Statelessness in Canada 11. Article 1 (1) of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defines a stateless person as someone ‘who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law.’ This definition is part of customary international law and has been authoritatively interpreted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as requiring ‘a careful analysis of how a State applies its nationality laws in an individual’s case in practice and any review/appeal decisions that may have had an impact on the individual’s status. This is a mixed question of fact and law.’8 Canada’s Citizenship Act does not define a stateless person nor has it adopted a procedure to determine whether a person is stateless. 12. Four government agencies in Canada maintain data on stateless persons: Statistics Canada, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The latest data available from Statistics Canada reports that there are 1,690 self-reported stateless persons in Canada.9 According to figures provided by IRCC, there are 316,882 stateless persons who have received permanent residency in Canada since 1981. It is not clear how many of these people remain stateless, or how many have been granted Canadian citizenship. Furthermore, this figure is not broken down into refugee, humanitarian and compassionate grounds, or whether permanent resident status was granted after the stateless persons had obtained a work or student visa.10 CBSA has reported that the total number of stateless detainees from 2003 – 2014 was 530.11 13. On June 17, 2017 Canada repealed several of the previous government’s immigration measures, including the revocation of citizenship for dual citizens who commit crimes related to national security. This ends what was referred to as two-tiered citizenship, and ensures the protection of Canadian citizenship for all Canadians. Furthermore, Canada’s Citizenship Act stipulates that the Minister of Immigration may, at his or her discretion, grant citizenship to any person to alleviate cases of statelessness or of special and unusual hardship.12 However, the lack of a statelessness determination procedure and a legal definition of statelessness in national legislation leaves the Minister with wide discretionary power to determine who is considered stateless for this purpose. 14. Further, gaps exist in the implementation of safeguards to prevent statelessness among children who are born abroad. According to the Citizenship Act, the Minister of Immigration shall, on application, grant citizenship to a person who is born outside Canada on or after April 17, 2009, if at least one parent was Canadian at the time of birth, is less than 23 years of age, has been physically present in Canada for at least 1,095 days during the four years immediately before the date of his or her application, who has always been stateless, and who has not been convicted of specific criminal offenses.13 8 UNHCR, Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons, 30 June 2014, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/53b676aa4.html, para 23. 9 Statistics Canada (2011). http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rpeng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID=107551&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S =0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=95&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=. 10 Canadian Centre on Statelessness. “Data Collection on Stateless Persons in Canada”. 2017, page 11 http://www.statelessness.ca/uploads/3/1/9/0/31903945/ccs_data_collection_2017.pdf, 11 Ibid., page 14 12 Section 5(4). Citizenship Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-29 13 Section 5(5). Citizenship Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-29 3