Not disputing his US citizenship. Was just wondering why it has taken so long to renounce his Canadian citizeship status. From the different reports I have read, some have written that it used to be fairly easy to renounce Canadian citizenship...but that some recent changes make it more diificult. I would think just from an optics prespective, Cruz would not wish to have dual citizenship. Why give someone even a chance to make his status an issue?
Cruz said he didn’t renounce it because he was told by his mother who hadn’t received it and his father who renounced it that he had to positive affirm it for it to be effective for him.
And, honestly, if you look at the Canadian immigration laws in effect when his family lived in Canada, dual citizenship was not preferred by the Canadian government. For the most part, Canadians were forbidden to have dual citizenship with some exceptions that were a matter of legaleze.
So, if his parents had that understanding, and it would have been a normal one, then Cruz believing he had to positively affirm Canadian citizenship is probably true and probably came from his parents.
To explain why Cruz says his parents told him he had to positively affirm his Canadian citizenship in order to retain it -- From the MapleLeaf website about Canadian citizenship. http://www.mapleleafweb.com/old/features/general/citizenship/canada-first-citizenship-act.html
However, this created problems for a group of individuals who, unknowingly, lost their Canadian citizenship as children. Under the terms of the 1947 Citizenship Act, although born in Canada, children automatically lost their Canadian citizenship if the “responsible parent” (usually the father) lost his Canadian citizenship when s/he emigrated to another country. The decision to move and take up residence in another country was frequently driven by financial considerations; in many cases the “responsible parent” was the only member of the family to leave Canada, doing so in order to find work. In other cases the family returned to Canada after only a few years, at which time the “responsible parent” took steps to regain his/her Canadian citizenship. Unfortunately, the family frequently remained unaware of the need to regain Canadian citizenship for the children as well.The 1977 Citizenship Act endeavoured to correct this flaw in the original legislation. From 1977 onwards children would not, under similar conditions, lose their Canadian citizenship. However, since the legislation was not retroactive, it had no impact on the legal status of children, born between 1947 and 1977, who lost their Canadian citizenship in this manner.
My guess would be that his parents never thought to tell him -- or gave it any thought themselves.
Cruz probably grew up thinking he was a US citizen who, incidentally, had been born in Calgary, Alberta -- unaware that he was entitled to Canadian citizenship, at age 18 (or 21), if he wanted it.
The matter becomes an issue, I suppose, only if you're going to run for President -- and run immediately after somebody with Obama's curious history.