Act was not merely a naturalization statute; it was also a nation-building and identity-building ...statute designed to alter the legal status of the state and its people’ (Garcea, 2003, p.2). Prior to 1947, Canadians were considered ‘British subjects’ (Natu- ralisation Act, S.C. 1914, c.44) and ‘Canadian nationals’ (Canadian Nationals Act, S.C. 1921, c.4). Emigrants from the UK and other Com- monwealth countries were able to enter and settle in Canada at their leisure. Newcomers to Canada from outside the Commonwealth, by contrast, were subject to the Naturalisation Act 1914. This required them to reside in Canada for at least five years and to demonstrate that they could exhibit qualities associated with ‘good citizenship’ (Kelley and Trebilcock, 2010, p.161). One of the goals of the Citizenship Act 1947 was to place ‘Canadians by birth’ and ‘Canadians by choice’ on an equal legal footing – that is, from then on, both natural born and naturalized citizens held equal status, were entitled to identical privileges, and were subjected to the same duties and obligations (Canada, 1987, p.6; see also Knowles, 2000, p.65). The act was also designed to give equal citizenship status to men and women, insofar as women were treated individually, in their own right and not as the legal dependants of their husbands. As a consequence, the Citizenship Act established criteria for citizenship acquisition, including Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright a minimum age of 21, minimum residence of five years, ‘possession of good character’ (Canada, 1987, p.7), adequate knowledge of either the French or the English language, adequate knowledge of the responsibilities and privileges of Canadian citizenship, and the intention to reside in Canada. It also provided for automatic loss of Canadian citizenship on grounds of voluntary acquisition, other than by marriage, of the citizenship of another country or, in some cases, services in the armed

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 98 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada forces of another country (Canada, 1987, p.7). Finally, the act introduced hearings with citizenship judges and the Canadian citizenship ceremony. The Second World War played a distinct role in the emergence of Canadian citizenship policy. In particular, the Canadian government came to realize that the war effort required not only invoking a shared national identity among the members of the French and British ‘founding nations’ but also actively mobilizing the 20 percent of the country’s population who were not of British or French origins. As a consequence,

by the end of World War Two, the dominant political discourse adopted the idea that, regardless of the pluralist character of the population, the uniﬁcation and harmonisation of the national fab- ric was possible by means of Canadian citizenship. All that is needed, the promoters of this national policy [such as parliamentarian Paul Martin Sr.] have argued ever since, is vigorous public education to make old and new Canadians alike appreciate the importance of ‘being Canadian’ as the deﬁning element of their identity. (Caccia, 2010, p.213)

This progressive outlook, which seems to be underpinned by democratic notions of nation-building and citizenship education, must not obscure its underlying ethnocentrism, which remained dominant at the time. In May 1947, the Liberal prime minister, Mackenzie King, notoriously declared that ‘large-scale immigration from the Orient [was undesirable since it] would change the fundamental composition of the Canadian population’(Ponting, 2001, p.43 citing Mackenzie King in 1947). King’s remarks reveal an ethnic conception of nationhood (Breton, 1988) and ‘a unitary model of citizenship’ in which the ethnicity and identity of the dominant group (shared linguistic and cultural characteristics, values and representations of the past) are viewed as the only legitimate expression of membership of the nation (Russell, 1996). More specifically, they point to the project of a White British and Protes- tant settler society. Indeed, with respect to citizenship as identity, the Citizenship Act 1947 did not introduce significant changes. Anglo- Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright conformity remained quite openly the dominant ideology until the 1970s with white Orientalism continuing to shape the symbolic order- ing of groups in Canada until the present day (Razack, 2002; Thobani, 2007). Not surprisingly, then, citizenship education in the Canadian context was originally first and foremost about ‘civilizing’ both Aboriginal

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 99 peoples and newly arrived European refugees and immigrants, as well as teaching them dominant middle-class English Canadian social and moral codes and pro-capitalist values (Bohaker and Iacovetta, 2009). Cit- izenship education, which was developed almost immediately after the legislation of the ﬁrst Citizenship Act (Joshee and Derwing, 2005, p.63), was conceptualized very much along the lines of a mission of public education (incepted in 1847). According to Joshee, ‘schools were meant to be a homogenizing force that would work with immigrant and native- born children and their families to create “good Canadian citizens” in the image of British loyalist[s]’(Joshee, 2004, p.135). Although education is a provincial responsibility in Canada and there is no federal department of education,2 the Canadian federal government has decidedly intervened in the shaping of citizenship education from the very beginning (Joshee and Derwing, 2005). The creation of a legal category of citizenship was not deemed sufﬁcient to produce the desired characteristics in the Canadian citizenry. Rather, in 1950, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration3 was created to offer citizenship programmes to newcomers, Aboriginal peoples and youth (Bohaker and Iacovetta, 2009, p.435), instilling in them a shared sense of identity and belonging, loyalty to the country, individual responsibility and adherence to ‘Canadian values’, such as democracy, freedom and liberalism (Brodie, 2002; Caccia, 2010; Martin, 1993). Although Canada’s self-image as a White capitalist settler society built on a British Christian heritage remained at the core of all forms of citizenship education, by the end of the 1950s there was a slow shift from assimilation towards ‘integration’, the de-ethnicization of citizenship and a more positive view of diversity (Joshee, 2004, p.139). This shift was to gain more prominence and support in the next decade.

Mid-1960s to late-1980s: de-ethnicizing citizenship

On 15 February 1977, the Citizenship Act 1947 was replaced by Canada’s current Citizenship Act (Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1985, c.C-29). Its overarching purpose was to modernize and update the 1947 Act with two major objectives in mind, namely improved access and equal treatment Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright (Canada, 1987). The new act also effectively de-ethnicized Canadian citizenship. Specifically, it made citizenship more easily attainable through a variety of stipulations, including i) the declaration that citizenship for all qualified applicants is a right rather than a privilege; ii) the reduction of the residency period from five to three years; and iii) the ability – even encouragement – to hold dual citizenship. Furthermore, with respect

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 100 Redefining Citizenship in Canada to equal treatment, the act a) reaffirmed that Canadian citizens by birth and citizens by choice have identical rights and responsibilities; b) removed all special treatment of British nationals in the citizenship application process; and c) placed heightened emphasis on the equal treatment of men and women (Canada, 1998). The implementation of the Citizenship Act 1977 cannot be understood without reference to two global developments, which started to change Canada’s attitude towards immigration and ethnocultural diversity in the 1960s. First, economic growth and fundamental changes in industrial productions led to labour shortages, and decreasing immigration from Central and Northern Europe. Immigrants were now recruited from Southern Europe and later increasingly from Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean (Simmons, 2010). In 1967, the federal government implemented a supposedly ‘race blind’ universal point system which replaced immigrant selection according to ‘national preference’. The point system was legally enshrined by the Immigration Act 1976. The provisions aiming to facilitate access within the Citizenship Act 1977, and in particular the acceptance of dual citizenship, can be seen as a corollary of this development. The act was explicitly aiming to make it attractive for newcomers to take up Canadian citizenship. The same economic growth that altered Canada’s source countries of immigration also enabled the modernization, expansion and bureaucratization of the Québec state apparatus. This process, usually termed the ‘Quiet Revolution’, was also characterized by a new type of territory-based Québécois, rather than linguistically based French Canadian nationalism (Juteau, 1993), which was fuelled by the second global development that impacted Canadian society during that time: decolonization and the ‘world revolution’ in human rights, as demonstrated by the proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials, the Algerian Revolution and the civil rights movement in the US. As a consequence, Anglo-conformity and assimilationism came under heavy attack. The provisions of the 1977 Act relating to equal treatment and anti-discrimination – for example, the removal of all special treatment of British nationals in the citizenship application process – can be viewed in response to this second development that changed social Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright relations between individuals, groups and countries worldwide. In a way, the Citizenship Act 1977 is one of the crown jewels in a series of separate but inter-related policies to which Canada owes much of its international reputation. Specifically, in 1969, the Official Languages Act recognized the equality of the French and English as Canada’s official languages. Furthermore, in 1971, the prime minister,

