Holy crap this is ridiculous. I feel terrible for her. As a child born only a couple of years after my own parents immigrated from Portugal to Canada, I can’t imagine.
[…] the department said in its letter that it has decided to cancel her citizenship because Townsend’s mother didn’t take her oath before Townsend was born.
What triggers are in place for the government to review ancestral citizenship history?
The article doesn’t say, but I’d bet this woman applied for something (a passport? Government benefits?) that only citizens are eligible for, and that triggered a routine check, which then triggered a deeper check because she was born outside Canada, which led to the discovery that something was a bit odd. Your tax dollars at work.
An interesting contrast here. Air Canada is forced to honour an erroneous committment made by its service department. Government of Canada is not forced to honour a committment made by its service department.
I could understand it if the error was discovered and acted upon in a reasonable time, but over 30 years? That’s just not acceptable.
She may not have a previous citizenship, depending on how Jamaica determines citizenship, even if she didn’t explicitly renounce it. That would leave her stateless, which is . . . not a good thing to be.
There are two basic principles for recognizing citizenship: jus soli (being born on a country’s territory) and jus sanguis (being the child of one or more citizens). Countries differ in which of those they accept and to what extent. Canada recognizes jus soli always, but jus sanguis only under limited circumstances, and the exact rules for claiming citizenship here via jus sanguis have changed recently.
It’s possible for a child of two people from countries that don’t recognize jus sanguis (or who are stateless themselves) who was born in a country that doesn’t recognize jus soli to have no citizenship by birth at all. This is particularly a problem for refugees, but can happen to just about anyone from any walk of life.
Under the current law, a Canadian citizen born abroad can’t pass Canadian citizenship to their own child via jus sanguis anymore, although the rules were looser thirty years ago. The child is still a citizen if born inside Canada (jus soli), but the subject of the article linked in the opening post was born abroad.
The number of stateless people in the world apparently numbers in the low millions at present. It is a big issue.
Add comment