National Post: Thousands of ‘Lost Canadians’ struggling to achieve citizenship stuck in legal quagmire

Don Chapman is the leader of
The Lost Canadians. Photo: National Post

There are an estimated 37,000 people born to a Canadian parent who worked, paid taxes, voted, raised families of their own inside the country, but lack citizenship

Click here to read original article on the National Post online

It was a remarkable exchange, caught on tape. Jason Kenney, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, was confronted in June by a 67-year-old woman to whom his department had denied citizenship, thanks to circumstances surrounding her birth. Circumstances that were not extraordinary.

Jackie Scott was born out of wedlock in England, to a Canadian soldier and his British lover, just before the Second World War had ended. She is a war bride child. Canada has thousands of them.

She moved with her parents to this country in 1948. Her father and mother were married in Toronto later that year and they remained together until her father died in 1995.

Ms. Scott only learned she lacked Canadian citizenship a few years ago. She’s been trying to rectify things ever since, with no luck, and with little help from Mr. Kenney and his department. Her case is now in federal court.

She seized the opportunity to put herself directly in front of the minister when he appeared at an event close to her home in South Surrey, B.C.. The confrontation was recorded by the Vancouver Observer, an online news source.

Why, Ms. Scott asked, was the government still denying citizenship to certain children born to Canadian veterans of the Second World War?

Those soldiers weren’t citizens themselves, Mr. Kenney replied. Prior to 1947, there were no Canadian citizens at all. Canadians who served, fought and died in the two world wars were British subjects, he noted.

“They’re heroes, the Canadians [who served overseas],” Mr. Kenney said in his exchange with Ms. Scott. But “they were not legally Canadian citizens. They didn’t have citizenship. They were [British] subjects … They would have regarded themselves as subjects. Everyone was.”

This may come as news to most Canadians. Mr. Kenney may be technically correct when he says there was no such thing in law as a Canadian citizen prior to 1947. On the other hand, there were a hodgepodge of ambiguous definitions about statehood written into conflicting pieces of federal legislation; that is until the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947 was passed. It removed any doubt that Canadians could be considered citizens of their own country.

Unfortunately, the act created other difficulties. War babies born abroad such as Ms. Scott were overlooked. So were children born in wedlock to Canadian women and foreign nationals, such as Americans.

There are an estimated 37,000 people such as Ms. Scott — women and men born to a Canadian parent who worked, paid taxes, voted, raised families of their own inside the country, but lack citizenship.

They are the remaining Lost Canadians, people stuck in stateless limbo thanks to legal oversights that Mr. Kenney himself has described as bizarre.

Until recently, they numbered close to one million. In 2009, federal politicians passed Bill C-37, the legislation that solved citizenship conundrums for 95% of the Lost Canadians.

But the laws remain a confusing obstacle for the remaining 5%. Many of Canada’s own lawmakers can’t decipher the amended act, let alone recognize its flaws, says Don Chapman, a Vancouver-area resident. Born in Canada and raised in the United States, Mr. Chapman lost his citizenship as a child, when his father became an American. He launched his long battle for Lost Canadians after discovering his own peculiar state of limbo.

Mr. Chapman spent the last 10 years pushing politicians to solve the citizenship riddle. Bill C-37 was a major victory, he says. Thousands of Canadian-born “kids” like him were finally granted citizenship. But things “were left undone,” he says. “There are thousands of people still not recognized, and that’s just wrong … It’s not just war babies, either. It’s possible for immigrants who were naturalized in Canada to have more rights in citizenship law than some Canadian-born Canadians.”

—-

Mr. Chapman takes issue with the notion, promulgated by Minister Kenney, that Canadian citizenship didn’t even exist before 1947. There were myriad references to “citizens of Canada,” written into legal decisions and in statements made by politicians, long before the original Citizenship Act was passed, he notes.

This week, for example, Mr. Chapman and others working on behalf of Lost Canadians uncovered a 1938 Supreme Court of Canada decision that describes a case involving a “Canadian citizen,” specifically a woman of Chinese ethnicity born in B.C. The Supreme Court affirmed the woman’s “citizenship.”

Such cases are “astonishing discoveries,” according to Mr. Chapman. “The Supreme Court did not merely ‘talk’ about Canadian citizens and citizenship, but decided the cases based on these terms.”

Jackie Scott may rely on some of those references. She has filed applications for judicial review in federal court, asking that her own case be resuscitated. She claims she was “forced” to take out U.S. citizenship — her husband is American — after she was denied a Canadian citizenship certificate in 2005.

In 2008, she says, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) officials formally invited her to seek a “special grant of citizenship,” a discretionary tool offered to certain individuals; it requires federal Cabinet approval. Ms. Scott says her application was subsequently turned down.

