Citizenship Act

Significance: The first legal definition of Canadian citizenship, reflecting a growing Canadian nationalism.

Before passage of the 1947 Canadian Citizenship Act, Canadians were British subjects. British subjects born outside Canada, unless specifically prohibited, became Canadians upon establishing permanent residence in Canada without need of any formalities.

The only legislation defining Canadian nationality was in various immigration and naturalization acts, a situation that failed to satisfy the growing nationalism of twentieth-century Canada. Non-British subjects had to meet the provisions of laws and bureaucratic decisions designed to implement a “white Canada” policy. Canada’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1885 barred immigration from that country. The Immigration Act of 1910 continued and extended that policy by authorizing the cabinet minister responsible for immigration control to exclude any race deemed unsuitable to the climate or requirements of Canada. Although the 1952 act would substitute “ethnic group” for “race,” not until 1962 did Canada finally end racial discrimination in admissions.

Canada left it to ministerial and bureaucratic discretion to reject or approve applicants for admission. Pre-World War II immigration policy encouraged immigration from Western Europe (including Britain) and the United States. Italians, Slavs, Greeks, and Jews were thought of as less assimilable and less desirable; their access to Canada was limited or denied. Asians were barred. By government policy, all black people appearing at Canada’s border with the United States were refused admission on medical grounds, a decision that could not be appealed.

Non-British subjects lawfully admitted to permanent residence in Canada who were more than twenty-one years of age and had resided in Canada for five years could apply to the nearest court for naturalization, where they would be asked to produce evidence that they were of good character and met the requirements of the immigration laws. If the court agreed, the candidate would, upon renouncing all foreign allegiances and taking an oath of allegiance to the monarch of Great Britain, be naturalized as a British subject and Canadian national.

Citizenship Is Defined

This situation failed to satisfy the feelings of Canadian nationalism that had been growing from the time Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867 and that intensified as Canada began to develop its own foreign policy and sent an army to fight in World War II. Nationalists wanted a definition of Canadian nationality that expressed the country’s uniqueness and removed all vestiges of the colonial past. Paul Martin, the son of an Irish father and a French Canadian mother, had been powerfully affected by the sacrifices of Canadian troops during World War II. When he became secretary of state in the Liberal Party administration of William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1945, the first piece of legislation he undertook to move through Parliament was a law that would define Canadian citizenship specifically. He clearly hoped that a Canadian citizenship separate from that of Great Britain would serve as a unifying symbol for the nation. With the strong support of King, the bill became law on July 1, 1946, to take effect on January 1, 1947.

All persons who had been born in Canada or on a Canadian ship, except for children of foreign diplomats, were declared to be natural-born citizens of Canada, entitled to a certificate to that effect. Children born outside Canada before January 1, 1947, to fathers who had been born in Canada, or were British subjects with permanent residences in Canada, or had been naturalized under Canadian law, also would be considered to be natural-born Canadian citizens. A person born outside Canada after December 31, 1946, would be a natural-born citizen if the father were a Canadian citizen, the child’s birth were registered with the appropriate authorities by the age of two years, and the child either established residency in Canada or filed a declaration of retention of Canadian citizenship before reaching twenty-one years of age.

The act provided that all who had been included in a certificate of naturalization before January 1, 1947, as well as all British subjects with a permanent residence in Canada, were now Canadian citizens. The new act treated citizenship as a personal and individual right of women. A woman who was a Canadian citizen would no longer lose her nationality upon marriage to an alien, nor would marriage to a Canadian citizen confer Canadian nationality. Previously, women had gained or lost nationality by marriage.

Aliens, as well as British subjects who were not already Canadian citizens, had to fulfill certain requirements to be naturalized. The person had to be twenty-one years of age, have been lawfully admitted to permanent residency, and have lived in Canada for at least five years, be of good character, have an adequate knowledge of either English or French, and demonstrate knowledge of the responsibilities and privileges of Canadian citizenship. A certificate of citizenship would be issued when the applicant, in open court, renounced all conflicting allegiances and took an oath to bear true allegiance to the monarch of Great Britain, to uphold faithfully the laws of Canada, and to fulfill all duties of a Canadian citizen.

Later Developments

Not until the Citizenship Act of 1977, which came into effect on February 15, 1977, was the 1947 act replaced. Distinctions between the citizenship status of men and women were eliminated; children born abroad to Canadian mothers, as well as Canadian fathers, would now count as natural-born Canadian citizens. Persons born outside Canada to a Canadian mother and a non-Canadian father between January 1, 1947, and February 14, 1977, who had not been able to claim Canadian citizenship under the previous act, could apply for citizenship certificates under the 1976 act. Other provisions permitted persons to apply for naturalization after they had been residents legally for at least three of the previous four years and as early as eighteen years of age.

Bibliography

"1947: The First Officially Canadian Citizens." CBC Digital Archives. CBC/Radio-Canada, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

Anderson, Christopher G. Canadian Liberalism and the Politics of Border Control, 1867–1967. Vancouver: UBC P, 2013. Print.

"History of Citizenship Legislation." Government of Canada. Government of Canada, 1 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

Laponce, Jean, and William Safran, eds. Ethnicity and Citizenship: The Canadian Case. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.