Hundreds of Canadians seem to have been left without their citizenships due to a legal loophole.
The Citizenship Act of 1977 requires Canadians born abroad after February 14, 1977, to reregister to prove an 'attachment' to their country before they turn 28
According to widely published reports in the Canadian media, the first generation to risk losing their citizenship would have turned 28 on February 15, 2005, but many of these people had no idea they had ceased to be Canadian until they started going to the passport office to get their new passport, or to get their passport renewed.
The rush for passports is on now as the US government has imposed new rules, effective January 23, that all Canadians, flying to the US, must carry a passport. They could earlier travel to the US with just any kind of identity card.
These people, so affected by the Citizenship Act of 1977, have started finding now that their citizenship is in legal limbo as they have turned 28, the statutory period during which they were required to reregister themselves.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada says they have in this rush for new passports identified 450 such people with legal difficulties. They wouldn't reveal their backgrounds as to their family ethnicity.
This number in fact has grown many fold as more and more people are going for their new passports.
As they went to apply for a new passport or renewal of their passport they found out their citizenship is not valid, said official spokeswoman, Marina Wilson. "More and more cases have been popping up."
Liberal member of Parliament Jim Karygiannis, is demanding the Conservative Government take immediate action to help countless Canadians regain their citizenship.
"Honest, decent, law-abiding Canadians have been stripped of their citizenship," he told this reporter on January 25. "Now, they face a process that could take months to complete and cost untold dollars. What we are doing to these Canadians is unconscionable."
The need for Canadians to obtain passports before they can fly to the US has brought to light Section 8 of the Citizenship Act. Canadians are finding out that they are not citizens because they were born outside Canada to Canadian parents; they are Canadian-born individuals, who as children moved, with their parents, to another country; or, they are the children or grandchildren of Canadian citizens who were married in another country, where the marriage is not recognized by the local government.
He has proposed that the Federal Government must begin an aggressive information campaign to advise Canadians of this problem, using inserts in government mailings, posters at all Service Canada offices, advertising in all media (mainstream and ethnic), etc.
Karygiannis has also proposed that Ottawa must provide additional staff at the case processing center of Citizenship and Immigration in Sydney, Nova Scotia, to deal with the applications from these Canadians and better it would be to repeal Section 8 of the Citizenship Act.
"I believe implementing these measures will help alleviate some of the stress this has caused Canadians," he said and also suggested, "The Harper government must make this right."
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