I think I was mistaken as to what I needed to do to retain my Canadian citizenship. (For those of you playing along at home: one of my parents was still a Canadian citizen when I was born here in the States.) I was under the impression that I'd needed to file some paperwork by age 24, but since I failed to do so I'd lost my status as a "Canadian born abroad" and would have to start the immigration process from scratch if I ever wanted a Canadian passport or wanted to move to Canada.
Turns out, that age was probably wrong, and the rule was changed in 1977 anyway. My formerly Canadian parent thought they knew the law as it stood the year I was born -- this was before 1977 -- but hadn't been aware of the change. Of course, that was in the days before the 24-hour news cycle and YouTube.
Hrm. For the cost of a few hours fiddling with paperwork and a relatively small amount of American money, it may be very easy for me to renew my Canadian citizenship and be able to get a Canadian passport in the next several months.
I like to keep my options open.
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You may want to check the new rules to ensure you're eligible. While in general the new rules include more people as Canadian citizens, some people are now no longer entitled to citizenship.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/faq/citizenship/index.asp#rules
From my cursory reading of the news and the gc.ca pages, I think that the biggest category of people no longer entitled to citizenship are those who are second-generation -- that is, a grandparent was Canadian, but their parents and they themselves were all born in the States. I am not in that category.
Thanks for the link.
i wish i could get a second passport other than the u.s., given some of the countries i like to visit. unfortunately, the only one i think i am eligible to get is israeli, which probably is the only passport that is worse than an american one in that part of the world.
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