the CanadaVisa Team - 21 February, 2007
The cases of Canadians discovering they do not hold citizenship are small in number and being resolved quickly, according to the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Earlier this year the issue came to the forefront when it was discovered that for certain Canadians, their citizenship had lapsed at their 28th birthday without their knowledge, due to a requirement that they reaffirm their citizenship before they reach 28 years of age. The provision, found in the 1977 Citizenship Act, applies to Canadian citizens who were born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent also born outside of Canada. This section of the law however is little known, as it did not begin to be enforced until February 2005 - the 28th birthday of those born after the law was passed. Most of the affected Canadians discovered the loss of citizenship when applying for passports to meet new regulations on air travel to the U.S.
While initial reports suggested the number of Canadians pushed into legal limbo by this portion of the legislation was in the thousands, Minister Finley reported that her department has found the figure to be far lower. The number of cases identified by Citizenship and Immigration Canada currently sits at just over 450. Minister Finley announced that she has recently used the discretionary powers associated with her post to grant citizenship to 33 of the so-called “lost” Canadians, while her department is fast-tracking the remainder of the files.
Minister Finley suggested that the fears of large numbers of people being left stateless by this provision of the Citizenship Act were overblown. She says her department's public hotline has received 692 inquiries since last month from people worried about the status of their citizenship. Of those, however only 17 in fact did not have valid Canadian citizenship.
