Citizenship can mean the difference between "belonging" and being just a visitor. Some people endure years of waiting in line and filing applications in a bid to change citizenship; others, by virtue of their birthplace and familial ties, begin their lives with the opportunity to be citizens of two or more countries. Citizenship can offer a free ticket out of a crisis, or even be a matter of life and death, as demonstrated by the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year, in which attackers reportedly targeted those with British or American passports.
Given the importance of the issue, some Canadian expats are disturbed at changes being made to citizenship requirements under Bill C-37, An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act.
Few people seem to have received any information about it, and what little media coverage there has been on the bill has focused on the fact that it restores citizenship to some 200,000 or so "Lost Canadians" — war wives, children of soldiers stationed overseas — who were stripped of their citizenship by the Citizenship Act of 1947. What expats aren't being told is that the amendment also includes some sweeping changes that will affect many of the estimated 2.7 million Canadians currently living outside the country.