It's an emotional thing. It's about being true to oneself.

I see a Canadian passport as a document of transient value, it's useful only while one lives in Canada and travels frequently to the US. If one lives anywhere else one may as well use the document showing one's original and proper nationality. I don't expect to have a Canadian passport when I die as I hope to have moved on and, anyway, having a Canadian passport has always felt like a badge of failure; a successful person shouldn't have had to go to the back of beyond to make a living. I'm an immigrant, not really part of Canada, and I'm rather embarassed and apologetic when I use the local document.

Hmm, unfortunately I see no shame attached to being a canadian citizen

Surely if you really meant to be true to yourself you would have left Canada years ago rather than just stay here for the OHIP coverage

I would have thought that after coming here with basically the shirt you were wearing, and canada allowing you to make a sucessfull life for yourself to the extent you can support several wives and their associated legal professionals, you would be rather more fond of the place and prouder to be accepted as one it its citizens

Yes, but it would take a lot of balls to go somewhere else given that I have to generate $54,000/year to pay the alimony as well as enough to cover the medical bills and the living expenses for a completely disabled person. More balls than I have.

Incidentally, neither of my adult daughters use their British or Canadian passports even for travel to the US, they've inherited my sense of shame about the Canadian one and their mother's sense of the superiority of the Swiss one.

I see Canada's contribution to my ascent from poverty to servitude as being solely the provision of access to the land of opportunity. We, as a firm, have made next to no money in Canada. The market's too small and the firms too conservative. I am however profoundly grateful to the US; Tom Vu inspired me.

Ah, but without Canadas lax immigration policies of the time the US would just have just been a distant dream

I can see you now, surrounded by bikini clad bimbos, refering to yourself in the third person

Oh no, it was another world then. I got an eviction notice and decided to try "abroad". I picked up the trade paper and looked at the adverts, Australia seemed a long way and an expensive air fare back if it didn't work, the US wanted a month to arrange a visa, we saw the advert for Canada thought "hey, they speak French in Canada" and were here two weeks later. You're right in that, if Canada had had any sort of slow procedure, we wouldn't have come here but we would have conquered our fear of not having socialised medicine and gone to the US.

That has happened but it wasn't the inspiration. What I thought, or fought at the time, was "if he talks as bad as that it aint gonna matter wot I sahnd like". And so it proved, Americans thought the Queen talked like wot I did.

So it was all based on a terrible misunderstanding, after all they only really speak "french" in Quebec.

I see, well, you know what they say about the cultural enlightenment of the average american...and statistically half of them are even worse than that!

who knows what's around the corner ....i for one would never be without my british passport, ok so it costs a few quid to renew...well worth it imo.

I say nothing about that. Especially not at home.

I suppose one reason I think so little of the Canadian passport is that, while I know very many people who have one, almost none of them were born here and they have nothing in common. It's not a document to which I attach any value as I think of it as being given to anyone asks and, among the people I know, no one identifies him or her self as a Canadian; just as someone travelling on a Canadian passport. My position may change when we move and start meeting people who think of themselves as being Canadian.


(then I may burn mine).

Yes.

Quite, but if I was on a hijacked plane and the victims were being segregated on the basis of passport I might be quite glad to have a Canadian one rather than a UK or US one in the current climate....

Im still leaning towards ditching the UK one, there seems no good non emotional reason to pay the extra. The wife and kids will be on Canadian ones (well, the wife for sure) anyway, so Im not like dbd who doesnt know any born in canada canadians apparently.

The queen or a queen? (Based on the Honda of course.)

My attachment to my British passport is mainly emotional but as a counterpoint to Iain's hijacking scenario, if I were somewhere like Ohhh the Lebanon and needed evacuating I think I'd rather be British than Canadian given the shennanigans last year!

But your Canadian one likely IDs you as British too (aren't most people born in Britain pre-1982 British?). That's what I've been thinking, I've got 2 avenues for help covered on my Canadian one, only 1 on my British.

Americans think all Brits are gay anyway donchaknow. May as well play to it.

Really?? They give fingerprints and photos rather than use a Canadian passport? I admit to a slight embarrassment handing one over with this accent but not enough to submit prints and pay money to enter the US