Vancouver Observer: Howard Kornblum's fight for Canadian citizenship

Harold Kornblum holds up a photo of his parents.

by Megan Stewart

If Howard Kornblum was going to prove he is a Canadian citizen, he had to find out where his mother was on January 1, 1947.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer.

That was the day (nine years before his birth) that Canadian citizenship came into existence. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the British Nationals Act was replaced with a homegrown law designed to dissolve ties with Europe and generate a distinct, unique identity through nascent Canadian nationalism.

The population slipped above 12 million in 1947 link; and thousands of war brides, married or otherwise and many with children, were arriving in Halifax, St. John’s and Montreal.

Everyone born in Canada became “a natural-born Canadian citizen,” as long as they had not naturalized or sworn allegiance to another country. Kornblum’s mother, Anna, became a citizen on the first day of 1947. She was 19 years old. Unknown to her, she forfeited this new Canadian citizenship when she moved to Chicago to study nursing. She met a medical student, married and started a family in Illinois. For the rest of her life, Anna walked to a U.S. post office and registered as an alien resident. She never became an U.S. citizen and, as far as she was concerned, she was Canadian.

In fact, she was stateless.

Because of a gender bias in Canada’s citizenship law, Anna was not able to pass the right of Canadian citizenship to her U.S.-born son. Three months ago, Kornblum sat with me in an East Vancouver hockey rink and lamented the complex legal detritus he was suddenly charged with shoveling off the grave of his mother’s citizenship. He’s a Canadian, he says. “I skate every chance I get,” he said over the phone before packing his Bauers in the trunk of his sedan.

He gives the impression that he’s nothing but law-abiding and is reluctant to pose with an image from an ancestry website in case he’s violating copyright law. He folds back the photocopy of the image to conceal the source. A chartered accountant, Kornblum wants to work in Canada and for that, he needs proof of citizenship. When his application took too long, he sued the government.

Kornblum spoke in a nasal voice that could be described as whiny if that’s what he did. Rather, he articulated long, complicated sentences on court procedure, judicial rulings and citizenship legislation. He filled the void with his voice. He fidgeted and twisted his head to stretch his neck over and over.

In one hearing in front of a court justice, he learned just how unusual was his action, as the justice said:

“Mr. Kornblum, look at me please, because people don’t normally appeal directions on administrative matters. It’s not something that is common. On the other hand, I’m not too inclined to give cost especially that you have two other motions and I don’t want Mr. Kornblum to be unnecessarily burdened; I understand your point, but I must say, this is the beginning of his file…”

He was levied with full costs, but did get what he was after: proof of citizenship. Kornblum was not seeking a grant of citizenship because he didn’t need one—what he needed was the proof. He needed the slip of paper signed by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that assures his status as a Canadian.

He couldn’t pinpoint where his mother was the day she turned 19. But when he got the precious document he sought, Kornblum called me from Manitoba. “It’s a great day, Megan! It must be the Wheat Kings jersey I’m wearing.”

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer.

Vancouver Observer Part Ten: Minors, lunatics, idiots...and women

Though making perfect sense at the time, the inherent social mores over female bodies bled profusely into the 1947 Citizenship Act, discriminating against women well into the 21st Canadian century, limiting their ability to pass on citizenship, making men the supreme arbitrator of statehood.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

The repercussions of gender based discrimination in Canada’s Citizenship Act was under the radar in most circles until the late 2000's, when the United States government declared that Canadians needed passports to enter America, ending more than a century of mutual trust. It was then that most Lost Canadians discovered not only were they not citizens, but that their mothers,’ in legislative terms, were lunatics.

Gender equality has often been a case of two steps forward, one step back said Veronica Strong-Boag, a historian and founding director of the UBC Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies.

Early citizenship policy was an improvement on previous legislation of colonial Britain, which classified women under a disability with “minors, lunatics and idiots.” Incremental, indeed: aspects of the 1947 Citizenship Act were inherently discriminatory, and revision would render the language laughable if the individual human cost were not so dear. In particular, the act differentiates between the sexes in the definition of a “responsible parent.”

Section 2 (n) states: “ ‘responsible parent’ means the father; except that, where the father is dead, … or where a child was born out of wedlock, ‘responsible parent’ means the mother.”

For certain classes of Lost Canadian, the sex of the 'responsible' parent was the determining factor in their claim to statehood. If you were born outside of Canada to married parents, you adopted the father's nationality, if unwed, the mother's.

Women having sex before marriage was not seen as an expression of independence—it was seen as female vulnerability and an overall failure of the state, Strong-Boag added. “It was also seen as a certain failure of patriarchal discipline and control over women’s sexuality, which belonged first to her father, and then when she was legitimately linked to her husband, of course, through her father’s approval.”

Though making perfect sense at the time, the inherent social mores over female bodies bled profusely into the 1947 Act, decimating against women well into the 21st Canadian century, limiting their ability to pass on citizenship, making men the supreme arbitrator of statehood.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Vancouver Observer Part Nine Denying the deserving a right to call Canada home

Hon. Paul Martin (left) and Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King attending the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, 23 October 1946.

The road to creating the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act was paved with good intentions. Unfortunately, it barred many of the most deserving Canadians the right to call Canada their home.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Paul Martin Sr., the father of former Canadian Prime Minster of the same name, minus the suffix, didn’t know he was on a quest for a symbol to represent "the character of Canada", but he found one, nonetheless, in a graveyard in northern France on a dull, chilly day in February 1945.

The Ottawa-born Liberal MP for Essex East eyed rows of wooden crosses and the tombstones waiting to be cemented in the earth. He noted the ethnic, linguistic and international nature of the names. The “origins of the dead were so varied,” he would later write. “It struck me that herein lay the character of Canada, a land of people of diverse national origins.”

Canada’s multiculturalism and the mythology of the mosaic — the strength of collective and diversity — were essential to Martin’s idea.

“Nothing has since epitomized the concept of our nation more poignantly for me than that cemetery. Of whatever origin, these men were all Canadian.”

Except they weren’t — they were British nationals living in Canada. It said so on their graves. Martin returned to Canada and drafted what would become the first Canadian Citizenship Act.

As Martin saw it, even though Canada had been an independent state since 1867, forging Canadian citizenship was as fundamental to nation building as creating a distinct and unique Canadian flag.

“I still feel very strongly that promotion of a new flag and the citizenship legislation were not expressions of a narrow nationalism but were understandable demonstrations of pride in Canada and its growing autonomy,” he wrote in an essay published in 1991. Canada was taking its place on the international stage and “would be better fitted to play its full part in the world if Canadians had a sense of community expressed by appropriate symbols.”

