Canadian Passport - Rights To A Passport

Rights To A Passport

The issuance of passports falls under the Royal Prerogative, rather than an Act of Parliament; they are issued in the name of the reigning monarch, as expressed in the passport note. However, the authority to issue passports is granted to Passport Canada, a Special Operating Agency of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, under the authority of the Canadian Passport Order, an Order in Council that specifies grounds for which Passport Canada can issue or renew a passport.

Applicants must complete the required forms, which include the necessity of two passport photos and affirmation from a surety. Rules regarding renewals of passports and the eligibility of guarantors were last updated 1 October 2007, whereafter applicants may renew the passport using a shorter application form if: they are resident in Canada when they apply; lived in Canada and were at least sixteen years of age at the time of their previous application; and are in possession of a Canadian passport that was issued under their current name after 31 January 2002, is valid for five years, and not damaged or reported lost or stolen. Further, a guarantor may be a Canadian who currently holds a valid, or no more than one year expired, five-year Canadian passport; has known the applicant for more than two years; is eighteen or more years old; and were sixteen years of age or older when they applied for their own passport. For citizens abroad, passport applications are forwarded back to a passport centre by the local embassies, high commissions or consulates.

Passport Canada may revoke a passport or refuse to issue or renew a passport on grounds set out in the Canadian Passport Order, including such grounds as failure to submit a complete application, misrepresentation in obtaining a passport, and criminality. However, whether a Canadian passport may be revoked or refused on the basis of national security concerns has been questioned. In July 2004, Abdurahman Khadr was denied a Canadian passport by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the explicit advice of her Foreign Affairs Minister, Bill Graham, who stated the decision was "in the interest of the national security of Canada and the protection of Canadian troops in Afghanistan." The government invoked royal prerogative in order to deny Khadr's passport, as national security was not at that time listed in the Canadian Passport Order as a ground for refusal, though, shortly thereafter, on 22 September 2004, section 10.1 was added to the Order, which allowed the Minister to revoke or refuse a passport due to national security concerns. Khadr sought judicial review of the minister's decision to refuse his passport, and on 8 June of the following year, the Federal Court ruled that the government did not have the power to refuse to issue Khadr's passport in the absence of specific authority set out in the Canadian Passport Order, but stated in obiter dicta that if the order were to be amended (as it had been after the fact), Khadr would likely not be able to challenge the revocation. In 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Peter MacKay, again denied Khadr's application, this time invoking section 10.1 of the amended Canadian Passport Order Section 10.1 was later challenged in Federal Court by Fateh Kamel, whose passport had also been refused for national security reasons. On 13 March 2008, the Federal Court declared section 10.1 of the Passport Order to be unconstitutional and therefore invalid, though the court suspended its declaration of invalidity for six months in order to allow the government time to amend the order. The federal government launched an appeal at the Federal Court of Appeal and a ruling handed down on 29 January 2009 overturned the lower court decision in March 2008. The court unanimously agreed the denial of passport service on national grounds is in compliance with the Charter, citing the limitation clause as its main decision point. Kamel launched an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada but the court declined to hear his case and thus ended the legality challenge to the Canadian Passport Order.