Tag Archives: dual citizenship

CANADIAN citizenship – identity or convenience ?

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Canada citizenship – acquired identity or only a convenience ?

[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_nationality_law ]

More and more, Canadian citizenship is used (and abused) for purposes of forcing the Canadian Government to evacuate persons (who have most of the time dual citizenship – their birth and that of acquired Canadian) from countries and situations where they believe they are at risk. Be that war, or any medical epidemic from which to distance themselves, or temporary economic social reasons.

During the past several years there have been many instances all over the world testifying to this situation.

Using your Canadian citizenship when convenient.

This is wrong and unfair to all those Canadians who permanently reside here in Canada, work, pay their taxes and contribute to Canada’s economy.

Particular in my case this goes against all principles of fair play:

When I came to Canada (on an expired U.S. student visa), within a few days I managed to find myself a job. This Canadian government – nor my own (birth) government – never had to pay a cent for me and my little boy since I started working.

Despite the fact that when we arrived here from the United States in the 1970s we also had no home and had to sleep in my old car for a while.

The clincher is this: Four years after residing here as Landed Immigrants, we acquired the Canadian citizenship. Which in my case resulted in loosing my birth citizenship (worse – the EU citizenship, which came into effect after we received the Canadian.) My son kept his birth citizenship, as he was born in a different (EU) country.

It is clear that losing ones birth citizenship is always controlled by the birth country, not by Canada.

[NOTE from Internet: The German law on citizenship mandates that German citizens who voluntarily apply for and accept Canadian citizenship will automatically lose their German citizenship if they have not been granted a permission to retain the German citizenship prior to becoming Canadian.”]

Yet, the question here still is: If you move back to your own country, or reside in your own country, why do you need the Canadian citizenship ???

Convenience, or safety net ?

[NOTE from Internet: “It refers to people with multiple citizenship who immigrated to Canada, met the residency requirement to obtain citizenship, obtained Canadian citizenship, and moved back to their original home country while maintaining their Canadian citizenship, with those who support the term claiming they do so as a safety net.”]

{NOTE. End of story for now, as this saga goes on.}

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Citizenship Injustice

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Loosing one’s citizenship of birth is a big deal, especially if the new country of citizenship has not been acquired in the course of regular or desired immigration, but merely due to circumstance and under duress.
Canadian citizenship usually is easy to acquire, provided there is proof of employment (at least this was the case forty years ago when we arrived) or maybe a sponsor – some sort of relative who lives here already. Dual citizenship used to be more difficult. Many larger European countries removed birth citizenship from any of their citizens once they assumed Canadian. Of course, Canada does not care much about dual, but it is the country of birth that controls it – either keep it or loose it.
In between there were multiple citizenship and immigration reforms, one of them allowing dual citizenship under the following circumstances: At the time when applying for the Canadian one must prove that there is still a bind with the home country, family or property or other. In my case, my entire family never left their country, they are all in Europe, only myself and at that time my little son were in Canada.
Unfortunately, all this happening before the European Union (EU) came into being.
Also in between and many years ago my son – who has dual citizenship because he was born in a smaller European country – returned to his home country for good.  Meanwhile I am still in Canada, still only Canadian citizenship, and when travelling to my home country am forced to go to the Foreigners’ Office to buy myself an extension for stay, else stay is limited to three months.
To argue: why do those who do not care about Canadian citizenship – because they neither live here anymore nor are interested in Canadian affairs – still keep and retain dual citizenship including Canadian, while at the same time those who decided to immigrate to Canada retain theirs, although they never even visit their home country anymore.
We should allow dual citizenship for those Canadians who are longtime taxpayers in this country and receive pensions in this country, but have all of their family residing in Europe. This not also because of complicated taxation issues arising out of income in both countries, but mainly to make a long term visit to their families, instead of only a measly three months.