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 101

Pierre Trudeau, declared that ‘multiculturalism within a bilingual frame- work’ not only constituted an official state policy but was also the essence of Canadian identity (Canada, 1971, p.8580). Canada was the first country in the world to implement multiculturalism as an official policy, which marked, at least principally, the passage from assimilationism to normative pluralism. Only a couple of years later, the stipulations of the Citizenship Act 1977 translated this pluralist approach into law. As Nyers (2010, p.52) puts it, ‘With the passage of the 1977 legislation, Canadian citizenship was redesigned to allow for multiple allegiances and forms of belonging.’ The Citizenship Act was, however, not the last step towards a new orientation in Canadian politics of de-ethnicization and pluralist nation-building. In broad terms, in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a transition from a more communitarian conception of ethnocultural membership – including Anglo-Saxon ethnic nationhood – to an individualist and liberal interpretation of immigrants’ ethnic background and ‘civic’ membership in the polity (Breton, 1988). Critics have pointed to a deliberate political shift from the equality of groups to the equality of individuals (in the 1969 Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy), of languages (in the Official Languages Act 1969) and of cultures (in the 1971 Multiculturalism Policy) (Juteau, 1997; McRoberts, 1997). Under the political leadership of the Liberal prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, this trend continued into the 1980s. In 1982, shortly after the failure of the first Québec referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980 (rejected by 60 percent of the voters), the federal government under Trudeau patriated the Canadian constitution, which strengthened individual equality rights over collective group rights. Multiculturalism, cast in the language of equality rights and enshrined in the constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was also made law – under the Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney (in office from 1984 to 1993) – through the Canadian Multiculturalism Act 1988. While greeted with scepticism at first, and being one of the reasons why Québec rejected signing the constitution and never did so subsequently,4 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has become one of the most powerful symbols of English Canadian nationalism and pride Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright (Kelly and Manfredi, 2009). In sum, the new dominant definition of citizenship was both pluralist and individualist. As Subsection 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, ‘Every individual is equal before and under the law ...without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability’

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 102 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada

(Canada, 1982). Brodie maintains that the Canadian citizen at the time ‘was, above all, an individual bearer of rights and other state-based assurances of equality, as well as of equality of opportunity which, in turn, provided Canadians with their collective identity’ (Brodie, 2002, p.60). Emphasizing that the 1960s and early 1970s were also the apex of liberal progressivism and the development of the Canadian welfare state, Brodie coins this figure the ‘social citizen’ who was ‘very much a product of the welfare state’ and the ‘abiding belief that social progress could be realized through planning and the reasoned implementation of public policy’ (Brodie, 2002, p.59, 60). The social citizen is an abstract individual claims-maker who shares his/her vulnerability to insecurity with his/her fellow citizens. Collective national identity was therefore to be created by providing uniformity at the level of the individual. Not surprisingly then, ‘programs informing the social citizen ...were consistently linked to the national unity question’ (Brodie, 2002, p.60). These two liberal-progressive trends – pluralist individualism and redistributive justice – flanked the de-ethnicization process of Canadian citizenship and, interestingly, coexisted without any specific ‘dilemma’. This being said, they were not dominant in citizenship education programmes. Rather, in the wake of the global human rights revolution, issues of identity surged in the 1960s, as well as questions of language retention and cultural diversity (Joshee, 2004, p.143). In the 1970s, citizenship education was prominently informed by the 1971 Multiculturalism Policy and its original emphasis on the cultural pluralism of (white) immigrant groups of European origin. There is dis- agreement among scholars of education about the importance of an activist orientation within citizenship education. While some argue that there was a growing assumption that citizens needed to be taught the skills that enabled them to become activists (in order to claim individual rights), others noted that there was ‘little evidence that this activist orientation actually reached the classrooms’ (Joshee, 2004, p.143). The adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 prompted a short-lived shift in citizenship education towards issues of democratic citizenship and social justice in the 1980s (Joshee, 2004). Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright As in many other Western countries, in the late 1980s and 1990s, politics in Canada became more and more affected by the rise of neo-liberalism associated with an economic agenda favouring tax cuts, reduced social spending, support for privatization, marketization, decentralization and the individualization of risk. This trend had dramatic impacts on all aspects of citizenship, including education. According to Osborne, the

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 103 implementation of neo-liberal policies supplanted the emphasis on activist and democratic citizenship ‘by an economic agenda in which the claims of citizenship largely disappeared’ (2001, p.36).

Late 1980s to early 2000s: neo-liberalizing citizenship

In Canada, the beginning of a neo-liberal state agenda is usually associated with the election of the Conservative Mulroney government in 1984, the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988 and, in 1993, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (including Mexico). However, the neo-liberal restructuring of state programmes and parts of civil society was neither restricted to Canada nor to the Conserva- tive government. On the contrary, both progressively liberal ideology and economically neo-liberal consideration were also at stake when, in 1996, the Liberal federal government under Jean Chrétien changed the format of the Canadian citizenship test from an oral citizenship hearing with a citizenship judge to a pencil-and-paper standardized multiple choice test.5 The government’s reasons for changing the test format were primarily related to fiscal cutbacks, which required all government departments to reduce the costs of their client-based programmes. In this sense, a multiple choice exam simultaneously taken by a large number of citizenship candidates presented itself as a low-cost alterna- tive to time-consuming individual interviews with citizenship judges. Further catalysts for the change in format were inconsistencies regarding judges’ practices in their hearings, and the desire to expedite the process to alleviate a substantial backlog of applications (Joshee and Derwing, 2005, p.67). The development of the pencil-and-paper test originated from a bank of standardized questions in a book entitled A Look at Canada. This had been designed for citizenship judges to draw on questions during the citizenship interviews. The questions were later adapted to the format of the new multiple-choice test. A Look at Canada was first released as a self-study guide for citizenship applicants in 1995 (Joshee and Derwing, 2005, p.66). It consisted of 47 pages. Written in basic language, it con- tained short descriptions of the regions, the people, the economy, the Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright geography and the climate. There were also short sections on Canadian history and symbols, as well as on Aboriginal peoples, levels of government in Canada, voting procedures and the justice system. In the book, Canadian values are said to ‘include freedom, respect for cultural differ- ences and a commitment to social justice’ (Canada, 2009d, p.7). Until 2010, this study guide was only revised superficially.

