Bill C-16: The Citizenship of Canada Act (LS-352E)

This document was prepared by the staff of the Parliamentary Research Branch to provide Canadian Parliamentarians with plain language background and analysis of proposed government legislation. Legislative summaries are not government documents. They have no official legal status and do not constitute legal advice or opinion. Please note, the Legislative Summary describes the bill as of the date shown at the beginning of the document. For the latest published version of the bill, please consult the parliamentary internet site at www.parl.gc.ca.

HOUSE OF COMMONS		SENATE
Bill Stage	Date	Bill Stage	Date
First Reading:	25 November 1999	First Reading:	31 May 2000
Second Reading:	23 March 2000	Second Reading:
Committee Report:	14 April 2000	Committee Report:
Report Stage:	16 May 2000	Report Stage:
Third Reading:	30 May 2000	Third Reading:

Royal Assent: Statutes of Canada N.B. Any substantive changes in this Legislative Summary which have been made since the preceding issue are indicated in bold print.

Bill C-16, An Act respecting Canadian citizenship, received first reading in the House of Commons on 25 November 1999. The bill would modernize outdated parts of the citizenship law, strengthen and clarify some provisions that have been contentious, replace current procedures with a new administrative structure, and introduce some additional powers to deny citizenship. It would also introduce measures to emphasize the importance of citizenship. The new Act would repeal and replace the current Citizenship Act.

The bill is very similar to Bill C-63, introduced in the first session of the 36^th Parliament. That bill had been considered and amended by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and was awaiting Report Stage consideration when the session ended and the bill died on the Order Paper. The few substantive differences between Bill C-63 and Bill C-16 will be noted in this summary.

Prior to 1947 and the introduction of the first Canadian Citizenship Act, there was legally no such thing as Canadian citizenship. Both native-born and naturalized citizens were British subjects. In 1977, the current Citizenship Act came into force, making extensive changes to the law. Citizenship became more widely available, since the Act, for example, reduced the required period of residency from five to three years as well as removing the special treatment for British nationals and the remaining discrimination between men and women.(1) The 1977 Act also provided that Canadians could hold dual citizenship, reversing the previous situation in which Canadian citizenship was lost upon the acquisition of the citizenship of another country. Although minor amendments have been made to Canada’s citizenship law over the years, Bill C-16 represents the first major overhaul of it since 1977.

The changes have been a long time coming. In early 1987, the government announced plans to bring in amendments to the Act, and issued a discussion paper entitled Proud to Be Canadian which outlined a number of issues and options for change and called for public comment. No further significant parliamentary action was taken at that time, however.

The Liberal government elected in 1993 announced its intention to overhaul the Act, and asked for the advice of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. The resulting Committee report, Canadian Citizenship: A Sense of Belonging, was presented to the House of Commons in June 1994. It raised a number of issues now addressed in Bill C-16, as well as some others that have not been included.

Bill C-16 contains many features that are identical or very similar to the existing provisions in the law. The description of the bill in this section will therefore concentrate on proposed provisions that would differ from those in the current Act.

Two provisions in the interpretation section of the bill are of interest. Clause 2(2)(b) deals with Indians who are registered under the Indian Act, but who are not citizens. The bill proposes that such individuals who chose to become citizens (likely to be few in number) would on registration be deemed to be permanent residents, thereby allowing them to begin the naturalization process.

The other provision of note is clause 2(2)(c), under which a person would be said to reside in Canada on any day when he or she was physically present in Canada and not subject to a probation order, on parole or incarcerated. The implications of this provision will be discussed in more detail below.

Bill C-16 would continue the current rule that children born in Canada are Canadian citizens at birth (clause 4(1)(a)). The only exceptions (as now) would apply to the children of foreign diplomats and their employees (clause 4(2)).

Currently, any person born abroad of a Canadian parent is automatically a citizen. This concept is often called derivative citizenship. Second and subsequent generations born abroad are also automatically citizens, but they lose their citizenship unless, by age 28, they have registered and have either lived in Canada for one year immediately prior to the application or have established a substantial connection to Canada. The bill would limit the possibility of automatic citizenship to the second generation born abroad, and would place more onerous requirements on such individuals seeking to retain citizenship past the age of 28 (clause 4(1)(b)). Clause 14 specifies that the person would have to apply to retain citizenship and would have to have resided in Canada for at least 1,095 days (a total of three years) during the six years before the application. As will be discussed below, actual physical presence would be required during the three-year period. This would be the same residency requirement to be placed on all permanent residents wishing to become citizens.

