Lost Canadian won’t drop lawsuit despite citizenship changes
Posted February 13, 2014 10:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – A Surrey woman will finally get to carry a Canadian passport, thanks to the federal government’s new citizenship bill.
But the so-called Lost Canadians don’t intend to drop their lawsuit against the government.
Jackie Scott has been battling Citizenship and Immigration for close to a decade, over the fact she didn’t inherit Canadian citizenship.
She was born to a Canadian World War II veteran in 1945, and has lived here since she was two years old. The problem was she was born out of wedlock. The new legislation will give her citizenship.
“I look forward to being recognized as a Canadian citizen and being able to proudly display that,” she says.
“One side of me is jumping for joy and the other half is saying ‘Wait a minute. We have to hold back. It’s not law and anything can happen between now and then.'”
She’s been disappointed by legislation before. Back in 2009, the laws were amended, but they didn’t include people in her situation.
Don Chapman, who heads up a group called the Lost Canadians, is involved with a lawsuit that was launched by Scott against the government, and says while the new legislation is good news for Scott it still excludes people born in the country before 1947, which is when the Citizenship Act came into effect.
He says soldiers who fought for Canada and died during the World Wars fall into this category, calling it particularly offensive for soldiers of Chinese descent.
“That means all of those folks that were Chinese who died before 1947, including those who were born here and fought and died for Canada, were relegated to ‘stateless registered aliens.'”
So he says they will press on with their court case, on behalf of all Lost Canadians.
“It’s largely symbolic. We want this for our soldiers, who fought and died for our freedoms. They can no longer fight any battles, so we’re fighting this one for them.”
