Are we lost?
I'd like to start out by thanking you for having me here. It is an honour. It is my first trip to Ottawa, so I'm in awe. Nevertheless, are we lost? It was in essence the question I was asked. I asked myself this when I chanced upon the February 26 standing committee meeting hearings a few weeks ago. By virtue of several circumstances, my brother and I are lost. We are considered to be lost Canadians. This is how we came to be lost.
Our parents met in 1960 in Cold Lake, Alberta. Our mom was serving in the Canadian Forces as an MP, and our dad was in the U.S. Air Force. They married in 1961 and our mom left the Canadian Forces to be with our dad. Being in the military, our family moved often. In 1963 my brother was born in Peru, Indiana. I was born five years later in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1970 our dad left for a one-year tour in Vietnam and we moved to Canada to live with my mom's family. When he returned we moved to Omaha, Nebraska. Then in 1972 we moved to Spokane, Washington.
Knowing that the next orders my dad would receive could possibly be another isolation assignment where he would have to be away from us for another year, he decided to retire from the air force. With my mom's desire to live near her family and my dad's love for fishing, we moved to Canada. We arrived in the small oceanside town of Powell River, British Columbia, in 1973. I was five years old. We've lived in Canada for the past 34 years, and amazingly, for the most part, in one place. As children, when the topic of citizenship arose we knew we were born in the U.S. and held U.S. citizenship, but we had always been told by our parents that we were entitled to dual citizenship because our mom was Canadian.
At one time my brother even registered to vote until my mom reminded him that he hadn't yet applied for his Canadian citizenship. Aside from being left out on election days, we found that the citizenship papers were unimportant to us, as we could travel quite freely across the border at that time with photocopied documents, papers, birth certificates, and immigrant papers. Then September 11 came. The photocopied documents became a thing of the past and we would need passports and permanent resident cards to travel.
We decided it was time to apply for Canadian citizenship. We filled out our applications for proof of citizenship, had our documents verified for certificates, etc., and paid our fees, $200 each. Our applications were mailed in fall 2004. Then we waited and we waited. After several phone calls and a year later we finally were able to talk to somebody in the immigration department. We were told our application had not yet been processed. Then we waited some more. Finally, in November 2005 we received a letter stating that our applications were denied and we had missed the August 14, 2004 deadline. We didn't even know there was a deadline. Our applications were received in October 2004, so we had missed the deadline by a few months. They were kind enough to send us applications for Canadian citizenship, just as other immigrants would have received. We felt defeated.
For 32 of the past 34 years that my brother and I have lived in Canada we thought we were Canadian. Imagine our shock when we were told that we had missed a deadline. What deadline? We didn't know there was a deadline.
We truly feel as though we are Canadian. We have lived in Canada for the majority of our lives. We were educated, we worked, and we paid taxes in Canada. We are married to Canadians and our children are Canadian. We really felt that becoming Canadian citizens was just a formality. Now we have been asked to pay yet another set of fees, to wait 12 to 15 months, and to take a test. Our only alternative is to apply for our permanent resident cards, which means yet another set of fees and time off work, because logistically where we live we would have to take a day off and travel by ferry, which is a $100 expense, to pick up our permanent resident cards. So we weighed our options and decided to consider Canadian citizenship for another day. That was until three weeks ago, when we learned of these hearings and the Lost Canadians Organization. We didn't realize there were so many others like us.
I hope that in some small way our story can make a difference for the thousands upon thousands of Canadians like us waiting for citizenship.
I thank you for your time. Again, it's an honour to be here.