To mitigate the statelessness that would befall the third generation born abroad, clause 11 would provide that citizenship would be granted, upon application, to a person under 28 years of age who had never acquired (or did not have the right to acquire) any country’s citizenship but who had been born abroad to a parent who was a Canadian citizen. To qualify, the person would be required to have spent at least three years of the preceding six in Canada, and must not have been convicted of an offence against national security. What such an offence might be is not specified and there is no such specific category of offence in either the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act or the Criminal Code.

Bill C-16 would introduce a number of changes to the requirements for attaining citizenship other than by birth. One of the most important of these would add precision to the residency requirement. The important change would be the definition of residence as physical presence in Canada (clause 2(2)(c)). Applicants would be required to accumulate three years (1,095 days) of actual physical presence within the six years preceding the citizenship application. The credit for time spent in the country before becoming a permanent resident would continue, provided the person had legal status. No exception to the physical residency requirement would be made for the foreign spouses of Canadian citizens working abroad with the Canadian armed forces, the federal public service, or the public service of a province, as is the case in the current law.(2)

The proposed objective residency requirement – actual physical presence for a total of three years (1,095 days) within the specified period – would end the considerable uncertainty in the current law. Although the Act currently requires a three-year period of residency, that word is not defined. As a result, judicial decisions with radically differing interpretations of the residency requirement have seriously complicated the law. The very year after the current Act came into effect in 1977, a case decided by the Federal Court held that actual physical presence in Canada was not necessary in order to fulfil the requirements.(3) What was needed, the judge held, was that the applicant show a significant attachment to Canada throughout the period, even if physically absent. This could be established by such indicators as a retained residence (although not essential), accounts in Canadian banks, investments, club memberships, provincial driving licences, and so on. The result, in its extreme form, has been that some applicants have been granted Canadian citizenship even though their total time actually in the country amounted to mere days or a few months.

Other judges of the Federal Court, however, disagreed strongly with that approach and were unwilling to excuse lengthy absences from the country. The contradictory caselaw that developed around this issue led to unpredictability and uncertainty in the law, and in the view of some, seriously compromised the residency requirement, and the value of Canadian citizenship in the process. The 1994 report of the Standing Committee recommended that the definition of residency in the Act should require a meaningful degree of physical presence.

Bill C-16 would continue the requirement for applicants to demonstrate an adequate knowledge of an official language (clause 6(1)(c)). Applicants would also continue to be required to demonstrate that they had an adequate knowledge of Canada and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship (clause 6(1)(d)), and would not be precluded from using an interpreter for this purpose. Lest either requirement prove too onerous for certain individuals (perhaps the aged or house-bound), the power of the Minister to waive the language requirements on compassionate grounds would continue. (Both tests are currently waived for people over 60, and the previous Minister stated that this would continue to be the case.)

New provisions would govern the citizenship rules for Canadian citizens’ children adopted abroad (clause 8). Under the current law, children adopted abroad are required to become permanent residents before proceeding to citizenship. This has several implications. First, it means that the children must pass the medical exam required of all applicants for permanent residence, or receive special permission to proceed.(4) (They must also pass the statutory criminal and security checks.) Second, it means that children adopted by Canadian parents who are living abroad and who wish to continue doing so cannot become permanent residents and, therefore, cannot become Canadian citizens.

Bill C-16 would provide that a minor adopted abroad in accordance with the laws of the countries of both the child and the parents would become a Canadian citizen upon application. Three additional provisions would also apply: the adoption would have to have been in the best interests of the child; it would have to have created a genuine relationship of parent and child; and it would not have to have been undertaken in order to circumvent any requirements for admission to Canada or for citizenship. The rules would apply to all adoptions that took place after 14 February 1977.

During discussion in committee on the predecessor bill, and subsequently in the press, questions were raised as to the scope and meaning of the provision requiring an adoption to have been in the best interests of the child. Departmental officials explained it as a way of meeting the concerns of the provinces, which were said to centre on medical examinations, solely for information purposes for parents. Officials stated that the additional criterion would permit broader and more complete regulation of the adoption/citizenship process, including the power to require medical examinations and home studies.

