Canada floats new citizenship rules that could affect thousands of Chinese
Longer abode requirement and demand for tax returns may affect thousands of Hongkongers and mainlanders granted permanent residency
Canada has unveiled sweeping reforms that would require immigrants spend more time as permanent residents, file tax returns and sign an undertaking to continue living in the country if they want to become citizens.
The proposed redrawing of the Citizenship Act, unveiled on Thursday, would lengthen the period of residency required from three years to four years.
Language proficiency requirements would be extended to children as young as 14 and adults as old as 64, and penalties for fraudulent applications toughened.
China is the biggest single source of applications for Canadian permanent residency and among those who may be affected by the changes are the 110,813 mainland Chinese and 3,305 Hongkongers granted permanent residency between 2010 and the middle of last year.
An investigation by the yesterday revealed tens of thousands of mainland Chinese millionaires had swamped Canada's Hong Kong consulate with applications for its investor immigrant programme, forcing it to be shelved in 2012. It had been the favourite pathway for rich Chinese to obtain foreign citizenship.
The reported last year that at least 65,000 Hong Kong-born Canadians had returned to the city since 1996, a process that was not officially acknowledged because neither China nor Hong Kong recognise dual citizenship.
