After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Special Report: Lost Canadians

Canadian children of World War II veterans, war brides, even those once labeled by the law "bastards", and "lunatics".  Many  lived in Canada their whole lives, paid taxes, and carried Canadian passports only to learn that they aren't in fact citizens according to an archaic twist in an old law.  After  four years of reporting on the issue and awards from the Canadian Online Publishing Association and The Canadian Journalism Foundation, the laws are being changed.  But will some be left stateless?

John A. Macdonald

Lost Canadians file petition challenging federal government's interpretation of citizenship history

Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May filed a petition today on behalf of the Lost Canadians, a citizenship advocacy group, challenging the federal government’s version of the...
Jenny UechiDec 1st, 2014

Decades-long wait for citizenship coming to end for some Lost Canadians

"I cried when I was reading the (new citizenship) bill. I want to jump for joy, but I'm afraid to allow myself that until I can hold my citizenship card in my hand," said Jackie Scott...
Jenny UechiFeb 13th, 2014

Feds finally act to restore Lost Canadians' citizenship

Citizenship Minister Christopher Alexander introduced "Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act" today, a long-awaited bill with some provisions intended to restore citizenship to Lost...
Jenny UechiFeb 6th, 2014

Amid deportation fears, Indigenous Lost Canadian struggles to gain citizenship

No birth certificate, no identification papers, no citizenship. A father worries about the future of his life in Canada.
Jenny UechiDec 26th, 2013

Daughter of Canadian war veteran, Jackie Scott, denied citizenship by Canada. Again.

"They're discrediting my father," Scott said on the rejection of her Canadian citizenship application. This time, she said, even her war veteran father's Canadian status is being put into question.
Jenny UechiJan 28th, 2012

Kafkaesque citizenship laws bestow rights, and take them away

Navigating the extensive family of Canadian citizenship laws leaves a paper cut that could shred a moose. There is the son, Bill C–37, (male personal pro-noun intentional); the father, 1977...
and Darren FleetJul 8th, 2010
Jason Kenney, Jackie Scott, Lost Canadians, Citizenship and immigration Canada

Jason Kenney tells war veteran daughter: soldiers were "heroes," but not Canadian citizens

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney tells war veteran daughter Jackie Scott that her father wasn't a citizen in 1945, explaining why she is denied citizenship to this day.
Jenny UechiJun 26th, 2012

Canada's most irritating activist gets the job done

By his own description, Don Chapman is irritating. Politicians grow weary of hearing from him, he says.  But he never gives up. His persistence has made him immensely effective in gaining the...
Megan Stewart and Linda Solomon WoodJul 6th, 2010

Canada's bureaucracy still denies citizenship to children of soldiers

"Why can't they see I'm Canadian?" Jackie Scott opened up her father's war record and showed it to a reporter. Scott, 65, spends six months each year in an R.V. park next to the American border in...
Darren FleetJul 1st, 2010

Lost Canadians: Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Committee silent on statelessness

"Neutral? How can he be neutral?" Don Chapman, founder of the Lost Canadians, an advocacy group for people who have lost (or were never granted) Canadian citizenship, expressed disbelief...
Jenny UechiJul 4th, 2011