Real Canadians and others

The current debate over certain wording in O Canada has attracted many letters to the Toronto Star. Among those published on May 14 was mine:

Yes amend the national anthem to include both sexes. One thing more is necessary to make it totally inclusive. For millions of Canadians, Canada is their home but not native land. The words should offer the option and read "our home and native (chosen) land". 

Exercising rare restraint, I omitted a second suggestion:

We need also delete the word "home". To Canadian citizens living permanently in a  foreign land, such as Lebanon, Canada is not their home. Yet they feel free to call on Canada whenever trouble lurks. Such occurred during a crisis in 2007. These 15,000 Canadians of convenience waved their moth-riddled maple leaf flags and demanded safe evacuation to Cyprus. They were, at a cost of $80- to 100-million to tax-paying Canadians whose real home is Canada. 

These freeloaders, and plenty of others in Hong Kong for example, pay no Canadian taxes and have pseudo-Canadian addresses in order to fleece our healthcare system whenever needed.

To discourage this mischief, the residency requirement to qualify for citizenship must be increased from three years to ten. Passports must show a minimum of six months' Canadian residency every three years. 

Prime Minister Justine Trudeau has proclaimed, "A Canadian citizen is a Canadian citizen. is a ..." 

Not so, Mister T.  

A real Canadian citizen contributes to Canada, not some foreign country.

Outsiders Beware

Before the courts of Ontario, there is an application to exempt certain citizenship applicants because they object to the nature of the required oath. My letter to The National Post.

Re 'Repulsive' oath to Queen assailed, Jul 13:

Three non-Canadians complain about our laws. Common among them is their insistence on imposing their values on us.  One of them admits to an unresolved distaste of things British.  Immigrants must not seek to impose their values. The Jamaican applicant's religious values cause her to describe our head of state as "the queen of Babylon." Canadians don't need that kind of talk, especially from an outsider.

These people have accepted the invitation to our house. But will enter only on condition that we tune our television to programs they prefer, only if we say things they want to hear, only if we change our laws to suit them.

I trust our courts will refuse this brazen imposition of outsiders' conditions on our way of life. Conditions of entry are established by Canadians, not by wannabes.

Should one day, the oath to the Queen be dropped, it will be done by Canadians, not by those at the gates.

Citizenship of Convenience

Letter to The Globe and Mail, June 6, 2009. Unpublished.

Canada, it seems, has yet to learn the a difference between being a generous nation and a foolish one. Of the 2.7 million people with Canadian citizenship living abroad, more than half are believed to have dual citizenship, and be permanent residents of their country of origin (Canada's relationship with Lebanon, June 5).

These Canadians hold passports of convenience which they wave with patriotic fervour when they need a bolt hole. The evacuation of 15,000 "Canadians" during the 2006 Lebanese troubles cost us an estimated $65 million. We may be certain the owners of available ships boosted their rates when they learned Canada was involved.

More frightening is the possibility of these non-taxpaying "Canadians" swamping our health care system. Many of them maintain false Canadian addresses ( mainly in Quebec) in order to qualify for medicare or other benefit should the need arise.

Clearly there are two classes of Canadians: Those who pay taxes and those who free load.