She was encouraged by CIC officials to apply for the special grant again in 2010, she says. Her application was denied a second time. “It does seem ludicrous, doesn’t it?” says Ms. Scott. “I was invited both times by the department to apply for the special grant.”

If there are good reasons for Ms. Scott to be denied citizenship, the government isn’t willing to discuss them. “Such grants are made on a case-by-case basis by the Governor in Council,” a CIC spokeswoman told the National Post. “CIC receives on average approximately 10 requests for a discretionary grant of citizenship per month and the vast majority of these cases are approved. The overall approval rate for discretionary grants of citizenship (which includes cases of ‘lost Canadians’) is approximately 92%.”

Why not simply fix inherent problems with the amended Citizenship Act? Minister Kenney has acknowledged its shortcomings, and has explained that more legislation is coming “very shortly” to correct the situation. “We’re looking for a legislative solution to that particular problem and hope to come forward with that later this year,” he said in April.

His department could not say when an announcement might be coming.

National Post

Vancouver Observer: Kafkaesque bureaucracy denies citizenship to legitimate Canadians

Photo of Canadian flags in Ottawa via Paguma on Flickr. From Vancouver Observer

Jackie Scott and Linda Missal De Cock have collectively lived in Canada for over a century. Scott, the daughter of a war bride and Canadian soldier, arrived in Canada from England in 1948, and resided here for 57 years. De Cock, meanwhile, has lived in Canada for 69 out of 70 years. The women, living on opposite ends of the country, went to school, married, and carved a life out for themselves in Canada.


Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

But bizarrely -- even as Canada accepts 250,000 new immigrant Canadians a year -- government has denied such individuals citizenship.

They are among the "Lost Canadians," a group of Canadians who have been denied or stripped of citizenship by federal government due to legal technicalities. While the majority of these cases have been resolved through the 2009 Bill C-37, An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act, some people are waiting years to receive the same citizenship papers that others -- such as Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar -- was granted within weeks. 

Lost Canadians: from citizens into refugees

"Canada's doing everything completely backwards," Lost Canadians advocate Don Chapman commented on the issue.

"The objective is to turn immigrants and refugees into Canadian citizens -- not the other way around."

Chapman, who was born in Canada to Canadian parents, has experienced the same situation that he sees others go through today. An airline pilot, Chapman is as Canadian as people come: his great-grandfather was one of the Fathers of Confederation, and the Chapman Learning Commons at the UBC Library is named after Chapman's father, Dr. Lloyd Chapman.

Yet he was among some over 200,000 Canadians who were denied citizenship due to outdated laws -- some still being enforced by the government -- which treats women and children as property of their husband or father.

After years of advocating, Chapman proved that there were tens of thousands of cases like his own and helped push through Bill C-37. But it was an incomplete solution, he said, which inexplicably excluded people born prior to 1947, while creating a whole new category of stateless Lost Canadians born abroad.

Chapman often receives distressed calls and emails from people from Canada and around the world who believed themselves Canadian citizens and recently discovered that they may not be. In some cases, children born abroad since 2009 to a Canadian parent are stateless, causing significant troubles for their families. Without citizenship, passports and travel documents, as well as health insurance and pensions, become difficult or downright impossible to obtain. 


CBC report on Lost Canadians who remained stateless after Bill C-37

A "flaw" in the Canadian citizenship system?
In Chapman's view, there is a "fundamental flaw" in the system to deal with citizenship issues in Canada, and it's causing headaches for long-term Canadians who have long contributed to the country.
 

"I've had military people on this (Lost Canadians) boat," Chapman said. "I've had people say, 'If I'd known that Canada would do this to me, I would have never volunteered to be in the military.' And why would you?"

One particularly sad case, he noted, was Guy Valllière, a Quebec-born and raised former soldier who went to serve in the Second World War.

In 2006, authorities told him that he no longer had citizenship, and was therefore ineligible for health care coverage.

"I had every possible piece of ID imaginable, such as a SIN card, a Canadian birth certificate, the names of my brothers and sisters and my father's papers—in short everything that the Régie de l'assurance-maladie (health insurance authority) was requesting," he pleaded with the government in 2007.

"Yet, I was denied coverage and asked to provide proof of my citizenship. I am at a loss to understand... I feel like a nobody, worse than an immigrant or even a terrorist."

Valllière died in 2009, without Canadian citizenship.

Bill Doobenen, a Canadian-born former Air Force member and engineer, encountered similar treatment as authorities tried to deport both he and his wife in 2008. He still remembers how he -- a legitimate Canadian -- was forced to apply for refugee status to Canada, then nearly deported.

Doobenen didn't know it at the time, but when he took out US citizenship due to requirements in his workplace in California, he automatically lost his Canadian citizenship status (dual citizenship came into effect in 1977). When he and his wife came back to Canada for retirement, they were told they were no longer Canadian citizens. At a loss for how to get back into Canada, they applied for refugee status and were later rejected. 