Clause 10 would introduce a new provision whereby the Minister, "for the purposes of the Act" (that is, in order to grant citizenship), could deem a person who had resided in Canada for at least 10 years to be a permanent resident. This provision would cover cases in which people had erroneously believed themselves to be Canadian citizens. The proposed provision would give explicit authority for actions currently taken under section 2(2) of the Act.

The loss of derivative citizenship (clause 14) has been discussed in the previous section.

As in the current law, Bill C-16 sets out the circumstances under which a person could renounce Canadian citizenship (clause 15). The criteria would be very similar. The renunciation could be revoked, as could a grant or resumption of citizenship, if it were later found that the person had made a false representation, had used fraud or had knowingly concealed material circumstances (clause 16).

The current mechanism for challenging a revocation order would remain essentially the same (clause 17). Upon receiving a report from the Minister signifying the intention of the government to revoke citizenship, the person could request the Minister to refer the matter to the Federal Court – Trial Division. New to the process would be the requirement for the Court to decide the matter on a balance of probabilities (clause 17(1)(b)). This would clear up some conflicting decisions in the Trial Division as to the proper test to apply.

In addition to the existing mechanism for revoking citizenship described above, Bill C-16 would give the Minister a new power to issue an annulment order (clause 18). This order could declare that any obtention, retention, renunciation or resumption of citizenship was void. The power would be required to be exercised within five years of the original citizenship decision, and would apply in any case where the person had used a false identity, or had been originally ineligible to be granted citizenship for any of the reasons in clause 28. That clause sets out numerous grounds of ineligibility for citizenship, including: criminality, implication as a war criminal, certain Immigration Act infractions, security concerns, and so on. The person would have to be given notice regarding the proposed order, after which he or she could make representations to the Minister. The Minister would have to inform affected persons that the order had been made, and advise them of their right to apply for judicial review. An annulment order would signify that the person had never attained citizenship. Thus, anyone who had acquired citizenship through the person whose citizenship had been annulled would automatically lose citizenship also.

The procedure for annulment may be contrasted with the revocation procedure (current and proposed), which involves the Minister, the Governor in Council and, at the request of the person concerned, the Federal Court. In a revocation case, the Court itself has to be satisfied that the person obtained citizenship by false representation, by fraud, or by knowingly concealing material circumstances. To do this, the Court holds a full hearing.

It will be remembered that one of the grounds for making the proposed annulment order, the use of a false identity, could easily be comprised in the criteria for revocation -- false representation, fraud, or concealing material circumstances. In the case of an annulment order, however, no appeal would be permitted. Although the decision of the Minister would be reviewable on judicial review to the Federal Court, the grounds of review would be considerably narrower than if an appeal were allowed, and a full hearing would not be held.

Bill C-16 would continue the current provisions for restoring citizenship, with only a few modifications. Currently, individuals who lose their citizenship must first be admitted for permanent residence, and may apply for citizenship after spending the year immediately before the application in Canada. The bill would instead require individuals in this position to reside in Canada for at least 365 days in the two years immediately preceding the application (clause 19). Again, the important change would be that the new definition of residence would require actual physical presence.

A provision in the predecessor bill would have ensured that individuals who had lost their citizenship and who were the spouses of Canadian citizens working abroad for the Canadian armed forces, the federal public service, or the public service of a province would not be penalized because of their non-residence; this provision was dropped in C-16.(5)

Bill C-16 would introduce a new power to permit the Governor in Council, upon a report from the Minister, to deny a person citizenship "where there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is not in the public interest for the person to become a citizen" (clause 21). The power would not only be new but would also represent a conceptual change from the present law, under which citizenship is a right, not a privilege, providing that objective criteria have been fulfilled. Although there is no definition of "public interest," the new provision might be used, for example, to deny citizenship to an individual known to distribute hate literature but who otherwise fulfilled the criteria.

In order to trigger this section, the Minister would be required to provide the person concerned with a summary of the contents of the proposed report to the Governor in Council. The person would then have 30 days in which to respond in writing to the Minister. If the Minister proceeded with the report, and the Governor in Council agreed, the latter would order citizenship to be denied. The decision of the Cabinet would not be subject to appeal or review by any court, and would be valid for five years. The order would be conclusive proof of the matters stated in it.(6)

Bill C-16 would retain the existing procedures for denying citizenship on national security grounds, with a few changes. As now, the process would be triggered by a report by the Minister to the Security Intelligence Review Committee stating that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the person had engaged or would engage in an activity that was a threat to the security of Canada, or an activity related to organized crime.