A flag and an anthem: the kinds of symbols that many Lost Canadians now have mixed feelings for. Though probably not the intention, the language of Martin’s first Citizenship Act, community, autonomy and pride, denies citizenship to people who on every commonly accepted level are Canadian. In fact it denies the children of many of those who fought and died to fill the fields Martin Sr. so somberly reflected upon.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Vancouver Observer Part Eight: Kafkaesque citizenship laws bestow rights, and take them away

Old laws continue to strip Canadian's the right to call themsleves citizens. Yet, in true Kafkaesque form, some Lost Canadians argue that there are even older laws that do make them Canadian. Ninth in a ten part series about an injustice that may outlive many of its victims.

by Darren Fleet

Navigating the extensive family of Canadian citizenship laws leaves a paper cut that could shred a moose. There is the son, Bill C–37, (male personal pro-noun intentional); the father, 1977 amendments to the prior citizenship act; the cousins, various legal challenges, precedents and Supreme Court Rulings over the years; the carefree uncle, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms; the grandfather, 1947 Citizenship Act; the great grandfather, the Legitimization Act of 1927; and the great great grandfather, British law that governed much of the Commonwealth up until the end of WW2. Oh, and we forgot to mention the godparents, lending wise but disregarded authority: the various provincial legitimacy acts strewn across the federation for the past 100 years. Lost Canadian cases in one-way or another are affected by every generation of this lineage.


Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer.

Bill C–37 was supposed to save jurists and applicants like Jackie Scott, Denise Tessier, and Sandy Burke, from this quagmire. Yet one look at Jackie Scott’s third bat against Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and it is clear that for her, Bill C-37 has muddied the waters even more.

Scott claims that the Federal government is ignoring provincial laws, the 1921 Legitimation Act of Ontario to be exact, established for foreign born children of WW1 veterans. She said these laws make her a citizen even under the old sexist immigration regime. But no one in CIC seems to know these laws, she said.

A civil servant who has worked for Citizenship and Immigration Canada for more than a decade, and who advocates incognito for citizenship reform, spoke to the Vancouver Observer on terms of anonymity. According to the civil servant, neither the government or ministry employees know the full extent of Canadian law.

"Being that the laws are so very specific, you can count on the political ministers not having a clue...it's quite frightening when you really think about it, that the gatekeepers of who you are, are really this ignorant," said Lost Canadian and long time advocate, Don Chapman.

All provinces have legitimacy laws, some dating to 1918, which legitimize children born out of wedlock, if the parents eventually marry. There is no such law at the federal level because legitimacy falls under provincial jurisdiction. However, an addition to the Citizenship Act in 1952 stated that the Minister may “grant a certificate of citizenship to a person who has been lawfully admitted to Canada for permanent residence” and who “at any time in a province of Canada pursuant to the law of that province… has been legitimized” and if the father “by such legitimation is a Canadian citizen.”

In plain terms, Jackie Scott said this suggests a precedent that federal law respected provincial mandates over legitimacy. And because Scott claims to have reasonable proof of her father having made the appropriate steps to ‘legitimize’ her in 1955 under Ontario law, she is Canadian.

“In all my years at CIC, and I’ve been there for about 12, I’ve never heard anyone even mention it,” says the anonymous insider, regarding provincial legitimization law.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer.

Vancouver Observer Part Seven: Canada's most irritating activist gets the job done

Don Chapman has no intention of abandoning the Lost Canadians when there are still hundreds, perhaps thousands, who have been left in the lurch by the Canadian government because of loopholes in Bill C-37, an Act to Amend the Citizenship Act which came into force in April, 2009. Photo by Megan Stewart, Vancouver Observer

Canada has finally granted Don Chapman his citizenship, but he is not so willing to give up his 35 year battle so long as other Lost Canadians remain in limbo. This is the seventh installmant in a ten part series about an injustice that may outlive a number of its victims.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

By his own description, Don Chapman is irritating. Politicians grow weary of hearing from him, he says. But he never gives up. His persistence has made him immensely effective in gaining the attention of officials who would rather not pay attention to an injustice that effects hundreds, possibly hundreds of thousands of people with rights to Canadian citizenship.

At the faculty club of the University of Washington in late April, Chapman is arguing with a woman who always thought she was a Canadian citizen. Turns out she’s not Canadian — or she wasn’t for most of her adult life but now is, again — and like anyone confronted with such news, she’s confused and she’s angry.

Chapman smiles, his blue eyes seeking hers, and insists, “As I told you: you’re a Lost Canadian.”

The woman said she was born in Canada and moved to Washington State to study. “I was here for less than a year and always had my passport,” she rebuts.

Chapman persists. “But the fact is, where were you on you 24th birthday?”

She was in Seattle. It’s as if he snaps his fingers. Lost Canadian.

Scenes such as this have become a constant and driving purpose for Chapman since a similar same fate befell him as a boy.

“Canada is a country that has turned against its own citizens,” he often says.

Because of archaic and patriarchal citizenship laws, Chapman unknowingly and through no fault of his own, forfeited citizenship when his father did, meaning the son was never able to get it back. “I come from the hardest country to become a Canadian citizen. I come from Canada," he often says.

Although born in Vancouver, a detail confirmed in his passport, the passport Chapman carries is that of a U.S. citizen. Inside the dog-eared document lurks a decal that declares Chapman an immigrant in the country of his birth.

“It’s a insult,” he said, during an interview with the Vancouver Observer.

Then he launched the small book through an open door into another room.

Chapman’s story is emblematic of the type of indiscriminate bureaucratic cluster bomb only partially overcome in Canada’s most recent citizen laws. Though he, Jackie Scott, Sandy Burke and an unknown amount of others are likely to find similar snares as war era retirement looms, the legislation under which Chapman has now been christened a citizen--- and Scott and Burke denied--- is different. Prior to 2009, there were twelve ways to lose ones citizenship, in addition to the big number thirteen: falsifying a claim. (The ‘lost’ don’t fall into that latter category).

Unlike Scott, Chapman’s slip was that he was born in wedlock (obscure citizenship law # 1). Had he been born to unwed Canadian parents in the USA, he would have been Canadian. Under the laws of his time, for those born between 1947 and 1977, citizenship for purposes of nationality in wedlock could only be passed down by the father.

Sound ludicrous? It is.

