Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Feb. 26th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Our meeting will now come to order.

I want to welcome the witnesses today to our committee hearing on the loss of Canadian citizenship for the years 1947, 1977, and 2007.

Our hearing will go until about 1:10 or 1:15 today. At that time we have to go in camera to deal with committee business.

We have witnesses from the Lost Canadian Organization, from the Mennonite Central Committee Canada, and we have several other individuals who are appearing as well.

I want to welcome all of you.

We have quite a number of people. I think it has been agreed to give each individual about three to five minutes for an opening statement. Then the committee will engage you in questions and comments and what have you.

I'll pass it to you, as witnesses, and you can make your opening statements.

Thank you. We will begin with Mr. Janzen. Go ahead, sir.

[Bill Janzen, Director, Ottawa Office, Mennonite Central Committee Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate this opportunity.

I did send a written submission late Friday afternoon, but you will not have received it or had a chance to look at it. I also placed copies at your places here before you arrived.

In my opening remarks I will summarize our two basic concerns. Before I do so, I want to mention that Johan Teichroeb, who was going to be here and whose case is described in paragraph 17(b) of our brief, could not be here because the plane was held up for technical reasons in Windsor this morning. Also, I want to introduce my colleague, Mary Boniferro, who works as a front-line worker with these people in our office in Aylmer, Ontario, south of London.

We come with two concerns. They affect all kinds of people, but for us they arise from the return movement of some descendants of those Mennonites who, in the 1920s, moved from Manitoba and Saskatchewan to Latin American. Our first concern deals with section 8, the loss and retention provision. The purpose of this provision is entirely legitimate. It means that if you are born outside of Canada to parents who were also born outside of Canada, then if you want to retain citizenship permanently you must, before turning 28, go through a simple retention process—send in an application to register and retain, and prove that you spent at least one year in Canada.

This provision is generous, but there is an identification problem. It is hard to identify the people who come under this provision because this provision does not apply to nearly all second-generation people, and because the certificates of the people who do come under it are indistinguishable from the certificates of those who do not. It is hard for the people themselves to know if they come under this provision, and it is equally hard for government officials to know this. Hence, these people may be able to continue using their certificates because neither they nor officials in any government offices that ask for evidence of a person's citizenship will know that the certificate has ceased to be valid.

The government has recently taken two positive steps to address this identification problem. On January 1 it started placing expiry notices right on the face of new certificates issued to people who come under this provision. We had asked for this for many years. For all those who received certificates earlier—that is, between 1977 and January 1 of this year—which could include some 30,000 Mennonites and a larger number of others, the government has now also set up a better system to help them make inquiries.

Despite these positive steps, the reality is that many will not inquire. A good number will simply not know about it, and some may avoid the matter intentionally. They will continue with their lives and they will be able to use their certificates for many purposes as if they were valid.

In paragraph 11 of our submission we make recommendations for dealing with the situation. The main recommendation asks for an amnesty, meaning that the certificates issued earlier that do not carry the recently instituted expiry notice be deemed permanently valid.

Our second concern has to do with the legacy of the pre-1947 “born in wedlock” requirement. Canada's first Citizenship Act, which came into force on January 1, 1947, stated that if you were born outside of Canada and were not yet 21 on January 1, 1947, then you were a Canadian citizen automatically if you were born in wedlock, of a Canadian father.

Some of the children of the Mennonites who moved to Mexico in the 1920s wanted to remain Canadian citizens, so they went to the embassy and applied, and to prove that they met the criteria, namely that they were born in wedlock, they presented church marriage certificates for their parents. For several decades the Canadian government accepted these as adequate proof. Then, acting upon international law that stipulates that the legality of a marriage is determined by the laws of the country in which it takes place, Canada decided to insist on civil marriage certificates, because that is what Mexican law required. The people then went to a local registry office and obtained civil marriage certificates for the church marriages that their parents or grandparents had had earlier. For many years, the Canadian government accepted these. Then, years later, Canada insisted on further proof that there really had been a civil marriage earlier.

Now, today, when officials look at an application, they inquire of Mexican authorities, and if they do not receive the necessary verification that the supposed early civil marriage actually took place, they send a letter to the applicants saying “Sorry, you are not a citizen, and the certificates issued to you or to your parents or to your grandparents were issued in error and should be returned”.

