No data exists on citizenship approved or denied due to criminality

OTTAWA — Canada’s immigration bureaucracy has no data on how often Canadian citizenship was granted – or denied – to those with criminal records.

That revelation comes courtesy of a response to an order paper question filed in September by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner asking how many citizenship applications have been received, approved or denied from those with criminal records.

“Due to data limitations, the department is unable to report on the number of applications for which an applicants has criminal record that were received, approved, denied, received but are still awaiting a decision, nor is the department able to provide a breakdown by type of crime which the department determined was severe enough to deny citizenship, and not severe enough to deny citizenship,” rea