2. Canada
Life expectancy: 81.9 years
GDP per capita: $45,600
Health expenditure: 10.4% of GDP
Education expenditure: 5.3% of GDP
Recently, a citizen of Richmond (British Columbia) launched an online petition asking the government to abolish birthright citizenship. The petition’s writer claims that jus soli “enables an abusive and exploitative practice often called ‘Birth Tourism”, which imposes a financial burden on Canada’s taxpayers. So far 8,886 Canadians have signed the document. On the other side, NGO warns that stories about the prevalence of birth tourism are overblown and that in reality there are a handful of women coming to Canada just to deliver a baby. How officials will respond to growing calls for changing existing laws remains to be seen.
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