Aside from the problem facing individuals who receive such a letter, it has implications for many others. Anna Fehr, whose case has received a little publicity in Manitoba, and is described in paragraph 17(a) of our submission, is now a 20-year-old woman who received her first certificate when she was an infant living in Mexico. She came to Manitoba as an eight-year-old. Then in 2003 she sent in a new application, partly because our office in Manitoba advised her that she was probably in the lost and retention provision.

Three years later, in 2006, she received a letter saying “Sorry, you have never been a Canadian citizen, and the certificate issued to you was issued in error and should be returned, because we have been unable to verify that your paternal grandfather, Heinrich Fehr, who was born in Mexico in 1940, was born in wedlock”.

The letter to Anna has implications for a lot of people. First, Anna has two Mexican-born siblings who are not citizens either, even though they have certificates. But they have not yet received these letters. Second, Anna's father, Cornelius, is not a citizen even though he has had a certificate for 25 years and has lived in Canada for the last 12 years, nor are any of Cornelius's six siblings or their foreign-born children. Now we're talking about a large number. Nor is Anna's grandfather, Heinrich Fehr, the first person who is now established to have been born out of wedlock, nor any of his siblings, nor any of their children or grandchildren.

The number of people implicated in this one letter to Anna could well exceed 150, maybe even 200, but these people have not yet received these letters. If they lie low, they may never receive such letters, and they can continue using their certificates as if they were valid.

One related dimension is that most of these people are probably under the lost and retention provision, but the letter to Anna now stands as an incentive for them not to apply to register and retain. “Why not,” they think, “just continue with our lives and lie low”. In other words, the legacy of the born-in-wedlock requirement is a major obstacle to implementing the lost and retention provision.

The two concerns we're bringing forward are not new. They've been festering for a long time. We appreciate the positive steps that the government has recently taken, but more action is needed. Our recommendations on the second one are in paragraph 20 and on the first one in paragraph 11.

In the second issue, the main recommendation is simply to end the practice of declaring certificates to have been issued in error if the only reason for doing so is that an ancestor was born to parents who had a church marriage but did not have a civil marriage.

In addition to our two recommendations in paragraphs 11 and 20, I would like to mention one other avenue, and that is alluded to in paragraph 21 of our brief. Simply stated, it would mean being generous with those who have already received certificates, while at the same time restricting the generosity of the current section 8.

The current section 8, as it now stands, allows citizenship to be passed on to an indefinite number of generations. That could be cut off after the second generation. And then for those in the second generation, there could be a slight amendment to the act that would say they have until age 28 to get a certificate, and if they don't get it, they're simply like other people from the world at large. If they do get it, then they will be citizens permanently.

A change like that would bring a greatly needed clarity and would result in administrative savings, and it would also introduce a modest restriction on the right to dual citizenship, which has been a public concern in the last year.

Thank you very much. If there's time, then I would ask my colleague to say some things, but if there isn't, and maybe I have taken up too much time, then we can go to other—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

No, that's fine.

Do you have an opening statement as well, Ms. Boniferro?

[Mary Boniferro, Documentation Worker, Aylmer (Ontario), Mennonite Central Committee Canada]

I would just mention a few specific stories that would illustrate what he's talked about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Please do.

[Mary Boniferro]

I work in an office in Aylmer and have been there since 1989, and the kinds of implications this bill is talking about we see every day in our office. When we have one person giving a letter, easily a couple of hundred of people can be affected by that same letter, and yet they go on living their lives thinking they are Canadians.

Usually what happens is that it only comes to the surface when someone loses his citizenship document, or it is stolen, or they apply to register and retain, and then, sometimes years later—three, four or five years later—a letter comes back saying “I'm sorry, but you never were a Canadian citizen.”

It is devastating to people who have been here for a long time, who think they are Canadians, who live as though they are Canadians, who have always seen themselves as Canadians, to be then told they never should have had it and to please return it. Often there is no alternative given as to what they are then to do.

Usually local offices have been very supportive about trying to find a way to help these people establish legal status. Recently I had a case where the local immigration office took a family.... There were eight children and the father who were not Canadian, but the mother and the eight children had come in as Canadian citizens, and she had sponsored her husband to become a landed immigrant. Now they find out that she's not Canadian, and all of those certificates had to be returned. They did their best to grant permanent residence to everyone in that family so that they could begin the process legally again, but it has taken a long time to get to that point, probably five or six years. They came to Canada first in 1999, and we are now at the point where the members of that family will be permanent residents and then will go through the process of being here for three years and then applying for Canadian citizenship.

