• Bill C-37 passed into law a couple of weeks ago after a very bumpy ride through Parliament and the Canadian Senate. Even though this has happened it takes a full year for the law to come into effect. All war brides are indebted to Don Chapman who has devoted his life during the past years to reinstate the citizenship rights of all Lost Canadians (war-bride issues as well as many other categories of Lost Canadians) and to Melynda Jarratt who has fought unceasingly for War Brides and their overseas-born children's rights. Both have spent weeks, in Don's case months, in Ottawa lobbying on behalf of Lost Canadians, I might add at much cost to themselves in every way including their stress levels. If you are a war bride or the overseas-born child of a war bride, please send e-mails showing appreciation for their remarkable efforts and even more remarkable results.
• Don Chapman: dcinbc@yahoo.ca
• Melynda Jarratt: melynda@canadianwarbrides.com

If you have never witnessed a Citizenship Ceremony I highly recommend that you do so. Joe's of course was particularly moving, given that so many people in the audience had worked hard to persuade the government that it was richly deserved.

Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, planned to attend but had to cancel when her doctor advised against air travel. Standing in for Ms Finley was Ed Komarnicki her parliamentary secretary.

Perhaps the most affecting part, other than the main ceremony itself, was the welcome to this country by Hereditary Chief Adam Dick of the Kwaw-Kwaw-Aplitt people of Vancouver Island (unbelievably Chief Dick's father had also been denied citizenship and even more unbelievably he is not the only First Nation Canadian to find himself/herself embroiled in that lunatic manifestation of bureaucracy!)

Chief Kim Clutesi-Recalma (see * below) translated Chief Dick's words for us and explained the significance of his ceremonial dance.

Standing at the front with Joe were Chinese Canadian Veterans of World War II, one of whom had landed on D-Day as Joe's father had, and poet and author Roy Miki, advocate for Japanese Canadians who were interned during the war. In the audience were three war brides, Zoe Boone, Gwen Zdradicka and yours truly.

The Citizenship Judge was Chinese Canadian Sandra Wilking who struck just the right note of dignity interspersed with flashes of humour. As when she introduced Mr. Komarnicki, remarking that she has difficulty speaking Ukranian, "come to think of it I'm not so good with English!" even though she most certainly was.

I'm sure you can imagine the feeling that swept the room as the ceremony proceeded and then Joe held up his long-awaited certificate of Canadian citizenship. Afterwards Melynda Jarratt spoke eloquently of Joe's struggle. Liberal MP Andrew Telegdi, a great advocate of citizenship reform, spoke. He had chaired several Standing Committees on Citizenship and Immigration before which Joe, Kim Clutesi-Recalma, and I all gave evidence back in April 2005, each on different issues. He was followed by Don Chapman, who incidentally still does not have his citizenship, who reminded us of the many Lost Canadians who are still needing our support.

* I have known Kim ever since she and Bill worked to bring a branch of the Canadian Arthritis Society to the Parksville/Qualicum area of the Island.

The battle is over for Joe Taylor. After a losing six-year legal struggle against the federal government to regain his Canadian citizenship, Taylor, the son of a Vancouver Island war veteran, has been granted citizenship under a rare discretionary cabinet order. His story is well known by those who have followed the plight of the so-called Lost Canadians, people stripped of their citizenship under obscure, archaic and discriminatory provisions of Canada's citizenship laws.

• What this ruling says is that the government's wartime Order giving the families of returning war veterans the same citizenship rights as the soldiers themselves, is meaningless.
  Rory Morahan, Mr. Taylor's lawyer.

(Please consult Melynda Jarratt's comprehensive website for extracts from media across the country. Googling "Melynda Jarratt Canadian war brides" connects you every time.)

"Joe Taylor in Trust - Legal fees"
The Royal Bank of Canada
1079 Douglas Street. Victoria, B C V8W 2C5
Bank transit no: 08000
Bank number: 003
Account number: 525-448-7

• Read the official four page summary and / or full decision of Justice Martineau's Sept. 2006 decision on the Federal Court of Canada website.
• Click here to read Chapter 8, "War Bride Children" (note: .pdf reader required) from Melynda Jarratt's new book War Brides: The stories of the women who left everything behind to follow the men they loved, which examines Joe Taylor's citizenship fight with the Canadian government and its implications for all Canadian War Brides and the children they brought with them to Canada at the end of WWII.
• Click here to read recent articles in the Vancouver Sun and the Edmonton Sun. Credit: Melynda Jarratt's Website.

