Dual Citizenship Revisions?

This from today's Vancouver Sun . . . What do you think about this proposed change?

For those of you already with PR status, do you plan to maintain US Citizenship upon gaining Canadian Citizenship? Thoughts appreciated . . . .

Tories plan review of dual citizenship

Some argue people should lose Canadian status if they are also citizens elsewhere

BY ALLAN WOODS CanWest News Service


OTTAWA — The Conservative government plans to revisit issues surrounding 30-year-old rules allowing people who live abroad to hold dual Canadian citizenship, a senior Conservative has told CanWest News Service.
The review of the laws allowing people to carry a Canadian passport along with the citizenship of another country appears to be on a fast-track, particularly after the government began tallying the costs and results of the mass rescue of civilians in Lebanon who held Canadian citizenship during the recent conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
“I think it’s going to be something that our minister of immigration [Monte Solberg] . . . will be addressing in the future because I think there is some interest as these details become known,” said Conservative caucus chairman Rahim Jaffer, a member of the House of Commons citizenship and immigration committee.
Solberg refused requests for an interview and Jaffer did not disclose what other issues relating to dual citizenship could come under review. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already expressed his desire to look at changes to the protocol the government follows when helping Canadians leave foreign hotspots.
Lesley Harmer, a spokeswoman for Solberg, said “there aren’t any plans” to change laws governing dual citizenship.
But Jaffer said a closer look at the issue was already on the government’s fall agenda, and could now happen “within weeks” after the burden of moving Canadian citizens out of the Middle East war zone have come to light.
Some 40,000 Canadians were registered with the embassy in Lebanon when the war broke out in July, and Ottawa estimates it spent more than $85 million to bring about 15,000 of them to Canada. Reports suggest 7,000 evacuees have since returned to Lebanon.
The movement to revisit dual citizenship is drawing support on both sides of the Commons.
“I’ve always questioned dual citizenship, and I’m the former minister,” said Ontario Liberal MP Judy Sgro, a Liberal immigration minister between 2003 and 2005.
“We’ve paid all that money to evacuate all those people and now 7,000 of them have gone back.”
She added the benefits that come with Canadian citizenship — including pension benefits and assistance from the federal government in times of emergency — are “ripe for exploitation” by those living abroad.
Statistics Canada says there are more than four million immigrants who hold dual citizenship with Canada and at least one other country.
There are no records for Canadian-born citizens who hold other citizenships.
“We need to be loyal to one country as far as your citizenship. Your heart can be where you were born but I think the commitment to Canada has to be strong, and I think dual citizenship weakens that,” Sgro said.
Canada changed its laws to allow Canadians to hold passports from two countries in 1977. Advice from two parliamentary committees from the mid-1990s that it was time to revamp citizenship laws were ignored.
One of those committees from 1993 suggested permitting dual citizenship reduced the value that goes along with being a Canadian and recommended those who take citizenship with another country should forfeit their Canadian passport.


I have contacted Idealistic Pragmatist and L-Girl of We Move to Canada for their thoughts/discussion. Hope we get good responses . . . .