A lot of work goes into those kinds of cases. Just recently, a cousin of that family arrived from the States, where he had been most recently living, because he had heard that this had happened to his cousin and he knows he would be affected by that same marriage certificate, but he doesn't want to lose his Canadian citizenship. Although he had lived in Canada for a number of years, he was concerned that if he weren't living here he wouldn't be able to do anything about it, so he has moved back in order to be here and to also try to apply for permanent residence. There are probably another 150 or more people affected by that same marriage certificate.

The only other comment I want to make is about the retention. There are many people out there who just did not realize they needed to do this. Unfortunately, in the early years, in 2005 when the first ones became 28 and were at the point where they needed to apply for retention, when they went to the local CIC offices, they were often not given accurate information. For example, in one southern Ontario office two siblings went in, because they had the letters and they knew they had to retain before they were 28. They went into the office and the officer told them “Once a Canadian, always a Canadian”, but they knew they had to retain. They went home and got their letters and went back to the office. The officer then showed the letters to the manager who said he didn't know anything about it and checked it out. They came back a few days later and were told by the officer that they were right, and that the documents needed to be completed, and that they were sorry, but that they had told a lot of other people “Once a Canadian, always a Canadian”.

We have people coming into our offices, then, asking why they should believe me, when someone in a CIC office has told them there is no such thing. I don't think that is happening much any more, but in the first couple of years it definitely was the case.

There are many who don't think they need to and who haven't done it, and we are constantly faced with what to do when people come into our offices who are already 28 and have not applied to retain but should have, or they come into Canada two months before their 28th birthday and cannot prove they have been here for a full year in order to apply. Some clarity here would be really helpful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Boniferro.

Mr. Choi.

[David Choi, Director, National Congress of Chinese Canadians]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I'm a director of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians. The NCCC, by the way, is an organization that has raised concerns of the injustice of the Chinese head tax and the Chinese exclusion act for over a decade and a half. I was also the chair of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission, and by profession I'm a real estate entrepreneur. I was the vice-chair of SUCCESS, and I'm sure members of the committee who are from B.C. and also beyond will recognize that organization. It's the largest non-government, non-profit organization on immigrant services, providing over 860,000 kinds of services in 2005-06 alone, with 350 professionals and over 9,000 volunteers. I have testified before this committee when the membership had a different composition, although some members are the same.

Most recently, the Canadian government apologized for the Chinese head tax, which began in 1885, and which jumped ten times in 1903. Indeed, the Canadian government has apologized for the Chinese exclusion act, and the Canadian government has begun redress. The Chinese exclusion act was abolished in 1947. Yet the apology came only in 2006—as a matter of fact, on June 22, by the Prime Minister—and redress is just now under way. That's why I'm here today.

Canadians want to see justice done when required, and not see its government deny justice and social justice for over 50 years. Canada as a country is judged by how it treats its citizens. If time permits in the second part of this session, I would also like to share with you how this matter is going to affect immigrants, our attractiveness, our immigration policy, and how it would impact on our economy as well.

Now before us, we have the denial or seemingly forever delay of recognizing citizenship to those who are Canadians in cases of the so-called “lost Canadians”. The lost Canadians deserve all Canadians' support, because there's no denying they're Canadians. It is shameful that Canada is dragging its feet to right this wrong.

We all know who Romeo Dallaire is and what he has done for this country. Romeo Dallaire was born to a mother who was a WWII war bride. As a captain in the Canadian army, he discovered he wasn't a citizen. At an October 4, 2006 news conference, Senator Romeo Dallaire described the actions of CIC, the Canadian immigration and citizenship department, as being “absolutely inhumane”. He went on to say, “It's absolutely nonsensical and that is why—you know—there is a term called bureaucratic terrorist.” I further quote Dallaire that a bureaucrat's duty “—is to make sure that the government is compliant with the laws in order to help citizens—not the other way around”.

