As the federal election race heats up and citizenship issues take centre stage, a timely new book explores the history of Canada's flawed citizenship laws and how politicians have consistently refused to remedy them.
In his new book The Lost Canadians, Don Chapman outlines the stories of individual Canadians who have been stripped of citizenship or rendered stateless based on legislative technicalities. The issue has been covered extensively by Vancouver Observer and other news publications over the years.
Many Canadians have heard by now about Bill C-24's controversial provision that allows immigration officials—not Federal Court judges— to strip citizenship from dual citizens suspected of being engaged in 'terrorism,' a term that critics argue could now be defined as anything from environmental protests to religion-based attacks.
But Chapman's book outlines the ways in which Canadians have in fact always been victims of arbitrary and arcane aspects of citizenship laws. Chapman himself was stripped of Canadian citizenship as a child despite having been born in Canada and having parents who generously contributed to Canadian institutions (the University of British Columbia's Chapman Learning Commons was named for his father). He has been fighting on behalf of lost Canadians long after his activism made the federal government to restore his citizenship.
"Insulting and hurtful" treatment by citizenship officials
Some of the reasons legitimate citizens have been denied status by the Canadian government in the past include:
- Being born out of wedlock abroad to a Canadian father and non-Canadian mother
- Being born in wedlock to a Canadian mother and non-Canadian father
- Having a child with a non-Canadian (in 1939, Ontario resident Velma Demerson was jailed for having a child with a Chinese man and stripped of Canadian citizenship)
- Being born abroad to Canadian parents after 1977 and neglecting to "re-affirm" desire to keep Canadian citizenship before turning age 28
Over the course of his fight, Chapman has met many Canadians— including war veterans, veterans' children, Indigenous people, Mennonites, teachers and senior citizens— who were unjustly denied their citizenship.
While some divided their time between countries, many had spent their entire lives in Canada, never doubting their rights as Canadians, only to be shocked later in life to learn the federal government didn't consider them citizens.
This unfairness is vividly illustrated by Chapman's book through stories of people like Johan Teichroeb, a young Mennonite Canadian whose life was turned upside down over murky and arbitrary rules around citizenship:
"I was born in Mexico in February of 1980. My parents moved to Manitoba when I was six months old. They applied for citizenship for me, and I received it on November 6, 1980. I grew up in Canada. I went to school here. I joined the workforce when I was 16... and became a truck driver."
Then one day, he heard he was in the category to "renew" his citizenship before he was 28. He sent in the application in 2002, then suddenly heard back from the federal government that he had "never been Canadian" and could not retain his citizenship because his grandfather had been born out of wedlock.
Teichroeb was thunderstruck. He'd lived in Canada since he was an baby, and had gotten married in Canada, and had two Canadian-born children. Why would a missing 'marriage certificate' from 70 years ago change the fact that he was a Canadian?
But since federal authorities revoked his citizenship, Teichroeb suddenly couldn't cross the border with his truck, and he was out of a job.
Teichroeb told the Parliament's citizenship committee in 2007, breaking down in tears:
"I lost everything, including the house.... My wife was depressed and started taking anti-depressants... the thing is, if I had been born three years earlier, I would have never had a problem. Everything would have been fine."
Others, like Janet Smith, told bitter stories of having spent their entire lives in Canada, only to be denied citizenship due to the crime of not knowing the exact name of the boat that brought her to Canada at age two after World War II.
"I have been denied OAS pension four times. I have never lived anywhere else but Canada," laments Smith, who was born in England in 1943 and brought to Canada in 1945.
"I am beginning to believe they are just being insulting and hurtful and don't really care.... I am now 71 and am losing my hope that anything will happen."
Brushed off by all parties
Though the case of each "lost Canadian" is unique, they are tied together by a common thread: that authorities don't know their own laws, and that none of Canada's main leadership candidates today—with the possible exception of Green Party leader Elizabeth May— have much interest in remedying the flaws that create havoc in many legitimate Canadians' lives.
Although the Conservative Party often takes credit for 'fixing' the lost Canadian issue with measures like Bill C-39 and Bill C-24, new cases emerge on a regular basis.
Just last week, a 99-year-old Canadian woman, Joan Stirling, was denied citizenship by the federal government despite abundant evidence that she'd been living in Canada for over 80 years and voting regularly in elections. Despite showing officials 20 documents proving her identity and long record of living and working in Canada, feds rejected her until public outrage forced the feds to give her citizenship.
Chapman, a citizenship advocate and former pilot, recognized the pitfalls of Canada's citizenship laws and lobbied for legislation that has restored citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Canadians. But, he says, both Bill C-37 (2009) and Bill C-24 (2014) had flaws that continue to leave some people disenfranchized, or create a whole new class of Lost Canadians.
Chapman thinks it's problematic and preposterous that Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau are seeking to represent Canadian citizens without taking time to grasp the laws that define what a Canadian citizen is.
"Political leaders have not taken any interest in this issue for decades," Chapman said, noting that he has spent years calling the offices of party leaders and cabinet ministers on the issue, only to be brushed off— not just by the Tories but also by Liberals and NDP.
In some cases, he said, politicians politely listen to his case, only to do nothing about it. Even civil rights advocates, he alleges, have been apathetic.
Bill C-24 only the tip of the bad policy iceberg
The lack of political will means that the citizenship issue has remained a mess. That mess has gotten worse, rather than been improved, with the passage of the Conservatives' so-called "Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act" (Bill C-24) last June.
"The Conservatives have put all kinds of bad things into this bill, and it's just the tip of the iceberg."
"I mean, they've been doing this kind of thing for decades. The federal government is claiming citizenship didn't exist until 1947. How do they explain that the Canadian government stripped [some] Japanese Canadians of their citizenship and deported them during wartime, or that they took away a Canadian woman's citizenship just for marrying a Chinese man? This is nothing new. People haven't been paying attention until now."
Chapman's book points out the paradox that people who are wealthy or powerful are often instantly granted citizenship with quick turnaround. Famed Canadian architect Frank Gehry, for example,had his citizenship restored instantly under the Chretien government.
But ordinary lost Canadians like Janet Smith, who are neither politically connected nor powerful, have been repeatedly rejected despite being bona fide Canadians who have worked for decades to help build the country. One war veteran's daughter even brought forward a lawsuit against the federal government after being repeatedly rejected, and told to her face by then-citizenship minister Jason Kenney that her Ontario-born father may have been a hero, but not a citizen.
In addition to the elderly born before 1945, Canadian families with children born abroad are starting to see their children become stateless. Many are shocked to realize they don't qualify for citizenship, and are frustrated to find themselves repeatedly rejected despite providing ample evidence of their Canadian identity.
Even as politicians and civil rights advocates debate whether a Canadian-born terrorist should lose citizenship, they fail to understand that bad laws have been stripping law-abiding Canadians of their rights for years, Chapman argues.
"This problem can be solved if the federal government would just create a citizenship ombudsman," Chapman said. "Here we have the citizenship laws that bind us as a Canadian family, but the leaders are all so ignorant they don't get it at all. What is going to happen as we take in Syrian refugee children, or Haitian children with no documentation? There are people who have been here decades but aren't accepted as citizens."
Even though Chapman has already regained his citizenship, he believes it's vital for Canadians to fight on behalf of those who are currently being denied recognition.
"Canadians need to stand up for others and hold politicians accountable when this kind of thing happens," he said. "Our judgment, or lack thereof about citizenship, is going to affect all our children, grandchildren and future generations."
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