Tag Archives: Joe Taylor

Did the 1947 Canada Citizenship Act affirm citizenship or "strip" citizenship and create @LostCanadians?

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Introduction:
This is the 2nd of seven posts analyzing the “dual citizen exemption” to the S. 877A Exit Tax which is found in S. 877A(g)(1)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code. Please remember that the “dual citizen exemption” is available ONLY to those who meet the “five year tax compliance test”.
1. What is the S. 877A(g)(1)(B) “dual citizen exemption” and why does it encourage those “born dual citizens” to not renounce U.S. citizenship?
2. The history of Canada’s citizenship laws: Did the 1947 Canada Citizenship Act affirm citizenship or “strip” citizenship and create @LostCanadians?
3. The S. 877A “dual citizen” exemption – I was born before the first ever Canada Citizenship Act? Could I have been “born a Canadian citizen”?
4. The S. 877A “Dual Citizen” exemption: The 1947 Canada Citizenship Act – Am I still a Canadian or did I lose Canadian citizenship? (The “Sins Of The Father”)
5. The S. 877A “Dual Citizen” exemption: The 1947 Canada Citizenship Act and the requirements to be “born Canadian”
6. “The S. 877A “Dual Citizen” exemption: I was born a dual citizen! Am I still “taxed as a resident” of Canada?”
7. The S. 877A “Dual Citizen” exemption: “MUST certify tax compliance for the five years prior to relinquishment”


Last Friday I was in Ottawa. I walked into a bookstore and saw the book: “The Lost Canadians” by Don Chapman.
lostcanadians
It is a fascinating book. Once again, see how important citizenship is. Citizenship is “invisible” until your citizenship or lack thereof creates problems in your life. Don Chapman’s book “The Lost Canadians” is a history of the problems caused by Canada’s first citizenship act – the 1947 Canada Citizenship Act. Many (but not all) of the problems were caused by  situations where, according to the 1947 Canada Citizenship Act:

  1. According to S. 16 of the 1947 Canada Citizenship Act, a minor would lose his/her Canadian citizenship if the responsible parent became a citizen of another nation and in so doing lost her/her Canadian citizenship; and
  2. According to S. 5 of the 1947 Canada Citizenship Act, a person born in wedlock outside of Canada to a father who was NOT a Canadian citizen and a mother who WAS a Canadian citizen never acquired Canadian citizenship by birth. (Note that in the Benner case the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that this distinction violated S. 15 of the Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms.) This injustice, which meant that those born in the U.S. did NOT acquire dual citizenship at birth (think of the definition of “covered expatriate” of the S. 877A “Exit Tax” rules),  was “fixed in the 2009 changes to the Canada Citizenship Act.
  3. According to S. 6 of the Canada Citizenship Act, some Canadians born outside of Canada had to reside in Canada on their 24th birthday. The failure to meet this residency requirement meant that they “lost” their Canadian citizenship.

These injustices were the reason for the 2009 changes to the Canada Citizenship Act.


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