This compliance with the laws must also mean compliance with the charter, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Compliance would mean giving equal rights to all Canadians, and this would include the matter of citizenship revocation. I specifically refer to sections 7 and 9, which I feel have been violated.

The time is now. The Citizenship Act needs fixing.

I have two further concerns, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Siksay said a week ago, when the Minister of Immigration was here before the committee, that the moneys set aside for developing a citizenship act have been taken away in this budget, removed. That is a contradiction to what the minister and the Prime Minister say they want to do. Canadians want to know how serious the government is on the issue of citizenship and the protection of the identity of Canadians. If there isn't a problem, there won't be the so-called lost Canadians.

In the spring of 2005 the same standing committee tabled its report with unanimous support of its committee members. The issues being discussed here have been addressed in that report. Canadians want to know this. Why are we doing this again with taxpayers' resources? Why can't this committee discuss why the report should not be adopted and Parliament move forward with its previous unanimous committee members' recommendations? Some of the committee members then are also the same committee members now. There are serious ramifications for the way our government acts and why it takes so long to move forward on such matters.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Mr. Choi.

Ms. Eden, do you have a statement you wish to make?

[Christine Eden, Chairperson, Air Force, Canadian Military Adult Children Citizenship Status, As an Individual]

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

I represent the adult children of the Canadian military who were born during the period of 1947 to 1977. We lived in a very unique time, the Cold War era, when we sent Canadians and their families to a multitude of overseas bases. As per the Government of Canada, we are Canadian, but we have lost our ability to prove our status through a change in the Citizenship Act.

From 1950 through 1977, there were over 110,000 babies born on Canadian military bases throughout Europe, in France, Germany, England, Belgium, and Holland. They were registered by the required registration of birth abroad. Military websites show that Canadian military served on an exchange program in all NATO countries. Canada had the third-largest air force in the world.

In 1977 the registration of birth abroad was cancelled and replaced with a citizenship card. The problem is that we were never advised of this requirement. Prior to the computer era, we had no problem obtaining passports or any government identification with the documentation we had.

I brought this to the attention of the government in July 2006. As pledged, officials from CIC and DND wrapped up a fact-gathering review at the end of September 2006. At that time, both ministries advised me that the RBA, the registration of birth abroad, was put back into the system as proof of birth, enabling us to apply for a citizenship card or passport. They also advised that those applications would proceed without our having the RBA in our possession, as it was registered with Ottawa.

The registration of birth abroad was a handwritten document that in many cases is 60 years old, so obviously it is not going to be in good physical condition. That was why I was assured that we did not have to have it in our possession. It was a mandatory piece of documentation for the military to return back to Canada. The orders were cut in Ottawa, allowing the soldier to come back to Canada. Part of that required package was a registration of birth abroad for any children who were born on those bases. So we have it; it's there in Ottawa.

What's happening now is that many of us who are applying for passports and citizenship cards are being told otherwise. We are being told regularly by people at the counter that we are not Canadian. I would stress that I find this appalling. If you are going to tell a person that they are not Canadian, it should be done after a thorough examination of their file and it should come to that individual in writing.

To tell a military person when they are close to retirement age that they are not Canadian is very offensive. It's something that should not happen. Some applicants are being sent for legislative review, and they're being told that this review will take up to one year. They are not given a reason why. There has been no public announcement that those Canadians who are in possession of a registration of birth abroad should come forward and apply for a citizenship card.

I'm only giving you the numbers for the military. Since I took this cause on, I've been contacting all the MPs and MLAs in the country, advising them that they need to be aware of this when their constituents come in.

I am now getting e-mails from people who served, for instance, in the embassies. I have one gentleman, Larry Duffield, who had two children born in Budapest, Hungary, who are in this scenario. He thanked me for making him aware. I have a lady who had two children born in Kuwait; her husband worked on the oil fields. None of these individuals were told that they needed to turn in this RBA.

I have two cases that I find somewhat sickening. One is a retired RCMP sergeant, and the other is a Canadian army major, who are now unable to renew their passports because they do not have a citizenship card. When they went to CIC, both were told that they're not Canadian.

The citizenship card, as we know, is a birth certificate. Stop to think about how far you can go without a birth certificate in this country. Right now there's a trickle effect, but very soon you're going to have people like me who are coming up to apply for old age pension. I applied, and I did not send in my citizenship card, but I sent in my birth certificate. My pension application was rejected pending proof of a Canadian birth certificate. I did that deliberately just to see what would happen.

