BEIRUT: The Canadian government is due to revoke the citizenship of some Lebanese, who have obtained their citizenship in fraudulent ways and have intentionally misrepresented their residence in the country, a government official said Wednesday.

“The Government of Canada is in the process of revoking the citizenship of approximately 2,000 citizens including some Lebanese,” Jack Branswell, an officer at the Citizenship and Immigration Department of Canada told The Daily Star.

According to Branswell, the Canadian government is taking steps to revoke citizenship from those who have obtained it fraudulently by misrepresenting their residence in Canada while continuing to live abroad most of the time.

The Canadian official also said that the full strength of Canadian law will be applied on those individuals, stressing that “the Canadian citizenship is not for sale.”

Several media reports in Ottawa have said that after a lengthy investigation by police and the department of Citizenship and Immigration, letters have been sent to hundreds of Canadians telling them that the government intends to revoke their citizenship.

However, Branswell refused to elaborate on the number of the Lebanese nationals whose citizenship is due to be revoked by the government.

“The Department of Citizenship and Immigration is significantly ramping up its revocation efforts after reallocating resources to work on citizenship investigation and revocation,” said Branswell, adding that the government will now issue about 40 notices of intent to revoke citizenship each month.

There are around 160,000 Canadians of Lebanese origin in Canada, with most of them living in the Eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

But according to official statistics made by the Canadian government, almost half of the Lebanese Canadians were born outside Canada.

Among the 2,000 Canadians whose citizenship is about to be revoked, some of them are believed to have used special consultants who helped them submit fraudulent applications for citizenship without being qualified for it.

In July, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that the government would work to end the immigration fraud.

“For those who simply touch down and try to get a Canadian passport as a … passport of convenience, who don’t pay our taxes but who do consume our social benefits, I think that dishonorable,” Kenney told reporters.

But several other media reports said that the Canadian government’s investigation on immigration fraud by Lebanese advanced greatly following its evacuation of thousands of Lebanese Canadians during the July 2006 war. Almost 13,000 Canadians were evacuated onboard marine ships from Lebanon at the height of the war.

However, Branswell denied that the issue was linked to the evacuations and to its economic costs on the Canadian government at the time.