A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian

“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” are words that have been uttered countless times by our Prime Minister and that are enshrined in the principles of our Constitution and the Canadian Citizenship Act. Yet unknowingly and despite many generations of my family being Canadian, I unwittingly passed on second-class citizenship to my daughter Marisa to whom I gave birth in Saudi Arabia in 1985.

I never questioned whether I was fully Canadian. Born in Kingston, Ontario in 1955 into a Canadian military family, my “Canadian-ness” went back four generations. Dad would read aloud the stories of his grandmother, an early settler from Norway, who travelled on a horse-drawn wagon to northern British Columbia in 1895, via North Dakota. I recall Dad reading from another book devoting an entire chapter to his father, an early Anglican Minister who converted his church rectory in Innisfail, Alberta into a hospital to care for victims of the Spanish flu.

Dad served as a Canadian artillery officer during World War II in the liberation of Italy and Holland and during the Korean War.

My mother’s citizenship was more recent, but no less committed.  She had to renounce any claim of citizenship to France, the country of her birth when she became a naturalized Canadian in 1950.

My childhood was spent on military bases across Canada: climbing on tanks in New Brunswick, running with the tumbleweed in Manitoba and playing on Fort Henry Heights in Kingston when Dad taught at the Royal Military College. While dad was posted abroad, I lived outside Canada for five years during my childhood and youth while dad was stationed abroad: in Germany, Turkey, Switzerland, and France, but that was often when I felt most Canadian and missed my home.

In 1981 I married Ian, a Canadian. His family came to this country in the 1840s, before it was even Canada.  Like me, Ian had a nomadic childhood as the son of a Canadian military officer.

When in 1984, I found to my joy that I was expecting a baby, I was living in the Middle East and working for the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, managing their Medical Library. I weighed the pros and cons of returning to my parent's home in Ottawa for the birth.

It wasn’t an easy decision. Airline companies banned passengers from flying beyond seven months of pregnancy. My employer, American Medical International, provided only six weeks of maternity leave, consistent with US policies. I no longer had OHIP coverage and my health care in Saudi Arabia was covered by my employer. It seemed impossible to return to Canada for the birth.

But I wanted to ensure Marisa was Canadian.  We registered her birth immediately with the Canadian Embassy and within five weeks, we received her Canadian passport. In her photo, dark eyes peer out from a baby's face, her tiny body encased in a red velvet sleeper, the one she wore home from the hospital.

We moved back to Canada permanently when Marisa was two. For 22 years, until the age of 24, Marisa lived in Ottawa. She grew up a regular Canadian child – visiting Lucy Maud Montgomery’s house in PEI, her relatives in BC, skating on the Rideau Canal, camping, skiing and doing volunteer work in homeless shelters in Ottawa.

I asked her if she felt different from her Canadian-born friends. Not at all, except for one day in class:

“Name the hospital where you were born,” asked the teacher.

“The General,” said one.

“The Civic,” said another.

“The King Khaled Military Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,” replied Marisa, trying not to sound like a freak.

But this was no more embarrassing than the hummus, baba ghanoush and tabbouleh lunches we sent in her lunchbox, which she tried to trade for something more acceptable. Yes, we raised her to eat foods from around the world, be interested in other cultures and welcome people from all origins.

At the age of 24, she did what I had done almost 30 years before.  Marisa moved abroad, worked in Paris for a year, completed a master’s degree in the UK, fell in love and married a Brit.

She also contemplated returning to Canada for the birth of her two children, but her job, prenatal health care and life were all in the UK. Like me, she no longer had access to OHIP.  And so, her children, Fin, and Sloane were delivered by a British midwife in a hospital in Cambridge. But when she tried to register the birth of her firstborn with the Canadian Embassy, as I had so easily done so many years before, she discovered to her horror that her son Fin was not eligible for Canadian citizenship.  

Why the difference? Before 2009, Canadians didn't need to give birth on Canadian soil for the baby to be Canadian. In April 2009, the Citizenship Act was amended to limit Canadian citizenship acquired by descent to the first generation born abroad, “The After First Generation Rule”.  Because Marisa was born outside Canada, even though she only lived abroad for two years, she could only pass on her citizenship to her children if they were born on Canadian soil. Tens of thousands of families are now being unfairly and retroactively discriminated against because of choices, such as mine, that were made before this rule came into effect.

Marisa continues to live in the UK but maintains ties with her family and friends in Canada.  Her closest friends are from her childhood; she comes home every year, attends their weddings, and introduces her children to theirs.  She maintains her Canadian passport and she can now vote in Canadian elections.

Marisa and her children serve as ambassadors for Canada.  Fin and Sloane tell the other children about their annual adventures in Canada, on horse-drawn buggies in Lunenburg, running through the tulips in Ottawa or eating lobster in PEI. The kids are too young to know that although they consider themselves to be Canadian, they have not been accepted by Canada as such.

Marisa plans to move back to Canada in the next few years and she needs to sponsor her children, something I was not required to do.

It could be worse. My grandchildren are British and not stateless. But they do not share my nationality. During the pandemic that meant they could not visit me in Canada as borders remained closed for months to non-Canadians.

This is affecting many people as Canadians move abroad for study and work opportunities. Fortunately, some Canadians believe this is unconstitutional, and at least one application has been brought forward to the Ontario Superior Court.

Knowing what I know now, would I have left my job, chosen to return to Canada for Marisa’s birth and paid whatever it cost out of pocket for health care in Canada? Maybe.  But those are hard decisions and there were no such consequences at the time. 

It would seem, that in fact, sometimes a Canadian is not really a Canadian at all.