A new petition is calling on the federal government to formally recognize those who lost their lives fighting for Canada during the First and Second World Wars as Canadian citizens. Before the Canadian Citizenship Act went into effect in 1947, many individuals born in the country were classified as British subjects. That means the more than 110,000 soldiers who died fighting for Canada during the two World Wars were not necessarily recognized as being Canadian during their lifetimes. Launched on Oct. 27, the new petition is calling on Ottawa to both formally acknowledge those who sacrificed their lives in the wars as Canadian citizens, and to also assert that Canadian citizenship and citizenship rights existed before 1947. “This is [about] honour of Canada, honour of the Crown,” citizenship activist Don Chapman told CTV’s Your Morning on Remembrance Day on Wednesday. “I don’t know of any country in the world that would boot out their own war dead.” Chapman, who initiated the petition, is the author of the book The Lost Canadians, which details his battle to restore his lost Canadian citizenship and update Canada’s citizenship laws. “What we really need to do is we have to get going on a new mint-fresh Citizenship Act, because the current act is so convoluted,” Chapman said from Vancouver. “There are some real glaring deficiencies that nobody talks about, because citizenship is kind of like the air we breathe – we don’t think about it till it’s gone.” The petition is being sponsored by Liberal B.C. member of Parliament Patrick Weiler. Since the petition has already received more than 500 signatures, the federal government will be legally required to table a response within 45 days of the petition being presented in the House of Commons. The petition closes on Feb. 24.