"We went to Vancouver for a court appearance, they turned us down, which is okay, but we asked them, 'What now?' and they said, 'Nothing. You just revert to visitor's status.' What they didn't tell me was that there's a very well-hidden clause in the immigration laws that after you apply for refugee status and are refused, you must leave the country in two weeks. We didn't know that, and they didn't tell us. The judge never told us any of that," he said.

The fact that Doobenen was Canadian-born, that he had worked in the Air Force and, after having been honourably discharged, was technically on military reserve to Canada for the rest of his life, and had built a home in Canada -- none of that seemed to matter.

Although Doobenen has citizenship today as a result of Chapman's intervention, his wife remains a US citizen. Despite applying for permanent residency years ago, she has yet to receive an answer. As a result of his experience, his trust in Canadian citizenship and immigration officials was deeply compromised, to the point that he wonders today if he was "set up" by officials for deportation.

In response toThe Vancouver Observer's question about why even people who served in the Canadian military were among the Lost Canadian cases, BC-based Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) communications advisor Danielle Vlemmiks gave the following response from Ottawa:   

"Any permanent resident living in Canada is welcome to apply for citizenship if they feel they meet the requirements. Individuals who are not citizens but who feel they have experienced undue hardship or made a exceptional contribution to Canada may apply to CIC for a discretionary grant of citizenship."

But this poses a particular problem for seniors. People who are retired generally don't qualify as immigrant Canadians. Although CIC maintains that grants of citizenship are assessed individually and on a priority basis, Chapman says that Lost Canadians apply and get turned down.

Scott, the daughter of a Canadian soldier, has been rejected several times over the last eight years, mainly because she was born prior to 1947 out of wedlock. This made her, according to now-outdated laws of the time, property of her mother.

It didn't matter that her parents married shortly after and legitimized her upon arrival in Canada. For federal authorities in 2005 and afterward, what counted was that Scott's mother didn't have a marriage certificate at the time of her birth. Nothing that Scott can do or say today can change this.

When the latest rejection letter came back stating that she was ineligible because her father -- an Ontario-born Canadian soldier -- was not a citizen at the time (1945), she decided to take the federal government to court.

A "dysfunctional" citizenship committee

Critics say the problem is that citizenship authorities themselves appear not to fully understand the issue, making calls that seem inconsistent with the laws in place.

Scott, for example, was "legitimized" by her parents as a young child under the Ontario Legitimacy Act. When asked why her legitimation wasn't taken into account, Citizenship and Immigration Canada briefly responded:

"Please contact the Province of Ontario for more information about this Act. Citizenship and Immigration is a federal department, so it abides by federal, not provincial, laws."

Yet a quick glance at the Citizenship Act today shows defines a "child" as follows:

    "child” « enfant »

    “child” includes a child adopted or legitimized in accordance with the laws of the place where the adoption or legitimation took place;

Chapman says this is a clear example of how the government either misreads its own laws, or chooses to ignore them. By law, he said, Jackie Scott and others like her should already be Canadian citizens.

"For (the ministry) to ignore this argument that certain people who were legitimized have no claim, I think, is contrary to how we are actually presenting their position according to current law," commented Donald Galloway, a University of Victoria professor who specializes in immigration, refugee and citizenship law.  

Liberal citizenship critic Kevin Lamoureux knows that the citizenship problem is ongoing. 

"Part of the problem is that the citizenship committee is kind of dysfunctional," he said.

"I was in the provincial legislature, and I know what accountability is in terms of questions and answers. If you're aware of how Ottawa works in its committee -- it's a joke."

In committee, a limit of five minutes is given question and answer -- not nearly enough time to address a complex and multi-faceted issue like the Lost Canadians. A transcript of a question and answer between Kenney and Lamoureux in May shows the short, vague exchanges that appear to be typical of conversations surrounding the remaining Lost Canadians.

Lamoureux asks if any part of the budget has been allocated to address the remaining Lost Canadians who were left out by the "flawed" 2009 legislation, requesting that Kenney keep his reply under 30 seconds.

Kenney retorts that the bill was not flawed, and that the majority of cases has in fact been resolved. He says an increase in resources has been made to resolve the issue, but offers no numbers in response to Lamoureux' inquiry.

Conservative MP John Weston then follows up to say that the Lost Canadians are a "big priority" for Kenney. But the question of how or when the remaining or new cases of Lost Canadians remains unanswered as the committee moves to other topics.

Chapman expressed alarm that when he explains the Lost Canadians to people within the Citizenship committee, many are stumped about the issue and unaware of its details.

"They're making the decisions, and they don't even know their own portfolio," he said.

Foreseeable problems to Bill C-37

One of the recurring statements from the government is that the Lost Canadians issue at large is a result of unforeseen circumstances.

