“It is unconstitutional, un-Canadian,” Somayeh Bahrami said of the implementation of Bill C-24, also know as the “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act.”

An MA graduate of the Department of Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies currently pursuing her PhD degree at SFU, Brahami strongly believes that this new bill will not only affect all immigrants wishing to call Canada their home, but all Canadian citizens.

According to Citizenship and Immigration, Bill C-24 — which was passed as a law in the summer of 2014 and came into effect last week — will implement new amendments on the acquirement of citizenship for new Canadians. It will make citizenship tests and residency requirements more difficult to attain.

The bill also aims to make it easier for the government to revoke the citizenship of individuals that they suspect of terrorism or fraud. Citizenship could be revoked if it is believed to have been obtained by “false representation, fraud, or by knowingly concealing material circumstances.” It could be revoked from dual citizens for having been convicted of treason or terrorism in another country, or for having served in armed forces that have been in conflict with Canada.

Bahrami explained that the amendments also categorize Canadians as “first” and “second-class” citizens depending on their origin and if they happen to be a citizen of another country. This will affect the “second-class” citizens in that the government will have full control over their citizenship and can exercise power to revoke it for different matters.

“The government did not even integrate the [concerns of the citizens] about this bill,” Bahrami said.

“Bill C-24 has redefined narratives of citizenship and what it means to be Canadian, and what can be seen as an ‘exemplary’ Canadian,” she said. “No matter how long you live here, or if you call Canada home, you are still not Canadian enough, because you are a citizen of another country. Or, you could be eligible for another citizenship without you knowing.” 

Bahrami believes that the new amendments validate the negative rhetoric about immigrants and Canadians of dual citizenship, propagating the stereotype that they apply for Canadian citizenship for their own convenience and do not contribute to the Canadian society.

One of the concerning clauses of the new bill is that it could revoke one’s citizenship if they are convicted of terrorism charges in another country. “Terrorism is subjective in definition,” argued Bahrami. “The definition of ‘terrorist’ in one country could mean a recognized right in another.

“What is the possibility of an individual who happens to be a dual citizen of Canada would turn out to be a terrorist?” She asked. “There is an agreement on punishing whoever does any criminal activity, [. . .] but it is not right to punish them by revoking their citizenship.”

She believes that it is the responsibility of academia to reach out to the student body and be sure they are informed, are knowledgeable, and on board with what is going on. “We are all in this together,” Brahami insisted. “This bill affects us all in both the short and long term. [. . .] It is impacting the whole narrative of citizenship and identity.

“It is not just about citizenship — it is our basic human right of mobility, of being able to hold different citizenships, to be able to be seen as good individuals who would want to contribute the Canadian society, and to be viewed as equal Canadians,” she concluded.

SFU researcher and MA student Adam Baker is producing experimental research in psychology on stereotypes — partially due to his pursuit of an interdisciplinary degree in cognitive science and political science.

Using state-of-the-art neurological monitoring devices such as electroencephalography (EEG) recordings of electrical activity along the scalp, Baker monitors test subjects’ reactions to words that stereotype a certain group or gender. This is done to invoke an “implicit bias,” which Baker says “can be interpreted as the process in which the brain stores and retrieves semantic associations in memory.”

Baker began as a physics undergraduate at Vancouver Island University, later switching to psychology with a focus in neuroscience, and working as research assistant at the Universities of Victoria and Montreal.

He chose neuroscience partly due to his fascination and respect for the brain as “a resilient fighter,” an organ that might “[lose] its way [or] become injured, but it always tries its best to simply do its job.”

Now at SFU as a member of the Laboratory for Affective and Developmental Neuroscience, Baker conducts research on the reasons we stereotype. His focus is on groups of people separated by polarizing differences, such as those with differing religious beliefs or political affiliations, to determine whether they have tendencies to stereotype and conceal their biases more than control groups.

Baker’s current trials examine gender stereotypes among those with conservative or liberal political orientations. “Subjects were shown word pairs that consisted of a gender category followed by a target word or non-trait stereotypically associated with one of the gender categories,” explained Baker.

Target words like ‘nurturing,’ and ‘aggressive,’ or items like ‘cigar’ or ‘lipstick,’ were some of the words used for his gender stereotype study.

Although the data is far from conclusive, Baker has been able to draw associations between subjects “that had to exert greater cognitive effort to override these associations,” suggesting that some groups “reply on their gut responses, [whereas others may have conflicting] negativities suggesting more deliberate processing of semantic associations.”

The reactions revealed an implicit bias toward the word being presented to certain subjects. By identifying the existence of these implicit biases, and that groups separated by ideology, religion, or politics have fundamentally different biases, Baker can draw conclusions as to why opposite groups have difficulty with communication and compromising on contentious issues.

Baker is working to prove that the reason why long political debates, spanning decades between opposite sides of the spectru, resulting in no progress is not because of their conscious unwillingness for compromise, but because of different moral conclusions drawn due to their implicit biases. If his hypothesis is true, the need for “new methods of investigating discrimination and intergroup bias” will no longer be just a plan for the future, but a policy for the present.

He explained that this deeper understanding of the link between a group’s psychological biases and political opinions has the potential to increase “our effectiveness to raise public consciousness of social inequality and bias.”