Ted Cruz: Still Canadian

[Jacob]

A slightly snarky article about everyone's favourite Canadian politician, Ted Cruz.

OTTAWA - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz vowed months ago to renounce his Canadian citizenship by the end of 2013. It's now 2014, and the Calgary-born Republican lawmaker is still a dual citizen.

"I have retained counsel that is preparing the paperwork to renounce the citizenship," the junior Texas senator, who's eyeing a run for president in 2016, said in a recent interview with the Dallas Morning News.

He didn't dispute holding dual citizenship: "Not at this point," Cruz told the paper.

That's confounding Canadian immigration lawyers. Renouncing Canadian citizenship, they say, is a simple, quick and straightforward process — there's even an online, four-page PDF form on the Government of Canada website to get the ball rolling without the help of lawyers.

"Unless there's a security issue that hasn't been disclosed, unless there's a mental health issue that hasn't been disclosed, there's no reason for anything other than a lickety-split process to occur," Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration attorney, said in an interview Friday.

"If he's attempting to bring our system into disrepute by suggesting it's lengthy and complex, it's just not true. Revocation is one of the fastest processes in our system."

Stephen Green, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, was equally perplexed.

"It's not complicated at all," said Green, whose firm, Green and Spiegel, reached out to offer help to Cruz at one point but never received a return phone call from the senator's office.

"They make sure you understand what you're doing, that you're not going to become a stateless person, and then you're rock 'n' roll, and good to go. I would assume that if he's retained counsel, this could have been done by now."

Canada's best-known citizenship renouncer, Conrad Black, said in an email Friday that it "doesn't take long" for the revocation process to work.

He added Cruz may come to regret the move.

"He's making a mistake; he'll never go higher in the U.S. electoral system than he is now, and Canada's a better governed country than the U.S.," said Black, who gave up his citizenship in 2001 in order to accept a peerage in the British House of Lords.

Cruz's office didn't immediately respond for a request for comment.

The thorny issue of the Tea Party darling's birthplace has been a headache for the senator, given some in the neo-conservative movement have accused President Barack Obama of being born in Kenya — his father was Kenyan, his mother American — and insist he's therefore illegitimately leading the country.

Cruz, 43, was born in Calgary when his parents were working in the Canadian oil business. His mother, Eleanor, is a native-born American, while his father, Rafael, is a Cuban who didn't become a U.S. citizen until 2005.

Under U.S. law, a child born to an American parent gets automatic citizenship even if the birthplace is beyond U.S. borders. Canada, like the United States, also gives automatic citizenship to anyone born on its soil.

Even though it's precisely how the law works in the U.S., Cruz has said the news that he possessed dual citizenship came as a surprise to both him and his parents earlier this year.

The lawmaker insists his mother was told when he was a child that her boy would have to take affirmative action to claim Canadian citizenship.

"There was no reason to retain counsel to analyze Canadian law, because it wasn't relevant to anything I was doing," Cruz told the Dallas Morning News.

Kurland said he is skeptical.

"He's a Harvard-educated lawyer so what's the problem? It's elementary."

About 140 Canadian citizens a year renounce their citizenship, according to government figures. Many do so because some countries, such as China and Indonesia, don't allow dual citizenship.

[Valmy]

The only explanation that seems logical to me is that he is a spy.  A Canadian spy.

[Jacob]

The only explanation that seems logical to me is that he is a spy.  A Canadian spy.

That's preposterous. It's much more likely that he's a Canadian agent-provocateur tasked with undermining the American political process.

[Savonarola]

And if you can't trust Conrad Black...

Just out of curiosity, why couldn't America's favorite jailbird have both Canadian citizenship and a peerage?

[Jacob]

And if you can't trust Conrad Black...

Just out of curiosity, why couldn't America's favorite jailbird have both Canadian citizenship and a peerage?

Basically - in a constitutional monarchy, the granting of peerages and other titles is a royal prerogative, but as with many such prerogatives it is excercised in consultation with the government.

What it came down to was that Chretien argued that as PM of Canada he should be consulted on the granting of the peerage to a Canadian citizen, in what I surmise to be a convenient marriage of principle and spite (Chretien and Black being united in mutual loathing). Since the peerage was bestowed on Black as a British citizen (the argument for not consulting Chretien, who would have blocked the appointment), he sidestepped the issue by denouncing his Canadian citizenship.

[Barrister]

And if you can't trust Conrad Black...

Just out of curiosity, why couldn't America's favorite jailbird have both Canadian citizenship and a peerage?

The Nickle Resolution of 1919.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_titles_debate

Plus, of course, since Chretien didn't like Conrad Black (and vice versa).

[Malthus]

And if you can't trust Conrad Black...

Just out of curiosity, why couldn't America's favorite jailbird have both Canadian citizenship and a peerage?

Basically - in a constitutional monarchy, the granting of peerages and other titles is a royal prerogative, but as with many such prerogatives it is excercised in consultation with the government.

What it came down to was that Chretien argued that as PM of Canada he should be consulted on the granting of the peerage to a Canadian citizen, in what I surmise to be a convenient marriage of principle and spite (Chretien and Black being united in mutual loathing). Since the peerage was bestowed on Black as a British citizen (the argument for not consulting Chretien, who would have blocked the appointment), he sidestepped the issue by denouncing his Canadian citizenship.

There is more to it than that ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_titles_debate

Essentially, there is a longstanding policy of Canada that Canadians should not accept British honours and peerages. However, there have always been exceptions to that in special cases: for example, Sir Frederick Banting, the Canadian doctor who co-won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of insulin was allowed a knighthood, basically the government looked the other way. There was, however, no way Cretien would see Conrad Black as one of those ultra-deserving special cases. 

Edit: BB beat me to it ...

[Barrister]

You know, I wanted to make fun of the US for this even being an issue, but then I recalled that Stephan Dion's French citizenship was an issue in 2006.

[Jacob]

Well, the Nickle Resolution has long been superseded; ultimately it came down to Chretien deciding to make a big deal out of it.

[Savonarola]

You know, I wanted to make fun of the US for this even being an issue, but then I recalled that Stephan Dion's French citizenship was an issue in 2006.

I think this would be an issue only to the sort of person who was likely to vote for Ted Cruz.   

[Malthus]

Well, the Nickle Resolution has long been superseded; ultimately it came down to Chretien deciding to make a big deal out of it.

The Nickle Resolution is gone, but it is still official policy of long standing not to allow acceptance of honours (albeit, there have been exceptions).

[Jacob]

Well, the Nickle Resolution has long been superseded; ultimately it came down to Chretien deciding to make a big deal out of it.

The Nickle Resolution is gone, but it is still official policy of long standing not to allow acceptance of honours (albeit, there have been exceptions).

Yeah, I read that article too

So the issue came about because Chretien decided not to make an exception for Black (or to accept the argument that the title was being conferred on him in his capacity as a British Citizen).

[Razgovory]

Can't trust a guy who renounces his country.

[garbon]

Can't trust a guy who renounces his country.

Not fitting to this incident but what if one is from a shitty country?

[Neil]

Can't trust a guy who renounces his country.

Obama's from Kenya or Indonesia or something, and you love him more than life itself.