"We're looking for a legislative solution to that particular problem and hope to come forward with that later this year," Kenney told The Huffington Post in May.

"It's very sad. And it wasn't malice on the part of the government or anyone, it was just unforeseen consequences of legislation."

Critics, however, say that the problems were foreseeable, and that they had warned of trouble at the time. Chapman says that Minister Kenney has ignored his repeated requests to discuss the problems since he became Citizenship Minister in 2008.

"When the legislative battle was going on, a number of people had appeared before the committee at that stage. I went along just to say this is an unsatisfactory solution to the problem, and that it's not going to go away," Galloway said.

"For some reason, at the time, they were just bull-headed about it. It was like, someone created a solution and it was good enough to quiet the political noise that was going on about this issue."

"But Don (Chapman) was saying chickens are going to come home to roost here -- and many of us agreed with him. They knew all along that there was going to be problems."

A disagreement on Canadian "citizenship"

Although Kenney's office maintains that the issue is not a political one, one of its repeated statements is that the Conservatives passed legislation on the issue whereas the Liberals and the NDP did not.

A major point of contention is whether Canadian citizenship existed prior to the Citizenship Act of 1947. The government maintains that citizenship only came into being after the Citizenship Act, meaning that no one -- including Canadian soldiers who died during the First and Second World War -- was legally a citizen prior to the year 1947 (people who had survived would, in general, become citizens automatically after that date).

When Scott asked the Minister about the issue in May, his response was that Canadian soldiers during the Second World War were "obviously not" citizens at the time. Even though her father received documents during the war stating that he was a "citizen" fighting for Canada, the government's stance is that the use of the term (even by government) didn't have official legal meaning.

"While Canadian citizenship didn’t exist prior to 1947, it is common usage to refer to people who were living here then as 'citizens', even though in law they would have been considered 'British subjects,'" Vlemmiks wrote in an email to The Vancouver Observer.

In later correspondence, the office also stated:

"It is factually incorrect to state that Minister Kenney and/or the government  have held any sort of stance on this issue for years, as this is a matter of how the law is written, not anyone’s personal opinion or policy."

Advocates for Lost Canadians born prior to 1947, however, disagree, saying it is a political decision to close off citizenship to certain people.

They point out that Supreme Court documents dating from the 1940s also used the term "citizens" to discuss the deportation of Japanese Canadians. 

One document, written by an author of the Canadian constitution, is being used as evidence to support the claim that Canada did have "citizens" well before that date.

Excerpt from The Encyclopedia of Canada (1940), written by
Canadian Constitutional expert W.P.M. Kennedy.

Technicalities aside, advocates wonder why individuals with a proven Canadian parent, who have spent decades in Canada, married Canadian citizens and in some cases even served in the military, continue to face years of bureaucracy in the bid to obtain citizenship.

Backlog of citizenship applications

Until the Lost Canadians issue is legally resolved, the only recourse for individuals who remain excluded is to apply for a discretionary grant.

"Anyone who has been living in Canada most of their life and has the mistaken belief that they are a Canadian citizen, may be eligible for a discretionary grant of citizenship," Citizenship and Immigration advised.

But the backlog of citizenship applications -- estimated at 270,000 applications as of last December -- may delay that process considerably.

"The backlog is one of the most shameful stories that has been under-represented in the media," Galloway said. According to CIC, it currently takes 20 months for the office to get through just 80 per cent of the  applications.

"It's a bureaucracy that is clearly understaffed," Galloway said. "It just takes so long that people are left in limbo. It's egregious and unacceptable."

For Lost Canadians like Scott, the years required to become a citizen like the rest of her family have become too long to wait.

With file from Beth Hong

Toronto Star: Conrad Black wants say at Order of Canada hearing

Disgraced former media baron Conrad Black insists he shouldn’t be stripped of his Order of Canada without being able to personally defend himself.

Click here to read original article in the Toronto Star.

The convicted felon has gone to Federal Court seeking to give his side of the story in front of an advisory panel considering whether he should remain an officer of the Order of Canada, CBC reports.

The panel has told Black that he will not be allowed to make his case in person.

Black’s Order of Canada is reportedly under review in light of his 2007 fraud and obstruction of justice convictions in the United States. The former head of Hollinger International was released from a Florida prison earlier this year after serving 37 months.

Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin is chairing the 11-member advisory panel and will report back to Governor General David Johnston after reviewing Black’s file.

If Black is stripped of his Order of Canada, he will join only four other Canadians who have had their honours revoked, including former NHL Players’ Association head Alan Eagleson.

Click here to read original article in the Toronto Star. 

Globe and Mail: Conrad Black asks for a say in Order of Canada hearing

Almost a year after Conrad Black learned that he could lose his Order of Canada, the former media baron has gone to court to force the council reviewing his membership to hear him in person.