Only after 35 years and three amendments to Canadian citizenship law did Chapman finally receive his national stripes in 2009 with Bill C-37. The whole situation could have been avoided had Chapman hired a lawyer at age 17 and filed a formal legal process. But, like most 17 year olds, he was not aware of Canada’s finicky citizenship laws, nor aware that his nationality was ever in doubt.

As determined and dogged as he has been over the course of four decades, Chapman maintains a presence that is almost childlike. He is fair and blonde, average height. He smiles easily and will hold your gaze like a boy who needs you to straighten his tie. Chapman also has a terrific force of will; he will just not take, “No,” for an answer.

He has been responsible for rewriting Canada’s citizenship laws, not once or twice or even three times — but on five different occasions, made all the more remarkable by the fact that during it all he was not a Canadian citizen. Even his arch nemesis, the honorable Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Conservative Jason Kenney, whom Chapman says won’t return his phone calls, has recognized Chapman on the floor of the House of Commons.

“This government, Parliament and the Liberal Party adopted Bill C-37 in the last Parliament to correct the Citizenship Act to welcome back to Canadian citizenship hundreds of thousands of Lost Canadians,” Kenney said in March 2010 as opposition parties critiqued C-37, because of those still left behind. “It eliminated discrimination in the 1947 act on grounds of gender, which is why Don Chapman said that it ends 140 years of discrimination against women and children.”

A pretty decent ‘shout-out’ for someone who can’t even get a phone call returned.

Chapman’s tireless lobbying and personal financial contributions to the cause is responsible for thousands of people being able to make claims to Canadian citizenship, and still he says his struggle is not over. He insisted passionately as ever to the Vancouver Observer that he is ready to throw all of his clout to bat for Jackie Scott if her latest application does not go through.

“Not until everyone is back home will I stop,” he said.

Like any person with a redemptive past, Chapman sees the world through the lens of his ordeal, through the frame and mini-celebrity of being the unofficial leader and spokesperson for Lost Canadians. His website is often the first place people go when they face their initial denial. He confronts what he considers discrimination and persists at every turn until his audience is of accord in outraged agreement. Chapman even compares Canada’s inconsistent citizenship laws to human history’s worst race- and gender-based crimes. Such persistence has won him airtime in Canada’s highest legislatives committees.

Following the presentation at the University of Washington, Chapman lets out a hoot. The event organizer has just told him she received a call from the Canadian consulate in Seattle. They urged her to change the name of the presentation, The Lost Canadians. While perhaps only a coincidence, anyone who has been battling as long as Chapman is bound to suspect the possibility of Big Brother in any dark corner or university lectern. There is even rumor of a ‘Chapman’s List’ in Lost Canadian circles – blacklisted asylum seekers doomed to be harassed at the border and denied citizenship for being associated with such a pesky lobbyist.

The reality, however, is that most who have sided with Chapman’s ‘Lost Canadians’ movement have achieved their birthright.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Vancouver Observer: Part Six Daughter of Canadian father and war bride, resident in nation for 62-years, but still not "Canadian"

Denise Tessier's parents' passport, with Denise's and her sister's birthdates at the bottom (1943 and 1946). Both sisters only discovered they were born out of wedlock in 2006 when one made a new application for a provincial driver's license.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

“Bastard,” she says.

Denise Tessier, 64, a retired BC Rail administrator living in Quesnel, B.C., makes a sound that could be mistaken for a sob. It’s a laugh.

“My sister and I were born out of wedlock and for lack of a better word we were—we are—little bastards,” she says.

The stigma, shame and social scorn have been dulled, but the definition of bastard and the circumstances of her birth mean Tessier is not a Canadian citizen.

Tessier has lived in Canada since she was two months old; since she traveled to Montreal at the end of Second World War with her older sister and war bride mother to be reunited with her Canadian father and meet his francophone family. But in 2006 when Tessier was 60 years old, she learned that Canada did not recognize her as a citizen because she was born to an unmarried Canadian father and a non-Canadian mother prior to 1947.

“I’ve been voting, paying taxes for years as other Canadians do,” she said, noting she has since been stripped of the rights and responsibilities that come with citizenship. “I am not eligible to vote because I am still considered a British citizen.”

Although there were no barriers to Britons emigrating throughout the Commonwealth, Tessier’s British-Canadian birthright amounted to a birth stain. Already illegitimate in birth, she suddenly learned she was illegitimate in citizenship too.

“I no longer took part in Canada Day celebrations. When I see a Canadian flag, it has a different significance for me,” Tessier wrote in an email. “Now it represents rejection and betrayal.”

All of the details of her birth—date, place, marriage status of her parents—are essential to the reasons she is not a Canadian citizen today and won’t become one without a special ministerial grant or by applying for immigrant status like all other ‘new’ migrants to Canada.

Tessier doesn’t want to accept either. Instead, she thinks the law should change.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Vancouver Observer Part Five: Fifty-nine years does not make you Canadian. Papers do.

Sandy Burke is fighting to be recognized as a Canadian citizen. It's a battle she can't afford to lose. This is the fifth installmant in a ten part series about an injustice that may outlive a number of its victims.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Today we call it identification, but back then it was simply called ‘papers.’

“When I went to draw out my application for my old age pension and they asked me for my papers, I said what papers?” Sandy Burke exclaimed into the phone with a tone that said there once was a time when common sense prevailed over the letter of the law.

Without papers, Burke cannot draw on the system she has paid into for the past fifty years. Nor can she apply for other senior health benefits like subsidized senior’s housing, she said. After trying to prove her identity using various other documents, SIN card, pay stubs, transit ID, even an Anglican church membership card dating back to the 1960’s, Burke was told that she needed a proof of citizenship card. Pam Murray, Burke’s daughter in-law, scoured the archives of P.E.I. and Massachusetts on her behalf searching for the necessary application materials. Murray turned up grandparent birth certificates, wedding documents, baptismal records, but no landed papers. In early 2010, Murray collected everything she found, put it in an envelope for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and applied for Burke’s Canadian citizenship. Burke was denied in June, less than a month before Canada Day.

Even a personal letter from her MP, Liberal Paul Szabo, referencing compassionate grounds because of Sandy’s critical health and highlighting her service to Canada was not enough.

Fifty-nine years does not make you Canadian. Papers do.

“They make me feel like I came in under her [grandmother’s] coat,” Burke says, “that they hid me in here. That’s what they make me feel. And they say they can’t find my papers of my entrance into Canada – which I cannot understand…it’s not my fault that they can’t find them.”