In the next five years, you are going to find these individuals coming forward to apply for Canada Pension. Without proof of their Canadian status, they are not even going to be able to apply for welfare while you fix it. This has been coming in a trickle effect, but I think in the next five years it's going to be like a tsunami. It's going to hit you big time, and it needs to be addressed.

There needs to be a major announcement made that anybody born overseas during that period should come forward and get a citizenship card. I might point out that 95% of the people I speak to ask me why, if they're Canadian, they have to have a citizenship card. When I explain to them that it's actually a Canadian birth certificate of foreign birth, it's like all the lights go on, and they say, “Oh, I need to get one.”

I know people who, as late as last Friday, have gone to CIC or Passport Canada to apply for a passport and who have been turned away and told they're not Canadian. Now I tell everybody, before they go to look at the update on the CIC site, print it out, and take it with them, and when that individual says they are not Canadian, hand that to them. Then they'll read it and see that it needs to be referred.

I have people who cannot even get an updated driver's licence. You can't get a driver's licence without a birth certificate. The ramifications of this are huge for us. I was detained at the border for eight hours because my documentation was not in place.

I was born into the military. I married into the military. I have children born into that scenario. I have three generations of it. My sisters had to go and apply for Canadian citizenship because at that point they didn't really understand exactly what the issue was. As they were told they weren't Canadian, they simply went and applied. We shouldn't have to do that. There should be a person in every CIC office who is aware and delegated to address this particular issue.

I believe that the 110,000—and I got these statistics from military archives—is just a drop in the bucket when you stop to look at how many people from Canada lived in, for instance, your embassies. There are a lot of people, with 6,000 Canadians in the Arab Emirates alone. I think you need to deal with it as soon as possible, before the rest of us come up to retirement age.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Thank you, Ms. Eden.

We'll have Mr. Chapman, and I think we have about five more people.

[Don Chapman, Lost Canadian Organization]

We have about five or six.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

There are about five or six who requested about three minutes to address the committee.

[Don Chapman]

I'm an airline pilot. This is so basic: you know, our weather in Hong Kong is pretty bad, we're down to one engine, and we have several hours to fly. What do you think we should do? Well, let's press on.

Come on, folks, this is common sense. If I were sitting in a cockpit with a guy sitting next to me, it doesn't matter what his political persuasion is, or his religion. White, black, green, orange, or red, I don't care; we have one thing in common: the safety of flight and to get that aircraft safely on the ground.

I share something that you don't all share with us. Your decisions don't necessarily affect you, but my decision as an airline pilot affects everybody in that airplane; if I do something against them, well, I'm probably the first one who's going to die.

What we're looking at here is common sense. Of course, everybody here really is Canadian, and nobody should prove it. If we are going to go on a witch hunt here, I want to start with the parliamentarians. Let's turn it to you guys. I want you guys to prove that you're Canadians—not average Canadians; let's start at the top. We already have four people inside Parliament and members of Privy Council who look like they might not be Canadians. Is this really a witch hunt we want to go down? The answer is no.

This is an answer that is absolute, total, 100% common sense. That's it. You are supposed to lead with common sense.

We have the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, which I handed around. On page 11 it makes a statement about every person who, like me, was stripped of Canadian citizenship. Unfortunately, I do have a Canadian birth certificate. That was my problem: I was born in Canada. Had I been born outside of Canada, I'd be Canadian, but go figure that one.

On page 11 it says that any person like me can come back to Canada any time in my life and the minister shall grant me citizenship, so for 60 years the bureaucrats and the minister have not been following law. It was a bad law. It was a very bad law.

It shouldn't take major brain surgery to fix it—it's one paragraph, paragraph 3(1)(f). The current Citizenship Act ends on paragraph 3(1)(e), so you put paragraph 3(1)(f) on there. Countries like Trinidad and Australia were able to do it; why can't Canada?

You put that on there and fix this problem, but then you must have a new citizenship act that every party agrees to, one that brings everything into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is compliant with it. It's very simple—so lead with common sense.

I couldn't care less about two pilots arguing, “You're a Conservative, you're a Liberal, you're an NDPer, you're the Bloc”. That doesn't mean anything to me. What means something to me is that I finally, after 60 years, have the right to belong to my own country.

