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One rainy summer night in Yokohama, I told the man across the sushi counter in broken Japanese that I lived in Canada. His eyes lit up. In broken English, he told me how beautiful Canada was, and how much he wished he could see it. But you need not take my word for it. Visit Vimy. Say you’re Canadian. Enjoy your free drink. For as much as Canadians themselves may fret over it, there is a Canadian identity and a value to Canadian citizenship. You just have to get some distance from Canada to see it. When Preston Manning asked a group of fresh-minted Canadians about their new identity, they agreed.

But by enacting this bill, the Canadian government has undermined Canadian citizenship in another way: by making it more difficult to obtain, it is also less attractive as an investment opportunity. Obtaining Canadian permanent residency takes over a year, and obtaining citizenship will now require a four year residency in Canada. That’s a total of five years before a potential investor (and his or her family members) can enjoy the full faith and credit of Canadian citizenship. That’s five years without the ability to vote or otherwise participate meaningfully in our democracy. In depriving them of the privileges of citizenship, it also allows them to shirk the responsibilities that come with it.

It’s also five years for these new Canadians to realize that a citizenship which can be stripped from them is not really any kind of citizenship at all. Why bother fulfilling the residency requirement and applying for citizenship when that status can be easily revoked on the slightest of pretexts? The government seems intent on broadening the definition of crimes related to terrorism in Canada. Why spend the time, effort, and money on establishing citizenship in a country where having an opinion can get you exiled? Is Canada really that committed to blandness? Do we love mediocrity that much?