More dual-national history

Patrick Lacroix, the historian of franco-america, responds to a recent post here in order to draw our attention to Canada's own new amendments to citizenship law.  Briefly (and as far as I can tell from this), Canadian citizenship can now be acquired by children of people who were not born in Canada but who had/have some substantial connection to Canada, particularly by having lived in Canada at some point. (The Supreme Court of Canada had ruled the previous rule -- only first-generation children of Canadians eligible -- was unfair.) 

The new law, now passed, opens avenues where a having Canadian grandparent and a parent who lived for a time in Canada may provide a route to citizenship.  As Patrick notes below, this is causing much interest among Franco-Americans who have retained ties to their francophone roots in Canada -- and created work for archivists too. 

I enjoyed reading your post about the new British passport requirements—something I hadn't heard about, but, then again, outside of Midsomer Murders, I'm far from having my finger on the pulse of British society.

In Canada, I'm not sure that Bill C-3, passed in December, has received attention commensurate to its significance. The bill vastly expands citizenship eligibility for descendants of Canadians. New England is abuzz with the new measure. Franco-Americans in particular have expressed interest in reclaiming citizenship in a country that their ancestors left, in some cases, five or six generations ago. At the Acadian Archives, I have been on the front lines of this effort to secure genealogical proof of an ancestral Canadian connection. There are Reddit and Facebook pages for those seeking to avail themselves of the law. Staff at Quebec's provincial archives are overwhelmed with requests. The limited guidance regarding C-3 on the federal immigration website suggests that public servants at the federal level may have been caught unprepared by the wealth of interest. It's also a golden age for immigration and citizenship law firms.

I continue to wonder whether this was a cunning assertion of Canadian soft power in Donald Trump's America (or a way of tapping into a skilled workforce) or something that the government stumbled into. Granted, the Supreme Court had essentially laid the grounds for this piece of legislation, but I don't think anyone was prepared for its open-endedness or the torrent of applications that has begun to pour in. I also wonder if the thousands (tens of thousands? more?) who will now claim Canadian citizenship will eventually be expected to show a Canadian passport when traveling north.

Myself, I'm looking closely at the British process for renouncing British citizenship and its claims upon me.  It seems to involved a certain amount of paperwork and the transfer of large amounts of money. Fortunately I do not have any travel plans involving Britain right now.