Having exhausted all but a few options, Burke was informed that the only avenues available are a citizenship grant, 5(4), or family sponsorship. The prior is not guaranteed, (in fact it is rare even though the 5(4) grant was created specifically for cases like these), and the latter is costly, upwards of 1000 dollars Murray said. Neither process promises retroactive citizenship either, meaning that if Burke is ever ‘dubbed’ a citizen, the exact date of being a born again will Canadian marks the first day Burke can collect OAS payments, leaving her to fend for herself during the gap with no retroactivity.

“It feels degrading,” Burke says, having just explained that she is beginning to lose hope. “But maybe it is my own fault. Maybe I should have looked into it. But I never even thought of it. It only occurred to me when I applied for old age pension.”

Pam Murray does not reflect the same humble reflection that is Burke’s curse of being ‘ordinary’ against the wheels of the Canadian Citizenship Act bureaucracy.

“This woman deserves to live a life that she wants to live right now in her senior years,” Murray said. “Lets give her retroactive pension and leave her the hell alone. Lets make this easy for her for a change. She has struggled enough.”


Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Voice America: The Lost Canadians with David Gibbons "In Discussion"

The Lost Canadians on Voice America Talk Radio Network with David Gibbons "In Discussion"

December 29, 2010 "Fighting for Canadian Home Soil" with Don Chapman Founder Lost Canadians, Sheila Walshe, Jim Doe (Alias), Glenn Fenech, Schneur Rabin & Jackie Scott.

October 15, 2010 with Don Chapman, Ian Munroe, Jackie Scott and Jan Makin

July 05, 2010 with Don Chapman, Hon. John Reynolds, Andrew Telegdi former Member of Parliament (Kitchener-Waterloo), Marlene Jennings, MP and historian, Melynda Jarratt.

David Gibbons Bio

David Gibbons has been writing and involved in the broadcast arena since 2001. His work in understanding the world we live in and its people continues to fascinate and consume his interest, in pursuing a direct conversational style with leaders, literature scholars and everyday individuals. He is the host of David Gibbons "In Discussion", the daily program that engages world's thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business individuals, scientists and religious leaders. He is constantly seeking a greater understanding of the world we live in today with an unassuming style and delivery, leading to the premise of igniting dialogue towards dynamic change in our society.

David Gibbons joins daily (weekdays) 22.00 GMT 3:00 PST & again the next day 10:00 GMT Europe, Asia & across the Middle East the world's greatest writers, entertainers, business leaders, scientists, religious leaders and everyday people in intellectual and frank conversation. All programs archived for listeners following day. In Discussion is endorsed by firms & organizations in the private and public sectors.

Don Chapman with David Gibbons "In Discussion" on Voice America

Click here to listen to Don Chapman on David Gibbons "In Discussion".

Don Chapman Founder of The Lost Canadians joins David Gibbons as a tireless fighter for the rights of Canadians who have been stripped of their citizenship by the heartless politicians and bureaucrats in the Canadian government.

There are hundreds of thousands of Lost Canadians in Canada, in the United States and around the world, citizens whose right to citizenship was taken away from them without their knowledge. On April 19, 2009, the Canadian Citizenship Act was amended by Bill C-37, to amend the Citizenship Act.

Also known as the "Lost Canadian Bill", Bill C-37 solved most of the problems facing Lost Canadians. However, there are still hundreds of Lost Canadians, including War Bride children, children born out of wedlock during the Second World War, and Mennonites who have been refused citizenship by the Canadian government as recently as Christmas Eve 2009.


Don Chapman will appear LIVE on David Gibbons daily radio talk show "In Discussion" on VoiceAmerica at 3 pm Pacific Time, Thursday, July 8, 2010.

JULY 2010 ARCHIVE

Click here for David Gibbons on VoiceAmerica archived July 13, 2010

There is a also a blog "InDiscussion" where you can contribute your thoughts on the issue of Lost Canadians. Click here to view the blog.

David Gibbons Bio

David Gibbons has been writing and involved in the broadcast arena since 2001. His work in understanding the world we live in and its people continues to fascinate and consume his interest, in pursuing a direct conversational style with leaders, literature scholars and everyday individuals. He is the host of David Gibbons "In Discussion", the daily program that engages world's thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business individuals, scientists and religious leaders. He is constantly seeking a greater understanding of the world we live in today with an unassuming style and delivery, leading to the premise of igniting dialogue towards dynamic change in our society.

David Gibbons joins daily (weekdays) 22.00 GMT 3:00 PST & again the next day 10:00 GMT Europe, Asia & across the Middle East the world's greatest writers, entertainers, business leaders, scientists, religious leaders and everyday people in intellectual and frank conversation. All programs archived for listeners following day. In Discussion is endorsed by firms & organizations in the private and public sectors.

Lost Canadian Timeline 1867 - 2010

1867 - Canada became a country under the British North America Act.

1868 - Canada adopts its first form of unique Canadian identity, called the Canadian Nationals Act. People are British Subjects, but Canadian Nationals. Here is the exact wording, "married women, minors, lunatics, and idiots" will be classified "under the same disability" for their national status. In essence, women were chattel of their husbands, children chattel of their fathers if born in-wedlock and chattel of their mothers if born out-of-wedlock. The language is common among the British colonies.

1868 through 1947 - Canadian women who married non-Canadian men (non-British subjects), lost their Canadian status on marriage. In the 1990's, for those women affected who were still alive, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) decided to recognize these women as citizens. Not so for their children, even if they were born and raised in Canada.

1929- The Famous Five person's case- decided by the Privy Council of England, Canadian women were finally considered to be "people," giving women certain rights such as being a judge or Senator. It wasn't for another 89 years that most Canadian women had equal rights with regards to their own children in citizenship law.

1947 - Canada becomes the first country in the British Empire to officially create its own identity, separate from mother England. It's a result of senior cabinet minister Paul Martin, who realized just after WWII when walking through the Canadian Cimetière in Dieppe, France, that the 707 Canadian soldiers buried there were British subjects- not Canadian citizens. Citizenship did not exist in Canada. On his return to Parliament he authoured our first Citizenship Act, going into force on January 1, 1947. A product of its time, it was quite discriminatory. While married women were now able to have their own identity as citizens, they had far less rights than men- specific to do with passing citizenship onto their children. "Minors, lunatics, and idiots" remained classified under a "disability" for citizenship. If born in-wedlock, the father was deemed to be the "responsible parent," if born out-of-wedlock it was the mother. Often out-of-wedlock children had the word, "BASTARD" stamped on their birth certificate.