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 104 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada

From the outset, the pencil-and-paper test consisted of 20 multiple- choice questions testing on any of the material found in A Look at Canada. A pass required a minimum of 12/20 (60 percent) correct answers. Certain questions (on the right to vote, to run for office and regarding voter registration) had to be answered correctly. If an applicant failed the test, s/he was scheduled for an interview with a citizenship judge and could then still be granted citizenship. Pointing at the continuing role of the citizenship judges (in citizenship interviews and ceremonies) and the continuity in content (questions by the judges and content of the exam are both based on A Look at Canada), Paquet argues that the ‘standardised citizenship test ...did not repre- sent a significant break from the previous naturalization procedures’ (Paquet, 2012, p.249). She maintains that that the new policy instru- ment ‘kept the same general objective as the original procedure: to test general knowledge of Canada and to assess linguistic competences’ (2012, p.250). From the perspective of citizenship education, however, the pencil- and-paper test has not only literally but also figuratively ‘cheapened’ citizenship. Joshee and Derwing (2005, p.68) view newcomers as being channelled into a standardized process and tossed out as citizens, thereby losing the integrity and meaning of a personal interview with a citizenship judge. They argue that the change in the citizenship exam process from interview to multiple-choice test had a devastating impact on the programmes offered in citizenship education, and here particularly those concerned with adult immigrant education: ‘The nature of the test encourages rote memorization that can be facilitated outside the classroom’ (2005, p.71). As a consequence, fewer programmes of adult citizenship education are in existence, and several of those remaining have been downsized in terms of length (Derwing et al., 1998). Further- more, in courses on second language instruction offered to newcomers, less emphasis was placed on citizenship, and the programme of Citizen- ship Instruction and Language Training became regarded as obsolete. Consequently, remaining citizenship programmes focus primarily on the trivia and facts on which an applicant would be tested in the standardized exam: ‘The content of courses is now driven almost exclusively Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright by the multiple-choice test introduced by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, all the questions of which were driven from A Look at Canada’ (Derwing et al., 1998, p.393). By the early 2000s, the educational process was dropped completely in favour of the new focus on how to prepare for the test (Joshee, 2008, p.2).

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 105

While the neo-liberal agenda of the state had dramatic impacts at all levels of social citizenship (Jenson, 1997), Canada’s citizenship legislation remained strangely untouched by the developments. This is astounding since changes to the Citizenship Act 1977 were announced only ten years after it was enacted. In 1987, the official rationale for revising the Citizenship Act was three-fold. First, one of the goals was to alter some of the criteria for granting, refusing and revoking Canadian citizenship in a globalizing world. Second, the 1947 Act had to be revised in order to render the Canadian Citizenship Act consonant with the provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982. Third, there was a need to find ways to foster national unity – for example, by rethinking the nature of the citizenship oath – that is, whether prospective candidates for citizenship should give their allegiance to the Crown (rejected by many Francophones), the country or both (Canada, 1987, p.8; see also Garcea, 2006). Despite these goals, no major bill related to the Citizenship Act was introduced. Rather, the 1987 attempt to revise citizenship legislation was immediately overshadowed by several years of constitutional debates aiming to bring Québec into the Canadian Con- stitution (which it had not signed in 1982). In subsequent years, the Liberal government provided a similar rationale to overhaul the Citi- zenship Act 1977 but ultimately suffered the same fate: at the end of their time in power, not a single piece of legislation with respect to the Citizenship Act was enacted (Garcea, 2006). According to Garcea (2003, p.8), draft legislation on citizenship renewal produced under the Liberal government in 1994 served two overarching purposes. The first was to ‘enhance national identity and unity through the articulation and transmission of a common or shared citizenship identity and a common or shared set of citizenship values’. This must be understood against the backdrop of the failure of several attempts at constitutional renewal and raising concerns about Canada’s fragmented identity (Winter, 2011, Chapter 2). After the narrow vic- tory of the anti-separation campaign in the 1995 Québec referendum on sovereignty, the Parti Québécois government provocatively named the ministry mandated to regulate matters of immigration in Québec Ministère des Relations avec les citoyens et de l’immigration. The Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright cleavage between citizenship at the provincial and at the federal state level became further highlighted through initiatives such as Québec’s Semaine de citoyenneté (‘Citizenship Week’) (since 1998) and the Forum national sur la citoyenneté québécoise (‘National Forum on Québécois Citizenship’) (in 2000). These developments created a heightened sense

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 106 Redefining Citizenship in Canada of urgency within the federal government to redefine and promote pan-Canadian ‘national’ belonging and citizenship. The second purpose was to ‘enhance national security by improving the control measures (i.e. policies and procedures) in granting, deny- ing and revoking citizenship’. A shift in emphasis occurred after 9/11: whereas during the late 1990s the emphasis was on enhancing national identity and national unity, in the new millennium and particularly since 9/11, the emphasis has been on making citizenship legislation congruent with national security. There are at least three reasons why the second purpose of the intended Citizenship Act reform – making citizenship legislation congruent with national security – gained in importance in the early years of the new millennium. First, and most importantly, this shift was inspired by the security concerns related to the War on Ter- ror in the post-9/11 era. Second, with respect to Québec, some sense of ‘relief’ came through a Supreme Court of Canada ruling from 20 August 1998 which stipulated that Québec cannot unilaterally secede from Canada. The ruling was followed by the Clarity Act (Bill C-20), adopted in June 2000, which defined strict rules for a future referendum on Québec sovereignty. Furthermore, in the new century, nationalism and the independence movement in Québec receded somewhat. In 2003, the (non-separatist) Liberal Party came to power in Québec.6 Third, in January 2006, after 12 years of Liberal federal government, the Conser- vative Party – whose traditional party platform tends to focus strongly on issues of national security – was elected to power.

Since the early 2000s: renationalizing citizenship

The 2008/2009 amendments to the Citizenship Act In the spring of 2008, under the leadership of the governing Conserva- tives, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-37, a new amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act, which took effect on 17 April 2009. This responded to a number of odd or even discriminatory provisions of the Citizenship Act 1947 (e.g. citizenship determination based on wedlock, distinction between foreign born and native born in cases of citizenship revocation) that had been rectiﬁed in the Citizenship Act 1977, but Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright not in a retroactive way. According to Harder, ‘Canada’s citizenship laws effectively divided the population according to age: people born before 1 January 1947, people born between 1 January 1947 and 14 February 1977, and people born on 15 February 1977 and later’ (Harder, 2010, p.210). In fact, the 1977 Act did not restore citizenship to people who had lost it (or never gained it) under the 1947 Act. This led to the

