Originally Posted by kumagoro

Hi;

Thanks for the quick reply. To me there is a certain sad irony in the law forcing a Canadian citizen by birth, who was born in Canada to a Canadian citizen father, to renounce his Canadian citizenship in order to legally visit the country of his birth.

I wrote to my local MP about it and they were less than helpful. All they did was refer me to the government's website on the law as it stands. Other than that, they had no helpful information.

He can easily get a Canadian passport issued here in Japan as he has an Ontario birth certificate, etc. However it is a risk if it is found by anyone. In Japan the law says that a person must choose a citizenship by age 22 and renounce any other citizenship than Japanese. However, there is no penalty and no specific way to renounce other citizenships.

Also, Japanese passports don't list a place of birth, which is handy. Up to now (when he was a child) we simply got him a Japanese passport only and he used it whenever we visited Canada. I guess we'll just do the same thing in the future. I don't like having to break the law like this, but when the law is an ... there isn't much alternative.