Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Canada and the World Backgrounder

Best of both worlds: Canada allows its immigrants to have dual citizenship; they can be Canadian citizens and still retain the citizenship of the country from which they came.

Article Excerpt
Not every country is as generous as Canada. Singapore does not allow dual citizenship. It requires citizenship applicants to give up their original citizenship. They have to go to their old country's embassy and renounce their original citizenship. Male applicants also have to do two years of national service in the armed forces, police, or civil defence.

Others that don't allow dual citizenship include: Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Norway, Peru, Syria, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Countries that do allow dual citizenship (about 90 of them) usually operate under the principle that you are a citizen of the country in which you live; any other citizenship is not relevant.

This is where a Latin phrase comes in handy--jus sanguinis. It means "right of blood" and describes how some countries grant citizenship to those born of parents who are citizens of that country. It doesn't matter where a person is born if their parents are, say, Italian, they too are Italian.

This can lead to tricky and sometimes dangerous situations.

Someone might go to visit the ancestral homeland without knowing they are actually a citizen of that country. The visitor might then discover that their unknown citizenship carries certain obligations, such as a year's service in the military. Perhaps, the visitor owes back taxes because of their unsuspected citizenship and ends up in prison for not being able to pay them.

It may not be much use at that point calling on a Canadian foreign-service officer for help. The Canadian official will likely be told to buzz off because this is an internal matter.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) warns Canadians travelling abroad to be wary of this: "Whenever you are in...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!