A group of Canadians who have discovered they are not officially citizens are before the Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration for hearings on what can be done to give them citizenship.
The "lost Canadians", as they've become known, are stateless because of an obscure provision in the Canadian Citizenship Act that was in place between 1947 and 1977. It stipulated that any Canadian who lived outside Canada on his 24th birthday and failed to sign the right form lost his citizenship.
It's unclear how many Canadians were affected. Immigration Minister Diane Finley told the committee Monday the number is probably around 450.
She says her department's public hotline has received 692 inquiries since last month from people worried about the status of their citizenship. Of those, only 17 did not have valid citizenship.
However Liberal MPs on the committee rejected her estimate and say ongoing hearings will prove the true number is in the thousands.
Earlier, on Canada AM, Liberal Andrew Telegdi, the vice-chair of the committee, said that 100,000 or as many as 200,000 people could be affected.
Don Chapman is one of the "lost" ones, and has been seeking Canadian citizenship for 34 years.
He was born in Vancouver to two Canadian parents. When they moved to the U.S., his father took U.S. citizenship after being told that it would have no consequences on his Canadian citizenship and that his family could always return to Canada.
Because his family didn't fill out the proper paperwork, Chapman and his mother became the chattel of his father.
"The actual wording was 'married women, minors, lunatics and idiots classified under the same disability,'" Chapman told Canada AM. "So I was stripped of my citizenship as well. And what's amazing is those words are still in the books today for anybody born prior to 1977 in Canada."
Other people born to Canadians outside the country -- on a military base, for example -- who didn't fill out the proper paperwork -- also lost their citizenship. Others -- largely from rural border regions -- who were born in the closest hospital to their home across the border in the U.S. were also denied Canadian citizenship.
In February, 1977, the Citizenship Act replaced the Canadian Citizenship Act.
Chapman says the whole problem infuriates him.
"I have always considered myself a Canadian. I've never avowed citizenship to any other country."
Telegdi has known about the problem for a long time and says the Liberal government was drafting changes to fix the problem.
"Had the government not fallen, the Citizenship Act would have been fixed. But this government, the Conservative government knew the problems and they chose to do nothing in this past year," Telegdi told Canada AM.
Finley has pledged to resolve the problem and has assured those affected they won't be deported or suffer any interruption in government benefits such as health care coverage or old age pension payments.
Telegdi says the Act contains many contradictions. For example, children who were born out of the country, out of wedlock, to a father who was Canadian were not considered citizens. But those born to Canadian mothers out of wedlock are citizens.
"Where does that make any sense?" he wonders. "It's incredibly ridiculous because, as I mentioned, the legislation is archaic."
"Look, I came as a refugee from Hungary," he added. "Don was born here. Why should Don not be a citizen and have all the rights I have? This doesn't make any sense.
"It's tragic for people like Don. And I commend him because he's been fighting this battle, pushing this battle, doing it for other people besides himself. All these folks should be citizens. You look at other countries like Australia, they're fixing it. Trinidad, they're fixing it. Why can't we in Canada fix it?"
