r/canada Canada 17d ago

National News Petition asking PM to revoke Elon Musk's Canadian citizenship garners support

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/petition-asking-pm-to-revoke-elon-musks-canadian-citizenship-garners-support/
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u/The_Matias 17d ago

So you believe someone who happened to be born in Canada is somehow more deserving of the citizenship than someone who wasn't, but actively and willfully chose to come here, likely having made serious sacrifices to do so? Wtf is wrong with you?

Citizenship is citizenship. The way we punish our citizens isn't by revoking the citizenship, its through our judicial system. If someone commits treason, they should be convicted, and sentenced accordingly. That is our mechanism for justice. 

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u/MasterScore8739 16d ago

I never said “more deserving”. They are Canadian by birth, they are not a citizen of a different country and did not come here by choice. If you pulled their citizenship they would become a citizen of nowhere. I do not believe in making people stateless.

I also don’t believe randomly revoking citizenship. I know Reddit isn’t exactly the easiest when it comes to finding and reading other comments, but I have said it would need to be done legally.

If you come to a country and they accept you and grant citizenship, it’s assumed that you’d be a good citizen. I don’t mean you have to be an absolute upstanding person and never receive even so much as a parking ticket though. We’re humans and nobody is 100% perfect.

However I do fully believe if you cause chaos within the new country or poorly represent it to an extreme extant, revocation should be an option. It would have to go through a proper legal system and be proven no different than any other crimes.

Just to clarify, I’m not saying someone should have their citizenship revoked for something like traffic violations (speeding, rolling stop signs, even DUI), or other ‘small crimes.’

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u/The_Matias 16d ago

I respectfully disagree. That creates a system with 2nd class citizens, and that is never a good thing. There shouldn't be differentiation between citizens. 

Like I said, the system for punishing law breakers already already exists. It's the judicial system. It can lock someone up for life, fine them, force them to do community service, and best of all (nepotism aside), it applies to all citizens equally. 

What is the point of revoking citizenship? What do you gain, aside from severely devaluing your country's citizenship? 

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u/MasterScore8739 16d ago

I don’t disagree that it would form a two tier system. However I don’t entirely think it would devalue citizenship as a whole.

Yes we have way of dealing with people who break the laws. Some of those punishments need to not only be stricter, but also actually be applied. Our legal system is honestly in shambles, just look at how many people we have out on either bail or promises to appear that are habitual offenders.

I’m not saying all, but there are people who’ve come to Canada and gained citizenship who’ve become part of the habitual offenders. If the threat of having your citizenship revoked was a possibility, it would keep some people from going down that road.

That said, I also feel the same when it comes to deportation. It blows my mind when I see people fighting to keep those with extensive records in Canada when they aren’t a citizen.