Click here to read original article in the Globe and Mail.

His membership in the order is in jeopardy because he had to serve a 42-month prison sentence in the United States for fraud and obstruction of justice.

In an application his lawyers filed Monday in Federal Court, Mr. Black said his case is too complex to be argued only through written arguments.

Conrad Black receives the
Order of Canada
from governor general
Ray Hnatyshyn in 1990.

He asked for an oral hearing before the Advisory Council of the Order, the 11-person panel which governs membership to the country’s highest civilian honour.

“The facts relating to the issue of terminating the applicant’s appointment to the Order of Canada are complex and lengthy and cannot be appropriately dealt with in written submissions only,” the application said.

“Moreover, given that the relevant facts will engage issues of credibility and prompt questions from the Advisory Council, the principles of fairness make an oral hearing necessary.”

The court filing reveals that Mr. Black was first notified that the council was considering terminating his honour in a July 20, 2011, letter.

The application says Mr. Black asked in August of 2011 to have an oral hearing but was only told through a letter from the council’s secretary general last Friday, on July 6, that his request was denied.

“No reasons were provided for the decision. A request for reconsideration of this decision was denied without reasons.”

Mr. Black was made an officer of the order in 1990.

Along his efforts to regain Canadian citizenship, Mr. Black’s efforts to keep the honour has been one of the contentious issues dogging him since his release from jail on May 4.

Mr. Black wore his Order of Canada pin when he gave a speech at Toronto’s Empire Club of Canada last month, his first public talk since he has been back in the country.

The order’s advisory council can recommend that the order be revoked should a member be convicted of a crime or act in “significant departure” from regularly acceptable behaviour.

However, Mr. Black has repeatedly argued that he was a victim of overzealous American prosecutors and that he could never have been convicted in a similar fashion in Canada.

“It is my counsel’s and my contention that such an intensely Canadian matter as the holding of this country’s highest civilian honour should be determined by the application of Canadian legal standards,” he wrote in a column last March.

Mr. Black was convicted in Chicago in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice over the misappropriation of money at the newspaper giant Hollinger International Inc.

Because he had given up his Canadian citizenship to sit in the House of Lords in Britain, he needed a one-year temporary-resident permit, to fly back to Canada on May 4 after being released from a Florida prison.

CBC Conrad Black asks for Order of Canada hearing

(As reported by CBC News): Former media baron Conrad Black has gone to Federal Court, seeking to be allowed to give his side of the story in front of an advisory council looking into whether he should be allowed to remain an officer of the Order of Canada.

Click here to read original article on Yahoo! News

The advisory council told Black last month that he would not be allowed to make his case to the council at an oral hearing.

Black's 1990 appointment to the Order of Canada is under review because of fraud and obstruction of justice convictions related to his tenure as head of the Hollinger newspaper empire. Black served 37 months in a Florida prison for those crimes and was released earlier this year.

A jury had found him guilty in 2007 of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice and acquitted him on nine other charges, including mail fraud, wire fraud, racketeering and tax fraud. An appeals court later overturned two of his fraud convictions, but allowed a single fraud conviction and the obstruction of justice conviction to stand.

The regulations say the council shall consider "the termination of a person's appointment to the Order of Canada if the person has been convicted of a criminal offence."

In a court filing, Black's lawyers are asking for a judicial review of the council's decision not to grant him an oral hearing.
"The facts relating to the issue of terminating the applicant's appointment to the Order of Canada are complex and lengthy and cannot be appropriately dealt with in written submissions only," reads the filing. "Only an oral hearing will ensure that the recommendation of the advisory council is based on 'evidence and guided by principles of fairness.'"
According to the rules governing the termination process, a person whose appointment is being reviewed has the right to "make representations in writing or as the secretary general may authorize." There is no specific mention of the right to an oral hearing.
The 11-member council, which is chaired by Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, is reviewing Black's case and will make a recommendation to Gov. Gen. David Johnston.
Appointment as an officer of the Order of Canada is meant to recognize "a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree, especially in service to Canada or to humanity at large."
Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 to accept a peerage in the British House of Lords. While in prison, he applied for and was granted a temporary resident permit from Canada, which would allow him to live in the country until May 2013. He has said he wants to regain his Canadian citizenship.

Click here to read original article on Yahoo! News

Toronto Sun: Second World War not over for would-be Canadian

By Peter Worthington ,QMI Agency
 
It’s pretty hard to believe that Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney would tell the daughter of a Canadian war veteran in Vancouver that her father, who was born in Canada and had never set foot out of the country until it asked him to go to war, was not, in fact, a Canadian citizen but a British subject. Insulting, degrading ... and wrong.

