Canadians of convenience
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The term "Canadians of convenience" was popularized by Canadian politician Garth Turner in 2006 in conjunction with the evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon during the 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict. It refers to people with multiple citizenship who immigrated to Canada, met the residency requirement to obtain citizenship, obtained Canadian citizenship, and moved back to their original home country while maintaining their Canadian citizenship, with those who support the term claiming they do so as a safety net.
Statistics and analyses are unavailable on the distinction between evacuees who were long-term residents of Lebanon and those who were not and on how many of the long-term residents had returned to Lebanon immediately after acquiring their Canadian citizenship.
Although the term was used by others (such as Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun) earlier during the conflict in Lebanon, it was made most prominent by posts by Garth Turner, a then Conservative MP for Halton, on his blog, and the subsequent reactions. Turner questioned the fairness of paying CAD$75,000 for each evacuee, saying, among other things, "that’s a hell of a lot of money to donate to people who do not live here, don’t pay taxes here, and may never come here again in their lives." The actual cost was about $6,300 for each evacuee ($94 million for 15,000 people).
The National Post has asserted, that of the 15,000 evacuated, about 7,000 may have returned to Lebanon within a month of being evacuated.
Turner was criticized by some for suggesting that there are two classes of Canadian citizens. Other editorials supported the use of the phrase Canadians of convenience and said many immigrants meet their minimum residence requirement to gain Canadian citizenship (which, since 1977, can essentially never be revoked), leave the country, and only call upon their Canadian citizenship again when in need of the publicly funded Medicare or emergency evacuation from a war zone.
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Wikipedia