By arthur Weinreb
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The citizenship of Stphane Dion caused some controversy when it was revealed that the newly elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, in addition to being a Canadian citizen by birth, also held French citizenship. When the matter was first raised, Dion became huffy, stating that the citizenship was a gift from his mother and that he was 100 per cent loyal to Canada. He later relented and said he would give up his French citizenship if it became an "issue”, meaning something that may prevent him from following all previous Liberal leaders save one and becoming prime minister. That was really no surprise. We are all aware that red-blooded members of the Natural Governing Party would sell their mothers, let alone their mother's gift of foreign citizenship, if it meant obtaining or holding on to power.
Some of Dion's defenders brought up the fact that former prime minister John Turner also held British citizenship and it never became an issue. Turner was the guy who former PM John Diefenbaker once predicted would be prime minister one day. Dief was of course wrong; Turner was prime minister for 79 days, but I digress. Some of those defending Dion's retention of his other citizenship imply if they don't come out and actually say that Dion is being criticized not because he holds the citizenship of another country but because that country happens to be France. While this notion may have some superficial appeal, it is not the reason of those who are objecting to a prime minister being a citizen of another country.
Turner ended his short tenure as prime minister of Canada just a little over 22 years ago. To many of us it seems like just yesterday but a lot has changed in that short period of time. For one thing, Canada has far more immigrants living here than there were 22 years ago and as a result the topic of citizenship has been attracting more attention. Citizens of convenience hit the spotlight last summer during the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Canadian government ended up spending $85 million to evacuate "Canadian citizens” from Lebanon. While many of these people were present Canadian residents who were visiting or temporarily doing business in the Middle East, thousands were long term residents of Lebanon; citizens of Canada when it is convenient like when they are caught in a war zone. Being a citizen, they demanded rights without any having to incur any responsibilities that should come with citizenship.
If Stphane Dion is telling us the truth, and there is no reason to doubt him, his concept of citizenship is no different than the thousands of Canadian citizens who are ordinarily resident in other countries such as Lebanon. If he truly is 100 per cent loyal to Canada, then he has zero loyalty to France, a country of which he is also a citizen. He's no different than those Lebanese residents who demanded that a country that they have no intention of living in or paying taxes in, rescue them. What happened in Lebanon last summer made Canadians think about citizenship and its consequences; something that was not on the radar screen during John Turner's time in office. The lack of interest in Turner's other country of citizenship had nothing to do with the fact that the other country was Britain and not France.
The Liberals, under Paul Martin, the most inept man ever to occupy the office of prime minister made it clear that being a real Canadian means supporting Liberal Party values. anyone who doesn't agree with those values (ie. Conservatives) is simply "un-Canadian”. It's too soon to know if Dion will go down that same road but he's off to a good start with his constant labelling of Conservatives as "neocons” and references to Republicans in the U.S. To Dion, accepting Liberal Party dogma is more important than being a Canadian citizen. Holding citizenship is really inconsequential.
To many ordinary Canadians, citizenship does matter. But it's all academic as far as Dion is concerned. He'll ditch his French citizenship in time for the next election.
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