It just so happens that I posted this note about Lost Canadians on the CitizenVoices.org website earlier in the day of the Haitian earthquake, and my sincerest condolences go out to the Governor General whom I understand still has family there.
Go to http://www.citizenvoices.gg.ca and join the discussion about Lost Canadians
However, the issue of Lost Canadians has been around a long time before the earthquake in Haiti and this is certainly not the first time I have tried to engage a Governor General of Canada on the issue of citizenship and discrimination against Lost Canadians. Adrienne Clarkeson and her husband, John Raulston Saul (whose mother was a British War Bride no less and who appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Citizenship and IMmigration to speak about Citizenship during the Lost Canadian hearings), knew full well the extent of the Lost Canadian citizenship dilemna and chose to do nothing. What makes it even more frustrating is that after Adrienne Clarkeson stepped down as GG, the two of them set up an organization about Citizenship called the Institute for Canadian Citizenship with money from the Federal government. On its website, the ICC's stated "Mission" is as follows: The ICC is dedicated to engaging Canadians about citizenship.
Click here to go to Adrienne Clarkeson's Institute for Canadian Citizenship
We have higher hopes for Michael Jean, who, like her predecessor, is a foreign born woman of colour who probably knows better than any one else from first hand experience what it is like to be discriminated against in this country.
Let's hope we can count on Michael Jean to do something to help us because Adrienne Clarkeson and John Raulston Saul didn't even though they have been asked many many times over several years.
And oh, if anyone is wondering, I made this post on the Governor General's site with one thing in mind. Now the Right Honourable Michael Jean, the Governor General of Canada, and the people who work for her, can't say they don't know about the Lost Canadians because it's right there in red, black and white on their own website.
