Mr. DOHERTY:

Mr. COPP:

He can exercise all the

privileges of being a Canadian national, irrespective of whether he is also a national of another country?

Mr. DOHERTY:

Yes, just as a man

born in Canada, though his father, being a Frenchman, was a French citizen, may enjoy all the privileges of a British subject either in this country or in the United Kingdom.

Mr. PARENT:

Under the Indian Act I understand that an Indian is not a "person". Will he become a Canadian national under this Act?

Mr. DOHERTY:

Well, I must confess that I have not given consideration to the question of the Indian. However, I have no reason to doubt that under the disposition of this Act an Indian would be a Canadian national if he was born in Canada.

Mr. VIEN:

When is the minister going

to bring down that definition of the declaration?

Mr. DOHERTY:

I think I can take it that these clauses are adopted. I was going to move that the committee rise and report progress.

Mr. FIELDING:

And let the Bill remain in committee?

Mr. DOHERTY:

Yes, for the purpose of the declaration.

Mr. McKENZIE:

It would seem to me

that subsection (b) of section 2 more properly belongs to the Naturalization Act. I do not think we have any right to declare here how any man can throw off the responsibility of having become a British subject. .

Mr. DOHERTY:

The question is not

one of throwing off British citizenship; it is purely limited to his Canadian nationality, and that is what he is throwing off. The British Nationality Act, which we have enacted also, provides how a man can throw off his quality of British subject. This Act does not touch that in the slightest. A man would lose his Canadian nationality when he threw off his quality of British subject, but his merely throwing off his quality of Canadian national does not affect his quality of British subject at all.

Mr. McKENZIE:

What will he be? He is not a native of Canada; he is not a native of any other country. What on earth is he?

Mr. FIELDING:

Nothing at all.

Mr. DOHERTY:

Let us take a very

simple case. A man was born in England of a father who was a Canadian national. That man would be a British subject and a Canadian national. He would have two qualities. By-and-by he thinks he would rather be a national or resortissant of the United Kingdom. He says: "I want to renounce my Canadian nationality," and that is all he renounces; he remains just the same British subject he was before. It will depend upon what the laws of the different portions of the Empire are whether or not he becomes a national of one of those countries. It is not essential that he should be a national of any thing at all when he is living in any part of the Empire which does not deem it necessary to define its nationalism. He may be in the unfortunate situation of being a national of nothing in particular; but he will always be a British subject, and under those circumstances, I presume he would be a national of the United Kingdom.

Mr. FIELDING:

And yet a man born

in the United States of a father who was a British subject, would be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a Canadian national?

Mr. DOHERTY:

And a British subject.

Mr. FIELDING:

By reason of this Bill only.

Mr. DOHERTY:

He would be a British subject without this Bill.

Mr. FIELDING:

This Bill makes him a British subject.

Mr. DOHERTY:

It makes him a Canadian national. But before a man can be a Canadian national, he has to be a British subject. Supposing this Bill was never passed, a man born in the United States of a father who is a British subject is both an American citizen and a British subject. I know this sounds anomalous, and there is a provision in the British Nationality Act to enable a man, just as we provide here for throwing off the mere national, to throw off the quality of British subject where a man, under those circumstances by reason of his father being a British subject, is a British subject. Under that provision-I have not the text of it-that man may make a declaration of alienage and cease to be a British subject, or he may refrain from making that declaration and continue to be a British subject. There are in the world any number of people who are in the

anomalous position of being subjects of two countries.