Wild Rose MP Blake Richards and his Conservative government are making efforts to stop what they have seen as numerous attempts to gain Canadian citizenship by fraudulent measures.
“Our government will not allow criminals to cheapen the integrity of Canadian citizenship,” Richards said in his weekly report. “We have launched an investigation into residence fraud, identifying nearly 11,000 potential suspects to date.”
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney made the announcement last week that the government had began the process of stripping 3,100 fraudulently obtained citizenships.
Nearly 5,000 people residing in Canada under the ‘permanent resident’ status have also been identified as possibly attempting to obtain citizenship by illegal means.
“Under Canadian law, permanent residents must reside in our country for three out of four years prior to applying for citizenship,” said Richards. “However, some are using deceitful immigration representatives to fraudulently create evidence of living in Canada while actually living overseas.”
Richards said evidence has been found that some families can pay a fee of approximately $25,000 to ‘create this illusion of Canadian residence.’
Thus far, the federal government has removed or denied admittance of more than 600 of these suspects and also denied around 500 citizenship applications that did not meet the requirements of residency.
According to Richards, an additional 1,800 applicants have abandoned their bid for citizenship over fear of being prosecuted.
“I am proud of our government’s efforts to separate the liars and cheats from our country’s honest citizenship applicants.”
Richards asks that anyone with information on citizenship fraud to call 1-888-242-2100 or email [email protected].
