Leon, I understand that -- but I also believe that citizenship makes a person a member of a country with all the rights and privileges of native-born members, and that includes informal privileges. No one considers native Canadians as having a duty to live here. It seems that Canada's aim should be not to create a class of people who are grateful and industrious, but a group of new Canadians who use the freedom that status gives them in all the way that natural Canadians do. In this case, the informal privilege of being Canadian is doing whatever one wants in the world. This situation has happened before -- in Smyrna, before the Turks destroyed it, there was a class of Levant traders who spoke many languages, traded throughout the Mediterranean, but were U.K. citizens. In a way it is a testament to a country, and can be managed in ways that prevent exploitation (one option below).
Of course, no commune wants to let in lazy workers who are just there for the free love . . . -- and a year application, three years of residency, year or so of citizenship application, lets someone become a citizen who is just there for a PhD program, or other short-term reasons. Perhaps they should lengthen the residency and shorten the application period . . .
It will become a problem if large numbers of Canadians, who have lived life abroad, start returning to Alberta in their unhealthy old ages and signing up for next-day medical coverage at the airport. I would suggest that Canada does what the U.S. does, and institute a law that access to health insurance for people returning from abroad depends upon them continuing to pay taxes for some pre-specified period. Canadian pensions are all linked to residency, so there is no problem there.