 Click here to read original article in the Toronto Sun

This is a theme Kenney and Citizenship and Immigration (CIC) have been pushing for some time. It’s not just a slip of the tongue or a misunderstanding, but a considered view to which the government is apparently committed.

Or, as Jason Kenney told Jackie Scott, who confronted him: “(Soldiers) are heroes, but at the time they were British subjects.” He said prior to 1947 there was no such thing as a “Canadian” citizen.

Some eight years ago when Jackie Scott was denied a Canadian passport, she was told she was not Canadian — despite working here, paying taxes, voting, having children and grandchildren who are Canadian. She was born out of wedlock in Britain to a Canadian soldier and a British mother, who married after Jackie’s birth and came to Canada.

Jackie never had doubts that she was a citizen, until CIC told her she wasn’t. Jason Kenney elaborated that none of the Canadian soldiers killed in First and Second World Wars — more than 100,000 killed in Canada’s name, including 3,598 at Vimy Ridge — were citizens. They were British subjects.

Why, in the name of sanity, is Prime Minister Stephen Harper letting such nonsense be disseminated by his government? He’s got to know it is wrong, yet he tolerates abuse to the memories of Canadians killed in war — as symbolized by the continuing meanness to Jackie Scott and hundreds like her who think they are Canadian but are ensnared in bureaucratic red tape that denies them citizenship.

While feeling hurt and abandoned, Jackie Scott is more outraged that her father is being discredited. We should all feel indignant. A couple of months ago I confronted Jason Kenney with Jackie Scott’s case, and he implied that it, and others like it, would be resolved in the near future. One wonders. What is inexplicable is how he and CIC apparatchiks have the nerve to say there was no such thing as a Canadian citizen before 1947 — a curious magic date.

Under the British North America Act in 1867, Canada became a separate country, and citizenship was determined by the father, including “married women, minors, lunatics and idiots.” Children born in wedlock were considered property (and nationality) of the father; out of wedlock, property of the mother. That was then, this is now.

Some aspects of Canada’s sloppy Citizenship Act were corrected in 2009, but up to 5% have slipped through the cracks and are still denied citizenship. Jason Kenney knows this, but still has the effrontery to say that Canadians who went to war were not Canadian citizens.

Like Second World War veteran Guy Valliere who died a stateless “Lost Canadian” because CIC never got around to his case, Jackie Scott fears that at age 66 she’ll be dead before she’s confirmed a genuine Canadian like the rest of her family. I rather like Jason Kenney, but refusing to recognize Canadian citizenship prior to 1947 reveals an unforgivable flaw. For God’s sake, do the right thing for a change.

Click here to read original article in the Toronto Sun

Vancouver Observor: Jason Kenney tells war veteran daughter: soldiers were "heroes," but not Canadian citizens

Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney told Jackie Scott, the daughter of a Canadian war veteran, that her father – and others serving the country – technically weren't Canadian at the time they were fighting for their country.

Click to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

"(Soldiers) are heroes, but at the time, they're British subjects," Kenney said firmly, before explaining that there was no such thing as a Canadian citizen prior to 1947. He told Scott that her Ontario-born father was "clearly not, obviously not" a citizen during World War II.

"There was no citizenship before 1947," he reiterated, before breaking off the conversation.

Scott is one of the  "Lost Canadians" – a group of legitimate Canadians who have a Canadian parent and have spent most of their lives in Canada, only to be denied or excluded from citizenship due to legal loopholes. Scott was told by Citizenship and Immigration Canada this year that she did not qualify for Canadian citizenship because her Canadian war veteran father was a "British subject" at the time of her birth, and not a Canadian citizen. In her previous applications, she was rejected due to the fact that she was born out of wedlock in the UK, even though her parents married shortly after her birth and "legitimized" her upon coming to Canada.

"You've forced me to go to court over this issue," Scott told Kenney, referring to the lawsuit filed earlier this year against the Canadian government.

"I'm sorry," Kenney responded, explaining that her situation was caused by old laws of the time and not by any deliberate intent on the government's part.

Scott, along with others, have been urging government to correct those 'old laws' for years. Even though Kenney appeared not to have recognized her, Scott believes her name (and back story) may be familiar to him from articles written about her in media.

"I introduced myself as Jacqueline, and he called me Jackie," she observed after the exchange.
She believes that despite Kenney's claims to the contrary, Canadian citizenship did exist prior to 1947, and has many documents -- including materials handed to her father prior to battle and entries in the Encyclopedia of Canada (1940 ed.) -- clearly defining Canadian citizenship.

Lost Canadian confrontation with Kenney

Scott was emotional as she confronted the Minister at his table at a speaking event about immigration in Surrey last week. She had spent most of the past decade agonizing over her citizenship, and here was the head of the ministry that kept rejecting her appeals, sitting at the table beside hers.

