December 5, 2024 The Honourable Rosemary Moodie, Senator Dear Senator Moodie, I thank you and the rest of the CommiAee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology for listening to the tesEmony of witnesses on Bill C-71. I am one of the co-authors of a brief submiAed to the CommiAee (along with witness Carol Sutherland-Brown and Majda Dabaghi) and you can find my family story in its appendix. I am in favour of this Bill and agree that a connecEon test is a pracEcal means to show strong Ees to Canada.

However, I am wriEng with concern about the suggested inclusion of a five-year window on the proposed 1095 day connecEon test. I understand that this is a requirement for permanent residents who wish to obtain ciEzenship. But for those who are already Canadian ciEzens by descent (like my children), this negates years of visits to Canada and longstanding bonds with grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins. How can we say that a person who comes to Canada for three years and then departs to seAle elsewhere is any more Eed to Canada than a child who has been idenEfying as Canadian for a lifeEme?

My children have been spending all their summers and Christmas holidays in Canada with family and fully idenEfy as Canadian. They have even aAended a Canadian InternaEonal School where they learnt from a Canadian curriculum taught by Canadian teachers and sang “O Canada” at assemblies. As for the witness who suggested this amendment, I found his tesEmony narrow and troubling. My immigrant parents did not come from OECD countries, and far from being ‘a security risk’, they devoted their working lives to the Canadian civil service, paid their taxes, voted, and brought up two proud Canadian daughters.

We should be open to what a Canadian can look like and think more broadly about how Canadians abroad contribute to Canada. I ask that the CommiAee ponder the connecEon test in that spirit. Kind regards, ChrisEna Matula-Hakli (born in Montreal, raised in OAawa, currently living in Finland)