4.2. WHERE HAVE DEPRIVATION POWERS BEEN REPEALED OR RESTRICTED? Between 2000-2022, 15 countries around the world repealed or significantly restricted powers to deprive citizenship for ‘disloyalty’. This equates to 8% of states included in the survey, or 1 in 12 countries. Once again, as shown in Figure 4.3, there were considerable regional disparities. In the Americas, four countries repealed these powers outright: Trinidad and Tobago (2000), Peru (2001), Chile (2005) and Ecuador (2017). Of these, Trinidad and Tobago is particularly interesting: having repealed its nationality deprivation provisions prior to the rise in global terrorism, anti-terror legislation was subsequently introduced in 2005, 2010 and 2018 without bringing back citizenship deprivation powers. This is particularly noteworthy because Trinidad and Tobago was among the countries with the highest number of nationals per capita traveling to Syria and Iraq as ‘foreign fighters’, constituting the highest proportion of ISIS recruits in the entire western hemisphere.10 In the Asia Pacific region, three countries also repealed their deprivation powers between 2003-2009: Sri Lanka in 2003, followed by Nepal and Tuvalu in 2009. In the same region, both the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Samoa significantly narrowed their powers to deprive citizenship for disloyalty in 2004. There was also a shift in the Africa region with Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) relinquishing deprivation powers in 2000 and 2004 respectively, while Kenya and Mali both narrowed their powers in 2010. Luxembourg was the only country in Europe to repeal deprivation of nationality provisions, in 2017 – at a time when multiple countries in the region expanded or introduced new powers. There were no countries in the MENA region that took legislative steps to repeal or narrow deprivation powers during this period. In fact, on the contrary, a large proportion of those countries that expanded their powers were in the MENA region. When we consider the timing of when countries repealed or narrowed deprivation provisions, an interesting picture emerges. More than half of countries that repealed or narrowed their deprivation powers did so between 2000-2005,11 at a time when – despite the rise in global terrorism12 – such events may have been perceived as isolated or carried out by international terrorist cells based abroad. There was another significant batch of reforms between 2006-2010, when almost the same number of countries repealed or narrowed provisions,13 signalling no significant national security concern from within. However, from 2011 onwards, there was an evident decline in countries repealing or restricting deprivation laws, which can be linked to the start of the Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS and the emergence of the phenomenon foreign fighters.14 Just two countries enacted such a reform since 2011: Luxembourg and Ecuador, both in 2017. CANADA: DEPRIVATION POWERS REPEALED BECAUSE “A CANADIAN IS A CANADIAN IS A CANADIAN” Prompted by a 2014 terrorist incident in Africa implicating Canadian citizens, the conservative Harper administration moved to introduce new grounds to deprive Canadians of citizenship. The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act profoundly changed Canada’s legislative landscape on deprivation of nationality: grounds for deprivation of nationality were expanded to include national security and terrorism offences, and procedural changes severely curtailed the remit of the Federal Court, essentially leaving nationality deprivation powers concentrated in the hands of the Minister.15 Just three years later, however, Canada abandoned these measures. Then Prime Ministerial candidate Justin Trudeau made it a central focus of his electoral campaign to repeal parts of the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act, arguing that the law created two classes of citizens. Memorably proclaiming that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”, Trudeau argued that the citizenship of every Canadian is devalued when it is made conditional for anyone.16 The progressive amendments brought in by Trudeau’s government ensured that dual nationals convicted of national security offences were no longer stripped of nationality (but rather sanctioned under regular criminal law), at the same time also introducing new standalone grounds for the grant of citizenship to stateless persons.17 The new law also firmly reinstated oversight by the Federal Court on nationality deprivation cases and took additional steps to ensure that even where deprivation was found to be appropriate (e.g., fraud misrepresentation), minimum safeguards, like residency rights were preserved to protect the basic of rights of the individual. Canada’s experience shows that restrictive measures are not irreversible. While initially introduced with the justification that citizenship stripping powers were necessary to protect Canada’s national security, this perspective was successfully challenged and ultimately reversed. Importantly, amendments to the law saw that the one individual stripped of his nationality on national security grounds, was able to have it reinstated, while others threatened with revocation had those attempts abandoned. One of the most compelling arguments advanced in the Parliamentary debates in Canada on this topic, holds true for global debates on this issue: “ Canadians affected by this bill are full-fledged Canadians. If they are convicted of heinous crimes, the fact remains that they are still Canadians. Some may even be radicalized in Canada, which makes the problem a Canadian problem. Revoking citizenship will do nothing to improve our security. On the contrary, several of our colleagues explained why it is more dangerous to send these criminals away than to keep them here. What would we accomplish? Some say that we would be sending a message, but what message? That we have two classes of citizens? I find that response counterproductive. The message I would like us to promote is the message in the bill that every Canadian who legitimately obtains Canadian citizenship is a Canadian for better or for worse[...] I'm not so sure that the prospect of losing one's citizenship might convince a radicalized person to refrain from committing a terrorist act.” Hon. Raymonde Gagné 25