freespirit
12th July 2012, 04:56 PM
The government has told a Canadian man born to a Canadian military family serving abroad that he has to apply for citizenship to obtain a passport.
http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-talk/man_born_into_a_canadian_armed_forces_family_is_to ld_hes_not_a_citizen/166503f6
When Lawrence Connelly, an Ontario resident, went to apply for a passport so that he could take his family to Disney World on a summer trip, he was told that there was no proof of his citizenship (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2012/05/23/19794996.html?cid=rssnewscanada). Connelly was baffled. He had, after all, an OHIP card, a SIN number, a pension fund, and most importantly a DND birth certificate, an official government document verifying his birth to a Canadian serviceman abroad.
Connelly was born in 1967 to a Canadian military family stationed in Germany, but because he was never issued a Canadian birth certificate, he now has to apply for citizenship just like an immigrant, which could take up to 10 months.
Connelly's outrage is completely justifiable. He has been working, paying his taxes, and raising his family in Canada for decades. His parents are Canadian, and they served their country both here and abroad. To suddenly be told that although the government believes he is Canadian, it doesn't consider him a citizen is absolutely mind-boggling. And sadly, there are roughly 200,000 other people like him, lost in a big bureaucratic shuffle that denies them their basic rights.
Though the government claims to be sympathetic to his case, they say there is nothing they can do. MP Bruce Stanton says, "the document issued by DND at his birth was never intended to be proof of citizenship." But then what was?
Although parents serving in the armed forces abroad were given DND documents, they were supposed to register their children with the government to obtain citizenship. But it's evident that there were thousands who were never informed about that loophole.
Eventually, the government got smart about the issue, and the Citizenship Act eliminated the DND birth certificate and the need to register children born abroad. It declares, "...you are a Canadian Citizen by virtue of the fact that you were born to a Canadian parent who was serving abroad as long as your birth was registered." In other words, those born to Canadian Forces personnel outside Canada were issued citizenship certificates. Yet the act still leaves those born before 1977, the year it came into effect, in a very confusing and complicated position.
It's shocking and disheartening to think that the children of the men and women who served overseas, who I might add didn't always choose where they were stationed, are being denied the very rights that their parents fought to protect. It sounds like a case of bureaucracy at its worse, and it demeans the sacrifice of these families.
There must be a better way to resolve the issue than to force these men and women to go to the back of the queue, wait months, and pay fees for something that should have been granted to them automatically. The government shouldn't be making their lives more difficult and more expensive, and it's embarrassing to find out that Canada still treats its military families this way.
http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-talk/man_born_into_a_canadian_armed_forces_family_is_to ld_hes_not_a_citizen/166503f6
When Lawrence Connelly, an Ontario resident, went to apply for a passport so that he could take his family to Disney World on a summer trip, he was told that there was no proof of his citizenship (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2012/05/23/19794996.html?cid=rssnewscanada). Connelly was baffled. He had, after all, an OHIP card, a SIN number, a pension fund, and most importantly a DND birth certificate, an official government document verifying his birth to a Canadian serviceman abroad.
Connelly was born in 1967 to a Canadian military family stationed in Germany, but because he was never issued a Canadian birth certificate, he now has to apply for citizenship just like an immigrant, which could take up to 10 months.
Connelly's outrage is completely justifiable. He has been working, paying his taxes, and raising his family in Canada for decades. His parents are Canadian, and they served their country both here and abroad. To suddenly be told that although the government believes he is Canadian, it doesn't consider him a citizen is absolutely mind-boggling. And sadly, there are roughly 200,000 other people like him, lost in a big bureaucratic shuffle that denies them their basic rights.
Though the government claims to be sympathetic to his case, they say there is nothing they can do. MP Bruce Stanton says, "the document issued by DND at his birth was never intended to be proof of citizenship." But then what was?
Although parents serving in the armed forces abroad were given DND documents, they were supposed to register their children with the government to obtain citizenship. But it's evident that there were thousands who were never informed about that loophole.
Eventually, the government got smart about the issue, and the Citizenship Act eliminated the DND birth certificate and the need to register children born abroad. It declares, "...you are a Canadian Citizen by virtue of the fact that you were born to a Canadian parent who was serving abroad as long as your birth was registered." In other words, those born to Canadian Forces personnel outside Canada were issued citizenship certificates. Yet the act still leaves those born before 1977, the year it came into effect, in a very confusing and complicated position.
It's shocking and disheartening to think that the children of the men and women who served overseas, who I might add didn't always choose where they were stationed, are being denied the very rights that their parents fought to protect. It sounds like a case of bureaucracy at its worse, and it demeans the sacrifice of these families.
There must be a better way to resolve the issue than to force these men and women to go to the back of the queue, wait months, and pay fees for something that should have been granted to them automatically. The government shouldn't be making their lives more difficult and more expensive, and it's embarrassing to find out that Canada still treats its military families this way.