Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@amalex5

amalex5/ohcanada.md

Last active May 3, 2017 17:46
Show Gist options
  • Save amalex5/96f1feffa2781c904661e7a0daa3064e to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save amalex5/96f1feffa2781c904661e7a0daa3064e to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Download ZIP
Raw
ohcanada.md

CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP NOTES

APRIL 2017

PART ONE: AM I A CANADIAN CITIZEN??

  • canada revised its (already very complex) citizenship laws in 2009. at the time i thought there was a high probability that it might mean i was a canadian citizen, and almost wrote a column for the chicago maroon about it. i ended up spiking the column for other reasons, and, on further investigation, decided that the law didn't actually apply to me.

  • last year sarah somehow heard about this, and decided that it applied to her, and decided she would apply to "resume" her canadian citizenship. i re-read the citizenship laws, and was still fairly certain that it didn't apply to her (and thus, recursively, to me).

  • but today (april 3rd) in the mail, she received her canadian passport. i'm not sure whether my displeasure in being wrong is outweighed by my joy at learning that i now am (or can be) a canadian citizen.

  • but now i'm re-reading the canadian citizenship regulations again, and i'm even more confused. (and, like, reading complex regulations is something i'm GOOD at!) i can't figure out why sarah is a canadian citizen, i can't figure out why she lost her canadian citizenship, and though i'm pretty sure that her being canadian implies me being canadian, i'm not even certain of that.

  • it occurs to me that maybe everything i know is wrong. the story i heard growing up was, sarah had been a dual citizen as a kid, but either the US or canada (or maybe both) didn't allow adults to be dual citizens, and so when she turned 18, she had to choose, and her parents forced her to choose the US. but what if that's totally wrong? what if she actually never renounced her canadian citizenship at all, and has been canadian this whole time? this sort of confusion and mistaken detail seems like the kind of thing sarah would do. (i'm not talking mendacity; i'm talking incompetence.) in that case, all this stuff with "resuming" citizenship and the 2009 and 2015 canadian citizenship legislation is totally irrelevant.

  • question: is it true that she wasn't allowed to be a dual citizen? is it true that she renounced her canadian citizenship as a child?

  • having been born in canada to a canadian parent and an american parent, sarah would have been both a canadian and american citizen by birth. US law on dual citizenship wasn't fully settled until some court cases in the late 60s, but it seems to have been generally accepting of sarah's situation. canadian law was harsher: the citizenship act of 1946 (in force until 1977) generally prohibited dual citizens. BUT, it had a loophole for people in sarah's position who acquired dual citizenship automatically by descent. BUT, on the other hand, the law also stripped citizenship from minor children of parents who were naturalized in a foreign country (as grandpa brian was in the US in 1962).

  • now, the 2009 canadian law (revised 2015) created a process for canadians who were involuntarily stripped of their citizenship (for various outdated reasons) to "resume" it. but my recollection (from reading the law closely) is that for it to apply to you, you need to be living in canada. which obviously sarah doesn't.

  • now, in sarah's march 1st email to my cousins and i, she writes that her/us getting canadian citizenship "results from a changed in Canadian law in 2009; before 2009, one had to choose to be either US or Canadian." okay. but she also writes: "… The Citizenship Certificate ($75 Canadian) may make it easier to apply for a Canadian passport later, but otherwise has no advantages that I can determine. I have just applied for a Canadian passport (10-year; $265 Canadian fee; 5-year is cheaper) …" from this I infer that she didn't go through the process to "resume" her citizenship. that's a separate set of forms, and is CAD$530. thus, i infer that she never actually lost her citizenship. thus, i infer that all this stuff about the 2009 and 2015 laws is a total red herring. (i guess both of us were simultaneously inspired and confused by them.)

  • but that doesn't make sense, because she still should have lost it in 1962 under the 1946 act, when grandpa brian became a US citizen. is it possible that grandpa never formally notified the canadian government that he had been naturalized as an american? did he never actually lose his canadian citizenship? he certainly never thought he still had canadian citizenship.

  • now, the other distinction that sarah references in her email is between a) applying for a citizenship certificate and b) applying for a passport. sarah says that she applied for the latter but not the former. the passport application (and a passport is my ultimate goal here, because who cares about a piece of paper?) has a section for "proof of canadian citizenship." if you were born in canada, a copy of your birth certificate suffices. for sarah, that's easy: just send along her saskatchewan birth certificate. if you were born outside canada, like me, you need to provide a certificate of citizenship (or one of three other documents that don't seem relevant to my situation). so it seems i'll need to apply for a citizenship certificate (CAD$75), and once i get it, then i can apply for a passport (CAD$265 for 10 years).

  • is it the case that sarah just filled out the passport application and included a copy of her birth certificate, as if she were just some ordinary 65-year-old canadian living in the US who thought she'd get around to applying for a canadian passport for the first time? given that she didn't get a citizenship certificate, and given that she didn't go through this "citizenship resumption" process, that's what seems to have happened.

  • this would clear up a lot of my confusion about the 2009/2015 laws. it may be the case that neither sarah or i would be eligible to "resume" citizenship, but we don't need to, because sarah never lost citizenship in the first place. so the 2009/2015 laws are irrelevant to our situation.

  • seeing sarah's original paperwork would resolve some, but not all, of my confusion.

  • april 4th. on the off chance that she might remember a bureaucratic detail from half a century ago, i called grandma to ask her whether grandpa ever officially renounced his canadian citizenship. she wasn't sure, but did describe how grandpa had to take a class, go down to the courthouse, and so forth. "it was a difficult thing for him to do. his family never liked him coming down here, and that was kind of hard. i don't think it was as hard for his mother as it was for his sister anne." but he became a US citizen because he wanted to vote, and kennedy was president at the time, and he was inspired by him. (for what it's worth, i have a news clipping showing that grandpa was naturalized as a US citizen on june 25th, 1962. exactly fifty years and one day before his death!)

