Waking Up Canadian

[Rich Parsons]

From this link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993183347727843.html?mod=yhoofront

Thanks to a new law, Canada will bestow citizenship Friday on what its government believes could be hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans.
The April 17 amendment to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically restores Canadian nationality to many people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country. It also grants citizenship to their children.
...

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Will a tax bill come with the formal notice?

 

[arnisador]

It could happen to any one of us! :uhoh:

 

[Cryozombie]

I wanna wake up Irish.

Actually, I believe do to somthing similar over there I can...

 

[Scott T]

From this link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993183347727843.html?mod=yhoofront

It also added a lot of restrictions for 'citizens of convenience'. Those folks who have no ties to this country but hold citizenship due to the old grandfather rules.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jLCjGfJlAIx9hrR8sQwP4Zw_lKQA

 

[Deaf Smith]

I hear Russia wants to claim a share of the Arctic for oil and thus maybe soon they will clash with Canada. Can it be Canada needs to expand their military, but with National Health Care and other socialistic spending, they need more citizens. So they sort of draft them with this 'duel citizen' thing.

I mean, when you are short of money and the Russian Bear wants to play in your back yard, what do you do?

Deaf

 

[Gordon Nore]

I hear Russia wants to claim a share of the Arctic for oil and thus maybe soon they will clash with Canada. Can it be Canada needs to expand their military, but with National Health Care and other socialistic spending, they need more citizens. So they sort of draft them with this 'duel citizen' thing.

I don't think it's as conspiratorial as all that.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/rules.asp

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/backgrounders/2007/2007-12-10.asp

The 1947 Act, for example:

• Treated people born abroad after 1946 to Canadian parents differently, depending on whether their parents were married. They could be made citizens directly only if they were born in wedlock to a Canadian father or out of wedlock to a Canadian mother.
• Restricted access to dual citizenship. If you were Canadian (whether or not you were born in Canada) and took out citizenship in another country between 1947 and 1977, you automatically lost your Canadian citizenship. Yet other people who were dual citizens from birth were allowed to hold both citizenships.
• Caused children to lose their citizenship automatically if their parents took out another citizenship on their behalf.
• Had rules governing how you could lose citizenship. A person who immigrated to Canada and became a Canadian citizen (a naturalized citizen) could lose their citizenship if they lived outside Canada for 10 years. Yet such rules didn’t apply to citizens born in Canada.
• Required Canadian citizens born outside Canada to Canadian parents, and living outside Canada on their 24th birthday, to file documents to keep their citizenship.
• Required Canadian parents to register the birth of a child born abroad with the citizenship department, even if the birth was just across the border in the closest hospital. Children whose births were not registered were not Canadian citizens.

All of these issues would be addressed with the proposed legislation.

This just tidies up a lot of old legislation. For instance, my paternal grandmother unknowingly gave up her citizenship when she married my grandfather. She didn't discover this until some forty years later when she applied for a loan -- the first time she'd ever borrowed money. The matter was quickly corrected.