Thank you for the invitation to be here.
I'm not a lost Canadian, at least I don't think so. I was born in Saskatoon, and until I got involved in this file I had no doubt in my mind that I was Canadian, but stranger things have happened, I guess.
Anyway, I'm a lawyer and I am representing Robert Gene Clark, who is caught up in this border baby situation.
I want to give you a bit of the history of his family. His grandfather arrived in Manitoba, having immigrated from Ontario back in the late 19th century. Mr. Clark's father was then born in Manitoba in 1909. His mother was born in Manitoba in 1916. They were married in 1939. Mr. Clark's father served in World War II in the air force. Then Mr. Clark's sister was born in 1940. The three brothers were born after the war. Mr. Clark was born in 1947, immediately after the first Citizenship Act came into force. They lived right by the United States border in southern Manitoba, and the nearest medical facility was in Westhope, North Dakota. That's where all of the children were born. They all came back to Canada immediately after their respective births, and all have lived in Canada ever since.
During that time from 1947 to 2006, Mr. Clark and his brothers and sister considered themselves to be Canadians and did everything that you would expect a Canadian to do, including going to school, working, voting, borrowing money from Farm Credit and paying it back, receiving family allowance cheques. In 2006 the beginning of the situation came to light when Mr. Clark was convicted of an offence and somebody discovered that he had been born in the United States. This commenced an immigration inquiry. Ultimately he was told that he is a foreign national in Canada and has no status here, and because of the conviction he was issued a deportation order.
The Federal Court stayed the deportation order on the basis of the argument that he is in fact a citizen under the Citizenship Act, although it's an interim stay. Fast forward another few months: Mr. Clark's two brothers are granted citizenship under section 5(4) of the Citizenship Act, so that means that they are citizens as of February 2007. They apparently had no status in Canada until that time, but Mr. Clark has not received the same treatment, presumably because of the criminality involved.
We say that he is a citizen. The whole family in fact are citizens by operation of law. But even if we're wrong in that, I submit to you that something is wrong with the system that permits people to live in Canada for 59 years, openly processing themselves to be Canadians, and then be issued a deportation order after a summary hearing in front of a bureaucrat of the Canada Border Services Agency.
The points I wish to make to the committee are if you're considering revisiting the Citizenship Act, limit as much as possible the use of discretion in the act and consider also the establishment of an independent decision-maker for these types of questions, as suggested by Mr. Bosdet.