History of passports

Columnist Stephen Maher attacked MP and former Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer in the Toronto Star of September 23, pointing out that while campaigning to become prime minister Scheer was "revealed to possess American citizenship, which he hadn’t previously disclosed." Maher goes on to suggest that Scheer, who never did renounce his foreign allegiance, may have voted for Donald Trump in 2024.

When Tom Mulcair was leader of the NDP at the height of its post-Jack Layton tally of parliamentary seats, he too was also attacked for holding a foreign passport, in his case a French one.  Evidently there is something unpatriotic and faintly sinister about claiming to be a Canadian while holding some other country's passport, even if it's only politicians that get publicly assailed for it.

But these days Canada has been handing out Canadian passports by the thousands to foreigners (mostly Americans) who have never have lived here and quite likely never will, on the basis of their descent from some distant ancestor who did live in Canada but left, perhaps centuries ago.

Is dual citizenship evil, as the Mulcair and Scheer smears suggest? Or is passport collecting a hobby that anyone can pursue, like stamps or coins, as the Canadian government (and many thousands of dual passport holders) seems to believe? 

Like many people from immigrant families, I am eligible for several foreign citizenships. I could seek British citizenship, having been born there, and Irish (with European citizenship attached) on the basis of long-dead ancestors. Indeed, Britain is so eager to have me apply (and pay exorbitant fees) for a British passport that they will not permit me to enter Britain on my Canadian passport. Canada, in fact, takes the same position with citizens of foreign countries who were actually born here -- it won't let them in unless they first acquire a Canadian passport.  The theory here seems to be that it is illegitimate to change one's citizenship, and countries are entitled to disrespect the passports of their ex-citizens' new countries. 

For the record I have never held a passport other than a Canadian one.  Think of it this way: if you hold a nation's passport, chances are it will eventually want to tax you or conscript you.  Choose carefully. 

Meanwhile, the Canadian government is encouraging non-Canadians to acquire a second passport as a souvenir, while public opinion makes it faintly shameful for anyone in public life to hold more than one. 

We need to sort out how we feel about this multiple-passport marketing. That is, we need to agree it is nuts, even if the Supreme Court told the feds to do it.

Acadian Genealogy and Citizenship Part 2: a comment from Patrick Lacroix AND A BRIEF RESPONSE TOO

Patrick Lacroix, who is unfailingly interesting on Bluesky and on his blog Query the Past, has thoughts on my post of June 23 about the new options for those with ancestral connections to Canada to acquire Canadian citizenship:

I hope the summer finds you well! I imagine you are enjoying Tour de France coverage.

I read with interest your latest blog post. I have a special interest as director of the Acadian Archives in Fort Kent, Maine. Due to Bill C-3, the number of inquiries we received in the winter and spring easily set a new record for our institution. It was at times overwhelming—as it has been for other collecting institutions in both Canada and the United States.

The IRCC did itself and many applicants a disfavor by only updating its guidelines in June, about six months after Bill C-3 passed and became effective. Granted, I don't think anyone in Ottawa was prepared for the volume of inquiries that they would receive. It remains that many eligible people in the United States, using the broad guidelines available to them from the IRCC website, submitted applications that will ultimately be rejected through no fault of their own. Then, when resubmitting, they will have to wait an additional 19 months (the current processing time for U.S. applications).

The issue is not so much that the records are not Canadian. Some applicants are four or five generations (or more) removed from a Canadian ancestor. So, most of their paperwork documenting Canadian ancestry will come from U.S. sources—birth and marriage certificates issued by states. The sticking point comes with the new guidelines issued in June, specifically that "[y]our documents must be issued by the original authority that created or keeps the record." This is especially difficult for the colonial era and doubly so for Acadians. The IRCC seems to be sensitive to the fact that the civil registration of births and marriages only began in the 1880s and 1890s in most North American jurisdictions. Prior to that time, we are chiefly reliant on church records. But the original authorities for the colonial period are often no longer extant.

It seems obvious to us, in history, who are outside of the bureaucracy and looking in. But, if the Canadian government is really doing away with generational caps of any kind, it seems that the IRCC should have a team of historical consultants who can properly adjudicate the soundness of submitted documentation.

As for the rest ("Surely it would make sense for Canada to say that a Canadian connection that was interrupted almost 300 years ago should not entitle someone with no other connection to Canada to acquire Canadian citizenship"), I agree. I don't know that this eventuality ever crossed the minds of the folks who, when responding to the Ontario Superior Court ruling, drafted this piece of legislation. But some policymakers probably realized that they would tap into a well educated, highly skilled population that would benefit the Canadian workforce. For the most part, such are the folks who are contacting the Acadian Archives for assistance.

