“I’m on country arrest”:Lethbridge woman fights for Canadian citizenship

LETHBRIDGE – Barbara Savage was born in England in 1947 and immigrated to Canada when she was two years-old, but says she is not a citizen of either country.

“I’m on country arrest,” said Savage. “You might as well put an ankle bracelet on me because I can’t go anywhere.”

Savage calls herself one of the ‘lost Canadians’, people with roots in this country who have been without citizenship because of various quirks in the law.

“They don’t have citizenship for their mother country and they don’t have citizenship in Canada, ” says Rachael Harder, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Lethbridge. “It’s a sad story. All individuals should belong to a country. We have just over 80 who are in this same boat.”

A few years ago, Savage wanted to travel to Las Vegas for her granddaughter’s birthday and applied for a Canadian Passport. That’s when she says the problems started.

“I said ‘let’s go forward with my Canadian citizenship’ and the lady from immigration says ‘you are going to have a problem’ because I lack a permanent piece of ID for getting a permanent residence card,” explained Savage. “You need landed immigrant status and a passport, so I gave up.”

Harder says her plan is to look at the amendment that was made to the Citizen Act in 2009. Those changes gave Canadian citizenship to certain people who lost it, and recognized others as citizens for the first time.

“In 2009, the government said those who have not had their citizenship up until this point, who came over to Canada with parents who acquired their citizenship here before, but their children are not entitled to citizenship. We are going to pursue that going forward,” added Harder.

Savage says she has been writing government officials for years, but her letters went unanswered until recently.

“I got an email yesterday from (Prime Minister) Trudeau’s office that he was going to forward my letter to John McCallum, the Minister of Immigration,” said Savage.

Harder says the plan is to work with appropriate Liberal ministers to push the process through as quickly as possible.