You may be a Canadian citizen. Then again, you may not...

The WSJ reports that an amendment to Canada's Citzenship Act automatically restores nationality to many children of Canadian citizens forced to renounce it or born outside the country, and to their children's children:

Eligible individuals automatically become Canadian citizens. But they don't get proof of that citizenship unless they apply for it, meaning other countries -- including those that allow people to be citizens of only one nation -- won't be alerted, according to the immigration office spokeswoman. Those people also may renounce their citizenship rights, she said.

The citizenship bonanza is the byproduct of a decades-long struggle by a motley group of people who claim they were unfairly denied or lost their Canadian nationality. Canadian families who crossed the border in 1947 to 1977 to have their babies in a U.S. hospital found those children weren't recognized as Canadians unless the families registered them with the government. Some foreign brides of Canadian World War II servicemen lost their citizenship if they stayed out of the country for a decade or more.

Then there are the Canadian Mennonites who moved to Mexico in the 1920s to the 1960s. When their children and grandchildren returned to Canada, many found their nationality unclear.

Some such cases languished in litigation for years. Others surfaced in 2007, when new U.S. rules requiring passports for travel between Canada and the U.S. uncovered significant numbers of people who thought they were Canadian, but weren't.

Irish Grandparent? Irish Passport

Many people who can document that one of their grandparents was an Irish citizen, can apply for Irish citzenship via entry in the Register of Foreign Births, and then apply for an Irish passport. Children of those foreign-born Irish citizens with Irish grandparents are eligible too, as long as the child was born after the parent's citizenship was recorded by an Irish Consulate.

Before applying, I investigated and verified that Ireland had no military draft law and did not tax citizens living abroad, thereby making it safe to proceed. What were the advantages beyond maintaining a link to our ancestral homeland being a conversation piece? The idea of having an EU passport that allowed me to travel and work in the, now 27, nations of the EU without having to hassle with visas and work permits that are usually required to travel, live or work in a foreign nation was appealing. Also, being familiar with the bloody history of the 20th century as well as having worked in both aviation and IT, two areas where backup systems are standard operating procedure, I felt that a costless backup citizenship might make sense for my descendants. The biggest reason was probably the potential advantages it would offer to my children and me in the global economy which, even then was the apparent trend for the future.

U.S. citizens can become dual citizens as long as the alternate citizenship is granted after their U.S. citizenship, as the U.S. citizenship process requires an applicant to renounce all other citizenships. Ireland, by contrast, does not require an applicant to renounce other citizenships.