Always a pleasure to read you.

I have thanked Patrick and told him I will ponder all this and respond soon.  I posted based on a single newspaper article, and need to know more! 

Update, July 28.  Today is the 271st anniversary of the start of the Acadian deportation, I am told, so maybe an appropriate day to respond.  

Basically I was drawing on a single newspaper story for my post on this matter, and Patrick Lacroix is so far beyond me in understanding of the mechanics of Bill C-3, that I can't say much beyond thanking him for his comment here.

That and to endorse strongly his suggestion that  

it seems that the IRCC should have a team of historical consultants who can properly adjudicate the soundness of submitted documentation

Always amazing that people can think history is just something you might look up in Wikipedia once in a while. 

Still, the idea that is wise for Canada or any country to offer anyone citizenship on the basis of a multi-generational ancestral link centuries in the past is still one I have some difficulty grasping, no matter what documentation can be amassed.  Let's welcome immigrants who want to come here, and with less concern for the state of their great-grandmother's paperwork.

Acadian genealogists and citizenship by Ancestry.com WITH AN UPDATE

I believe I have some sort of entitlement-by-ancestry to Irish citizenship (and the European Union rights that would come with it).And Britain is so eager to claim me as British that I'm not even allowed to visit that country unless I make myself a British subject first.  But I have not sought either of those statuses, believing my Canadian passport should suffice.  

I'm not a fan of the trend to encourage people to collect multiple passports and citizenships -- including Canada's new openness to granting citizenship to foreigners with some distant Canadian ancestor adorning their family tree. If they will give you a second or third passport, eventually they will get in line to tax you, or conscript you, or something.

But Acadian genealogists and historians are claiming that if Canada is prepared to give citizenship to people with distant Canadian roots, they should apply their rules evenly -- and not throw out the Canadian documentation that foreign citizens with Acadian roots have been using to support their claim to Canadian citizenship.

Canada declares it will only accept Canadian documentation to prove Canadian ancestry.  Which seems fair.  But according to historian Maurice Basque and other Acadian historians and genealogists, Canada must accept Acadian parish registers that went south with Acadian deportees in 1755 as legitimate Canadian evidence, even if they have been held in Louisiana or French archives ever since.  

One of those whose citizenship certificate was suspended in June is an Acadian whose family settled in Louisiana, and has lived there since.

She received citizenship this year after the passing of the new federal law. 
But IRCC determined she may not be entitled to Canadian citizenship after all because she included in her application family records held in France and the U.S.

She had traced an ancestor born in 1730 in Acadia, sending IRCC their baptism certificate from Baton Rouge’s Archives and Records Center in Louisiana, which was an extract from the record of St. Charles Aux Mines Catholic Church in Acadia.

Surely it would make sense for Canada to say that a Canadian connection that was interrupted almost 300 years ago should not entitle someone with no other connection to Canada to acquire Canadian citizenship. But if the country has already made the commitment to unlimited ancestry, surely it has to be consistent about it.

Meanwhile, business for genealogical consultants (and document forgers, maybe) must be booming.  

UPDATE, 25 July 2026:  Toni Walker comments from Iowa: 

More to the point you could have just said "I don't want foreigners immigrating to MY country". Instead you wrote a blog post using many more words to say the same thing. Nothing else to write about that day?

Toni,  thank you for getting in touch. But either I have been spectacularly unclear or you have misunderstood the topic here. Actually I am vigorously in favour of 'foreigners immigrating to my country.'

There is barely an immigration issue here at all. Let me take another shot at this, and I hope you will bear with me.

Canada recently revised its citizenship rules (not its immigration rules) to make it easier for people who live in and hold citizenship in other countries -- but who have a Canadian grandparent or other family relation who once lived in Canada -- to apply for and receive Canadian citizenship in addition to whatever other citizenship they already hold.

I think it is fair to assume, and generally expected by those who amended the law, that most of those who pursue this path and acquire Canadian citizenship will remain living where they are and simply remain living where they are. For most it will be a second citizenship, perhaps a second passport, and a sentimental link to that remembered ancestor. 

No matter how many non-Canadians living in the USA or France or Poland or Australia or wherever acquire Canadian citizenship on the basis of their relationship to an ancestor who lived in Canada centuries ago, I doubt that more than a handful will want to move to Canada -- any more than the many proud Canadians who hold British or European or American or Israeli citizenships are about to move to those countries.