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 107 phenomenon of the ‘lost Canadians’, which will be further explored below. The 2008/2009 amendments to the Citizenship Act eliminate the 1947–1977 citizenship category. In other words, they grant Canadian citizenship to people who had lost their rights due to specific stipulations in the 1947 Citizenship Act (‘repatriation clause’). However, they do not redress harms caused to people whose contested claims stem from pre-1947 laws and policies. Furthermore – and much less publicized by the Canadian government – the 2008/2009 amendments implement a post-2009 citizenship category for the second generation born abroad. This stipulation, which has come to be known as the ‘first generation limitation’, restricts the inheritance of Canadian citizenship to the first generation of children born abroad to Canadian citizens. This is a significant departure from previous laws, under which Canadians could pass on their citizenship to future generations born abroad, on the condition that those foreign-born Canadians (first generation under the 1947 Act, second generation under the 1977 Act) affirm their desire for Canadian citizenship by their early 20s. According to the Toronto Star columnist Allan Thompson (2009), these changes to Canadian citizenship are bound to ‘create a new class of “lost Canadians” ’. The implementation of the 2008/2009 amendments to the Canadian Citizenship Act gain their meaning from the specific political contexts in which they were developed and passed unanimously in parliament. I will first explain the case of the ‘lost Canadians’ and the ‘repatriation clause’. I will then discuss the ‘first generation limitation’. ‘Lost Canadians’ are individuals who were born in Canada, and/or have a Canadian parent, but who lack or have lost citizenship due to certain provisions of the Citizenship Act 1947 that were not overhauled in 1977. While the phenomenon of the lost Canadians is not new – let us recall that a reform of the Citizenship Act had been in the making since 1987 – it remerged on the public agenda in the wake of border security measures that were introduced post-9/11. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, for example, stipulates that Canadians and Americans provide passports, rather than drivers’ licences or birth certificates, when crossing their shared border. When applying for a Canadian passport, Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright many individuals – estimates vary between a few hundred cases and several thousand (Harder, 2010, p.203) – living on both sides of the border became aware that they were not entitled to holding Canadian citizenship. Surprisingly, the plight of the lost Canadians in gaining citizenship attracted overwhelming public sympathy, and this in the post-9/11 era

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 108 Redefining Citizenship in Canada where immigration and citizenship policies are often seen as being intrinsically linked to questions of national security (Nyers, 2010). To put this sympathy into context, it is worth recalling that the fate of the lost Canadians was shaped in the period between 1947 and 1977 – that is, it goes back to an era when immigration to Canada was predominantly Protestant, northern European (if not British), male and Caucasian. Today, many of the lost Canadians are White English- speakers who live in the US. In analysing the situation of three prominent lost Canadians – Don Chapman, Joe Taylor and Johan Teichroeb – Harder succinctly exposes ‘the organic and tribalistic heart of the Canadian polity’ (Harder, 2010, p.205). She notices that each of these cases ‘invoked both the kinship basis of the Canadian state and advance a vision of the “authentic” Canadian replete in masculinity, racialized Whiteness and the moral worthiness of the exalted subject’ (Harder, 2010, p.211). She further observes that in the media, in the political debates, and even in court decisions, ‘ “other” immigrants as well as Canadian citizens whose ancestry does not trace back through a White European heritage are implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, jux- taposed with the “authenticity” of the lost Canadians’ (Harder, 2010, p.204). Harder’s analysis is confirmed by a recent YouTube video released by the Canadian government (Canada, 2009e) in order to entice lost Canadians to come back and/or take on Canadian citizenship. The trendy 70 seconds clip features a chubby middle-aged White man who wakes up to the tune of the Canadian anthem on the day the new amendments come into force. While ‘Waking up Canadian’ – the title of the clip – is abundant with Canadian symbols (a hockey player, a beaver, a moose, a portrait of the sovereign, national and historical flags, maple syrup and an order of poutine (chips with gravy and cheese)), representations relating to Canadian Aboriginal peoples, naturalized Canadians of colour (with the exception of a Black Mountie), multiculturalism and bilingualism (with the exception of a bilingual calendar) are notably absent. In sum, this video clip’s representations of what it means to be, and to become, Canadian underscore the specific ethnic and gendered nature of the lost Canadians who are to be Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright be attracted to take up Canadian citizenship (for a detailed analysis, see Neubauer, 2011). Hidden underneath the government’s rhetoric about the repatriation of the lost Canadians, the 2008/2009 amendments to the Canadian Citizenship Act also place significant limitations on the inheritance of citizenship (‘first-generation limitation’). Unlike in the case of the

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 109 repatriation clause, there are no government-sponsored advertisements about this second dimension of the recent amendments. However, the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website explains:

Under the old rules, it was possible for Canadians to pass on their citizenship to endless generations born outside Canada. To protect the value of Canadian citizenship for the future, the new law limits – with a few exceptions – citizenship by descent to one generation born outside Canada. (Canada, 2009c, emphasis added)

Specifically, only Canadians who were either born in Canada or have immigrated to Canada (and were subsequently granted citizenship) are allowed to pass on their Canadian citizenship to their offspring if the latter are born abroad. Canadians who have ‘inherited’ Canadian citizenship while being outside the country (born abroad) are not entitled to pass on their citizenship.7 The first-generation limitation is widely viewed as a political move in response to the outcry during the 2006 Lebanon crisis. Indeed, soon after the Israel–Hezbollah war had begun, the Israeli military blockaded the country and made escape by land, sea or air virtually impossible. Attempting to protect their citizens trapped in a foreign country, many states – among them Canada – spent large amounts of resources on evac- uating their stranded citizens. Approximately 15,000 Canadians (which is only a fraction of the 40,000 estimated Canadians residing or visit- ing Lebanon at the time) were evacuated to Canada on ships, chartered commercial flights and Canadian Forces aircraft at a total estimated cost of between CAD75–100 million (Nyers, 2010, p.50). After the evacuation, it became clear that many of the evacuees were dual citizens of Canada and Lebanon and that many had never lived in or even visited Canada. This raised concern among politicians and within the Canadian public about the level of obligation that the Canadian government has to dual-nationals living abroad. While a number of commentators defended the privileges of dual citizenship and its benefits for Canada in a globalized economy (Macklin Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright and Crépeau, 2010), the overall debate was dominated by the representation that naturalized Canadians living abroad were merely ‘citizens of convenience’ who obtain and maintain their Canadian citizenship without having meaningful ties to Canada in order to ensure access to social benefits, economic opportunities and a safe place in times of war or economic recession (Worthington, 2006). These immigrants, so the

