'Border babies' refused passports

[jbg]

Like Mennonites, another group of good Canadians are getting shaft, while mulitcult darlings such as Jean-Yves Brutus are coddled.

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'Border babies' refused passports

Shocked to learn they're not citizens

Fri Jan 26 2007

By Bill Redekop (Source - Apparently Manitoba Free Press)

SOME Manitobans applying for passports are finding they aren't the good Canadians they thought they were.

Manitobans living near the border who were born in American hospitals, but have lived in Canada all their lives, are being refused Canadian passports.

"You know what happens when a pregnant woman is ready to give birth -- you go to the closest hospital," said Claire Clark, explaining why he and others were born in the United States -- so-called "border babies."

Clark lives in Lyleton in southwestern Manitoba, less than 10 kilometres from the U.S.border. He and his siblings were born in Westhope, N.D., and are now being told over half a century later they aren't Canadian citizens.

Clark was registered as a Canadian when his parents brought him as a newborn back to Canada. However, he and many other border babies didn't realize they had to re-register as Canadian citizens before their 24th or 28th birthday, depending on the year they were born.

Clark has been fighting to obtain his Canadian citizenship for more than two years, and has hired a lawyer. He has an American passport and can fly into the U.S. but needs a Canadian passport to return. "It means I might not get back home," he said.

*snip*

[Wilber]

Canadian passports are a rip off anyway. They cost almost as much as a US passport and are only good for half as long.

[Riverwind]

Canadian passports are a rip off anyway. They cost almost as much as a US passport and are only good for half as long.

We can blame the US for that - they pressured Canada to reduce passport validity periods after some high profile murderer was caught living in the US with a Canadian passport.

[Charles Anthony]

I find it hard to believe that somebody who says "I want to enlist in the Canadian tax-payer serfdom corps!" would be refused a Canadian citizenship. There must be more to this story than meets the eye.

[Riverwind]

I find it hard to believe that somebody who says "I want to enlist in the Canadian tax-payer serfdom corps!" would be refused a Canadian citizenship. There must be more to this story than meets the eye.

The rules are straight forward. If you were born in another country to Canadian parents you must claim your citizenship by a certain age or lose it. The bureaucratic snafu here is the gov't does not consider living and working in Canada your entire adult life to be evidence that you claimed your citizenship....

[BC_chick]

Like Mennonites, another group of good Canadians are getting shaft, while mulitcult darlings such as Jean-Yves Brutus are coddled.

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'Border babies' refused passports

Shocked to learn they're not citizens

Fri Jan 26 2007

By Bill Redekop (Source - Apparently Manitoba Free Press)

SOME Manitobans applying for passports are finding they aren't the good Canadians they thought they were.

Manitobans living near the border who were born in American hospitals, but have lived in Canada all their lives, are being refused Canadian passports.

"You know what happens when a pregnant woman is ready to give birth -- you go to the closest hospital," said Claire Clark, explaining why he and others were born in the United States -- so-called "border babies."

Clark lives in Lyleton in southwestern Manitoba, less than 10 kilometres from the U.S.border. He and his siblings were born in Westhope, N.D., and are now being told over half a century later they aren't Canadian citizens.

Clark was registered as a Canadian when his parents brought him as a newborn back to Canada. However, he and many other border babies didn't realize they had to re-register as Canadian citizens before their 24th or 28th birthday, depending on the year they were born.

Clark has been fighting to obtain his Canadian citizenship for more than two years, and has hired a lawyer. He has an American passport and can fly into the U.S. but needs a Canadian passport to return. "It means I might not get back home," he said.

*snip*

Good Canadians who live in the US and never bothered getting a Canadian passport in all their living years are shocked to find out that there is an obscure yet existing law in Canada which denies them citizenship.

Instead of blaming the people who never bothered getting a passport, or blaming the US for enforcing the passport stipulations despite pleas otherwise from both sides of the border, let's blame the obscure law in Canada which has always existed.

And to think you're the one always going on about "anti-Americanism" in Canada without ever looking at the "anti-Canadianism" that you yourself are capable of displaying - even when it's without merit as it is here.

[jbg]

Instead of blaming the people who never bothered getting a passport, or blaming the US for enforcing the passport stipulations despite pleas otherwise from both sides of the border, let's blame the obscure law in Canada which has always existed.

Good point. The first one of yours I've seen.

[jdobbin]

I think you mean Winnipeg Free Press. The Manitoba Free Press was the original name in the 1880s..

[Wilber]

Canadian passports are a rip off anyway. They cost almost as much as a US passport and are only good for half as long.

We can blame the US for that - they pressured Canada to reduce passport validity periods after some high profile murderer was caught living in the US with a Canadian passport.

If so, now that they require passports from Canadians and theirs are good for ten years, we should tell them to get stuffed if they don't like it and also go to ten years. Of course now that we have a bureaucracy that is dependent on a five year system, it will probably be impossible to get rid of it.

By a rip I meant that because a US passport is good for 10 years and a Canadian for only 5, when you figure in exchange it costs a American about 11 dollars per year and a Canadian over 17 dollars to maintain a passport. That doesn't include the extra expense and inconvenience of a Canadian having to go through the process twice as often. British passports are also good for 10 years and even though their cost just went up, a British passport is still cheaper than a Canadian passport on a per year basis. That is why I say Canadian passports are a rip.