Canada Issues a Wake-Up Call: You May Be a Citizen
 

Thanks to a new law, Canada will bestow citizenship Friday on what its government believes could be hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans.

The April 17 amendment to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically restores Canadian nationality to many people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country. It also grants citizenship to their children.


In the video 'Waking Up Canadian,' a man goes to sleep in a drab room and wakes up to find out that he's become a citizen of Canada. Surrounded by flags, maple-leaf-shaped cookies and a canister of maple syrup, he's welcomed by a hockey player, two plush moose and a uniformed Mountie.
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.The Canadian government doesn't know the precise number or location of individuals affected by the legislation. But it believes most are U.S. citizens, a spokeswoman for Canada's immigration office said. U.S. Department of Homeland Security records show 240,000 Canadians were naturalized in the U.S. from 1948 to 1977; the new law fixes problems that occurred during those years.

To reach that amorphous group of beneficiaries, the Canadian government has turned to YouTube. It's running an ad there titled "Waking up Canadian," in which a man awakens on April 17 to a room festooned with red-and-white Canadian flags. He's met by a welcoming committee consisting of two stuffed plush moose, a hockey player, and a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Eligible individuals automatically become Canadian citizens. But they don't get proof of that citizenship unless they apply for it, meaning other countries -- including those that allow people to be citizens of only one nation -- won't be alerted, according to the immigration office spokeswoman. Those people also may renounce their citizenship rights, she said.


James Hager
Canada is using YouTube to tout a new law granting citizenship to unsuspecting foreigners, many of whom are Americans.
.The citizenship bonanza is the byproduct of a decadeslong struggle by a motley group of people who claim they were unfairly denied or lost their Canadian nationality. Canadian families who crossed the border in 1947 to 1977 to have their babies in a U.S. hospital found those children weren't recognized as Canadians unless the families registered them with the government. Some foreign brides of Canadian World War II servicemen lost their citizenship if they stayed out of the country for a decade or more.

Then there are the Canadian Mennonites who moved to Mexico in the 1920s to the 1960s. When their children and grandchildren returned to Canada, many found their nationality unclear.

Some such cases languished in litigation for years. Others surfaced in 2007, when new U.S. rules requiring passports for travel between Canada and the U.S. uncovered significant numbers of people who thought they were Canadian, but weren't. The old rules were "quite intricate," said Bill Janzen, an immigration lobbyist in Ottawa for the Mennonite Central Committee of Canada.

The new law offers citizenship to many individuals now in limbo. It also stops the previous practice of granting citizenship in perpetuity to children of Canadians born abroad, limiting eligibility to children of parents born in Canada.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1239...?mod=yhoofront

Good lord what a nightmare. If I found out I was a Canadian I would kill myself. :(

TRANSLATION :

We actually hate your fucking asses but please come out of the woodwork now
because we are fucking broke and want your tax money.


:1orglaugh

as if we didn't have slack enough immigration in the first place. i wonder if these fuckers get the two years tax-free living the rest of the immigrants get. ridiculous.

:1orglaugh

Compared to a lot of countries, like the US, we're far from broke and far better off financially.. We've been paying heavier taxes for a couple decades now in order to get our house in better order.

Nice! Utada Hikaru when she was slim and sexe! :thumbsup

me too:helpme:upsidedow

You're a Canadian.

Please stick this in your eye and twist. Thanks.

http://www.knivesjournal.com/wp-cont...7/11/knife.jpg

When i read things like this it really does amaze me.....lol
Most of you have never lived any place besides your good ol USA...
Well i have news for you...its not as great as they brainwash you to think it is.

I was born and raised Californian, lived malibu beaches, and thought that was it!

Wife is Canadian on her visit to her Parents with our children they stopped her, our good ol USA boarder guards...detained her, now she has citizen papers in motion but the fact they detained her, she cant come back to our home till she gets "green card" nice huh?

So i moved, and now have houses in other parts of the world, i do most of my living in Canada... guess what its fucking amazing...here is the list...

1. People are nice...i mean nice....can you imagine?
2. I let my daughter walk to school.. ( never did that even at the beach)
3. Crime ...what crime?
4. There is no black or white issues there, in fact i have never seen such a melting pot of people of all ages ..get along and co mingle together ...just does not exisit in the USA....children are born and raised to hate.
5. Not about the "shit you have" its about quality of life.

I could on and on...but when you feel like your country is so amazing take a closer look, when you carve out your tax payment, where that is going exactly? "Bail out" ...lol

I just felt like posting some of this to those might want to open there eyes a little wider and not buy into all the hype or bullshit...or just take a trip and do some traveling, i mean travel....not a weekend...but weeks at a time in a country you dont know anyone...see how it goes...then imagine if you were in the USA would you have that same experience coming from another country..i already know that answer.

of course this is only my opinion...2cents.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Ill have a #1 and a #3 please.

cit·i·zen 1. A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.

freeman, freewoman - a person who is not a serf or a slave

Amen.

I want to move to Mexico sometime in the near future to enjoy life in another country. Canada will always be home, but I don't have to spend all my time here either.

Blah...blah...blah..... I don't live in the US. :error Having read your post though I can understand that if you were raised in California then everywhere else in the world seems to be a step up........ even Canada (shudder). :1orglaugh

When one takes their US citizenship oath, they renounce all others. However, very few actually head down the street to fill out the paperwork officially giving up their Canadian citizenship.

BTW- both countries expect you to declare all worldwide income, but there is a treaty in place to ensure you don't pay twice.

I'd also kill myself if I found out I was a Canadian. As horrible as America is, I still love this place... I don't care. We could kick your country's ass.