I. Introduction International law holds that a person is deemed stateless if no state considers her or him to be a citizen under the “operation of its law”.1 This is manifested in two ways: de jure statelessness, when no state law recognizes the person as a citizen, and secondly, de facto statelessness, when the person is, in theory, entitled to citizenship but is not recognized as such under the application of state law.2 Statelessness affects an estimated 10 million people worldwide, and “although stateless people may sometimes also be refugees, the two categories are distinct”.3 Statelessness can occur in myriad ways. These include ethnic and gender discrimination in nationality law, the exclusion of certain groups in post-secession or post-conflict nationality law, the complexity of naturalisation law, and the absence of birth registration. How statelessness is addressed nationally is guided by principles in international law. Statelessness is addressed in international law and several regional treaties. Article 15 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states “everyone has the right to a nationality”.4 There are currently two international treaties expressly dealing with the subject of statelessness: the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. These Conventions stipulate the rights and responsibilities of stateless persons and the states in which they reside. In November 2014, the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Convention, the UNHCR unveiled the global campaign IBELONG to end global statelessness by 2024. In the months since, several countries have made efforts to address statelessness through domestic legislation and policy, including acceding to one or both of the statelessness Conventions, implementing statelessness determination procedures, and committing to awareness raising campaigns and programming. In light of these global initiatives, the Canadian Centre on Statelessness has endeavoured to investigate the statelessness data collection practices of four Canadian government agencies: Statistics Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada5, and the Canada Border Services Agency. This report finds data collection practices are poor and in need of significant improvement in four broad ways: defining statelessness, collection practices, reporting practices, and adherence to the 2012 UNHCR recommendations. This report makes several recommendations to each agency to improve their practices. II. Statelessness in the Canadian Context Of the two statelessness Conventions, Canada is a party to only the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Though Canada is not a signatory to the 1954 Convention, stateless persons are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canada’s Citizenship Act provides for access to citizenship for a stateless person in the following ways: 1 UNHCR 1954, 1 CCR 2009, 2 3 UNHCR 2013 4 UN 1948 5 Data for this study was requested and received from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) from June 2015 – June 2016, during which time CIC was changed to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). For the purposes of this report we will refer to this agency as Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) when discussing data received, but Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in our recommendations. 2 1