1977 - Canada adopts it's second Citizenship Act, but makes the same mistake in correcting the law as was made by the country in 1793 when slavery was abolished. At that time it was written that there could be no new slaves, but for those already indentured, they would remain as slaves till they died. Thus a slave could give birth and the baby was free, but not the parent. The abolition of slavery was not made retroactive. Same thing with the citizenship act of 1977, so for those people already disenfranchised, they remained outcasts, but for anyone born or already Canadian on or after February 15, 1977, they had a different set of rights than those people who fell under the 1947 Act.

1982 - The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted, along with section 15, specifically 15(1), which stated, "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability." While women cherished their new found equal rights, most were completely unaware that "equal rights" were not extended nor applicable in citizenship law to Canadian women and their children born pre-1977 outside of Canada.

1997 - In the Supreme Court case Benner vs. Canada, the justices ruled unanimously that the Citizenship Act was unconstitutional in that it blatantly discriminated against women. Under the 1947 Act Canadian women who married non-Canadian men and had a child outside of Canada did not have the right to pass citizenship onto their children. Men, however, who married non-Canadian women and fathered a child outside of Canada did have that right. In Benner, Canadian women who had children outside of Canada were given the same right to pass citizenship onto their children.

2004 - Because of my testimony before the Senate committee of Social Affairs, Science, and Technology, a top CIC bureaucrat appeared before this same committee a week later and announced the government would no longer abide by the Benner decision. Canada went back to discriminating against women, violating their own Supreme Court, their Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as their obligation to honour the UN Convention on The Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.

2007 - On December 10th, International Human Rights Day, Canada's Minister of Citizenship announced that by fall 2008, she would introduce a Bill to correct past citizenship injustices.

2008 - Bill C-37 is introduced into the House of Commons. It passes unanimously in both the House and Senate, receiving Royal Assent on April 17, 2008, ironically the 26th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was not to be effective for one year.

2009 - Bill C-37 is implemented on April 17, 2009, 27 years to the day after the Charter became law. For the first time in Canadian history, women were equal in law, but only for women going forward. Once again the same mistake was made against women as was made 216 years earlier when the anti-slavery laws became effective- Bill C-37 was not made completely retroactive with regards to the ongoing discrimination against Canadian women. While C-37 recognized somewhere between 750-thousand to one-million people as citizens, it still left out second-generation, born out of Canada decedents of Canadian women. The second-generation born out of Canada decedents of men still had a right to citizenship. The Supreme Court decision regarding equality of rights for women continued to be ignored. Also, children born pre-1947 inside or out of Canada to Canadian mothers and non-British subject fathers, those children were still being denied citizenship.

Also in 2009 (March and October) - questions are asked in the Senate as to why this government continues discriminating against women.

2010 - March 8th, International Women's Rights Day, questions are asked in the House of Commons as to why this government continues it's ongoing discrimination against women. Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney avoids any direct answer.

The very next day, on March 9th, Cabinet Minister Chuck Strahl announces in the House that in response to a BC court decision, the government would bring forward a Bill to give Indian women the same rights as men in passing status onto their children. Within a very short time, Bill C-3 is introduced to rectify the gender discrimination for native Canadian women. Despite the government's support for Indian women, they continue to discriminate against all other pre-1977 women. If passed, then the only women to have retroactive equality of rights with men would be Canadian Indian women. In essence, the country would be granting extra rights to one group only because of race. Put another way, people could be denied equality of rights because of their ethnicity.

Pre-1947 Gender Discrimination: Guy Valliere is an example of the pre-1947 babies. In 1926 Guy was born to a Canadian mother and U.S. father in Montreal. Because he was born "in-wedlock" he was considered be chattel of his father. Because his mother married a non-British subject, she lost her Canadian status. Of course no one ever told the family. Guy grew up in Canada, worked here, paid taxes, voted, he even defended the country as a soldier in WWII. Despite his mother, if she were alive, being retroactively granted citizenship in the 1990's, Canada refused to recognize the children. Thus a few years back when Guy had a stroke, Canada refused to pay for his medical treatment, rationalizing their decision saying that Guy wasn't Canadian. On February 1, 2009, Guy died disenfranchised from his own country- the very country he was asked to defend, with his life if need be. Regrettably Guy's story is not unique. People are starting to have their Old-Age pensions questioned, or worse, denied. It's a bubble that will soon burst.

Remember, Guy was denied citizenship because he was born in-wedlock, thus Canada considered him to be property of his American father.

The next group consists of three people, all born out-of-wedlock to English War Brides and Canadian-soldier fathers. After the war all three babies were brought to Canada, raised here, paid taxes, voted, one even retired from the Canadian Navy, but because in law they were considered to be property of their English mothers, today they are being denied citizenship. Keep in mind that Privy Council Orders after WWII gave these women and children the exact same status as their Canadian husbands / fathers, that in 1927 Canada passed the Legitimization Act (upheld in the Supreme Court in 1954 - Leung Ba Chai) which stated that if your parents subsequently marry, your birth is "legitimized" and thus you were born in-wedlock, never mind all that- the government is now saying you aren't a citizen. Consider one more tidbit, which is Taylor vs. Canada in 2007. The Harper government took a case with the exact same circumstances as above to judicial review for the express purpose to deny Taylor his citizenship. While Taylor lost on appeal, the first decision had major ramifications that went far beyond Mr. Taylor. In the House of Commons, for the record, here are the words of the then Citizenship Minister, "When there is a court decision that has implications for hundreds of statutes, dozens of departments, and could cost tens of billions of dollars, in situations like that, we have a duty to appeal." Fast forward to today. Mr. Taylor was given citizenship by a ministerial grant- which was all he ever asked for from the beginning. The government gambled Canadian taxpayer dollars - to the tune of "tens of billions" - just to deny one man his citizenship. Today the case is settled and Taylor is a citizen. But for Jackie Scott and two others, they have been denied by Mr. Kenney. Once again, the government is playing Russian Roulette with Canadian taxpayer money by gambling "tens of billions" to deny three people their citizenship - that's over $600 to every Canadian man, woman, and child on the planet - just because they were born out-of wedlock.

Do I really have this straight? Guy Valliere would be Canadian if he had been born out-of wedlock and Jackie Scott would be Canadian if she had been born in-wedlock? Yes, this is exactly the way it is. Common sense has left the building.

1947 to 1977 gender discrimination: Kasey Neal and Lillian Miller are three-year old cousins, both born outside of Canada. Lillian can be Canadian because her connection to the country comes through her grandfather- a man. Kasey has been denied because her connection comes through her grandmother- a woman. In so doing, Canada is violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Supreme Court of Canada, and three UN Conventions (The Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women; The Reduction of Statelessness; The Rights of the Child).

