Time for Women's Groups to Stand Up for
"Lost Canadian" War Bride Children.
By Melynda Jarratt*
It's the 100th anniversary of
International Women's Day and all across the
country people are celebrating women who have made a significant impact on
Canadian history.
If there is one group of women
that Canadians love to talk about it's war
brides. Their immigrant story of love, courage and adaptation to a new
life
in Canada is an indelible part of our national and cultural identity.
But when it comes to war
brides, immigration is one thing, citizenship is
another. It's high time politicians bow their heads in shame at the dark
side of the Canadian war bride story that everyone, especially the
Minister
of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, would like us to
forget.
Canadians should know the real
story of how war brides and their children
were lied to about their citizenship status when they came to Canada in
1946
and how that lie has come back to haunt them more than 65 years since the
end of the war.
The fact is that when war
brides were brought to Canada they were told that
they and their children became citizens by virtue of marriage to a
Canadian
servicemen.
The war brides had no reason
to question their status. Didn't Prime Minister
MacKenzie King himself call them "a splendid addition" to
Canada's
citizenship?
They didn't know that with the
introduction of Canada's first Citizenship
Act on January 1, 1947, the rules changed. After that date, war
brides and
children had to apply for citizenship: problem was, nobody told them.
Over the years, many wives
learned about the new rules after being hauled
out of line at customs and warned about their Canadian status. But not
every
war bride travelled back home to Britain or Europe and whether through
ignorance or procrastination, not every one applied for her Canadian
citizenship.
From time to time, we'll hear
about women like 87 year old Priscilla Corrie
of British Columbia who found out in 2008 that she was not a citizen.
Once
her story hit the national media in 2010, the Department moved quickly to
solve her problem but it was only because her story went public.
Those who are most affected by
the citizenship issue are war bride children
who were born overseas during the war. They too, never knew about the
change
in rules but unlike their mothers, the Department doesn't seem to mind
picking a fight with the younger generation.
They are the "Lost
Canadian" war bride children, stripped of their
citizenship because they didn't fill out a piece of paper so many years
ago.
Now aged sixty five and older,
these children are discovering they are not
Canadian citizens. What ensues is a bureaucratic nightmare that can take
years and thousands of dollars to fix. Imagine the anxiety when federal
entitlements such as Old Age Pension, Medicare and passports are denied
until the paperwork is in order.
And it gets worse. If the war
bride child was born out of wedlock, they are
denied citizenship status because of a discriminatory section of the 1947
Act. They can get a special grant of citizenship, but it only recognizes
their status from the date of the grant forward. Jackie Scott is fighting
to
be recognized as Canadian citizen, but her birth status is being used
against her by the government.
Which brings me back to
International Women's Day. No politician or feminist
would dare defend such a bumbling bureaucracy that targets war brides and
their children nor the anachronistic and discriminatory legislation that
bans born out wedlock children from citizenship. But Minister Jason Kenney
does it all the time.
As an historian and womens'
rights activist I find it hard to believe that
womens' organizations have not taken up the cause of war brides and their
children who are being treated so badly by the Department of Citizenship
and
Immigration.
And after 65 years, I don't
think I'm asking too much for women's groups
across Canada to make a principled stand on behalf of those children whose
only crime was to be born out of wedlock during World War Two.
*Melynda Jarratt is an
historian of Canadian war brides and an advocate of
the Lost Canadians.