Within 10 days of the report to the Review Committee, the person concerned would be informed of it and the possible consequences. The Committee would investigate, using procedures set out in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act; as soon as practicable, the Committee would send the person concerned a summary of the information available to it. In a new provision, the Review Committee would be required to have regard to whether the information could be disclosed without injury to national security or to the safety of persons (clause 23(5)). When it had completed its investigation, the Review Committee would report its conclusion to the Governor in Council and to the person concerned, although not necessarily at the same time.

If for any reason the Review Committee found itself unable to act (for example, if there might be a perception of bias), the amendments to the Act made in 1997 would be continued. They provide that a retired judge would assume the investigation and report to the Governor in Council (clauses 24 – 26).

If the Governor in Council declared that the person was a security risk, the application for citizenship would be rejected. A new provision would specify that such a declaration would be final and not subject to appeal or review by any court.(7) The bill would increase the duration of a declaration from two years to five (clause 27).

Bill C-16 would expand somewhat the list of prohibitions relating to the granting of citizenship. Indictable offences committed outside Canada would now be taken into account and treated in the same way as those committed in Canada. The prohibition regarding offences committed elsewhere would extend to the whole process: being charged with, on trial for, and requesting appeals and reviews of such offences (clause 28(c)). Being convicted of an indictable offence committed abroad (even if the foreign offence had been pardoned) would add at least three years to the time needed to attain citizenship. For the first time, being convicted of two or more summary conviction offences would be considered, and would delay citizenship for one year.

The bill would also preclude citizenship for anyone under a removal order, or subject to an inquiry under the Immigration Act that could lead to removal or the loss of permanent residence status. Clause 28 would also include as prohibitions the procedures previously discussed, such as the revocation, annulment, public interest, and public security processes.

Bill C-16 would introduce major changes in the way citizenship applications are dealt with. The current citizenship judges, headed by a chief judge, would be replaced and their substantive duties taken over by public servants, acting under the delegated authority of the Minister (clause 44). Their ceremonial duties would be taken over by full-time or part-time Citizenship Commissioners, who would be appointed by the Governor in Council, during pleasure, for terms of up to five years (clause 31). The positions would be remunerated. A Senior Citizenship Commissioner could be designated to oversee the Commissioners and coordinate their activities.

In order to be appointed, Citizenship Commissioners would be required to "have demonstrated an understanding of the values of good citizenship and be recognized for their valuable civic contribution" (clause 31(6)). Their duties would be: to preside at citizenship ceremonies; to promote citizenship; to provide the Minister, on request, with advice on citizenship applications, the exercise of the Minister’s discretion, and how best to evaluate citizenship applicants’ knowledge of an official language and of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; and to carry out any directions of the Minister (clause 31 (7)). It is not clear how the advisory side of the Commissioners’ mandate would be accomplished, nor why the Commissioners would be particularly well-suited to provide such advice.

Bill C-16 emphasizes the importance of the citizenship ceremony in heightening new citizens’ awareness of the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, and would direct Citizenship Commissioners regarding both the purpose and content of the citizenship ceremony (clause 33). Among other duties, Commissioners would be required to:

The rules regarding the issuance, surrender, cancellation and return of citizenship certificates in these clauses can be found in the present statute or regulations. The bill would consolidate these provisions.

Bill C-16 would modify one offence provision in the existing law, add a new one to cover citizenship officials, and update the penalties:

The bill would widen the power of the Governor in Council to make regulations in a number of areas. These areas include:

It is interesting that the mechanism for assessing and approving citizenship applications, and governing all of the other administrative work relating to citizenship, is not readily apparent from Bill C-16. As noted above, the current administrative duties performed by citizenship judges would be taken over by public servants and, possibly to some extent, Citizenship Commissioners. (Indeed, this has already happened to the extent permitted under the current Act.) All their decisions would be taken in the name of the Minister, who, by virtue of clause 29, would have the legal duty to examine all applications under the Act and to inform rejected applicants of that fact and of the availability of judicial review in the Federal Court.(10) All of those decisions could be, and would be, delegated. Clause 30 also provides that the Minister could reverse any decision refusing citizenship that appeared to contain a "material defect." This would permit reversal of faulty decisions without forcing an applicant to proceed to Federal Court.

