‘No say and no choice’: Dual Canada-U.K. citizens shocked by ‘ridiculous’ new British travel rules

An electronic travel authorization is now mandatory before going to the U.K. Travel specialist Serina Bowles explains how this is changing travel for Canadians.

Starting Wednesday, Canadians who wish to visit the U.K. will need to obtain an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to enter the country, which the British government says can be done through a simple online process.

However, it’s more complicated for dual citizens, says a travel expert, and many Canadians who also hold British citizenship are scrambling to adjust to the new rules.

Any Canadian deemed to be a dual citizen of the U.K., either through being born in Britain or by having at least one British parent, is “no longer eligible to obtain an ETA,” Serina Bowles told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday.

Bowles said the British government announced the change on its website a few weeks ago. Up until then, Canadian passport holders who were also U.K. citizens were eligible to receive an ETA.

However, those individuals will now need to apply for a U.K. passport if they hope to travel there. The same rules also apply to dual citizens of Canada and Ireland.

“It came as a shock,” Kelly Tuohey told CTVNews.ca in an interview on Wednesday. Tuohey is a dual Canadian-U.K. citizen who was born and raised in Britain before moving to Canada, where she married a Canadian and obtained citizenship. She lives in British Columbia.

“I’d been over to the U.K. a couple of times last year … I didn’t notice any signage at Heathrow Airport suggesting that changes were coming,” she said.

“It’s really in the last couple of weeks that I started to hear things through my family, from things going on in the press in the U.K., so I really didn’t know that these changes were coming.”

Tuohey said that the changes don’t make much of a difference for her, as she already holds both a British and Canadian passport.

However, they do impact her two teenaged children, who under the new rules are automatically deemed to be U.K. citizens due to her British nationality.

“So, arbitrarily, no discussion, my children are British, and therefore they need a British passport to enter the country,” she said.

“And while I would like them to have that opportunity, I really think that’s my decision, and it was one I was planning on having with the children when they were old enough to actually contribute to that conversation.”

For Tuohey’s children, who were born in Canada, in order to legally enter the U.K. as dual Canadian-U.K. citizens, they must either obtain a British passport or renounce their U.K. citizenship altogether.

“I’m really disappointed that I have no say and no choice in my children needing a British passport,” she said.

Major hurdles

Canadian dual-citizens who don’t have an Irish or U.K. passport may also apply for a “certificate of entitlement” to “prove (they) have right of abode in the U.K.,” but getting approved is a weekslong process that costs more than C$1,000, according to the British government.

For the time being, obtaining a U.K. passport is the only way to “100 per cent guarantee” entry into the U.K. if you’re a Canadian that also holds British citizenship, said Bowles.

She noted that the U.K. government made some slight adjustments to the rules this week, announcing that “at the airline’s discretion,” dual citizens may be allowed to enter the U.K. if they have an expired British passport in conjunction with a valid Canadian one.

But for Canadians with dual U.K. citizenship who are now attempting to obtain a British passport, some are encountering major hurdles.

Canadian Jennifer Barlow, born to British parents who immigrated to Canada in 1967, said the U.K. passport application process requires someone to identify her based on her passport photo, but they must be a certified professional who knows the applicant personally.

“So, I’ve already had two of the people identifying me refused … I’ve just done it again because they refused my pharmacist, who’s known me for 20 years,” said Barlow, who is from Ontario. “So, I’m back in limbo again.”

Still, Bowles argued that “the easiest and least expensive way” to ensure you can travel to the U.K. as a dual citizen going forward is to apply for a British passport.

“As of right now, that’s the only way for sure to know that you’re going to be able to get on your plane,” she said.

Future travel

Both Tuohey and Barlow said the new rules may impact upcoming travel plans to Britain.

For Tuohey, she had planned to visit her 73-year-old father this summer with her children, but the paperwork and administrative time it may take to receive her children’s U.K. passports could put the trip in jeopardy, she said.

Barlow, meanwhile, had a U.K. visit planned for the end of May, but she worries she may not receive her British passport in time.

“The hoops that we’re having to jump through, like I said, I’m on my third person to try and identify me … this is just ridiculous,” said Barlow.

For Canadian travellers who do not also hold U.K. or Irish citizenship, it’s still important to keep the new British travel rules in mind, as an ETA may be required even if the British Isles aren’t their final destination.

“It’s not just going directly to the U.K., sometimes people have a layover in London,” Bowles said.

“You don’t need an ETA if you are staying within the same terminal, but if you’re at Heathrow and you have to change terminals to get onto a different flight to get somewhere else, you have to go through passport control, so that’s something to consider.”