A Gibsons man who’s been championing the cause of the “Lost Canadians” is accusing the government of being undemocratic after his treatment at a Parliamentary Committee hearing.
Don Chapman says Conservative MPs moved a recent Committee hearing where he was scheduled to testify behind closed doors, booting out Chapman and others.
The Committee is looking at a bill called C-24, which is the latest fix for the Citizenship Act. Chapman and his group have been arguing it still doesn’t restore citizenship to some people who lost it though convoluted and outdated rules.
Chapman says after more than a half dozen attempts to fix the Lost Canadians problem the government still isn’t getting it right.
He says the Lost Canadians are even more determined to press ahead with a court case.
Chapman says they also want the government to admit in court that soldiers who died fighting for Canada in the World Wars died as Canadian citizens. The government has often held the position that the legal concept of a Canadian citizen didn’t exist until the first Citizenship Act was passed, after the WWII.
