OTTAWA—Lawyers say Maryam Monsef’s citizenship could be revoked without a hearing under a law the Liberals denounced while in opposition but which they’ve been aggressively applying since taking power. The democratic institutions minister revealed last week that she was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she’d long believed. If her birthplace was misrepresented on her citizenship application, immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman says that would be grounds for revocation, regardless of whether it was an innocent mistake or the fault of her mother. The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association are today launching a legal challenge to the law, arguing that it’s procedurally unfair and a violation of the charter of rights. BCCLA executive director Josh Paterson says the Liberal government has set targets to strip 40 to 60 Canadians each month of their citizenship, even though current Immigration Minister John McCallum previously denounced the law as “dictatorial” and promised to repeal it.

Source: thestar September 26, 2016 16:30 UTC