WarSclerotic

Trudeau sends Trump a defiant message: “A Canadian is a Canadian”, CIJ News, January 29, 2017

(And a rabid dog is a dog. Please see also, Trump bans Canadian/British dual citizens from 7 Muslim countries from U.S. — DM)

The Embassy of Canada in the Washington announced that Canadian passport holders and dual citizens will not be affected by the US President Donald Trump’s Executive Order “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” that temporarily bars travellers from seven nations that are known of their support of terrorism or serves as major hubs for terrorist groups.

Trump instructed the security agencies to formulate during the next few months a new policy to ensure a more effective security screening of terrorists and criminals before entering the US.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Trump’s National Security Advisor assured Ottawa that Canadian citizens travelling on Canadian passport will be dealt with in the usual process. In this regard, Trudeau tweeted the following:

Senior officials have been working to seek clarity for Canadians from the US Department of Homeland Security and US Department of Transportation, amongst other counterparts.

I instructed our National Security Advisor, Daniel Jean, who was in touch over the course of the day with NSA Flynn to seek further clarification.

NSA Flynn confirmed that holders of Canadian passports, including dual citizens, will not be affected by the ban.

We have been assured that Canadian citizens travelling on Canadian passport will be dealt with in the usual process.

As we receive new information, we will continue to share on this and other channels.

In an implicit defiant message to Trump’s policy, Trudeau also tweeted “A Canadian is a Canadian” which was one of his slogans during the election campaign and has become an important pillar of his diversity and inclusion-for-all policy. In previous tweets last week Trudeau recommitted to continue welcoming refugees “regardless of your faith” based on the his deep belief that “diversity is our strength” and hailed Canadians who participated anti-Trump rallies.

In a Winnipeg Town Hall on July 4, 2015 Trudeau said the following:

“The Liberal Party believes that terrorists should get to keep their Canadian citizenship.’ BECAUSE I DO. And I’m willing to take on anyone who disagrees with that. Because the question is, as soon as you make citizenship for some Canadians conditional on good behaviour, you devalue citizenship for everyone. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”

Speaking with students from American University in Washington, D.C. on March 11, 2016 Trudeau said the following:

One of the key elements of that [opposing the proposed Quebec Charter of Values] and a point that I am so incredibly proud of Canadians is a moment in our election campaign where the governing Conservatives put forward a proposal to strip and actually [they] enacted it before the election to remove the citizenship from Canadian citizens convicted of terrorism, dual citizens in this case, which quite frankly they thought it is a great idea because here they were, these are people convicted of terrorism against our country or acts of war against our country and they are therefore forfeiting the right to be citizens which seems like a reasonable thing, again. On a front.

But when you actually look at it and realize that means that someone convicted of terrorism with a dual citizenship could have different consequences under the law than a Canadian homegrown terrorist who has Canadian citizenship and is a six generation Canadian and therefore can’t have his citizenship removed at all.

You devalue the citizenship of everyone by making it conditional on good behaviour or non heinous behaviour which is ultimately the same thing.

So, I found my self in a situation on stage against the former Prime Minister [Stephen Harper] arguing that, yes, a man who he [Harper] had just stripped his citizenship of for being convicted of a terrorist act should have his Canadian citizenship restored even though he had literally, perhaps even literally, ripped up his Canadian passport. And yet I stand here as a Prime Minister of Canada.

People are reasonable. People need to understand that the rights and freedoms that keep us free and democratic society aren’t always easy and aren’t always a sort of a knee jerk adapted to how we want the world to be, but they are essential in terms of being the country we are and the people we are.”

This entry was posted on January 29, 2017 at 8:54 PM and is filed under Canada, Dual citizenship, Executive order, President Trump, Refugees, Trudeau, Trump agenda, Trump and Islamic terrorism, Trump and refugees. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Canada, Dual citizenship, Executive order, President Trump Refugees, Trudeau, Trump agenda, Trump and Islamica terrorism, Trump and refugees