Ottawa warned about law that stripped some Canadians of citizenship: advocate
VANCOUVER — The Canadian government was aware and warned repeatedly years before an arcane law began stripping longtime Canadians of their citizenship, says a man who spent decades lobbying for change.
Bill Janzen, the former head of the Mennonite Central Committee’s office in Ottawa, said he and his colleagues met with the federal government throughout the 1980s and 1990s to find a fix to the so-called 28-year rule.
The provision was part of a 1977 law that automatically removed citizenship from people born abroad to Canadian parents who were also born outside the country.
“The government holds a big responsibility for this,” Janzen said. “They’ve created a mess.”