Canadian Citizenship

Maple Leaf If there was ever some­thing that was going to get me updat­ing this blog again, it would have to be some­thing like this. In less from 24 hours from now, Pam and I will be Cana­dian citizens.

We have been requested to appear at about 8AM tomor­row morn­ing at the Immi­gra­tion offices in Yale­town where I took the test for cit­i­zen­ship about 2 months ago (I guess this means I passed.) The instruc­tions included what we needed to bring in with us (all pre­vi­ous doc­u­ments used in the cit­i­zen­ship appli­ca­tion we made, any  pass­ports — can­celled or not, our card that shows we are per­ma­nent res­i­dents and a few other doc­u­ments. Option­ally, we  can bring a ‘holy book’ of our choos­ing. Not plan­ning on doing that. We can also choose whether we swear or affirm our cit­i­zen­ship. I don’t believe that there is a legal dif­fer­ence as to which one chooses, but I sup­pose ‘swear­ing’ alle­giance to the Queen of Eng­land is some­thing that some (par­tic­u­larly Amer­i­cans) are not as keen to do as affirm­ing. I haven’t decided whether I’ll be a swearer or an affirmer, but I’m lean­ing toward affir­ma­tion, all the same. Swear­ing just sounds too reli­gious for my taste. I’ll see if I can post some pho­tos of the cer­e­mony (one of Pam’s friends is com­ing to be a wit­ness, of which I’m glad and thankful).

Thoughts that come to mind about this upcom­ing event: relief that our sta­tus will finally be set­tled once and for all. There’ll be no more wor­ries about renew­ing Res­i­dency Sta­tus doc­u­ments. I also feel excited that I’ll be able to vote, both in the local and fed­eral elec­tions. In fact, I’m think­ing that I may vol­un­teer some time work­ing on a cam­paign again, which is some­thing I did before we left the US. I guess, you can take the boy out of the Coun­try, but you can’t take Pol­i­tics out of the boy.

Finally, I have a sense of clo­sure and a lit­tle pride, that the past 7 years (last week, on the 14th,  it was 7 years to the day that we arrived here with noth­ing but the our lap­tops on our backs) have meant some­thing, and that I’ll now be able, with­out equiv­o­ca­tion, to call myself a Cana­dian. Ever since the 2000 US elec­tion, I’ve felt embar­rassed and even ashamed to call myself an Amer­i­can, a label that I didn’t achieve, but was born into. To be a born white and Amer­i­can in the last or cur­rent cen­tury, is to be priv­i­leged. Not hav­ing cho­sen or even worked for that priv­i­lege, I’ve lately felt more than a lit­tle uncom­fort­able with hav­ing it. Whether it’s White Man’s Guilt or Blame-America-First or what­ever the peo­ple on Fox and Friends call it, I never want to have to cringe again when I see some­one in a for­eign coun­try act like a jerk and just keep my head down, hop­ing that they don’t hold it against the rest of us as well. Nope,  just us Cana­di­ans at this table.

I also like Canada, if not Mr. Harper’s Canada (and I’ll work hard to help us return to the Canada we could be, not his greedy and envi­ron­men­tally malfeasant petro-theocracy with noth­ing but money and power on his mind). I like the Canada of Lester Pear­son, Pierre Trudeau, Terry Fox,  Glenn Gould, Frank Gehry, William Shat­ner, Moshe Safdie, Guy Lal­ib­erté,  Nathan Fil­lion, Kiefer (and Don­ald) Suther­land, Dou­glas Cou­p­land, Mar­shall McLuhan, Stephen Pinker, David Suzuki, John Kric­falusi, John Byrne, Cory Doc­torow and Mar­garet Atwood…yes, that’s a coun­try I want to be con­sid­ered a cit­i­zen of, even if I wasn’t born there.

Finally, I think it is bet­ter to choose one’s coun­try rather than sim­ply wear it, like a red, white and blue birth­mark. Many in my fam­ily were immi­grants who became cit­i­zens of a coun­try they weren’t born in,  and now, I’m one as well. Tomor­row, I’ll have the papers to prove it.

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By David Drucker | Filed in Canada, Politics | July 17, 2012 5:35 pm

13 Comments

13 Comments to “Canadian Citizenship”

  1. AvatarWest End Bob
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
    1

    David and Pam, that’s GREAT news! Con­grats to you both!

    The points you brought up in your post are so rem­i­nis­cent of our rea­sons for vacat­ing The Excited States for Canada, too. Even with the harper régime doing its best to destroy the Canada we moved to, it still far sur­passes our for­mer residence.

    My appli­ca­tion for cit­i­zen­ship is being “processed” as of May 15, 2012 — I’m guess­ing my cer­e­mony won’t be ’til next spring sometime.

