I am just curious, it is common knowledge that the difference between everyday life and the ability to enter Canada is not that much apparent between a citizen and PR. It is also common knowledge that as a citizen, you can vote and perhaps have an easier travel experience with a Canadian passport.
What other benefits have you observed since gaining citizenship?
People make mistakes. Especially when there is a confluence of stress factors. Can happen to anyone.
Driving while impaired can be prosecuted by indictment, for example, and if it is charged by indictment that means it is an offence punishable by up to ten years imprisonment, which meets the definition of serious criminality EVEN if very little actual jail time is imposed. That would make a PR INADMISSIBLE and lead to the loss of PR status. Just one example of what could happen even for those of us who almost never engage in such criminal or risky behavior (and those who are super-confident that this will NEVER happen to them are particularly prone to making mistakes). And it is not clear how being charged with impaired driving in another country might lead to inadmissibility and loss of PR status for serious criminality (hybrid offences charged abroad can be considered an indictable offence for IRPA purposes) . . . I think I have seen reports that one or more U.S. states has reduced the blood alcohol level for impaired driving to just .05 . . . anyone who drinks much at all could easily tip those scales in a moment of distraction.
Moreover, anyone who might consider spending a few years in early retirement in another country, before returning to Canada later in life . . . or, for that matter, anyone considering taking extended employment abroad for a period of years, such as to take advantage of a particularly lucrative opportunity, NEEDS to be a citizen rather than a PR. A PR must meet the ongoing Residency Obligation. (And make no mistake, more than an occasional PR has stumbled in this regard, going abroad for this or that reason, ending up staying abroad longer than planned, needing a PR Travel Document to get back to Canada, only to have that DENIED, resulting in loss of their PR status, even though they lived in Canada for the vast majority of DECADES.)
BUT the BIGGER DIFFERENCE is, perhaps, largely psychological and sociological.
For some, psychological and sociological factors have little influence in who they are or how they feel about themselves and their place in the community. So sure, for them it might not be a big deal to be a citizen. There are, after all, more than a few passing through this forum whose agenda is to have the STATUS of citizen, and to carry a Canadian passport, without really becoming a *
CITIZEN* in practice.
But for many of us, those of us who are not narcissistic sociopaths, the formality of obtaining the status of citizen is just one part, a big part, of truly and fully establishing ourselves, our lives, into the fabric of Canadian life, becoming real citizens, not just Canadian passport holders.
In contrast I know more Americans who are Canadian PRs with no intention of becoming a Canadian citizen than I know who have become citizens.
Kind of telling, one might say.
For me, becoming a Canadian citizen was a huge, huge event in my life, of great importance to me. I understood that legally I was a "Canadian" when I was just a PR, but I know a lot of people who do not see it that way. I also realize that many in today's world are more calculating and cold, a lot of
what's-in-it-for-me driving personal decision-making, not so much importance invested in belonging to a community. So sure, the core value for many is personal, either not so much value given a more narcissistic personal perspective, or of great value for those more deeply invested in being part of the Canadian community.
