toNanaimo

Conservatives to revisit dual citizenship, senior Tory says

Allan Woods, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, September 21, 2006
OTTAWA - The Conservative government plans to revisit issues surrounding 30-year-old rules allowing people who live abroad to hold dual Canadian citizenship, a senior Conservative has told CanWest News Service.

The review of the laws allowing people to carry a Canadian passport along with the citizenship of another country appears to be on a fast-track, particularly after the government began tallying the costs and results of the mass evacuation of civilians in Lebanon who held Canadian citizenship during the recent conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

...

''When someone lives here for a few winters and becomes a Canadian citizen for the rest of their lives do they have rights and privileges that Canadian taxpayers need to fulfil ... or should you have to live in Canada three years out of every 10 to maintain your citizenship?'' asked Ontario Conservative MP Garth Turner.

Canada2006

See if really happens. Probably a little bit, but not too much. All those dual nationalities really make business easier....

Political popularism for rednecks???? (How do you say "Daily Mail Reader" in Canadian?)

JAJ

Unless the Government is prepared to revoke the citizenship of a few million Canadians who hold the citizenship of another country - often unknowingly - then a "ban" on dual citizenship simply won't happen.

Lesser measures to restrict dual citizenship could be brought in more easily. However these would then leave some Canadians with dual citizenship and others without.

More probable is an increase in the residence period for citizenship. New Zealand has done so already (3 to 5 years) and Australia is currently passing legislation to that effect (2 to 4 years).

toNanaimo

As a newly landed If I were to know the ban on Dual Citizenship before, I would never immigrate to Canada.

The government is concerned much about 85 Million on its citizens evacuation but they are happily spending 3.5 Billions in Afghanistan and a priceless 36 soldiers lives.

Canada2006

Political popularism - don't worry about it.

dbd33

I'd just mail back the Canadian passport.

iaink

You cant easily put the genie back in the bottle, and from an economic point of view, one of the attractions of canada for a migrant is the option of dual citizenship.

I dont think it will ever happen. Too many dualies out there all ready.

Biiiiink

How many dual/multiple citizens are there here in Canada? There's no way they would do that. They're still trying to right wrongs of previous citizenship laws, why on earth would they take a step back like that?

dbd33

Racism.

Daedra

Interesting... I've always held a Canadian passport as I was registered as a "Birth abroad" when I was born in New Zealand. Have always had some comfort in knowing that should things go T up with Canada that I could move or just apply for a NZ passport as both countries recognise dual citizenships. I think the Canadian govt would p*** off alot of people if they reviewed the laws in a negative way, there are far too many of us "crossbreeds" out there and they may end up finding themselves voted out of office next election

toNanaimo

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...6a4964&k=61921

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iaink

The little C in the circle at the bottom is the reason why the original poster in this thread didnt post the whole article...

Garreth Turner MP obviously totally missed the point of citizenship. If you were born here, and then moved away for ten years, would he still have you lose your birth right, or would this only apply to imported second class citizens, like myself?

Perhaps its too easy to get citizenship at the moment, and more of a commitment should be required, but getting rid of duality entirely is hugely impractical...and a huge vote looser among the large immigrant community (who allegedly all vote liberal anyway ...perhaps thats the real issue at work here )

dbd33

Not to be taken seriously then.

sysclp

I am a dual citizen (US and Canada) and I would not have taken the Canadian citizenship if either outlawed dual citizenship. I have to go to the US for work often enough that it would not be practical to lose that citizenship. I don't know what they would do with all of us that currently exist if they changed the law. I suspect there are hundreds of thousands of us.

As for the evactuation of Lebanon, my opion is that someone there on vacation who couldn't get out deserved help but someone who chose to move there and is also a citizen of Lebanon should have looked to their local citizenship (i.e. Lebanon) for help and not Canada. In the US they charged everyone they evacuated for the assistance (mailed them a bill from what I read in the news), so maybe Canada should consider doing that too.

JAJ

It's impossible to tell. The closest you could guess would be to use census data on place of birth plus parents place of birth (if this is available) and combine this with knowledge of other countries laws to start calculating.

Many dual Canadian/other citizens have no idea they hold another nationality, and some that do know, don't care about it and don't hold the other country's passport.