Canada, Citizenship and The Queen, AIBU or WWYD?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I've applied for Canadian citizenship. I'm taking my citizenship exam this week and there is a LOT of stuff in the study guide about the Queen. I'm a Republican. If I pass my exam and get to take my oath that will be,

I swear (or affirm)
That I will be faithful
And bear true allegiance
To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second
Queen of Canada
Her Heirs and Successors
And that I will faithfully observe
The laws of Canada
And fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

All great except the Queen stuff (and heirs and successors). My options as far as I can see are,

a) mumble through the Queen stuff. I will be in a room with people fleeing death and torture who will be taking this oath very seriously so I don't want to do this. Also, I think it's a bit shitty. There will be a Mountie there FGS.

b) affirm properly and give up my Republican leanings. Don't really want to.

c) don't get my citizenship (not going to happen. DD and DH are Canadians, I pay taxes, contribute and will be a 'good' Canadian, I want to vote).

d) some clever thing MN will come up with that will solve this for me.

WWYD?

Just citizens.

That I know.

Feeling embarrassed about poor Louis.

It is pretty grim, mrsTP. Sorry about your test, hopefully when they reschedule you'll feel comfortable. (and thanks for the link)

Stay safe x

Yes, mine was 2001 (or 2002, can't remember).

Just say it. You don't have to mean it, lots of people won't and the rest will all have different ideas about what it actually means (support the Queen and her heirs. Right, to do what? Rule a democracy, take an active role in Parliament, invade Poland?). Oaths like these are always pretty dependent on the small print. Only zealots agree unconditionally.

How about mumbling.........
To her travesty quizzywizzybet,
The feckin' quiz of Canada,
To her hairs and suppressors?

Couple of things :

You will say the oath in both English AND French during the ceremony (you repeat the French version phonetically) so that wouldn't fly . As you know anything official in Canada is in both languages, and the oath is no exception.

Also, children who are British by descent (i.e. born to a British parent living in a foreign country such as Canada) are entitled to dual citizenship themselves, but their children would not be entitled to British Citizenship unless they were born in the UK or naturalize. i.e. any future children born to your daughter in Canada will be Canadian only and have no more of an additional entitlement to British citizenship than any other Canadian. This scenario is the same as ours.

Sorry your test was cancelled BTW, and my condolences to anyone affected by the events in Ottawa.

Bodmin how does she naturalise?

Swear loyalty to Helen Mirren. Keep an image of her firmly in your head.

I'm 44, was born in Canada to an English mother and Canadian father, and I got my UK passport when I was 17. So MrsTP your DD can definitely be both.

Like a PP, DH has sworn two oaths of allegiance to Her Madge, once upon taking his commission in the Canadian Army, and once in a surprisingly moving ceremony in Camden Town Hall (of all places) when he was getting his British citizenship.

Incidentally I like being a constitutional monarchy. Without that, Canada may as well just sign up right now to being the 51st state if you ask me.

I realise I am writing this post as a real Canadian but haven't lived there since 1996 and have been in London for 11 years - longer than anywhere else in my adult life!

MrsTP my thoughts and prayers have been with all Canadians today. My in-laws are from the Ottawa area and it has been a grim day for reading the news.

I have just taken Canadian Citizenship myself (I'm British too) and you can just mumble. The room that you are in will be huge and full of people, so it's not like they can really hear you!

Yes, it's ridiculous especially as seen as you are a British citizen anyway but need's must! Good luck!

MrsTP- to naturalize she would have to be resident in the UK, demonstrate that her future intentions lie in the UK etc etc.

Is she British by descent now? If so, then depending on your family's past ties with the UK, any child of hers born not in the Uk may have an entitlement to registration as a BC but it would very much depend on fitting the quite strict criteria. You would need to look under "registration of minors born abroad" of the British Nationality Act. The relevant bits used to be s3(2) and s3(5) but I'm long gone from that office so things have undoubtedly changed. To clarify though, I'm talking about children born abroad to BC-descent. If you were born in Britain, your dd is already BC-d so we are talking about her children.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-to-register-child-under-18-as-british-citizen-form-mn1

It's still s3(2) or s3(5) that refers to children born abroad to BC by descent.

Still a residence element to be satisfied (one past, one present)

chibi - crystal paperweight! I would have liked that. I got a gold coin. My friend only got a passport cover.

I'm Canadian by birth and British because my father is British and we lived in the UK and my parents had to apply for my British citizenship. My dc are British and also Canadian because of me.
Tbh if i have wanted citizenship of a particular country i would say what i had to to get it. There's not a great deal else you can do.

I think you can swear allegiance with a democratic republican heart as it's the issue you have a problem with, not the woman herself.

I'm a republican who doesn't want a monarchy but still think the queen herself is spiffing, she works hard. I like her a lot.

It could be worse, she could die and you'd be swearing allegiance to Charles (who really doesn't look like he works hard)

Condolences to everyone in Canada -x-