Clause 44(3) specifies that only a Canadian citizen could be appointed as a Registrar of Citizenship, determine a person’s status as a citizen, or make a decision on an application to obtain, retain, renounce or resume citizenship.

Unless the person objected, a new provision would permit the name of a new citizen to be disclosed to the Speakers of both Houses, thereby allowing the Parliamentarians representing the area where the new citizen resided to offer congratulations.

These provisions would be virtually identical in substance to those in the current law. They deal with: the status of British subjects, and citizens of the Commonwealth and Ireland; the power of a province to restrict the holding of property by non-citizens and the limitations on that power; and the equality of citizens and non-citizens in the courts.

Clause 55 specifies what would happen to pending applications should Bill C-16 be passed and come into force. All proceedings relating to an application would be dealt with under the new Act, with the exception of any applications that had reached a citizenship judge. However, the new provisions regarding denial of citizenship in the public interest and the national security provisions would apply. The existing powers of citizenship judges in these cases would continue as if the current Act were still in force.

Under clause 56, citizenship judges would automatically become Citizenship Commissioners, with the same term of office.

Clause 57, which did not appear in Bill C-16’s predecessor, Bill C-63, would provide a three-year period during which individuals who were born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent between 1947 and early 1977, and who are not currently Canadian citizens, would acquire citizenship upon application. Adopted children would also be covered. Once such individuals acquired citizenship, their children could also gain citizenship if they established a substantial connection with Canada. Similarly, their children, could also be granted citizenship, again if they established a substantial connection with Canada.

These provisions respond to many of the concerns raised by the Mennonite Central Committee Canada in testimony to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration during its examination of Bill C-63. The Mennonites pointed out that many members of their community had moved to Latin America beginning in the 1920s. Life had often proved difficult there, however, and some of their descendants had moved back to Canada. The citizenship status of these descendants in Canada depended on an interpretation of several sections of the current Act whose provisions would have been dropped by Bill C-63. The Mennonite Committee requested that the new law contain measures to facilitate the acquisition of Canadian citizenship for those in their community who still wished to return to this country, or who had already done so. Bill C-16, in response, would provide a window of three years for such individuals to regularize their status, but says explicitly that the special treatment would end after that period.

A number of other individuals, besides the Mennonites, would also be able to benefit from the provisions of clause 57 and be granted citizenship. This would address some human rights inconsistencies created by the citizenship legislation in effect from 1947 to 1977.

Upon the coming into force of Bill C-63, the current Citizenship Act would be repealed (clause 72).

Taking the oath of citizenship is a mandatory part of the citizenship process. The current oath is as follows:

It should be noted that removing the words "Her Heirs and Successors" does not imply that pledging allegiance to the British Crown would end with the death of the present Queen. Section 35 of the Interpretation Act states that, in every enactment, the phrases "Her Majesty," "His Majesty," "the Queen," "the King," or "the Crown" mean the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories, and Head of the Commonwealth. Thus, upon her death, the reference to Queen Elizabeth would automatically be read as a reference to the succeeding monarch.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration reviewed Bill C-63, the predecessor bill to C-16, and many of the comments made at that time would be applicable to Bill C-16.(11) A number of witnesses before the Committee noted that the procedure evaluating citizenship applications would be changed to an administrative system, from one where the citizenship judge enjoys a measure of independence. Some questioned that change, particularly when it was coupled with the removal of trials de novo in the Federal Court and their replacement with more limited judicial review.

Questions were raised about the proposed new power of the Minister to annul citizenship granted in cases where a false identity had been used or the person had been ineligible. Concerns centred on the sufficiency of the process governing annulments. Witnesses also questioned the vagueness of the new power of Cabinet, acting on a report of the Minister, to deny citizenship in the public interest.

Some witnesses questioned the need to have Citizenship Commissioners at all, while others felt that these were important and asked for their role to be defined more precisely.

A few groups felt that the proposed oath was inadequate, for a variety of reasons.

