B. Natural-Born Citizens
Persons considered to be natural-born Canadian citizens can be born either in Canada (with exceptions for foreign diplomatic personnel), or outside Canada if, at the time of birth, one parent is a Canadian citizen. Such a parent cannot be an adoptive one. (5)
There has recently been some discussion and controversy in this country about whether or not Canada should modify the aspect of its current citizenship law that grants automatic citizenship to anyone born on Canadian soil. 6 In May 1994, Citizenship and Immigration Canada raised the issue for discussion in a paper entitled A Citizenship Strategy, prepared for the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.(7) The document posed the question:
Should the current practice of extending an automatic right to Canadian citizenship as a result of being born on Canadian territory be dependent on one of the parents being a permanent resident or a citizen, unless the child would otherwise be stateless?
In its June 1994 report Canadian Citizenship: A Sense of Belonging, the Standing Committee noted that the entitlement to citizenship arising from birth on Canadian territory could be subject to abuse. It noted particularly that some women appeared to be coming to Canada solely for the purpose of giving birth here and thereby assuring their babies of Canadian citizenship. 8 The Committee therefore recommended that children born in Canada should be Canadian citizens only if one or both of their parents is a permanent resident or Canadian citizen. As had the government, the Committee stated that this rule should not apply if its application would render a child stateless; it also recommended that there be an exception for children born to Convention refugees and refugee claimants whose claims are accepted.(9)
The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Hon. Lucienne Robillard, was quoted in the press recently as saying that the issue was being studied for possible inclusion in a citizenship bill to be presented to Parliament. The Minister spoke of an additional factor to that mentioned by the Committee:
We have a situation with the Immigration Act where we decide to remove people to their countries and suddenly the kid was born in Canada, the kid is Canadian. But neither of the parents are Canadian or landed immigrants. The kid is. So do we have to do something about that?(10)
In response to the Minister’s comments, the Canadian Council for Refugees wrote her an open letter requesting that no change be made to the current law in this area. The letter put forward a number of arguments:
Canada’s tradition is to accord citizenship by birth;
no statistics indicate a problem that needs to be addressed;(11)
we should not risk rendering babies stateless by such action; and
such a change would feed negative and xenophobic images of newcomers in the public’s mind.
Appendix A contains information relating to the citizenship law on this issue in a number of other countries.
http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/BP/bp445-e.htm#B.%20Natural-Born%20Citizens(txt)
圆梦特别版：谁来收养这个1岁的孩子？(第4集)