Globe and Mail
October 3, 2006
War bride's son fights for citizenship
OLIVER MOORE
The son of a Canadian soldier and a British war bride blamed petty-minded bureaucrats yesterday for stonewalling his battle for citizenship.
Joe Taylor was jubilant after hearing that Mr. Justice Luc Martineau of the
Federal Court had determined Sept. 1 that he was a citizen. But with the
government having 30 days to decide whether to appeal, he had a gut instinct
what was coming next.
As expected, the appeal documents were faxed to his lawyer late Friday
afternoon. His lawyer's assistant delivered the news by phone to Mr. Taylor,
a semi-retired accountant who splits his time between Canada and England.
"In my opinion, there are certain senior bureaucrats in [Citizenship and
Immigration Canada] who are on a mission to victimize the offspring of war
brides," he said last night from his home in Victoria, where he spends
slightly less than half the year.
"They have an unlimited purse of taxpayer money, and they are counting on
the fact that I will run out of money."
Mr. Taylor was born in England during the war, a time when his parents were
banned from marrying by the Canadian government.
They had their wedding in 1946, after moving to Cumberland, B.C. The
relationship did not last and the boy was still a toddler when he returned
to England with his mother.
Mr. Taylor's lawyer argued in court this spring that his client gained
citizenship rights through his father, whose years overseas with the
military were the only time he left the country. He said that an immigration
officer had erred when, in 2005, she cited the fact that Mr. Taylor was born
to unmarried parents and decided that he would thus receive the nationality
of his English mother.
