PING!
Posted on 01/02/2007 9:59:57 AM PST by GMMAC
Commit to Canada if you expect it to commit to you
Lorne Gunter, National Post
Published: Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Of the columns I wrote in 2006, none generated more response than the one I published in July castigating the Canadians of convenience who were carping and moaning about our government's evacuation of their ungrateful backsides from Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The boat rides to safety were too long and too hot. There were too few beds. The departures were delayed three or four hours. The port in Beirut was chaotic.
One enraged evacuee described her treatment as "hell"; not the war she was fleeing, but her rescue.
She and other evacuees (and a horde of Canadian media critics and opposition politicians) ranted and raved for days about the manner in which the Conservative government "fumbled" the evacuation.
Her rescue had made her rethink her loyalty to her adopted Canada -- a country she had not lived in for more than a decade. Yet she was more than willing to accept our free boat ride out of the country she truly saw as home and our free plane ride to Montreal to visit relatives for a few weeks until things back home settled down and she could use the free return ticket we had given her to go back.
I think that was the last straw for me; finding out that within two months, at least half (and very likely more) of the 15,000 evacuees we had paid nearly $100-million to extract had returned to Lebanon, at Canadian taxpayers' expense.
And you can bet it was the more ungrateful half who flew home to Lebanon and that they were fully convinced they were entitled to a free ticket to do so.
Canadian citizenship was nothing more to them than a dirt cheap insurance policy -- $87 every five years for a new Canadian passport. Most came here in the 1980s, when their country was racked with civil war, went back the moment it was safe to do so and thought no more about their Canadian citizenship (or about what they could do for Canada) until fighting broke out again and they needed a lift to safety.
Then it was, "Where's my boat? Are we there yet? What's taking so long? What do you mean you don't have a cabin for me?"
Indeed, in 15 years as a journalist, I have never written anything that has generated more response -- over 700 e-mails in all, of which only eight disagreed with my position.
So it is with great interest that I await the outcome of the review of dual citizenship recently announced by Monte Solberg, the citizenship and immigration minister.
In general, I have little problem with dual citizenship. Personally, I think you should decide one way or the other which country you are a citizen of. But if you want to hold two passports, if that makes you feel somehow more cosmopolitan or sophisticated, do it.
It doesn't even bother me much that Stephane Dion, the new Liberal leader, has dual French and Canadian citizenship, so long as voters know and are free to make as much or as little of that fact as they want.
Yet if you are going to be a citizen of Canada and another country, just don't oscillate your loyalty between one and the other as it suits you and expect those of us who live, work and pay way too many taxes here to jump every time you get your butt in a sling in your other country.
A proposal has been made to Mr. Solberg to make non-resident Canadians pay $500 for a new passport every five years, with the extra money going into a fund to pay for future evacuations.
I don't even like that proposal. It implies that Canada and Canadians have an obligation to risk their own safety to pluck these passport-holders out of whatever trouble they find themselves in, so long as they have paid in advance for the service.
Citizenship is not just about privileges, it is about obligations, too. And if you are not prepared to make at least a semi- permanent commitment to Canada, I don't see where this country has any responsibility to stand by you, even if you've slipped the foreign affairs department a little something extra once in a while.
Lgunter@shaw.ca
© National Post 2007
PING!
Does that include dual U.S./Canadian citizenship?
It becomes a sporting proposition when there is a transnational marriage. Granddad isn't interested in seeing Junior restricted in his citizenship.
If they want that citizenship and services from the country, they should pay taxes on their income earned in their other country as well. You can bet they will line up for that pension check when they reach hit 65.
I've got a friend in Toronto looking to immigrate to America. Her reasons are interesting.
She says that she feels like Canada doesn't offer her any loyalty and that none is expected in return. On the other hand, she sees a great deal of nationalism and belonging in the USA and she wants to be part of it.
It's true. But then I live in Toronto, and it seems no one even bothers to speak English here anymore. Every language but English, in fact. If I wanted this, I could have emigrated to a third world country. These people are not, and never will be, Canadian in my mind.
"She says that she feels like Canada doesn't offer her any loyalty and that none is expected in return."
It's a Canadian thing. They want a salad, not a melting pot. Then when immigrants keep their old ways rather than going mainstream, Canadians complain about the lack of Canadianism. The word itself is pretty hollow.