My post above was that having a three-hundred year old Canadian ancestor seems to me dubious grounds for citizenship, quite apart from the difficulties in assembling the evidence that would be needed to prove the relationship.   

As to immigration, I'd be delighted if people who do use the new ancestral grounds to gain Canadian citizenship also seek to immigrate here. Immigration is great for this country and always has been. Canada has been immeasurably enriched by immigration. I believe we should continue welcoming immigrants in large numbers -- and welcome those who have no ancestral connection to Canada as well as those who do.  

 

 

 

 

Threatened with capture by a foreign country!

Have I ever mentioned I'm an immigrant? I was not yet four years old when I arrived in Canada, and have no clear memory of the country I was born in. I came essentially undocumented, "on" my mother's passport. I held no passport of my own until I formally claimed and received Canadian citizenship and (later) a Canadian passport. Canadian, Canadian only, proud to be Canadian, intent on being Canadian exclusively.

Because of where I was born and where my grandfather was born, I think I could apply (or at least could have applied) for British or Irish or European Union citizenship or (for a while) all three. Indeed I have often been told I should have done so -- that it is wonderful to have many citizenships, to be able to choose whatever lineup is shortest at the arrivals terminal, or perhaps even assist one's children in living elsewhere at some point.  

But I have always avoided doing so. I'm a Canadian through and through and have never held any other documentation. I like to say, if you claim a second nationality, eventually that other country will want to tax you or conscript you, and I'm only prepared to accept that possibility from the country of which I am proud and prepared to be a citizen. My (Canadian) papers are in order. My kids will fend for themselves in foreign parts.

I'm just discovering that His Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom sees it differently.  

Britain is the country I was born in, lo these many years ago, and Britain now declares that all who are British citizens with some other nationality can only enter Britain by showing their British passport (or under some circumstances using a one-time special dispensation -- that costs almost 600 British pounds).   They have a website that enables you to find if you count as a British citizen -- and yep, being born there is the first, pretty much unavoidable, proof. (Here's the webpage.)  In effect, if I arrive at a British airport, the British government can refuse to recognize my Canadian citizenship and passport, and throw me out of the country forthwith for arriving without a British one.

Fortunately a lot of people who are a lot more British-ish than I am -- former passport holders and so on -- are beginning to notice this emerging situation. And are finding it "scandalous and unacceptable."  Resistance is afoot.

I'm beginning to think my inherited (and I must admit, not much acknowledged) guilt for having benefitted from the British Empire is now being visited on me. When I was brought to Canada, there was practically no paperwork for white British people to immigrate to Canada: we just came. The Canadian government hardly considered us as foreigners. "A Canadian citizen is a British subject," it used to say.  And now I'm being punished for it -- or would be if I dropped in at Heathrow.

On the other, I am simultaneously beginning to think that Mark Carney's massive military build-up has to allow for another target needing to see the full force of our Canadian wrath: the country that wants to kidnap a whole lot of us Canadians into becoming somehow British, despite us having all made the conscious choice to be free and independent Canadians instead.

Anyway, if you are in a similar situation to mine, you might consider your plight before you decide to go walking in the Cotswolds, or playing a round at St Andrews, or taking in some West End theatah-- or whatever else one does in that foreign land. Eat a crumpet?

Meanwhile, if you happen to be an immigration and citizenship lawyer reading this blog, feel free to advise how I can avoid being shanghai'd.  

(Actually, Canada also requires dual nationals entering Canada to present their Canadian passport. But I'm not sure Canada imposes dual nationality on people who just happened to be born here, as the British seem to find themselves promising to do.)

History of Citizenship

Rudyard Griffiths, acknowledging that he is himself a dual citizen, thinks dual citizenship may be A Bad Thing:

I have come to the conclusion that Canada will not survive the coming decades in its current form if more and more of its Canadian-born citizens continue to live, as I have, with the mental gymnastics of dual citizenship.

It's from the book he's been working on.

Rudyard creates a litmus test for how we think of citizenship and nationality. Assume that we want to think globally, promote and benefit from diversity, and provide ourselves with all the challenges and opportunities this old world can offer. Do we do that best by collecting all the citizenships we can or by committing ourselves fully to one national community?

I don't think I know many people who have the opportunity to have more than one passport and who have foregone it out of the kind of principles Rudyard is recommending. People make a pragmatic choice, and then defend the ethics of it.

(Full disclosure: my situation is precisely the reverse of Rudyard's. I only have one citizenship, but I'm entitled to a second if I want it, and I often think I (and even more my children) should be taking advantage of it.