Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The Big Di-Yawn shares his inner Frenchman,

and yet, it’s really his inner Canadian we need for him to assert.

Someone needs to provide me with a rational explanation as to why I should vote for a party leader who can barely express himself in intelligible spoken English, and to add insult to injury, also insists on retaining the citizenship of another country.

Furthermore, to suggest that I have no right to question the loyalty of such a leader when he maintains a back door exit to citizenship in another land is beyond arrogance, and sets a terrible and dangerous precedent.

7 comments:

Michael said...

As a dual citizen myself, I can see where he's coming from on this. It's hard to give up citizenship, and the rights thereto.

That said, Dion cannot seriously expect to be allowed to hold office in one country while carrying the passport of another. That is just wrong, and there are (usually) laws against it.

On a side note, dual citizens must also be careful about which documents to use when travelling. For example, a US citizen who also carries Israeli citizenship, must remember to always enter and leave the US on the US passport, and to enter and leave Israel on the Israeli passport. It may be important, when passing through a third country, to keep track of which passport has the most recent visa stamp in it.

Does anyone know the Canadian regulations re: dual citizenship?

K. Shoshana said...

No laws in Canada against dual or even multiple citizenship, which is why its been quipped that Canada is now merely a hotel to the world.

Makes the American founding fathers seem quite wise for writing in a clause that only native born Americans are eligble for the presidency of the US.

What you might not know Michael, is during last summer's war there were more "Canadian-Lebanese" citizens living in Lebanon than from any other single country.

Ironically, the US has a substantially higher population of Americans of Lebanese origin but Canada had more de facto citizens residing in Lebanon. It became a huge political crisis/issue during the evacuation of Canadians out of Lebanon.

Our very lax attitude towards citizenship could very well be the undoing of our security or even our society.

GenX at 40 said...

With respect, he holds no French passport. He has the right because a parent was born there. I understand Isreal extend the right of return and a citizenship to any person of the Jewish faith - correct me if I am wrong. But if so, must all Parliamentarians of that faith renounce it, too, before they take an oath of office and alliegence? How about borderland First Nation people with the right to hold US and Canadian passports due to their national heritage. Are they barred, too?

You have the right to question, Kate, but it is also closely related to our right to be wrong.

K. Shoshana said...

Alan, first answer me why an Iranian, a North Korean, Russian or Chinese citizen should also have the right to become Prime Minister of Canada without having to renounce all ties or allegiances to any other country but Canada?

I fail to understand why you presume its unreasonable to expect that anyone wanting to be Prime Minister of Canada have no other allegiances than to Canada. One single undivided allegiance to the country is not an unreasonable and should be baseline demand.

I am not against the concept of dual citizenship, but as far as the leadership of the country goes - its time to choose and lay it on the line.

Re: Di-yawn goes I have no idea if he held or currently holds a valid French passport as he has never specificly cleared up that particular point. I have heard what his "aids" say but I do know that he lived for a time in France.

GenX at 40 said...

I see no more relationship between loyalty and dual citizenship than lefthandedness and loyalty or Catholicism and loyalty. The vast majority of our Prime Ministers were likely dual citizens at the time as citizens of the Empire. When did this rule change? Around when the Grits found a way to get rid of a certain percentage of their baggage. This is made up political gamesmanship that is not being analyzied honestly but those promoting it as it is not being applied to all potential dual loyalties.

Michael said...

Kate: I do remember reading that the largest "Western" group pulled out of Lebanon was the Canadian. Now I know why. Interesting.

GenX: Israel will grant citizenship to anyone who is legally Jewish, and has applied for oleh, immigrant, status (there some other requirements, but those are the basics).

The US will strip citizenship from anyone who makes an overt act to acquire foreign citizenship. Israel's Law of Return gets around this by conferring the status; an American doesn't have to accept it to get it, but can refuse it.

It's convoluted, trust me.

Anonymous said...

Citizenship carries with it certain obligations. Those obligations normally include defending, against all others, the country in which one holds the citizenship. I do not trust the loyalty of anyone who holds dual citizenship much less a potential prime minister.