In a rare move, the Canadian government recently revoked the citizenship of 3,100 Canadians.

Jason Kenney, Canada’s Immigration Minister, added that thousands of others who hold permanent resident’s status will be denied the chance to swear allegiance to Canada.

Kenney is spearheading a campaign, with the help of the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP, to target people who game the system by faking the amount of time they have spent in Canada.

So can this happen to you?

Many immigrant are asking, “How is this possible and why?”

A person can lose their citizenship if they have obtained it on the basis of false pretences or misrepresentation. A well-recognized example of revocation of citizenship is in the case of Nazi war criminals where many former German nationals escaped the Second World War to foreign jurisdictions and then applied for Canadian status from abroad indicating that they were citizens of their new country of residence with no mention of their former German nationality.

When it was discovered that they actually lied about their country of origin, many of them lost their citizenship.

Providing false information on a citizenship application may not only lead to a loss of citizenship but also criminal prosecution.

The Citizenship Act requires a person to have lived in Canada 3 out of every 4 years. That is a total of 1095 days within a 1460 day period. Citizenship judges require an absolute physical presence in Canada of 1095 days in order to approve a Citizenship Application.

According to Jason Kenney, thousands of people have found ways to fake proof of lives spent in Canada. Crooked immigration consultants have been blamed for helping in this scam. The rate for simulating residence for a family of five is about $25,000, said the minister.

In order to demonstrate that they satisfy the 1095 day residency requirement, some people create the impression that they have been living in Canada by providing information in one passport while travelling on another.

In the cases referred to recently in the news, many applicants went even further to create the impression that they were actually living in Canada through providing false addresses, credit card information, banking statements, and other documents which indicated that they were engaging in transactions in Canada even though they were not actually here.

Criminal charges aren’t all that a person can face for misrepresenting on a citizenship application. Persons who provide false information may face loss of their permanent resident status.

In the majority of misrepresentation cases, the applicant loses their citizenship but also their permanent resident status.

They then have to depart Canada and, re-apply as a permanent resident all over again.

Catherine Sas (csas@millerthomson.com) is a practicing immigration lawyer based in Vancouver.