Dear Mr. Ahuja,

I should like to refer to your letter of January 18th concerning certain points in the Canadian Citizenship Bill which are of interest to the Government of India. Perhaps it would be satisfactory for me to comment on the various points in the order in which you raised them.

Your understanding of Sections 4 and 5 of the Bill as set forth in paragraph 3(a) of your letter is correct. Children born of East Indian parents outside of Canada after the passing of the Act will, of course, be subject to the provision of Section 5(1) (b) and 5(2) with regard to registration and retention of citizenship.

Your interpretation of Section 8(1) as set forth in paragraph 3(b) of your letter is also correct. East Indian British subjects who have "domicile" in Canada at the time the Act comes into force will become Canadian citizens.

With regard to paragraph 4 of your letter, the position is as you suggest—namely, that the coming into force of the proposed Act will not affect in any way the legislative provisions that now exist with regard to the exercise of the provincial or federal franchises in Canada.

In paragraph 5 of your letter you refer to the effect of Section 27 of the Bill, read in conjunction with Section 2(g) and the First Schedule, upon the recognition of East Indians as British subjects. There has not been an opportunity yet to give this matter the careful study that it will require. From a preliminary examination, I do not think that a strict legal interpretation would give the result you fear, since the controlling definition with regard to the status of British subject so far as India is concerned (other than for purposes of purely internal status resulting from naturalization) is, I believe, the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of the United Kingdom, rather than the Indian Naturalization Act of 1926. However, whatever may be the correct interpretation of the Section as it now stands, I can assure you that it was not at all the intention of the Canadian government to have East Indians omitted from the category of British subjects under our law. The matter will be given careful attention.

As a related point, you referred in paragraph 6 of your letter to the omission of India from the countries listed in the First Schedule of the Bill: As Mr. R. G. Robertson mentioned at the time of our conversation, this list was established to serve a purpose similar to that of the "List of Dominions" in the First Schedule of the present Naturalization Act, which set forth the countries of the Commonwealth that had adopted Part II of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act or that had passed parallel legislation of their own. Under the new Bill the purpose is much the same, namely to include the countries which have their own legislation according national status of general recognition. In the case of India I believe that, at present, there is no specific nationality legislation other than the Indian Naturalization Act, 1926, which deals only with naturalization rather than with nationality in general, and section 7 of which provides that the status accorded by naturalization is an internal status only. This being so, India was not included in the list, although under section 2(g) provision was made, with the position of India specifically in mind, for the addition of further countries by proclamation.

With the above explanation I think you will appreciate why the composition of the text is what it is. It is the character of the nationality legislation in any particular country and not of its general status that was the determining factor, and for the purposes of the Bill there could be no other criterion than that.

It may be that the heading of the schedule—"List of Countries in the British Commonwealth"—is misleading if the list is not related to its specific purpose. It was used because it is a bit difficult to get any other phrase for use throughout the Bill to include all the countries which have nationality legislation which we wish to recognize as according the status of British subject for purposes of our law. The only alternative that occurs readily, and it is an awkward one, is to use, in section 27 and elsewhere, some formula such as "... under the laws of any country listed in the First Schedule to the Act ..."

I think that from what I have said you will appreciate the reasoning be-hind the present drafting of the Bill. Technically, I think it is accurate, but the government is most anxious to avoid anything that might be misinterpreted to the disadvantage of your country or your people and consequently the Bill will be re examined with care to see if it might be modified to avoid the implications that might be drawn from its present form.

Yours sincerely,
N. A. ROBERTSON