Dual citizenship is an interesting thing.
It seems to me if you're BORN with it, because each parent hails from a different nation, and you really have blood ties to both, that it is unreasonable to expect you to choose one nation and cut the other one off.
On the other hand, if you ever CHOOSE citizenship of another nation as an adult, that is a different kettle of fish, because then there is a sort of changing of flags.
Of course WHICH nation does matter. If we are dealing with core Western countries, like the USA, Canada, France, the UK, Germany, Japan et al, allies bound together by shared democracy, values and treaties, with which there is no possibility whatever of war again, dual citizenship as a matter of convenience for business purposes should not be offensive. This is not something that carries with it a RISK to either nation, either in terms of expense or national security. We don't have to send in the Marines to evacuate British-Americans from East Anglia or French-Americans from Bordeaux.
But when you start dealing with countries in The Gap, places like Lebanon, or the Arab countries...unfriendly places that ARE security risks...then the risks and costs to the Western country of dual citizenship start to stack up.
Put another way, Canadian/US, or Canadian/French, or US/UK citizenship are not offensive precisely because we are all on the same side and everyone knows it. Probably the WORST relationship is between France and the US, and that, at its very worse, is like a relationship between a nagging-mother-in-law and her son-in-law. Everybody gets pissed off. It never will, and never CAN come to blows, everybody knows it, and you all just have to sit at the table at holidays and make the best of it, but you still ARE the same family, and you know it. (And damn it, at least the old witch COOKS well!) Dual US/French citizenship is not a risk to either country.
But Lebanon? Eeesh. And that's one of the BETTER states. Iraq? Egypt?
Of course there's another issue here. You CANNOT have a system in which you block dual WESTERN citizenship if you continue to allow dual US/ISRAELI citizenship. Because even though Israel is a friend, THAT tie really IS a security risk and costs a lot of money. It's worth it, but it's an expensive tie. Jews feel ties of love to the US and Israel. Do we really care to FORCE them to declare their primary loyalty?
No, we don't.
Then we can't stop people from deciding to divide their loyalties between safer allies like Canada, France, the UK, Germany or Japan either.
But we don't have to be so tolerant of dual citizenship with neutrals or de facto enemies.
I think the key phrase is, "Canadian citizenship was nothing more to them than a dirt cheap insurance policy," when it comes to Canadian, and American citizenship as well. I see many people using our countries as a backup plan for when things go wrong in their ancestral hell holes (notice I didn't say IF things go wrong). They have no loyalty whatsoever to the United States or to Canada. They come here under duress, bring over their dependent family members and set them up on the dole here (check out the SSI roles for non-native born Americans), and return to said hell hole when the smoke clears. They do not love our country and are only here for what they can get in the way of hand outs, benefits and subsidies. And our government not only allows this, but encourages it.
Ouch! But true.
However, I believe that one should only serve one master in regards to citizenship. I don't care whether its Canada or Lebanon. Dual citizenship is a losing propision for U.S. and Canada, just like the writer of this piece points out. I'm sure the same is true of the ones we got out of Lebanon also. I'm sure most of them are back in Lebanon by now.
I firmly believe that when one becomes a citizen, they must renounce their citizenship with the old country. Children must make a choice at adulthood with mixed national parents. Otherwise, they are not really citizens of their new country, just foster citizens.
I disagree completely of any exceptions for dual-citizenship. If you vote in a foreign election, your citizenship should be removed from the other country, because you obviously are not a real citizen of the country you have taken as home.
My great-grandfather came to US from Germany. He became a citizen and learned English and refused to speak German afterwards. He would never have thought of voting in Germany's elections after coming here.
You are either a citizen of one country or another, but voting in both diminshes the citizenship of the rest of us. This is by no means a personal attack on you or your family, it is how I have always felt about this issue. It was especially galling to see the trolling for votes in the last Mexican election here in the US.
Yup, and I see we got two of their a$$es in Kenya, Islamofascist fighters escaping the Ethiopian Army, carrying Canadian Passports. I wonder if they will get the same free ride treatment?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1761307/posts?page=22#22 We want their names and their Canadian addresses , and the first freeper who finds this info. gets a free gallon of Vermont Maple syrup from me.
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