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 110 Redefining Citizenship in Canada accusation goes on, use Canada as a ‘hotel’ where they can check in and out when it suits them (Kent, 2008). In reaction to the anxiety over the ‘cheapening’ of Canadian citizenship that emerged from the controversy about the evacuation, the Canadian government initiated an internal review at the federal Depart- ment of Citizenship and Integration, which was followed by a series of changes, such as printing an expiry date on Canadian permanent res- ident cards (Nyers, 2010). These changes culminated in the 2008/2009 amendments to the Citizenship Act. While the dominant rhetoric con- centrated on reassuring the Canadian population about securing the ‘value of Canadian citizenship for the future’, the new legislation’s first generation limitation denies the right to the first generation born abroad to pass on their citizenship to children also born outside Canada. Chil- dren born in the second and subsequent generations abroad thus have no claim to Canadian citizenship, even if they subsequently spend most of their lives in Canada (but were not born on Canadian territory). To put this debate and the government’s legislative response into perspective, it may be useful to recall that 73 percent of Canada’s approximately 250,000 new permanent residents per year take up Canadian citizenship (Immigration Watch Canada, 2010). There are no official statistics on the number of Canadians living abroad. The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (2006, p.1) estimates that their number is about 2.7 million, or 9 percent of the total domestic population. Furthermore, it is estimated that approximately one-third of immigrants to Canada return to their countries of origin after becoming Canadian citizens (Bramham, 2009). As such, the first generation limitation may indeed be interpreted as a strictly utilitarian and ethnically neutral tool of limiting citizenship acquisition in an age of transnationalism. This limitation is achieved by emphasizing the jus soli dimension of Canadian citizenship over the jus sanguinis dimension. Nevertheless, this apparent neutrality becomes tainted by a double standard imbedded in the two sets of amendments: ‘lost Canadians’ of primarily British and Northern European background are entitled, and even enticed, to take up Canadian citizenship even if they are already holding the citizenship of another country. In addition, they are also Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright entitled to pass on their Canadian citizenship to their offspring (even if born outside Canada), as well as to their grandchildren, provided that they were born (even abroad) before 2009.8 All other Canadians, by contrast, are faced with a much more territorialized definition of citizenship where the government’s obligations to citizens living outside Canada are limited and the first generation of Canadians born abroad is penalized as

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 111 it can no longer pass on Canadian citizenship to its children. In an age of neo-liberalism and flexible labour, many of these ‘other’ Canadians correspond to the category that Brodie has identified as ‘entrepreneurial citizens’, namely Canadians of increasingly diverse origins ‘whose realm of activity and responsibility increasingly stretches beyond Canada’s borders’ (Brodie, 2002, p.61). Specifically, they are recent immigrants and naturalized Canadians who, in order to make a living, engage in transnational economic activities and/or return to their countries of origin for personal or professional reasons. In a context where almost 60 percent of Canada’s immigrants come from countries in Asia and the Middle East (and only 16 percent are from Europe) (Statistics Canada, 2009), non-White Canadians and those of Arab descent and/or the Muslim faith seem to be specifically affected by the first-generation limitation clause.

A new citizenship study guide and test in 2009 and 2010 The early 2000s have also been marked by a renewed interest in citizenship education, and this at the level of both high school curricula and integration classes for immigrants. In Canada, almost all educational jurisdictions revised their social studies curricula, placing more emphasis on a well-balanced general education that would prepare children to assume the responsibilities of ‘good citizenship’ (Hébert, 2002; Joshee, 2004, p.146). Significantly, however, as Joshee notes, the re-emergence of citizenship as a central focus of youth and adult education did not translate into a restoration of funding or a reinstatement of any dis- mantled equity programmes. Rather, ‘the recent attention to citizenship and diversity can be linked to a newfound interest on the part of the public and policy developers in the idea of social cohesion’ (Joshee, 2004, p.147). The concerns for social cohesion first emerged in the late 1990s. They were a response to the consequences of an increasing reliance on market forces and neo-liberal restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s that ‘provoked serious social and political strains (e.g. rising poverty, declining population health) and a loss of confidence in public institutions’ (Jenson, 1998, p.v). Furthermore, in the wake of the attacks Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright of 9/11 and the War on Terror, anxieties rose about a clash of cultures and/or religions, adherence to basic liberal democratic values, homegrown terrorism and national security. The release of a new citizenship study guide and the implementation of a new citizenship test must be situated within this trend. The need for both was underscored by the view that ‘a real overview of

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 112 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada

Canada’s history, of our traditions and of our values ...like freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law’ was necessary (Kenney, 2009). The new citizenship study guide Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship was released on 12 November 2009. It was preceded by the 2007–2008 debate about reasonable accommodation of religious minorities in Québec. It was also the first time that the study guide was substantially changed since it was created in 1995. The new guide, Discover Canada, has a broader focus on Canadian history, symbols and institutions than its predecessor, A Look at Canada. It is also 20 pages longer. Compared with its predecessor, the new guide places more weight on Canadian history, specifically military issues (rather than peacekeeping), individual responsibility for one’s economic well- being (rather than on the welfare state) and Western democratic values (specifically gender equality, voting and obeying the law). Discover Canada is divided into 13 chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the application procedure for those who want to take the citizenship test. Chapter 2 specifies the ‘Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship’. Among the rights are freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression; freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of association; and habeas corpus – that is, the right to challenge unlawful detention by the state (Canada, 2009a, p.8). The responsibilities include obeying the law; taking (financial) responsibility for oneself and one’s family; serving on a jury; voting in elections; helping others in the community; and protecting and enjoying our heritage and environment (Canada, 2009a, p.9). Noteworthy are two additions to the responsibilities’ section, which are titled ‘Defending Canada’ and ‘The Equality of Women and Men’. Military history and defence did not figure in A Look at Canada, which rather emphasized Canada’s role as a peaceful and peacekeeping nation.9 Neither was gender equality an issue in the previous study guide. The new guide, however, explicitly specifies: ‘In Canada, men and women are equal under the law. Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, “honour killings”, female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence’ (Canada, 2009a, p.9). Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright The changes in the content and tone of the new guide reflect a shift in policy and ideology from a highly pluralistic interpretation of society to a more conservative, republican or nationalist perspective, which emphasizes the ‘duty to integrate’ (Canada, 2009b). Conse- quently, Chapter 3 on Canadian identity underlines Canada’s British heritage as a constitutional monarchy (Canada, 2009a, p.10), as well as

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 113 the ‘unity in diversity’ of the three founding peoples – now including Aboriginals alongside the traditionally mentioned French and British ‘founding nations’. Consisting of 10 pages, ‘Canada’s History’ is the longest chapter of the study guide. This is a radical increase in form and content from the sparsely imprinted four-page chapter on ‘Canada’s History and Symbols’ in A Look at Canada. Chapter 5, ‘Modern Canada’, brings us up to the present time. Taken together, chapters 6, 7 and 8 entitled ‘How Canadians Govern Them- selves’, ‘Federal Elections’ and ‘The Justice System’ also amount to 10 pages. Specifically, voting procedures are discussed in great detail. Understandably, this was already an important chapter (six pages) in A Look at Canada. This section of the guide is followed by a chapter on ‘Canadian Symbols’, where the reader learns about the Canadian Crown, the national flag, the maple leaf, the beaver, Canada’s two official languages and the national anthem. Two pages are then reserved for ‘Canada’s Economy’. They are followed by an eight-page discussion of ‘Canada’s Regions’. The guide concludes with a two-page overview of study questions and references. Based on the new study guide, a new citizenship test was introduced in March 2010. In terms of format, length and positioning within the naturalization process, the new pencil-and-paper test is similar to the previous one (discussed above). It costs CAD 200. The 20 multiple choice questions have to be answered within a 30-minute time frame. Now, 75 percent of the questions (15/20 rather than 12/20) must be answered correctly to pass the test. While the tests still contains questions about citizens’ responsibilities (including the right to vote in elections, the right to run for elected office in Canada and voting procedures), it is no longer mandatory to answer at least four of them correctly in order to pass. When the test was first implemented, the federal government anticipated a pass rate of 75 percent (down from 94 percent). However, when the failure rate amounted to more than 30 percent of the candidates in the first six months, the test questions were adjusted in October 2010, resulting in a reduction of the failure rate to 20 percent. An updated version of Discover Canada was released in March 2011. A couple of minor adjustments emphasize democratic Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright principles, equal rights for gays and lesbians (including marriage), additions to the history and ‘Modern Canada’ sections of the guide, and criticism of forced marriages (Canada, 2011). Overall, the new citizenship guide and test were received positively by the Canadian public (Winter and Sauvageau, 2012). The type of praise is well captured by the Ottawa Citizen:‘Discover Canada is a marked

