Posted at 11:00 a.m.
As a new Canadian citizen with a recent immigrant background, I would like to share with you my perspective (which I’m sure is not just my own) on the requirements for obtaining a first Canadian passport.
The current crisis caused by the unprecedented busyness of Passport Canada offices provides us with a good opportunity to reassess the relevance and value of some of these requirements and to streamline the process while making it more democratic.
Let’s get to the point: the vouching and reference requirements conflict with certain constitutional and human rights. The obligation to find references and a guarantor places passport applicants, whether of immigrant background or not, in the somewhat humiliating position of having to convince others to allow them to enjoy a right due to them.
Indeed, one is entitled to ask whether this need to obtain the guarantee of another person to enjoy the rights inherent in citizenship (that of receiving an identity document from one’s own country) is logical and fair.
Moreover, having one’s passport application refused for a reason such as the lack of references and a guarantor amounts to a denial of the right to mobility, which is a constitutional right, according to subsection 6(1 ) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which provides that “ [t]every Canadian citizen has the right to remain in, enter or leave Canada”, and of the person, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13 of which states the following: “Any person has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. »
The right to mobility
Without a passport, citizens remain practically prisoners of their country and are therefore deprived of this fundamental right of mobility. In Canada, the exercise of this right is at the mercy of the passport applicant’s network of contacts. I shouldn’t have to know enough people willing to do this for me to enjoy a right I already have. Mobility is not a privilege, but a constitutional and human right.
Third, the practical and technical soundness of the guarantor and reference requirements does not seem obvious. Canada already has all the information about the person, including their biometrics. This is all the more true for new citizens with an immigrant background, who had to provide this information as part of their citizenship application, and who are also photographed and filmed during the citizenship award ceremony. . It would make sense for the passport to be issued automatically to all new citizens and for it to be sent to them in the same envelope as their citizenship certificate.
The elimination or alleviation of these requirements would make it possible to optimize Passport Canada’s operations by speeding up the process, but also, and above all, would greatly benefit Canadian democracy and real and equal access for all to the exercise of their fundamental rights.