Andrew Miller

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/...tizenship.html

.

JAJ

History repeating itself if they're serious, eg:
http://www.lostcanadianchildren.com/

britishvixen21

Personally i think he should be more concerned with the huge backlogs of applications currently in process to bring skilled workers into Canada. But there ya go. They wont do anything to pressing they are a minority.

kt0157

I read about that a couple of months ago. Canada seems to be going through one of its nasty anti-foreigner episodes. Just read the newspapers from 1942 to see what the Canadian-born Japanese immigrants had to put up with. Language startlingly similar to today's War on Terror words.

Not to worry. In 50 years those deprived of citizenship will get a posthumous letter of apology from the Prime Minister.

K.

Biiiiink

Only 557,000 are dual-citizens?? I thought it would have been much more than that

And how many Canadians resident abroad are still paying taxes to RC? I know I was.

iaink

I read it....and have no idea what they are proposing!

Are they proposing:

A: Doing away with dual citizenship (bad idea)

B: Making it dependent on some ongoing connection to Canada (not such a bad idea, but largely inpractical)

C: Making it harder to get in the first place (Good Idea)

D: Not providing services on demand for citizens who have been absent for a long time and pay no taxes (Great Idea)

Biiiiink

I thought it was D, which is why I mentioned that many who haven't lived in Canada for years (if at all!) still pay taxes here... but you're right, not exactly clear is it?

It can't be A or B, but I'd go with C (5yrs? 10yrs?) or D although I wonder just how much money D would really save if people like me were eligible for services.

JAJ

Much more than that. About 18% of Canada's population is foreign born and while not all of these will be Canadians who still have the citizenship of their birthplace, there is a substantial proportion.

Plus those born in Canada who have another citizenship by descent. Plus those Canadians who have naturalised somewhere else and then returned to Canada, naturalised Canadians living elsewhere, and second generation citizens by descent overseas.

There are probably 4-5 million when you add up all these numbers.

Canadians not resident in Canada do not normally have to pay Canadian taxes. But then, they are not eligible for services either such as healthcare or pensions.

Biiiiink

Those figures sound much more likely than the those in the article - "According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada, about 557,000 Canadians — 1.8 per cent of the population — are dual citizens.". I'm wondering if the journo left a zero off the end???


Agreed, I was paying tax on rental income. I just wondered if that would have made me (any many other Canadians abroad) eligible for whatever services might be withdrawn to non-resident non-tax payers... but since we don't know what they're proposing withdrawing, it's a little hard to guess

JAJ

I can't see any figure like that on the Statistics Canada website but it simply cannot be correct. The figures about Canadians born overseas do come from the Stats Canada website but I couldn't get a breakdown of place of birth.

With such a breakdown it would be reasonable to assume that most Canadians born in places like Britain or America are dual citizens, while the majority of those born in Germany or Singapore (for example) are not.

Incidentally, there is only one country that has seriously tried rolling back dual citizenship in recent times - the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe back in 2001/02:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/...n/zimbabwe.htm

northernbird

I am assuming because I am both a bit dense and hungover today that this does not mean canadian born citizens living overseas.

JAJ

If the Government is serious, it could mean a return to the situation where Canadians who take another nationality automatically lose Canadian citizenship.

Not a good idea to assume things.

MarkG

Sure, but that would be retarded; not that I put that level of stupidity past any government, but there's some limit beyond which they normally don't want to go.

The real problem is that the Canadian government _encourages_ people to move to Canada as a 'citizenship of convenience' (e.g. by the 2 out of 5 rule rather than requiring that PRs actually live permanently in Canada to maintain residency), so it's kind of silly to complain when people do just that.

northernbird

I agree JAJ. I hope this isn't the case, my daughter was born in Canada to English parents.

Biiiiink

I think 3 out of the previous 4yrs for citizenship is pretty short - how does that compare with other countries? I think Germany is 7 or 8 yrs resident before you can apply, that's the only one I vaguely know of...