The Problem
The Globe and Mail reports that some sweeping changes to Canada’s citizenship laws could have a serious impact on the country’s expats, foreign aid workers, even foreign-based students — basically, anyone living abroad, no matter how temporarily, outside of the military and the diplomatic corps.
The new legislation is aimed at cutting down on the so-called “Canadians of Convenience” — the descendants of immigrants who landed citizenship before returning to their home countries, and passed along the citizenship for multiple generations.
It stipulates that citizens who go abroad may pass their citizenship along to their foreign-born children, as before.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians will be affected by these rules.
However, if those foreign-born children go on to have foreign-born children in turn, Canadian citizenship will not be granted to them automatically.
The idea is to prevent generation after generation of people, who may never have even set foot in Canada, from claiming citizenship.
(It’s a response, in large part, to a controversy that erupted during the Hezbollah-Israel conflict of 2006, when thousands of Lebanese residents with Canadian passports popped up in Beirut, requesting taxpayer-funded Canadian rescue efforts.)
But the broad sweep of the legislation — there are no exceptions for temporary stays abroad, and no consideration of how long a given citizen has spent in Canada, before reproducing abroad — threatens to catch thousands of expats in its net, too.
“Hundreds of thousands of Canadians will be affected by these rules,” said the head of the Canadian Expat Association. “These people may be working or volunteering abroad temporarily.”
My own children will be affected. They were born abroad, but, of course, live in Canada. As bilingual (English-Japanese) children they hope to work in international trade in the future. Do I honestly need to tell them that if they have kids while working abroad, they will not be Canadian?
Other expat advocates pointed out the potential impact of more restrictive citizenship rules on Canada’s competitiveness in the fluid global economy — by creating a disincentive for workers to go abroad with multinationals.
My Take
Personally, I have trouble even getting worked up about the “Canadians of Convenience” side of things. Complaints on the subject mention our citizenship being “watered down” as a result, but nothing can water down my pride in my citizenship, least of all the idea of my tax dollars going to rescue civilians (Canadian or otherwise) from a war zone.
Beyond that, though, it’s clear this legislation goes too far.
Even if you accept that these “Canadians of Convenience” are a problem worth addressing, this is not the place and time to be punishing Canadians for working abroad, volunteering abroad, studying abroad, and so on. We need to be more engaged with the world, not less.
As people who spend an awful lot of time overseas, Matadorians, what do you think?
If you knew you were risking your children’s citizenship by starting a family while abroad, would you think twice about doing so?
Photo by TheDreamSky (Creative Commons)
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7 Comments... join the discussion!
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i say cap it at 1 generation. If your kids, born abroad, dont return and have their kids in Canada – tough luck, their out. You simply cant enjoy the benefits of being called Canadian if you've never lived or contributed here. That Lebanese situation was out of control B.S.and needed to be stopped somehow.
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So because Europe does it, we should too? That's a substantive argument you've got there. Did you wind up stateless (ie without any citizenship at all) as a result of your "snafu"? Because that is facing some of these people.
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We're not talking about kids who are born abroad and never return. We're talking about kids who are born abroad, live here most of their lives, and happen to have their kids abroad too. Still think they should be SOL? I paid my Canadian taxes when I lived/studied/worked overseas. What right does the government have to deny my kids citizenship when I pay my taxes?
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I agree, Eva, this is absurd. How is it possible that a child born overseas, brought to Canada at say, 8 months, and raised there for the next eighteen years is denied citizenship? Or a child born to a Canadian who has worked and lived in Canada for decades, or worked abroad for Canadian companies and paid Canadian taxes, is denied citizenship? Also, I think the most troubling idea here is having no citizenship whatsoever. What happens to a child who is denied Canadian citizenship by virtue of being born abroad, and who also happens to have been born in a country which does not automatically grant citizenship by birth? What happens to people with no citizenship? This is a mind-boggling concept.
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As someone quickly approaching family-rearing age, such a law would definitely give me pause before taking another long-term overseas assignment (if, granted, I had been born abroad thus making my children subject to the rule). Though my wife and I often throw around the what-if of giving up U.S. citizenship, to consciously bring a child into the world stateless would be rather ludicrous.
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I’m a fifth-generation Cdn who has spent the past 20 yrs in the Middle East, and whose three children were all born abroad, We have always maintained our ties with Canada and will be returning for good this summer. However, should my children, in turn, end up living and working abroad,, I would certainly not expect THEIR children to get Cdn nationality automatically, unless said children were born in Canada. I have met too many naturalized Canadians who have obtained their passports through dubious “Cdn.immigration experts” and who have often not even spent the requisite three years in our country!
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