  • funny anecdote: after he became a US citizen, or maybe while he was in the process of getting citizenship, some do-gooder local volunteer came to their door to offer him english lessons. (i guess they had seen his name and address on a list of new citizens.)

  • i asked grandma what SHE thought about grandpa getting US citizenship. she said, well, it was his decision, and she was fine with it either way. but, seeing how hard it was for him, "i wondered afterwards, many times, if he should have done that. in some ways he was more successful as a canadian than an american. he was always a little different than the others in the department, because he was raised differently. he was more skilled than a lot of the others in the department."

  • "he had thought he would like to go into international work, to be an agricultural attache at an embassy somewhere. and he never did that. and i don't know if he really wanted to do that or not. i think after the war what he really wanted was a peaceful existence, and he loved ithaca when he came down here for graduate work, and he wanted a family, and he wanted to just live a peaceful life. and he was always terribly worried about a nuclear bomb being set off somewhere and how we would all survive. and as time passed he grew less worried about it, i think. but in the early years of marriage he was very tense about it."

  • that's all very interesting, but (as expected) doesn't really shed light on whether grandpa formally renounced his canadian citizenship (or whether he just assumed that it would happen automatically/magically upon his getting US citizenship). oh well! worth a shot.

  • also today, i note that the canadian citizenship website says that passport applications are currently taking about 20 days to process, whereas "resumption of citizenship" applications are currently taking SIXTEEN MONTHS. it took sarah almost exactly a calendar month to get her passport. so, she clearly didn't apply to "resume" citizenship.

  • i guess the canadian government really does think that sarah has been a canadian citizen this whole time.

  • april 5th. using wikipedia, i compared the lists of countries that allow visa-free travel (or give visas on arrival) to canadian passport holders and american passport holders. VENEZUELA. the difference is venezuela. (and maybe cuba, but that doesn't really count.) i can now go to venezuela without advance planning, whereas with my american passport i can't. that's the only advantage.

PART TWO: CITIZENSHIP CERTIFICATE

DOCUMENTS:

  • i need to have my birth certificate, two pieces of ID (one with a photo), and sarah's birth certificate (to prove my canadianness)
  • acceptable document list for my personal pieces of ID: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/tools/cit/admin/id/accept-documents.asp
  • bizarrely, includes things like "blood donor's card"
  • i guess i'll use my NYS driver's license and US passport? that seems easiest? i like the deliberate irony of using my US passport to apply (indirectly) for a canadian passport. i mean, they allow dual citizenship, so...
  • all photocopies must be "certified," meaning that a notary public has to "compare the original document to the photocopy and must print the following on the photocopy:"

“I certify that this is a true copy of the original document”,
the name of the original document,
the date of the certification,
his or her name,
his or her official position or title, and
his or her signature.

PHOTOS:

  • note that photo requirements are somewhat different than for US passports
  • also note that the citizenship certificate photo requirements are SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT than the canadian passport photo requirements!!! yo wtf canada.
  • citizenship certificate photo requirements: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/photospecs-cit.asp
  • the photo has to be 35 x 45 mm (face height 31-36mm)
  • with all the standard caveats: face looking straight, well-exposed, plain white background, neutral expression, taken within six months
  • on the back of the photos:
    • print "the name of the photographer or the studio,
    • the studio address and the date the photos were taken,
    • [and] the name of the person on the back of the photos."
  • two copies
  • i'll get anna to take my photos at the same time i take her new (US) passport photos
  • photos taken 4/27
  • prints received from adoramapix 5/1

FEES:

  • CAD$75 (~=USD$56)
  • pay online, print out receipt, include it in packet
  • all sorts of online warnings about how the fee is nonrefundable if your application gets rejected for incompleteness (or for substantive reasons)
  • done 5/3. (USD$54.71 at today's rate)

DOCUMENTS TO ASSEMBLE:

  • two photos
  • my birth certificate (certified photocopy)(plus original to show notary)
  • sarah's birth certificate (certified photocopy)(plus original to show notary)
  • two pieces of ID, one with a photo:
    • my NYS driver's license (certified photocopy)(plus original to show notary)
    • my US passport (in an act of deliberate irony!)(certified copy)(plus original to show notary)
  • receipt showing i paid the fee
  • the application itself
  • checklist showing i've included all the above documents (self-referential!)

MAIL:

  • to:

Case Processing Centre – Sydney
Proof of Citizenship
P.O. Box 10000
SYDNEY, NS
B1P 7C1
CANADA

  • 5/3. took all this stuff to "uncle marty's shipping office," some mom-and-pop store in collegetown that does printing, notarizes stuff, etc.

  • printed out all the stuff on their nice printers

  • and notarized (NYS flat fee of $2/document to notarize). the clerk noted that they weren't allowed to actually verify photocopies, so hopefully my own notarized scrawl that "this is a real photocopy, yo" will be sufficient to please the canadian bureaucrats

  • total cost from uncle marty's was $16.47, including to print my application and paperwork (14 pages, $1.26), get the notary signatures (4 * $2), buy a 9x12 envelope (looks like they forgot to charge for this?), mail to canada ($6.08), and unrelatedly buy some nice 24-lb letter paper (5 * $0.19), and taxes ($0.18)

  • tracking number on the package: UA634606643US

  • mailed, may 3rd!!

  • processing time is five months (!)

  • so i can expect to get it in october! hopefully!

  • and then i can apply for my passport!

PART THREE: PASSPORT

  • to come! need to get citizenship certificate first.
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment