By: Jim Taylor

The media call them "lost Canadians" -- people who thought they held Canadian citizenship, and discovered that they didn't. Canadian Press estimated their numbers at "from 450 to 50,000 to the hundreds of thousands" -- an estimate so vague as to be almost meaningless.
Only one thing is clear -- a lot of Canadians lost their citizenship without knowing it.
I can understand how it happens. But for the accident of a summer job in a customs office, I would have lost my citizenship too.
I was not born in Canada, you see. In those days, nationality was acquired through fathers and husbands. Both my father and my grandfather had been missionaries in India.
Before 1947, there were no Canadian citizens. The Citizenship Act of 1947 automatically made everyone born in Canada, and their legitimate children, Canadian citizens.
But children born "out of wedlock," and children whose fathers later took another country's citizenship, could lose their birthright.
That summer, I was working as a temporary customs officer at Kingsgate, where Highway 95 crosses the border from Idaho and continues to Banff and Jasper.
One evening, when the flood of summer tourists had slackened after darkness, a senior immigration officer grilled me, for practice.
"Where were you born?" he asked.
"India," I replied.
"So you're a citizen of India," he said.
"Nope," I assured him. "I'm Canadian, because my father is Canadian. As the son of a Canadian citizen, I'm automatically a Canadian citizen."
"Where was your father born?" he persisted.
I saw the gulf yawning open as I replied, "India."
"What makes you think he's Canadian?"
"Because he's the son of a Canadian citizen too," I stumbled.
"Where was his father born?"
I didn't know.
"You," crowed the officer triumphantly, "are nothing but a third-generation British subject! I could turn you back at the border any time I wanted to!"

POLITICAL BIGAMY
It turned out I had just one month to apply for Retention of Canadian Citizenship. The process dragged on for six more months, while my father documented his entries and departures from Canada, and also my grandfather's, over their entire lifetimes of service overseas.
As part of that Retention, I had to renounce any claim to Indian citizenship.
Since the Citizenship Act was revised in 1977, it is possible to hold dual citizenship.
I think that decision was a mistake -- and not just because I had to make a choice, and therefore everyone else should have to do the same.
Dual citizenship strikes me as the political equivalent of bigamy. Or like hedging your bets at the race track.
Many people have dual citizenship. I probably could have dual citizenship myself, if I wanted to. But why would I want to?
I can think of only one answer -- in case one citizenship doesn't work out well for me, I would have the other to fall back on.
So people who have U.S. and Canadian citizenship can escape to Canada if the U.S. attempts to draft them for military service. People with dual Lebanese and Canadian citizenship can get ferried out of a war zone if Israel attacks. Hong Kong residents can transfer their businesses to Canada if China launches another purge.
I'm sure there are also reasons why some Canadians might like to flee to another country, too -- except that as a chauvinistic Canadian I can't think of any.

DIVIDED LOYALTIES
I do not believe it is possible to have divided allegiance to two different countries, any more than I could be faithful to two different wives at the same time. The act of being faithful to one immediately makes me unfaithful to the other.
I say that, knowing that several friends, including some I consider almost part of my family, have dual citizenship. They were born in Canada; they would return to Canada in the blink of an eye; but their careers or spouses took them into the U.S. To avoid constant hassles over Green Cards, etc., they became U.S. citizens.
But should their birth in Canada entitle them to the privileges and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship?
I read, a while ago, about an international flight diverted to a Canadian airport because a woman on board went into labour prematurely. Should her child be entitled to claim Canadian citizenship, 30 or 40 years later?
That may seem far-fetched. But it's not that different from many experiences of "lost Canadians."
Their parents never legally married. Or they emigrated. Under-aged minors were treated as accessories to their parents' decisions.
Because they didn't know they had to apply to retain their citizenship, they lost it.

UNWARRANTED MEDDLING
This may sound harsh, but so they should. Citizenship is not a matter of where one was born, but where one places one's loyalty.
If birthplace were all that mattered, I could be a citizen of India. I could vote in their elections. I could even run for political office.
I may have a sentimental attachment to India. I like Indian food. But I have not lived there for 60 years. For me to meddle in its internal affairs would be unjust, unfair, and insufferably arrogant.
The same, I submit, holds true for those who have spent most of their lives outside Canada.
The 1947 Citizenship Act states: "A person who ceases to be a Canadian citizen. may. in special circumstances with the consent of the Minister. make a declaration that he wishes to resume Canadian citizenship and he shall thereupon become a Canadian citizen."
Although the Act was changed in 1977, the original provisions continue to apply to persons born before 1977.
In theory, federal Citizenship minister Diane Finley could, with a single signature, restore citizenship to all who lost it because of their parents' choices.
She has not done that -- yet -- and I hope she doesn't. Restoration of citizenship should not be automatic.
*****************************************
Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
*****************************************