The Minister came to speak to audiences about fast-tracking immigration for young people who had studied and worked in Canada for two years or more. Scott, meanwhile, had lived in Canada for over 50 years and has Canadian children. She is the only one in her family who remains a non-citizen of the country, making each Canada Day a bittersweet occasion.

"I thought that if Jason Kenney could put a face to the issue (of Lost Canadians), it would make it easier for him to understand," Scott said, explaining her reason for coming to the event.

Kenney said that he would try to "close the loophole" for Lost Canadians like Scott in the fall, but did not elaborate on whether that would mean acceptance or continued exclusion.

Click to read original article in the Vancouver Observer 

Toronto Star: Citizenship insane

BY PETER WORTHINGTON,QMI AGENCY TORONTO

Here we go again. This week we ran the story of Lawrence Connelly, born in 1967 to a Canadian military family based in Germany, who found out this year that he cannot get a passport unless he can prove he’s a citizen — and the DND certificate of birth isn’t proof.

Click here to read original story in Toronto Star

After reading the story, Paul Harman, born in 1952 to a Canadian army family based in Hamburg, Germany, realized he was in the same dilemma as Connelly — with an added wrinkle that made even less sense than Connelly’s Catch 22 situation.

Now retired after running a retail sales company that provided jobs for over 20 individuals, Harman had a series of five passports issued to him over the years prior to new regulations imposed because of 9/11. The last time he applied for a passport renewal, Harman was rejected unless he could produce a Canadian birth certificate, which he didn’t have.

The certificate of birth issued by DND in 1952 wasn’t good enough. He had to apply for a citizenship card as if he were a landed immigrant. “I’ve got to admit it really burned me to have to answer questions about my Canadian identity to an immigration person whose accent I could barely understand,” said Harman.

“What I don’t understand — and no one has been able to explain it to me — is how I could have five Canadian passports over the years, renewed as they expired, and they still don’t accept that I’m Canadian.” Harman bowed to the inevitable stubbornness of the bureaucracy to accede to common sense, and applied for a citizenship card like a landed immigrant.

“Of course I’ve got an OHIP card, driver’s license, own property, have a SIN number, and ran a company where over the years my employees paid maybe $10 million in taxes. And they still viewed me as an unproven Canadian.” He said one of his nightmares was the spectre of someday being stopped in the U.S. and not having a citizenship card with him — and the Canadian government not recognizing him as a citizen, and not being American he’d be stuck as stateless and in limbo: “I gotta admit this possibility scared the bejeezus out of me.”

Both Harman and Connelly wonder how many others are in the same situation as they. Army brats born out of Canada have no defence, most of them not realizing their never-land existence. If past Canadian passports are insufficient proof of citizenship, one wonders at the rigidity of the new system. If security is an issue — and it seems the only issue, misguided as it may be ­— common sense dictates that it’d be far easier to get a phony Canadian birth certificate than to acquire a National Defence certificate of birth.

“Falling through the cracks,” is a fond term used by Citizenship and Immigration to justify their negligence or policies that exclude some Canadians from citizenship — be they children of military families born overseas, or war brides, or their children born before 1947.

The Harper government has tried to rectify aspects of past policies that inadvertently or maliciously excluded some Canadians of their citizenship, but not all. As Don Chapman, himself a “Lost Canadian” whose citizenship was forfeited when his father, a wartime colonel, took a job in the U.S. after the war. Chapman has fought like a terrier to persuade (force?) a succession of governments to impose legislation that restores citizenship to “Lost Canadians.”

He’s achieved much, yet there are still an estimated 200,000 who have slipped through the cracks. In Harman’s case, he simply paid the required $85 to apply for the citizenship which was his birthright.

“Yes, I felt like boat person having to prove my nationality,” he says. “Although there was no logic in it, I sucked it up and did what was demanded to get a passport. But it still isn’t right.” Will the government amend the passport rules? Unlikely. Don’t hold you breath.

Click here to read original story in Toronto Star

1940s document key to citizenship for Lost Canadian Jackie Scott: “Absurd injustice” denies citizenship to War Bride children

For Immediate Release

Jackie Scott was born in England
to a Canadian War Bride and
came to Canada in 1948.

(May 10, 2012) - A Surrey, B.C. woman who arrived in Canada in 1948 with her War Bride mother is now fighting for her citizenship in the Federal Court. A document from the 1940s recently discovered in the Library and Archives in Ottawa could hold the key to citizenship for Jackie Scott and others, known as Lost Canadians, who are excluded from citizenship because they were born out of wedlock outside Canada before 1947.

A transcript of the document, with its archival reference, can be found on the Lost Canadian website at http://tinyurl.com/chsd2o6

Jackie Scott and her parents
at Niagara Falls in 1948, soon
after she and her mother
arrived in Canada.