Vancouver Observer: Part Four Canadian Sandy Burke's fight for Canadian citizenship, health care and Old Age Security

Sandy Burke in a photo taken in 1952, around the time her PEI grandmother rescued her from a US orphanage after her father abandoned her when his wife died in Boston.

The fight to be recognized as Canadian is not a symbolic affair for Sandy Burke. Her health care and pension are dependent on Canada recognizing her as a citizen. Despite having lived in Canada for 59 years, raising a family and paying taxes, they say she is not eligable for Old Age Security (OAS) unless she can find 'papers' dating back to 1951 – papers she said she never had. This is part four of a story about an injustice that may outlive a number of its victims.

Click here to read original story in the Vancouver Observer

“The problem is that they have sewn the laws so tight that people like Sandy can’t get through,” Pam Murray said of her mother-in-law who waited her turn to speak on the phone. “Sandy does not have a place to fit. It is not her fault that this is happening.”

Speaking from Mississauga, Ontario, Murray said she has been fighting for her mother-in-law for over a year. Diabetes and a bone ailment have made it difficult for Sandy Burke to manage the workload it takes to wrangle with the bureaucracy---with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Old Age Security (OAS), and the Government of Canada, all at the same time. So Murray has taken up the struggle on her relation's behalf, though she admitted that they are both somewhat fearful to talk to the press. Like many in their position, they did not want to make things worse than they already are. Fear of rocking the boat is common among people in Sandy's situation, a group whose numbers are hard to define, but include hundreds if not hundreds of thousands.

Sandy Burke, 65, represents the nightmare scenario of this entire fiasco – financially dependent Canadians who have worked all of their lives in Canada only to be denied the benefits of Old Age Security because the government says they are not citizens.

Unlike some high profile Lost Canadians, Sandy has no claim to heroics. Her father was not a war hero. She has no plea to outdated laws, provincial legitimization, or war bride-fought-for-the-country rhetoric either. She is simply a Canadian who for the past 59 years has lived in Canada, obeyed the laws, voted, paid taxes, and raised a family. She is ordinary for lack of a better word in the eyes of Canadian immigration, and she has a problem – an American birth certificate.

“It’s like I’m back to square one,” Sandy Burke said, “with no money.”

Square one for Sandy Burke is a Boston Orphanage in 1951. Her Canadian father abandoned her there after her American mother died of a brain hemorrhage in September, 1950. Burke was six years old. Her mother’s side refused to care for her. She spent half a year in the institution. It wasn’t until her Canadian grandmother saved up enough money to make the journey from P.E.I to Massachusetts in 1951 that Burke got out of there. She has never returned to the place.

“I feel very grateful for her taking me,” Burke said through the phone. “Where would I be? Nobody wanted me. Where would I be? If it wasn’t for Grandma, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”

And yet, as of her 65th birthday, Burke has found herself in that place again, abandoned – only this time it is Canada that doesn’t want her. Without the $600 per month OAS that all Canadians are entitled to as citizens, Burke is eking by each month on a $475 dollar CPP check with few options and no grandmother to pluck her out. Long departed, her grandmother succumbed to Alzheimer’s when Burke was still young. She took Burke’s identification with her.

“They could be in the wall somewhere for all I know,” Burke says of her 1951 landed immigration papers.

After numerous requests and fees paid to immigration archives, the government claimed they can’t find their copies of the papers either, Burke added. Tempting though it may have been after all the dead ends, Burke didn’t ask CIC to check their walls.

Vancouver Observer: Part Three Bill C-37 and the bureaucratic nightmare

Two months after Bill C-37 came into effect in April, 2009, Rachel Chandler was born in China to a first generation Canadian father who had been born abroad and a Chinese mother, rendering little Rachel stateless under the provisions of the new Act.

Before Bill C-37 became effective in April, 2009, there were 12 ways for a Canadian to lose his or her citizenship. Bill C-37 was meant to close these obscure loopholes. It closed some, but it did not close them all. The government has known all along that deserving Canadians would continue to be stripped of their nationality--- even under the new law. This is part three of a ten part series about an injustice that may outlive a number of its victims.

The Canadian Citizenship Act has been repeatedly amended but never rewritten. On April 17, 2009, when thousands of people are said to have woken up Canadian (though most assumed they were anything but), the law changed in order to franchise various classes of people who by no fault of their own fell through one of Canada’s twelve-ways-to-lose-your-citizenship cracks.

In no particular order the farcical 12-step program went as follows:

- As a minor child your father took out citizenship in another country.

- You were a foreign born Canadian and on your 24th birthday you weren’t ‘domiciled’ in Canada.

- You were a War Bride who never naturalized.

- You were a War Bride child who was never naturalized.

- In certain circumstances, you were second generation Canadian born abroad Canadian and you didn’t reaffirm your citizenship by your 28th birthday.

- You were a border-baby, born in the U.S. because the nearest hospital was in the U.S. rather than Canada, and you were never properly registered.

- In certain circumstances, your connection to Canada came through a woman rather than a man. This mainly affected foreign born, in-wedlock children of Canadian mothers and foreign fathers.

- You were born out of wedlock before 1947.

- You were born to a Canadian serviceman outside of Canada.

- You are the child of a woman who married a non-Canadian prior to 1947.

- You took citizenship in another country prior to 1947. (List courtesy of Don Chapman)

Bill-C 37 closed the door on most of these absurdities but not all. A surprising number of outstanding citizenship sinkholes still exist, most notably the one trapping people born before 1947 out of wedlock and second generation Canadians born abroad.

In fact, no sooner had bill C-37 passed did Canada produce its most recent stateless child, Rachel Chandler, sired by a first generation Canadian man born abroad and a Chinese mother. This should come as no surprise, however, as a state that cannot create coherent legislation on past laws, will no doubt continue such oversight in its future. History repeats.

The Canadian government was aware of problems before the bill passed in 2009, but for reasons of expediency parliament passed C-37 knowing people would be left behind. Then Citizen and Immigration Minister, Conservative Diane Finely, told the Canadian senate in 2008:

“My concern was that if we were to go after the entire act, given the way things are progressing in that other place [the legislature] these days, we might never get this resolved…I would like to resolve the situation for over 95 percent rather than do nothing for the sake of the five percent who will not be covered.”