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 114 Redefining Citizenship in Canada improvement over its predecessor. It’s readable and interesting, and includes a detailed section on Canadian history’ (Anonymous, 2009). On the one hand, the fairly positive reception of Discover Canada is not surprising. Designed at a time of heighted tensions between Québécois nationalists and the federal government, the old citizenship guide, first published in 1995, was indeed meagre – specifically on history. It tiptoed around any issue that could potentially be conflictual or offensive to any of Canada’s ethnocultural or national groups. As Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert put it fittingly, A Look at Canada’s emphasis on ‘instruct- ing future citizens to take care not to litter, to turn off their lights and taps and to help their neighbours’ gave the impression that candidates were ‘signing up for joining the Boy Scouts or the Girl Guides’ rather than taking on the citizenship of a new country (Hébert, 2009). On the other hand, given Canada’s multinational and multicultural composition and the fact that, only 15 years ago, nationalist politics brought the country to the brink of a break-up, the lack of critical voices in mainstream media is a point of consternation. Analysing newspaper responses to the new citizenship guide, Winter and Sauvageau (2012) identify a number of themes that are dealt with differently in French- and English-speaking media outlets, but overall there is a fair amount of convergence – that is, rather than developing an analytical, critical discourse about the recasting of national citizenship, the media tend to embrace and amplify the government’s discourse. This is specifically surprising since the new guide engages in the rebranding of Canada into a conservative country, full of people more inclined to vote Con- servative ...Anyone ...who reads the new guide will think Conservative values of unabashed patriotism, pride in the armed forces and support for the rule of law are synonymous with Canadian values (Ibbitson, 2009).10 The fact that very few commentators take issue with this rebranding of Canadian citizenship in Conservative terms suggests that these values are increasingly shared by old and new Canadians, as well as across the linguistic divide (Belkhodja, 2008). Furthermore, the new guide is said to leave no question about whose tradition and culture newcomers should integrate into Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright

When it comes to deﬁning who we are, the new guide doesn’t embrace the old saw – that we are a young country – which is reliably repeated by politicians each Canada Day. We aren’t. As the guide says, ‘we have inherited the oldest continuous constitutional tradition in

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 115

the world.’ It also explains the origins of ‘the dominion of Canada,’ offering tacit support to those who lament its disappearance. (Cohen, 2009)

Given this openly Anglophone interpretation of what it means to be Canadian, it is surprising that Discover Canada has not been met with more critique from Francophones and immigrant communities. If the 1990s were characterized by attempts to introduce a separate Québécois citizenship, the reception of the new study guide in the French-speaking mainstream media suggests that this is no longer an issue. The new Canadian citizenship is clearly ‘national’ in a pan- Canadian sense. Commentators on both sides of the linguistic divide now identify other enemies of ‘Canadian culture’ than Anglophones or Francophones. Some express satisfaction over the fact that newcomers are ‘warned’ that Canadian multiculturalism does not justify ‘barbaric acts’ such as honour killings, forced marriages and female genital mutilation (Carlson, 2009). Others observe that the new guide sends a strong message that ‘citizens of convenience’ are not welcome here (Kennedy, 2009) and request that the Québécois government should adopt similar guidelines when accommodating immigrants (Lamothe, 2009). Returning to the question of citizenship education, the federal government has announced its intention to use the guide in a broader educational context than citizenship testing for adult immigrants. Both the French- and English-language mainstream media endorse the decision to disseminate the guide at schools and to non-immigrant Canadians (Winter and Sauvageau, 2012).

Conclusion

This chapter has traced the changes in Canadian citizenship from the post-war era until the present day. Its aim is to place Canadian citizenship legislation in the context of the country’s multinational and multicultural heritage and composition, and to show how citizenship legislation is accompanied by changes in citizenship education, specifi- Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright cally with respect to the naturalization process, including the citizenship study guide and test. Four phases of citizenship legislation and naturalization processes have been identified. First, the period from the implementation of Canada’s first Citizenship Act in 1947 until the mid-1960s is

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 116 Redefining Citizenship in Canada characterized by the nationalization of citizenship, with, on the one hand, legislations aiming to establish an independent Canadian citizenship (distinct from that of the UK) while, on the other hand, citizenship education is underpinned by both democratic empowerment and a UK-style mission civilisatrice. Second, between the mid-1960s and the late 1980s, Canadian citizenship underwent a period of de-ethnicization and progressive liberalization sustaining both individual (human) rights and social citizenship in the forms of international peacekeeping, multiculturalism policy and universal health care. All three principles have left their mark on Canadian national identity. The dual citizenship toleration in the second Canadian Citizenship Act in 1977 underscored this trend. This being said, in citizenship education, the shift towards issues of democratic citizenship and social justice was only short-lived. It became quickly superseded, in the late 1980s and 1990s, by a period of neo-liberalization. This third phase of Canadian citizenship is characterized by the marketization of multiculturalism and (individual) cultural competences, the celebration of the entrepreneurial citizen, and – with respect to naturalization procedures – the shift from candidates’ individual interviews with a citizenship judge to a standardized pencil-and-paper citizenship test. The same period was also marked by a profound conflict between Canada’s two linguistically defined ‘founding nations’, which is one of the reasons why envisioned changes to Canadian citizenship legislation were stalled for 20 years until the end of the first decade of the new century. Finally, the way was paved for a fourth phase of citizenship legislation and education, after a number of obstacles with respect to nationalist struggle had been overcome, and the Conservative Party of Canada was voted into power at the federal level in 2006. The renationalization of Canadian citizenship began in 2008 with the passing of two amendments to the Citizenship Act 1977, commonly referred to as the repatriation of ‘lost Canadians’ and the ‘first generation limitation clause’. Coming into force in April 2009, this new legislation gave new meaning to the typical markers of citizenship, namely descent and territory. First, by granting full-fledged Canadian citizenship to certain ‘old stock’ (White, Christian and English-speaking), second Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright generation ‘expatriates’ – characterized as lost Canadians – the new legislation invested the notion of descent (jus sanguinis) with new meaning. As Harder underlines, in the debate about the lost Canadians, the commitment to the Canadian state and/or nation was repeatedly referred to as a matter of family business and ‘ancestral inheritance’ (Harder, 2010, p.206). For example, the father of one lost Canadian was deemed a ‘war

