From a CBC news story today, “Government tells Ajax woman she may not be Canadian”:
Last September, 32-year-old Arielle Townsend came home to a letter from the federal immigration department stating her Canadian citizenship was at risk of being revoked. …
In the [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada] letter to Townsend, which CBC Toronto has viewed, the government says it believes Townsend was actually born before her mother became a citizen — even though Townsend was born in October 1991 and her mother became a citizen in July 1991.
I would bet there’s racism going on here too, but this sentence made me think of all the times I had to explain something comparable to “July comes before October” to a government department and it’d still take them years to agree with me.
The government should be embarrassed about this one. Making someone live with that kind of uncertainty for five months is inhumane.
An update: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/woman-gets-citizenship-after-ircc-cancelled-due-to-error-1.7210556
It looks like the Canadian government fucked up in 1991 by issuing a citizenship card before her mother took the citizenship oath, and also by reassuring her mother that she (the daughter) was already a citizen.
For some reason, this came to light in 2023, and the whole experience cost Arielle Townsend not just her peace of mind but also $600.
The feds say they had no discretion. I tried to verify this in the Citizenship Act (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-29/) but it’s possibly even harder to read than the Income Tax Act. Certainly it does seem to function by operation law (“A person is a citizen if…”).
But the feds should absolutely reimburse that $600, even if they have to reach into the Financial Administration Act to do it.