To deal with that five percent, section 5(4) of the act was created, giving the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration authority to do the democratic version of ‘dubbing thee Canadian.’ (Senator L. Gen Romeo Dallaire, Canada’s last remaining WW1 veteran, John Babcock, and a handful of Haitian orphans, among others, have received such exemptions in case you’ve been wondering how far reaching these obscurities reach). Many of those promised 5(4)’s for people like Jackie Scott, however, have not been forthcoming. In 2009, only 50 were given to cases like hers. The others, using the language of Bill C-37, haven’t done enough for Canada to warrant the grant.

Vancouver Observer Part Two: Jason Kenney, Canada citizenship minister, refuses to answer questions about continued flaws in laws

In this July 9, 2009 photo, Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, praises Falun Gong practitioners at a Calgary Stampede event for their efforts to raise the issue of religious persecution. In the article, the Minister is described as having "worked to bring human rights defenders, democracy activists, and others at risk from repressive regimes from their home countries to Canada." Yet, more than a year later, he still refuses to meet with Lost Canadians whose citizenship he has either rejected or taken away from them on the basis of outdated laws from the 1940s which say children born out of wedlock are "bastards" undeserving of Canadian citizenship. Photo source The Epoch Times

Canada's highest elected officials are aware of Jackie Soctt's case and yet they refuse to talk with the press. More than 170,000 people from around the world become citizens in Canada every year after entering the country as immigrants. Meanwhile, because of antiquated legislation, the government denies people born to Canadian parents and those who have lived here half their lives, full rights of citizenship. This is the second story in a ten-part series about an injustice that may outlive a number of its victims.

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observer

Everyone in the RV Park seems to know about Jackie Scott’s case.

“Isn’t it something?” Vickie the receptionist says as she tallies the day’s arrivals. One look at our camera equipment and she is already on the phone to Scott to announce our arrival. She is one the more high profile cases.

On June 11th, 2009 Scott gave testimony in Ottawa at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, on what would have been her Canadian War Veteran father’s 98th birthday. The topic of the day was to address the outstanding cases that have not been covered in the so-called Lost Canadian Bill – Bill C-37.

“I was given five minutes,” she said about her testimony, “I wasn’t even able to finish.”

The language is polite inside Scott's RV, but the name Kenney can be substituted for any foul punch line. As Canada’s current citizen and immigration czar, Cabinet Minister, Conservative Jason Kenney, is the only person standing between Scott and a 5(4), a grant of citizenship that only the Minister can approve. Her long road to legitimization rests in the ink of the Kenney’s pen.

After her unsuccessful testimony in June 2009, Scott and other outstanding Lost Canadians held a press conference in Ottawa in October 2009, pleading their case on the parliamentary steps, hoping to get the Minister’s attention.

“Rather than having press conferences or trying to politicize their application, just make a solid application, make a strong case, and it will be considered fairly on the merits of their case,” Kenney told the CBC of their display.

A year and a fresh denial later, however, Scott is still not a Canadian citizen and the list of ‘lost’ is growing once again. On his recent visit to Vancouver to celebrate a festival dedicated to Canada’s migratory cultural mosaic, Kenney declined comment to The Vancouver Observer, as did his office in Ottawa regarding Scott's case.

UVIC immigration law professor, Donald Galloway, is well acquainted with the Lost Canadian saga. He gave expert opinion to the Senate review committee on the draft of Bill C-37. He says that the Minister’s approach is not surprising.

“At the time the Minister suggested that deserving cases would be adequately dealt with expeditiously on a case by case basis. That this case (Scott’s) has not yet been resolved reveals that a narrow legalistic attitude seems to be have prevailed.”

As for Scott’s would be MP, Conservative Nina Grewal, Fleetwood – Port Kells, who was a member on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that Scott addressed one year ago, she too has declined to comment to the Vancouver Observer. Her staffers noted that the ‘unique’ aspects of Scott’s case do not allow for disclosure. They were kind enough to suggest contacting Citizenship and Immigration Canada saying that office would be more ‘appropriate’ to answer, undoubtedly knowing that CIC cannot comment on individual files, nor can they change the laws – that is something only MP’s do.

As the stonewalling goes on, the government is working on an amendment to Bill C-37, one that is said to address the issues the government was aware of in 2008 but did not have the time to push through.

West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast Conservative MP, John Weston, who has had to tackle the issue because of a tireless and prominent Lost Canadian activist in his riding, Don Chapman, said the government is aware of the problem and has been consistent in their efforts to fix the situation:

“We have yet another proposed improvement to the Citizenship Act, introduced in the house, another Bill C–37,” Weston said. “And that bill, among other things will deal with or remedy situations where we have unintentionally barred citizenship to eligible applicants.”

Though Jackie Scott is one of those who have been unintentionally ‘barred’ their citizenship, (she has never renounced her nationality), she need not get her hopes up over this new action. The proposed amendment does not address those born out of wedlock before 1947, Chapman said, nor does it address the 81 cases that he has taken up cause for through his website, www.LostCanadian.com.

In fact were it not for the private lobbying of groups like his, which among other things provides a forum for those in limbo to network and lobby collectively, their voices would have died years ago under the attrition of the bureaucracy.

As the debates continue on parliament hill, Scott waits patiently at the 176th Surrey border and volunteers her time around the park. She is no longer legally allowed to work in Canada, even though she has been offered employment at the RV site. Her third set of applications, one for yet another 5(4) grant of citizenship and the other asking for naturalization dating back to the time of her birth, are in review.

If denied again, she said she will launch a court challenge, as other notable Lost Canadians have done, and get the law changed at great expense to the Canadian taxpayer.

Vancouver Observer: 10 part series - On Canada Day, nation's bureaucracy still denies citizenship to children of soldiers

Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, has gained a reputation in the immigrant community for being a "little buddha" but he's no help to the children of Canadian War Brides of World War Two who have been told they are not welcome in Canada if they were born out of wedlock. It doesn't matter if their parents eventually married. All that matters is they are "bastards" undeserving of Canadian citizenship. This photo originally appeared in MacLeans Magazine.

More than 170,000 people from around the world become citizens in Canada every year after entering the country as immigrants. Meanwhile, because of antiquated legislation, the government denies people born to Canadian parents and those who have lived here half their lives, full rights of citizenship. This is the first story in a ten-part series about an injustice that may outlive a number of its victims.



Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observor

"Why can't they see I'm Canadian?"

Jackie Scott opened up her father's war record and showed it to a reporter.

Scott, 65, spends six months each year in an R.V. park next to the American border in Surrey, BC. A slight, competent woman with graying red hair and a deeply lined face, Scott has the courteous demeanor of a Canadian.