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 117 hero’; in another case, the family donated money to a university (para- phrasing Harder, 2010, p.211). The access to citizenship is here viewed as a ‘birthright’ (naturalized, essentialized and ‘inherited’), which seems to lead to a ‘ “more authentic” form of Canadianness than the citizenship that is granted through the regular naturalization processes’ (Harder, 2010, p.204). This discourse aligns the English Canadian representation of citizenship with a particular strand of ethnonationalism in Québec that places Québeckers of French descent above all other members of the nation. The implied double standard is troublesome since placing ‘Canadians by birth’ and ‘Canadians by choice’ on an equal legal footing has been one of the cornerstones of Canadian citizenship from its inception. Second, the first generation limitation clause, in contrast, drastically curtails the jus sanguinis provision of the Canadian citizenship law in favour of jus soli, and this particularly for children of Canadian parents leading transnational lives and/or living permanently abroad. By emphasizing the need for physical presence – and birth – on Canadian territory, the 2008/2009 legislation also caters to the major- ity of ‘old stock’ Canadians whose families and businesses are located within the country’s geographical borders, and who are less likely to engage in extended travels abroad. There is also a class issue embedded in this provision: only fairly well-to-do Canadians are able to circum- vent the legislation by arranging for travel and accommodation in order to give birth on Canadian territory when living/working abroad. Third, and finally, these legal changes were flanked by a new citizenship study guide (in 2009) and test (in 2010) emphasizing common values, a shared understanding of Canadian history, and ‘civic memory and pride’, all of which might raise eyebrows in a multicultural, multinational country that recently also started to experience an increase in conflict along religious lines. Surprisingly, however, the need for and the proposed (but admittedly vague) definitions of common ‘Canadian’ values were hardly called into question by media commentators on both sides of the linguistic divide. On the contrary – and in stark contrast to the ways in which citizenship was discussed in Canada and Québec in the 1990s – there seems to be a newfound consent among editori- Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright alists and columnists in favour of a ‘thick’ communitarian notion of citizenship, which includes Aboriginals, English and French Canadians unconditionally, but admits newcomers and second or third generation immigrants only on the condition that they at least partially give up their heritage cultures and assimilate to ‘our’ values and ways of life.

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 118 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada

Notes

1. I gladly acknowledge the funding received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 2. Each of Canada’s ten provinces and three territories has its own ministry of education, which is responsible for establishing and overseeing provincial or territorial education policies whose implementation falls within the purview of local and regional school boards. 3. The new federal ministry combined the management of immigrant admission (Immigration Branch), citizenship registration (Citizenship Branch, originally the wartime Nationalities Branch) and Indian Affairs (Richet, 2007, p.14, Bohaker and Iacovetta, 2009, p.435). 4. Québec did not sign the constitution because it enabled the Supreme Court of Canada to invalidate its provincial language laws and regulations in the name of individual equality. Subsequent aims to bring Québec into the constitution (in 1987 and 1992) ended in vain. 5. Before 1996, citizenship applicants met initially with a citizenship ofﬁcer and were then scheduled for a hearing or a personal interview with a citizenship judge. 6. Under the government of premier Jean Charest, on 18 February 2005, the Ministère des Relations avec les citoyens et de l’immigration was renamed the Ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles. Since then, the concept of citizenship has less currency within the political discourse in Québec. 7. Exceptions are made for children of parents working abroad with the Canadian Armed Forces, as federal public servants or in the service of a province. 8. Only if the latter were/are born abroad after 17 April 2009 does the ﬁrst generation limitation apply. 9. In Discover Canada, peacekeeping is only mentioned once, and this is fairly late in the guide, namely on p.24 under the rubrique of Canada’s international roles in the section ‘Modern Canada’(Canada, 2009a, p.24). 10. In terms of Canadian values, the new ‘Conservative’ guide can be distin- guished by its ‘Liberal’ predecessor in at least three regards: i) the importance that is accorded to military questions (rather than peacekeeping); ii) the emphasis placed on individual responsibility for one’s economic well-being (rather than on the welfare state); and iii) the negligence with respect to environmental questions (two pages in the old guide which are subsumed to a short paragraph in Discover Canada), see Giroux (2009). For an opposing argument, see Chapnick (2011). Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright References

Anonymous. 2009. Who we are? The Ottawa Citizen, p.A.8. Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. 2006. Lebanon evacuation shows the need for a Canadian diaspora strategy. Asia Pacific Bulletin, 26 July, p.1–2, http://www. asiapacific.ca/sites/default/files/filefield/bulletin269-1.pdf [Accessed: 1 June 2012].

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 119

Belkhodja, C. 2008. Le discours de la «nouvelle sensibilité conservatrice» au Québec. Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada, 40(1–2), 79–100. Bohaker, H., and Iacovetta, F. 2009. Making aboriginal people ‘immigrants too’: A comparison of citizenship programs for newcomers and indigenous peoples in Postwar Canada, 1940s–1960s. The Canadian Historical Review, 90(3), 427–461. Bramham, D. 2009. What is it that makes us Canadian citizens? Rather than cut- ting loose second-generation expatriates, why not entice them to come back? Vancouver Sun, 30 June, p.A11. Breton, R. 1988. From ethnic to civic nationalism: English Canada and Quebec. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 11(1), 85–102. Brodie, J. 2002. Three stories of Canadian citizenship. In: R. Adamoski, D.E. Chunn, and R. Menzies, eds., Contesting Canadian Citizenship: Historical Readings. Peterborough, ONT: Broadview Press, 43–66. Caccia, I. 2010. Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime: Shaping Citizenship Policy 1939–1945. Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Canada. 1971. House of Commons, Debates, Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Canada. 1982. Constitution Act [online]. Available from: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/ en/charter/ [Accessed 3 June 2005]. Canada. 1987. Government of Canada; Secretary of State of Canada, Citizenship 87: Proud to Be Canadian, Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 22 p. Canada. 1998. Government of Canada; Law and Goverment Division, Canadian Citizenship Act and Current Issues [online]. Ottawa, Avail- able from: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp445-e.htm – A.%20Introduction(txt) [Accessed 5 October 2010]. Canada. 2009a. Government of Canada; Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada. Canada. 2009b. Government of Canada; Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Good Citizenship: the Duty to Integrate. Speaking notes for the Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Huron University College’s Canadian Leaders Speak- ers’ Series [online]. Available from: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/ media/speeches/2009/2009-03-18.asp [Accessed 5 November 2010]. Canada. 2009c. Government of Canada; Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Learn about the New Law [online]. Ottawa. Available from: http://www.cic.gc. ca/english/citizenship/rules.asp [Accessed 2 July 2010]. Canada. 2009d. Government of Canada; Citizenship and Immigration Canada, A Look at Canada. Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Canada. 2009e. Government of Canada. Waking up Canadian [online]. Avail- - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright able from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v eDeDQpIQFD0 [Accessed 20 = February 2010]. Canada. 2011. Government of Canada; Citizenship and Immigration Canada, News Release: Updated Discover Canada Citizenship Study Guide Now Available [online]. Ottawa. Available from: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/ media/releases/2011/2011-03-14a.asp [Accessed 15 March 2011].

