Yes, I am British, a proud possessor of a Permanent Resident Card and married to a Canadian. I do intend to apply for Canadian citizenship in a couple of years time, assuming Mr Harper and his lot don't do anything silly to prevent me maintaining British citizenship as well. I am happy to be Canadian when the time comes, happy to be a dual national but would never give up British citizenship. So would end up having two passports.

We don't have kids (yet) but when we do I assume they will be eligable for British citizenship in addition to Canadian.

AX

Pffft to Novo As if I knew that! *lol* Brat!

Are you (Iain Mc) the same as the original poster or is that someone entirely different?

Entirely different, I can confirm I am completely unrelated to Iaink.

Well, to my knowledge.

I dont see refusing to pay the extra for a british passport as giving up my British citizenship in any way.
If I just use a canadian one then I am completely outside any alleged UK information "matrix"...it just remains to be seen if thats good or bad in the long term.

As I will still have my UK birth certificate and an old passport I cant imagine it should be a problem to get a UK passport again in future if a good reason come up...but no one has yet convinced me there is a good logical reason to pay $50 extra for a maroon passport instead of a blue one.

And, no, I'm not Iain Mc...hes just another guy whose parents knew how to spell correctly.

Not suggesting for a moment you are. However, personally I would always want to have a British passport if I were a British citizen. If for no other reason than if I lose one I can use the other!

Same here. I have two expired British passports but for the past 20 years or more I've been using my Canadian one with no problems.

thanks for that got it!!

I didn't think there was any plan to issue overseas residents with British ID cards. What would be the point?

On the original topic: I recently became a Canadian citizen and, as it happens, my UK passport (and the OH's) expire in June 2007. We are both of a certain age when our respective parents are of an even more certain age and neither of us would be comfortable not to have a valid passport in our possession even for a couple of weeks, since emergency travel is always an all-too-real possibility.

Therefore we are applying for Canadian passports (in person, in Toronto), which should take no more than a week or two and then, and only then, we will mail our expiring UK passports to Ottawa for renewal. Thus, we will end up with both, but since we travel to Europe far more frequently than to the US (these days), we will continue to use the UK one almost exclusively.

I don't know whether Iaink thinks this is a good enough reason to pay two sets of fees, but it's good enough for me.

As canadians dont need a visa to visit the UK, the only advantage would be for queue jumping at Heathrow...but as my wife is canadian and its unlikely I would travel without her, Id still have to wait for her and the kids to catch up anyway

You are right about the renewing thing though... not being without a travel document is another reason to get the Canadian one as I dont want to be without while waiting for the high commission to do its thing.

Correct, I don't think they're going to be printing plastic for expats; however if this lot get in again, the two systems will become intertwined. The costs of running the new ID card system will be passed on from the passport agency to the consumer (prices are already rising) and more biometric data will be required for the passport (at least prints and retinal scans), which'll end up on the ID register.

Admittedly, the fate of expats is of little interest to the media at home so there's not been much detail on that specific issue, all of that is "AFAIK".

Cheers, Iain

Since the driver for biometric data is the US government and Harper is more of a devotee than Blair, isn't it likely than the Canadians will want more in the way of bum prints and dental records than the British?

No idea I'm afraid, I'm in the UK until August and haven't been following the Canadian press of late. Are there plans in the works over there for compulsory biometric ID for the Canadian citizenry? I don't recall getting fingerprinted for my PR card.

They are going to have to design some really big cards!

I think the current PR card is capable of containing fingerprints but doesn't.