As noted earlier, Bill C-16 would not change the rule that birth on Canadian soil confers Canadian citizenship. One of the groups that addressed this issue in committee opposed maintaining the status quo, but the others supported its retention. In committee, the Minister and officials maintained that the policy would remain the same in the absence of data showing that it gave rise to a significant problem.

More extensive commentary on other contentious aspects of the bill appears below.

As noted above, the current residency rules for citizenship are fraught with difficulties. In the absence of a definition of "resident," the rules are inconsistently applied by judges; outcomes are therefore unpredictable, with citizenship having been granted in some cases to virtual strangers to the country. Bill C-16 would clarify and simplify the requirements: actual physical presence in the country would be necessary for a total of three out of the six years prior to the citizenship application.

As originally tabled, Bill C-63 proposed that applicants be required to meet the physical residency test within five years. These provisions were strongly criticized in committee. Noting that, in a global economy, business people have to move around, immigration lawyers and representatives of ethno-cultural groups stated that the proposed rules would act as a disincentive for business people considering immigration to Canada and would be unfair to others forced to spend considerable time outside the country for other reasons. On the other hand, it may be pointed out that, even if individuals who need to travel extensively cannot qualify for citizenship at a certain point in their working lives, they can still maintain their permanent resident status.(12) They are hardly "locked in" to Canada, as one critic was reported as saying. It remains to be seen whether these critics will be satisfied by the proposal for a six-year period of time, within which three years of physical presence would be required.

Another criticism was more practical. It is that the proposed system would not work because there is currently no objective or independent way of proving a person’s physical presence in Canada. Fraud in this regard is not difficult because Canada does not keep records of who enters or exits the country. Although officials can ask an applicant for citizenship for whatever documentation might assist in proving physical presence, at the end of the day the government must rely on the honesty of applicants. In committee, departmental officials acknowledged the difficulties but maintained that fraud could be minimized through the development of profiles, quality assurance, and the use of a variety of documents.

As noted above, children adopted abroad would become Canadian citizens upon application, without having to first become permanent residents. All witnesses who addressed this issue supported it in general, although some questioned the requirement that adoptions completed abroad would have to conform to the laws of the country of the child and the parents. Officials responded that they were responding to both the spirit and the letter of international conventions on inter-country adoptions.

Witnesses questioned what procedures would be used for assessing whether children adopted abroad met the requirements; that is, whether the adoption was in the best interests of the child, whether there was a genuine relationship of parent and child, whether all adoption laws had been complied with, and whether the adoption had been intended to circumvent Canadian immigration or citizenship law. Currently, visa officers make these kinds of decisions in assessing the application for permanent residence of an adopted child sponsored as a member of the family class. Departmental officials suggested that this practice would continue.

If a visa officer refuses an application (a common occurrence), the sponsor currently has a right to appeal to the Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board. The Board considers all aspects of the case, including any humanitarian or compassionate factors that may exist. Witnesses pointed out that, under Bill C-16, because there would be no application for permanent residence, there would be no sponsor, and therefore no appeal to the Immigration and Refugee Board would be possible. Parents could apply for judicial review to the Federal Court, but the grounds would be significantly narrower and the procedures more formal than under the existing system. Thus, it would appear that parents would be worse off in cases of rejection under the proposed system than in cases of rejection under the present system. Some witnesses suggested that parents refused citizenship for their adopted children should be able to appeal to the Board; however, officials pointed out that the Immigration and Refugee Board handles only matters that arise under the Immigration Act.

It should be noted that the adoption provisions in Bill C-16 would apply only to children whose adoptions were completed abroad. They would not apply to children sponsored to Canada for the purpose of adoption in this country. These children would still have to become permanent residents before being admitted to Canada. Members of the Committee pointed out that in Quebec no international adoption is complete before the child arrives in Canada and the adoption is approved by a tribunal. It appeared that negotiations between the federal government and Quebec had broken down and it was unclear how the proposed arrangements could apply to adoptees destined to Quebec.

From 1992 to 1997 inclusive, almost 11,000 children who had been adopted abroad or were to be adopted in Canada were landed.(13) Of these, most had been adopted abroad. Still, in that period, over 900 children, representing 8.5 % of the total, came to Canada before the adoption was finalized.(14) These children would be unaffected by Bill C-16 and would continue to have to become permanent residents.