I found the quote from Rafael Cruz saying that he became a naturalized Canadian citizen:
“I worked in Canada for eight years,” Rafael Cruz says. “And while I was in Canada, I became a Canadian citizen.”
http://www.ideastream.org/news/npr/193585553
Rafael Cruz, Sr. does not state whether he became a naturalized citizen of Canada prior or subsequent to his son Ted’s birth, but given the facts we know it is likely that he became a Canadian citizen subsequent to Ted’s birth. The Cruzes returned to Texas in 1974, so if they were in Canada for eight years then they probably first arrived there in 1966. Under the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1946, and prior to its 1976 amendments, a “landed immigrant” (i.e., a foreigner that arrived in Canada) had to have resided in Canada for five years prior to being eligible for citizenship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canadian_nationality_law Since Rafael Cruz arrived in Canada in 1966, the earliest that he could have become a naturalized Canadian citizen was sometime in 1971. Ted Cruz was born on December 22, 1970, so it is unlikely that his father had been a naturalized Canadian citizen prior to his birth. (Yes, maybe by “eight years” Rafael Cruz meant “eight and one-half years,” and maybe he moved back to Texas in February 1974 and thus had first arrived in Canada in August 1965, and maybe he became a Canadian citizen soon after he had resided in Canada for five years and took the oath a month prior to Ted’s birth, but that would be a lot of coincidences.)