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 120 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada

Carlson, Kathryn Blaze (2009). ‘Muscular’ guide to be released; Conservatives rewrite citizenship handbook to focus on responsibilities, National Post, News, 12 November, p. A1. Chapnick, A. 2011. A ‘Conservative’ national story? The evolution of citizenship and immigration Canada’s discover Canada. American Review of Canadian Studies, 41(1), 20–36. Cohen, A. 2009. What is expected in Canada. The Ottawa Citizen, p.A.14. Derwing, T.M., Munro, M.J., and Jamieson, K. 1998. Citizenship education for adult immigrants: Changes over the last ten years. Alberta Journal, 44(4), 383–396. Garcea, J. 2003. The Canadian Citizenship Reform Project: In Search of the Holy Grail?, paper presented at CPSA Congress in Halifax: June, 1–19. Available from; http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/paper-2003/garcea.pdf [Accessed 3 February 2009], cited with permission of the author. Garcea, J. 2006. The third phase of the Canadian citizenship reform project: Objectives and obstacles.In: H.J. Michelmann, and C. De Clercy, eds., Continu- ity and Change in Canadian Politics: Essays in Honour of David E. Smith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 195–244. Giroux, R. 2009. Le Canada Des Conservateurs. Le Soleil, 14 November, p.18. Harder, L. 2010. ‘In Canada of all places’: National belonging and the lost Canadians. Citizenship Studies, 14(2), 203–220. Hébert, C. 2009. Updated citizenship guide to Canada good, bad and ugly. Toronto Star, p.A.11. Hébert, Y.M., ed. 2002. Citizenship in Transformation in Canada. Toronto: Univer- sity of Toronto Press. Ibbitson, J. 2009. The Tory guide to a blue Canada. National Post, p.A1. Immigration Watch Canada. 2010. Canada—Immigrants 1860 to 2008 [online]. Available from: http://www.immigrationwatchcanada.org/ [Accessed 15 May 2013]. Jenson, J. 1997. Fated to live in interesting times: Canada’s changing citizenship regimes. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 4, 627–644. Jenson, J. 1998. Mapping Social Cohesion: The State of Canadian Research [online]. Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks, Available from: http://www.cprn. org/documents/15723_en.pdf [Accessed 14 October 2010]. Joshee, R. 2004. Citizenship and multicultural education in Canada: From assimilation to social cohesion. In: J.A. Banks, ed., Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 127–156. Joshee, R. 2008. Citizenship tests in Canada: On-going and emerging issues. Paper presented at 10th National Metropolis Conference: Expanding the Debate: Multiple Perspectives on Immigration to Canada, Halifax: 3–6 April. Joshee, R., and Derwing, T.M. 2005. The unmaking of citizenship education for

adult immigrants in Canada. Journal of International Migration and Integration, - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 6(1), 61–80. Juteau, D. 1993. The production of the Québécois nation. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 19(2), 79–109. Juteau, D. 1997. Multicultural citizenship: The challenge of pluralism in Canada. In: V.M. Bader ed., Citizenship and Exclusion. London: Macmillan, 96–112.

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan Elke Winter 121

Kaplan, W., ed. 1993. Belonging: The Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship. Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Kelly, J.B., and Manfredi, C.P., eds. 2009. Contested Constitutionalism. Reﬂections on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Kelley, N., and Trebilcock, M.J. 2010. The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Kennedy, J. 2009. Nurturing the national soul. The Ottawa Citizen, p.A.11. Kenney, J. 2009. Speaking notes for the Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism ‘good citizenship: the duty to integrate’. Paper presented at Huron University College’s Canadian Leaders Speakers’ Series, University of Western Ontario: 18 March. Kent, T. 2008. Canada is much more than a hotel. If they are not ready to commit to a citizenship that has real consequences, immigrants should move on. Globe and Mail, 26 April, p.A25. Knowles, V. 2000. Forging Our Legacy: Canadian Citizenship and Immigration, 1900– 1977. Ottawa: Public Works and Government Services. Kymlicka, W., and Opalski, M., eds. 2001. Can Liberal Pluralism Be Exported? Western Political Theory and Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europe. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press. Lamothe, M. 2009. C’est quelque chose de bien et de nécessaire. André Drouin accueille positivement le nouveau guide. Le Nouvelliste, 13 November, p.16. Macklin, A., and Crépeau, F. 2010. Multiple Citizenship, Identity and Entitlement in Canada. IRPP Study, p.33. Available from: http://www.irpp.org/pubs/ IRPPStudy/IRPP_study_no6.pdf [Accessed 2 January, 2010]. Martin, P.S. 1993. Citizenship and the peoples’s world. In: W. Kaplan, ed., Belonging: The Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship. Montreal, Kingson: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 64–78. McRoberts, K. 1997. Misconceiving Canada. The Struggle for National Unity Toronto: Oxford University Press. Neubauer, E. 2011. Waking up Canadian: National Identity and Representations of the Canadian Citizenship Act. Major Research Paper. University of Ottawa. Nyers, P. 2010. Dueling designs: the politics of rescuing dual citizens. Citizenship Studies, 14(1), 47–60. Osborne, K. 2001. Democracy, democratic citizenship and education. In: J.P. Portelli, and R.P. Solomon, eds., The Erosion of Democracy in Education: From Critique to Possibilities. Calgary: Detseling Enterprises, 29–61. Paquet, M. 2012. Beyond appearances: citizenship tests in Canada and the UK. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 13(2), 243–260. Ponting, R. 2001. Racism and resistance. In: D. Glenday, and A. Duffy, eds., Canadian Society: Meeting the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. Don Mills:

Oxford University Press, 38–76. - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Razack, S., ed. 2002. Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society. Toronto: Between the Lines. Richet, E. 2007. The Citizenship Education System in Canada from 1945–2005. MA thesis. University of Saskatoon. Runnymede Trust: Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. 2000. The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. The Parekh Report. London: Proﬁle Books.

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan 122 Redeﬁning Citizenship in Canada

Russell, P. 1996. The constitution, citizenship and ethnicity. In: J. Laponce, and W. Safran, eds., Ethnicity and Citizenship – the Canadian Case. London: Frank Cass, 96–111. Ryan, P. 2010. Multicultiphobia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Simmons, A.B. 2010. Immigration and Canada: Global and Transnational Perspec- tives. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Statistics Canada. 2009. Region of Birth of Recent Immigrants to Canada, 1971 to 2006 [online]. Available from: http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/ 2006/as-sa/97-557/ﬁgures/c2-eng.cfm [Accessed 22 February 2013]. Thobani, S. 2007. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thompson, Allan 2009. Citizenship changes create new class of ‘lost Canadians’, Toronto Star, 26 April, http://www.thestar.com/life/2009/04/25/citizenship_ changes_create_new_class_of_lost_canadians.html [Accessed: 2 January 2011]. Vertovec, S., and Wessendorf, S., eds. 2009. The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices. London, New York: Routledge. Winter, E. 2011. Us, Them and Others: Pluralism and National Identity in Diverse Societies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Winter, E., and Sauvageau, M.-M. 2012. La Citoyenneté Canadienne Dans La Presse Écrite Anglo-Canadienne Et Franco-Québécoise: Convergence Ou Diver- gence? Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 45(3), 553–578. Worthington, P. 2006. Convenient Canadians. Toronto Sun, 21 July, p.A18. Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of Ottawa - PalgraveConnect - 2013-10-10 - PalgraveConnect of Ottawa - licensed to University www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright

10.1057/9781137315519 - Naturalization Policies, Education and Citizenship, Edited by Dina Kiwan