"Joe Taylor in Trust - Legal fees"
The Royal Bank of Canada
1079 Douglas Street. Victoria, B C V8W 2C5
Bank transit no: 08000
Bank number: 003
Account number: 525-448-7
• After Justice Luc Martineau heard the case of Joe Taylor vs Citizenship & Immigration Canada he issued a press release that warned that if he found against Mr. Taylor it would put the Citizenship of every Canadian war bride and her overseas-born children in jeopardy.

  Justice Martineau found in favour of Joe on so many points of law that it seemed unlikely that CIC would appeal. But appeal they did. It has been pointed out that they have a large supply of taxpayer's money while Joe has exhausted his savings. As this case affects so many of us I am making a personal appeal to support Joe's future legal costs as the only way he can continue to fight for justice for all of us.

Sir:

I am both amazed and outraged that the government has decided to take an appeal to the Supreme Court in the case of Joseph Taylor v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I am also shocked by what I consider the slipshod and politically inept handling of the entire War Brides file by your Department in recent years.

I have been following the case of Mr Taylor since it became public last year. But much more is at stake here than the disputed citizenship of one person whose claim may or may not be legally sound.

When the war brides landed at Pier 21 in Halifax in 1946, they were told - one group, I believe, by Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King himself - that they and their children were now Canadians, under Order in Council P.C. 858 (February 9, 1945). So what are you defending by denying Mr Taylor his citizenship - and possibly calling into question the citizenship of tens of thousands more who for sixty years have always considered themselves Canadians? Just how does this fit into your government's vision of Canada? There was a time, sir, when your Party would have been the first to stand up for this group of Canadians.

I have also read Mr Justice Martineau's Reasons for Order in his judgement dated September 1. As a layman I cannot comment on the technical points of his ruling, but his analysis of Canadian citizenship law before and since 1947 is the most thorough I have seen anywhere. Can your lawyers better it? If not, you may well lose this case, at needless cost to the taxpayer.

Six provinces have proclaimed 2006 as the Year of the War Bride. The Government of Canada, which is responsible for citizenship and brought the war brides here in the first place, has not. Shame, shame! Without waiting for the outcome of the appeal, you can make amends right now by directing your officials to remove the obstacles to this group of Canadians claiming what is rightfully theirs.

You might start by making the information and instructions for war brides and war bride children more readily accessible on your Department's Web site - perhaps even on a special page.

Minister, this file has over the years become a disgraceful morass of obfuscation and double-talk, as Senator Dallaire - himself a war bride child born in The Netherlands in 1945, can attest from personal experience. I see this as primarily a political and administrative problem, not a legal one. To tell a group of people who were welcomed to Canada as Canadians and have lived and worked here as Canadians all their adult lives, that for reasons that cannot be explained they are not Canadians, is both incompetent and unconscionable. Surely the time has come to clean up this mess once and for all by giving the surviving war brides and their children what they were promised at Pier 21 - now a national historic site - sixty years ago. They deserve no less. Have you the political will to do it? You have little or nothing to lose and much to gain.

Leaving aside the case of Mr Taylor which is still before the courts, I now have three questions for your officials. I shall expect the answers to be as clear and concise as I have tried to make the questions.

Q1. What was the legal status of the war brides and their accompanying children when they arrived in Canada during and immediately after the Second World War?

Q2. Did the war brides and their children who were domiciled or ordinarily resident in Canada on January 1, 1947 become Canadian citizens by operation of law on that date? If not, why not, and what is their present status in Canada?

Q3. If the answer to Q2 is Yes, are the surviving war brides and their children who did not acquire another citizenship before February 15, 1977 still Canadian citizens? If not, how and when did they lose their citizenship and how can they regain it?

R. H. Addington