    Glad for you both, and look­ing for­ward to the pics!
  2. AvatarPatricia
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 7:48 pm
    2

    You for­got “Emily Mur­phy” on that list! and congrats!
  3. Avatarheather
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 7:58 pm
    3

    i might have to ask them to can­cel your appoint­ment just because you didn’t write it as “Don­ald (and Kiefer) Sutherland”.

    nah! you’re gonna make a great Canuck! con­grat­u­la­tions! and thank you for choos­ing us. :)

  4. AvatarMike Fitzsimon
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 8:06 pm
    4

    Con­grat­u­la­tions David. I’m so very pleased for you.

    This step (giant leap) you have taken is the best thing I have seen come out of George W Bush’s re-election.

    I also applaud your choice. If I had to live any­where on the planet other than where I am, Canada would be top of the list.

    Best wishes — Mike
  5. AvatarMJ Ankenman
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 8:43 pm
    5

    Con­grat­u­la­tions to you and Pam.. and wel­come.…. you know more promi­nent Cana­di­ans than most …look­ing for­ward to you vot­ing too!
  6. AvatarQuinn
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 9:58 pm
    6

    Con­grat­u­la­tion! Let’s see how long it will take for me. ;)

  7. AvatarJan Karlsbjerg
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 10:21 pm
    7

    Con­grat­u­la­tions, David!

    Inter­st­ing that many of the Cana­di­ans you men­tion have lived their pro­fes­sional lives out­side of Canada. I don’t think the present-day celebs on the list are very Canada-defining. But maybe that’s not what you meant?
  8. AvatarDavid Drucker
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 11:26 pm
    8
    Author Comment

    Thanks for the con­grats, all.

    Heather, I was wor­ried that if I put Don­ald S. first, I might date myself… Kind of like the time when I was much younger that some­one said I looked like Julian Lennon, not his father John (I was thrilled). :)

    Jan, you’re right that a num­ber of Cana­di­ans (and per­haps the most famous ones) don’t spend all (or even a major­ity) of time actu­ally in the coun­try, but on the other hand, I think they show that the coun­try has pro­duced a lot of great peo­ple (and a wide vari­ety of them, too). I also think that if I named peo­ple that only Cana­di­ans would know, it would send a very dif­fer­ent mes­sage (per­haps ‘You wouldn’t know, it’s a Cana­dian thing.’) which is not what I was after.
  9. AvatarDavid Drucker
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 11:28 pm
    9
    Author Comment

    Bob, our wait from the pro­cess­ing was about 7 or 8 months, so hope­fully you’ll be tak­ing the test in Novem­ber or so. That could put your cer­e­mony in Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary. Hop­ing that is the case for you
  10. AvatarDavid Drucker
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 11:30 pm
    10
    Author Comment

    There were a whole bunch of oth­ers I wanted to add, but thanks for remind­ing me of her. I was also think­ing of Erick­son and Thom, but already had Gehry. Of course, there were tons and tons of pop musi­cians I left off as well, but most peo­ple know my igno­rance of pop music.
  11. AvatarDavid Drucker
    Posted: Jul 17th, 2012 at 11:31 pm
    11
    Author Comment

    Thanks Mike. Hope we make it to Aus­tralia some time and see another great place to live. In the mean­time, you are always wel­come to come and visit our home.
  12. AvatarPete (Alois)
    Posted: Nov 11th, 2012 at 8:49 am
    12

    David–congrats to you and Pam.

    I’ve suf­fered some­thing of a polit­i­cal recon­fig­u­ra­tion; you can read about it on my blog.

    Great Cana­di­ans? How ’bout Randy Bach­man & Bur­ton Cummings?
  13. AvatarDavid Drucker
    Posted: Nov 11th, 2012 at 9:54 am
    13
    Author Comment

    Wow, Pete. I read some of your lat­est entries and it’s head-turning stuff. Thanks for the congrats,

    I’d been fol­low­ing some of the twists and turns of Wis­con­sin and Walker (funny, but I just saw an episode of ‘The Walk­ing Dead’ so that name now car­ries slightly dif­fer­ent echoes!).

    I’m sur­prised of your change of sup­port, but your per­cep­tions and logic are very con­vinc­ing. I hope that things get bet­ter for the State, and that the Repub­li­can party divorces from the Tea Party (and ALEC as you rightly pointed out) and once again con­tributes some seri­ous argu­ments to the chal­lenges of our world. A 2 party sys­tem works bet­ter when one has a plu­ral­ity of real, sub­stan­tive choices.

    Bach­man! For­got about him. Yes, include him, espe­cially because ‘Takin Care of Busi­ness’ was pos­si­bly recorded a short walk from where we live. I must con­fess that I didn’t know of Bur­ton Cum­mings but Pam cer­tainly does. I was a bit ner­vous about too many pop­u­lar music ref­er­ences, should some­one counter with Celene Dion, Justin Bieber, or worse, Nick­le­back. Not con­vinc­ing argu­ments for cit­i­zen­ship there…
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