On her living room table two cups of coffee, a plate of muffins and napkins stood waiting. She sat down by the window and held in her hands a collection of documents: a well-kept photograph of her father as a soldier, her mother's naturalization certificate, letters from the Canadian government, copies of Canada's immigration and citizenship acts and pictures of her Canadian born daughter and grandchildren.

An imposing 20-foot grey wall looking as if it were picked from a West Bank settlement in Israel and placed on 176th street encircles the West and South sides of the park. The symbolism of this situation is hard to ignore. Jackie, daughter of a Canadian soldier and a British-born mother naturalized as a Canadian citizen in 1955, learned she was a ‘visitor’ in Canada in 2005, when after applying for a citizenship card in order to get a passport, she received a letter from the government saying she was not Canadian.

After 9/11, a certain group of Canadians got a rude awakening. When Canadians suddenly needed passports to travel between here and the U.S., Citizenship and Immigration Canada turned their applications for passports and proof of citizenship cards down. It wasn't because they were security threats. Far from it. Most had been contributing members of Canadian society for a large portion of their lives. The majority were the children of love alliances formed during World War II between British women and Canadian soldiers fighting the spread of fascism. And due to an antiquated law regarding the marital status of the applicants' parents at the time of the applicants' birth, people who had fully functioned as Canadian and whose parents had risked everything for their country were denied.

Jason Kenney, Canada's immigration minister, has estimated that possibly hundreds of thousands of people were affected. As this became apparent, the government moved quickly to change the laws, but did not change them all.

“I had the letter in my hand, and was shaking,” Scott said, recalling her first denial. “I felt so embarrassed, because as I read down, the reason for the denial was because I was born out of wedlock…they’re saying I’m a bastard.”

Scott shares a common struggle with countless Canadians of her generation – they were born when ‘legitimacy’ mattered. She is quick to accept that today’s society has a different attitude towards children born out of wedlock, but back then she said, it was a big deal, and as she now is all too aware, could result in a loss of statehood.

“My parents didn’t want me to know the circumstances of my birth. You didn’t share that with anyone,” she said.

It wasn’t until Scott was 17 that she learned the circumstances that brought her into this world. She always new that she was born while her father was stationed in England during the war in 1945, but not of her parent’s unmarried status.

“I often wonder how angry my father would feel that they are denying me when he served his country during the war,” Scott said.

Bastard out of Canada

Never once did she doubt or even consider that as a child of a war veteran father and a naturalized Canadian citizen mother, that she would have to inquire about the laws of her governing identity or doubt her nationality. She was wrong. Scott fights back the tears today when she thinks of the term that the government has continually thrown in her face for the past five years.

Being a ‘bastard’ in the 1940’s and 50’s didn't close the door on citizenship, but it did require some paperwork if those who were foreign born wanted the benefits that came with being ‘legitimate.’ Few were aware of such bureaucratic obscurities, however. Scott's parents were of the few who did know. In 1955 her father ‘legitimized’ her in writing according to the 1921 Ontario Legitimization Act (a law established to deal with war brides of World War I). With the stamp of a notary, he declared that she was his child and that her mother was his wife. Scott held up a copy of the document delivered by the then Registrar of Canadian Citizenship. Her father’s signature was on it, an ace in the hole surely, or so she had thought.

Scott has made the argument to Canadian immigration that her legitimization in Ontario under a provincial law ought to have settled the matter since provinces at the time had control over citizenship. The case was good enough for Ontario in 1955, good enough to get her a Social Insurance Number card, and good enough to pass citizenship to her daughter and grand-daughter, but still not good enough for Canada to give her a passport in 2010.

“They don’t even know their own laws,” she said, insisting that the 1955 Registrar letter recognizes her.

In addition to the two arguments she has submitted, Scott was living in Canada on her 24th birthday. It used to be that if you weren't living in Canada on at that age, you weren't qualified to be a citizen – yet another obscure citizenship law. But that would only matter if she had a claim in the first place, which immigration said she does not.

While insisting they are not aware of their own laws, Scott has become all too familiar with Citizen and Immigration Canada’s excellent handle on the clarity of refusal. The government has not minced words. Her voice dropped as she read an excerpt from the bare prose of the colourless paper in her hand.

“I regret to inform you that a positive recommendation will not be made as you have not demonstrated that a discretionary grant of citizenship pursuant to subsection 5(4) is warranted.”

This special 5(4) grant was created to apply to the so-called ‘five percent’ like Scott that Canada’s most recent citizenship legislation from 2009 knowingly left behind.

Her second letter of denial added the additional note that “no compelling grounds have been identified to warrant a reward for exceptional services to Canada.”

“I often wonder how my father would feel, how angry he would feel that they are denying me when he served his country during the war,” Scott said.

She's spent half of her life here. Voted. Worked. Paid taxes to Canada. She has Canadian children and grandchildren. Her father was a war veteran, and her mother, after being naturalized by subsequent marriage, lived outher days as a Canadian.

The case has bewildered Scott's neighbours at the RV Park. If Scott's not a Canadian, who is?

Tomorrow: Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, refuses to answer questions The Vancouver Observer submits about continued flaws in Canada's citizenship laws, while Jackie Scott and others wait in limbo for citizenship.

This story is the first in a series sponsored by The Chapman Foundation

Click here to read original article in the Vancouver Observor

Vancouver Observer: 10 Part Series on Lost Canadians

In this ten part series, the Vancouver Observer explores the case of the Lost Canadians: more than 170,000 people from around the world become citizens in Canada every year after entering the country as immigrants. Meanwhile, because of antiquated legislation, the government denies people born to Canadian parents and those who have lived here half their lives, full rights of citizenship.

July 1, 2010
Part One:
On Canada Day, nation's bureaucracy still denies citizenship to children of soldiers

July 2, 2010
Part Two:
Jason Kenney, Canada citizenship minister, refuses to answer questions about continued flaws in laws

July 3, 2010
Part Three:
Bill C-37 and the bureaucratic nightmare

July 4, 2010
Part Four:
Canadian Sandy Burke's fight for Canadian citizenship, health care and Old Age Security

July 5, 2010
Part Five:
Fifty-nine years does not make you Canadian. Papers do.

July 6, 2010
Part Six:
Daughter of Canadian father and war bride, resident in nation for 62-years, but still not "Canadian"

July 7, 2010
Part Seven:
Canada's most irritating activist gets the job done

July 8, 2010
Part Eight:
Denying the deserving a right to call Canada home

July 8, 2010;
Part Nine:
Kafkaesque citizenship laws bestow rights, and take them away

July 9, 2010
Part Ten:
Minors, Lunatics, Idiots.... and Women