Jackie Scott was born in England in 1945 to a Canadian father and a British mother. She was born out of wedlock because her father, a Canadian soldier of the Second World War, could not get the required permission to marry. Such cases were common and inevitable under wartime conditions. After the war, Ms Scott’s father was repatriated to Canada, but because of poor health she was unable to travel to Canada with her mother until 1948. Shortly after her arrival, her parents were married in Toronto. By her parents’ marriage Ms Scott was legitimated retroactively from birth under Ontario law, but is still excluded from citizenship by the continuing application of an obscure provision of the 1946 Canadian Citizenship Act. She is now suing the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in the Federal Court.

A document found last week on a microfilm in the Library and Archives could determine the outcome of Ms Scott’s case. Its subject line reads: ‘Canadian Citizenship Act – Ruling status of illegitimate child whose father is Canadian citizen’. Written by a senior immigration officer and dated Sept 3, 1948, the document describes a case substantially the same as Ms Scott’s. A child was born in the United States, out of wedlock, to a Canadian father and an American mother. No date of birth is given for the unnamed child, but a reference to section 4 of the 1946 Canadian Citizenship Act – the same section that applies to Ms Scott’s case – confirms that it was before the Act came into force on January 1, 1947. Three weeks after the birth, the parents married. The father returned to Canada and his wife and child later applied for entry to join him.

An immigration officer, applying the same law by which Ms Scott is excluded from citizenship, admitted the child to Canada as an immigrant. The case was subsequently referred to the Registrar of Canadian Citizenship, who gave the following ruling:

‘I think it would be right and proper to recognize the child as a Canadian citizen. I note that the marriage of the parents took only three weeks after the date of birth of the child. We are of the opinion that a marriage under these conditions, wherein the father recognizes, by the fact of marriage, that the child is his own, and that in all probability the laws of the community in which the child is born would recognize it as legitimate, we should take the view that the child is the legitimate offspring of the father and in consequence should be regarded as a natural born Canadian.’

Ms. Scott says the document confirms what she has always believed, that she is a Canadian citizen from birth “by operation of law.”

“That the present government disregards the decision made in September 1948 regarding pre-1947 out-of-wedlock children who were subsequently legitimated by their parents' marriage, as well as other Supreme Court rulings, is unconscionable,” says Ms. Scott. “It's time for the Canadian government to recognize the citizenship of individuals in my position and immediately do the right thing and honour the directive handed down in 1948.”

A friend of Ms Scott commented: ‘The Minister has a political decision to make: take the high road and correct this absurd injustice now, whether by administrative or legislative action, or fight the Lost Canadians in court. If he chooses the latter, he must explain what the government is defending, what policy objective is served, by continuing to exclude people from citizenship solely because they were born out of wedlock over 65 years ago.’ No date has been set for a hearing of Ms Scott’s case in the Federal Court.

A transcript of the document, with its archival reference, can be found on the Lost Canadian website at http://tinyurl.com/chsd2o6

Status of Illegitimate Child 1948

DEPARTMENT OF MINES AND RESOURCES

Immigration Branch

                                                                                                Ottawa, September 3, 1948

Circular #78(B)

To Immigration Officers,

Atlantic District

Subject: Canadian Citizenship Act – Ruling Status of illegitimate child whose father is Canadian citizen

A ruling has been received from the Citizenship Branch concerning the status of an illegitimate child whose father is a Canadian citizen. The case upon which the ruling is based is as follows:-

“A Canadian born citizen was living in the United States out of wedlock with an American born woman. They had an illegitimate child born in the United States. Subsequent to the birth of the child (three weeks thereafter) the parents were married. The father returned to Canada and his wife and child later applied for entry to join him. Our examining officer at the port of entry took the view that the child, having been born out of wedlock, came under Part 1, Section 4, (b) of the Canadian Citizenship Act, deriving citizenship from his mother. Therefore, the child was regarded as an immigrant, of American citizenship, and admitted as such. However, when the facts were submitted to the Citizenship Branch for review the Registrar furnished the following ruling:-

I think it would be right and proper to recognize the child as a Canadian citizen. I note that the Marriage of the parents took place approximately three weeks after the date of birth of the child. We are of the opinion that a marriage under these conditions, wherein the father recognizes, by the fact of marriage, that the child is his own, and that in all probability the laws of the Community in which the child is born would recognize it as legitimate, we should take the view that the child is the legitimate offspring of the father and in consequence should be recognized as a natural born Canadian”.

            The above is furnished for your information in the event that you have to deal with a case of this type.

(Signature illegible)
District Superintendent

Source: Libraries and Archives Canada

 Canadian Citizenship Act and Regulations 1945-1952 (RG76, Volume 519,

 File 801544, part 9, 1947-49)

 Microfilm reel C-10615

Transcribed 2012-05-02