We're going to hear some stories, and I'm going to come back here in a minute.

First off, it's a waste of taxpayer money. It is a real waste of money to go on witch hunts like this. We have court cases going on.

Sheila, let's start with you. This is a woman who's an abducted Canadian child. She has never vowed citizenship to another country. She's guilty of being abducted, and her own country turned its back on her. She has been here for 16 years, and her father fought for this country in World War II. For Sheila Walshe, World War II is still going on. You people have the power to correct it, so do it.

[Sheila Walshe, As an Individual]

Thank you for inviting me here today. Just give me a second. I didn't know that was coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Take your time; we have plenty of time. Speak slowly. We're all ears.

[Sheila Walshe]

Thank you for inviting me here today.

My name is Sheila Walshe. I'm a war baby from World War II. I was born in 1943, so I precede you, young lady, and the Citizenship Act. My parents met in 1941, married in 1942, and I was born in 1943.

In 1946 I was brought over to Canada to be repatriated at the end of the war with my darling dad. I had a lovely ordinary childhood until I was nearly nine in 1952, when dad was working away from home and mom took me away, supposedly on holiday. She had always been homesick for her parents in England. She took me back there with no intention of coming back and told me dad was dead. I had a hell of a life in England. It was a very sad time.

I am not a Canadian bit of dirt. Whatever they called me, I'm not. I'm Canadian, but I'm not a bit of dirt. I met Jim when I was 16, my husband. I was married at 17—that's a long time ago—and we had our family. In 1990 I found out my dad was still alive and that my mom had lied to me for 39 years. I contacted him and said it's a long time. His life obviously had gone on. I didn't really expect to hear back from him, but I needed him to know that I had never forgotten my father. Then I had an answer to my letter. He said it was the hardest letter he had ever written. He didn't know where we'd gone. After years he had found out that we had been taken to my grandparents. He managed to contact them and they said leave them alone, leave her alone. He didn't know what else to do so he had to get on with his life.

I came over in 1991 with my husband and met my dad again and the sun came out. If you could imagine having all of the happy birthdays and Christmases of your life put together it doesn't come near what I felt when I met my dad again. I went back to England with Jim and I immediately applied for my previous citizenship. There was nothing else I wanted in the world than to bring my little family to Canada, my Canada. I had this letter. I sent everything—they sent the forms—fees, photos, proof of dad's birth, and everything. Obviously you know what I had to send.

Then I had a letter in 1992 and I thought that was it and I could come over and work because I'm an RN. We all need nurses in Canada. It said I was a Canadian up until I was 24 and I didn't sign some bit of paper or reaffirm so I had automatically lost my Canadian citizenship. That was 1992. I have been trying ever since. Up until coming in contact with Don Chapman about three and a half years ago, I was banging my head on a brick wall. I was sending letters to anybody, any names I could find with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, saying please help me. They said you just have to go to Canada and live there for a year and then apply.

At that time I wasn't 21 any more. I was actually too old to go the long way around and get sponsored. In England they told me I couldn't immigrate to Canada because it's my country and you can't immigrate to your own country, which left me between a rock and a hard place. I still kept trying. I came over. We bought a mobile in the Okanagan Valley, and I came over to see my dad and my step-mom, and my half brother and sisters. They're lovely. They're the same age roughly as my own children. But I'm so proud to be a member of their family. They've made me a member of the family and not an outcast.

I'm not reading from this any more. I've gone way off what I've tried to practice or write out. I gave testimony before the 2005 committee.

On May 5 I thought it was signed. I was okay, I was me again, I was a human being, I existed, I was a Canadian. So I went straight down to CIC in Kelowna and I got the right forms to get proof of my citizenship. I sent everything off again. It was on May 6 that I sent it off, all notarized papers. On May 17, I had—

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe go a little bit slower for the translation.

[Sheila Walshe]

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm getting excited, aren't I?

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Maybe you can just slow down a little bit, please.

[Sheila Walshe]

Well, my heart—You should feel my heart beat.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

That's okay. This is a very friendly committee, so you can speak as slowly as you want to.

[Sheila Walshe]

Run around the room a few times, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Norman Doyle]

Okay. Maybe we'll give you a little break here.

[Sheila Walshe]

My apologies.