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Have decided to get my Canadian certificate of citizenship [1]

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Date: 2025-05-30

Back on February 8 I wrote a story about the Liberals surging in the Canadian polls due to revulsion of Trump and conservatism in general. In that story I mentioned that I had just recently learned, because my father was born in Canada, I am technically a “Canadian citizen.” I just needed to fill out some papers and do a couple other things to get a Certificate of Citizenship. Everybody in that story was practically screaming at me to go ahead and do it; that I would be crazy not to do it.

Well, I have decided to do it. I downloaded the application form about a week ago and have started filling it out.

I don’t know if I’ll actually move there, but I do intend to try to start testing the waters about getting a job up there soon. I’m 60 and thus I’m getting a bit old to make drastic moves, but I suppose I could be still older — right? In 2015 when I was 51 I moved from Seattle to Kansas City, thinking that would be the last major move I ever made. I wanted to move somewhere that got more snow than Seattle and was cheaper. What I didn’t know at the time was that I’d ever be in a situation where I just wanted to get out of the US altogether. Sadly, I’m getting closer to that. If I didn’t know I was technically a Canadian citizen and could move to Canada easily without having to “immigrate,” I wouldn’t even be thinking about this. But since I do know now, it’s too tempting to not consider it.

What’s a bit frustrating about this is, after an email exchange with someone from these folks here, it was explained to me that I’ve been eligible to do this since 2009! If I had known that back then, instead of moving from Seattle to Kansas City I would strongly have considered moving to Canada instead.

There is a part of me that really doesn’t want to go through the hassle of another long-distance move, but at this point I’m just incredibly sick of checking the news and reading about how utterly insane US politics has become, and how utterly stupid the majority of Americans are. So … I don’t know, presently I’ll give it about a 40% chance of me actually moving there, it depends on whether or not I can get a job up there that pays as much as I can get in the US. For the past year or so I’ve been seeing ads for jobs elsewhere in the US I would easily qualify for that pay significantly more than I’m making now (and I’m talking, like, 30-40% more). If I could get a job with that kind of pay in Canada it would be nearly impossible to resist. And since I’d have Canadian citizenship I wouldn’t have to worry about getting any kinds of immigration permits or whatnot.

If I did move, I’m 80% sure it would be to Winnipeg. Oops, I mean … Winterpeg. Yes I know it gets incredibly cold there. I don’t mind, I’m pretty cold tolerant. Looking at this past January's weather stats for Winnipeg, there’s about a dozen days that are colder than anything I’d see in Kansas City, and the others are something I could see in KC, albeit during a cold wave. But it’s the closest big Canadian city to Kansas City, so that would make it the easiest move (especially with a cat!). Plus, it’s not that expensive, by Canadian standards.

Another place I’ve started considering is Saskatchewan. This wasn’t even on my radar until recently when I learned that, in Saskatchewan, you get 3 weeks’ vacation after working at your employer for just one year! In most other provinces, after one year you get just 2 weeks, and don’t get 3 weeks until you’ve worked at an employer for, usually, 5 years, depending on the province (that’s what it is in Manitoba, for instance). That is damn tempting. At 60 y.o. it’s really nice to start getting lots of vacation time without having to work at an employer for so long. That alone might make it worth moving to Saskatchewan even though there’s little other reason I’d consider it. If I did I’d probably pick Saskatoon. I much prefer the politics of Manitoba to the politics of Saskatchewan, but 3 weeks vacation after just 1 year of employment just might override that concern!

However, I also learned recently that the employer I first plan on sending a resume’ to already offers 3 weeks’ vacation, so maybe Saskatchewan would be a moot point if I got a job with that particular employer.

It would also be really cool to live in Quebec, but my French isn’t very good. I might consider Edmonton IF whoever hired me offered about 20% more than I’d made in Winnipeg. Calgary is really cool but is getting too expensive. Ditto Toronto (and except for Quebec I’m not that interested in eastern Canada anyway). Vancouver, the Canadian city I’m most familiar with, I’d only consider if I won the Mega-Millions lottery. I don’t want to live on the west coast again anyway.

When one mentions living in Canada, one thinks of a modern, rustic house on a wooded lot surrounded by conifer trees. Maybe with mountains in the background. Something like this or this or this or this or this. Or overlooking a lake, like this. And there would be moose or elk crossing your front yard now and then :D (Note: I actually found a house for sale in Calgary recently on Realtor.ca here that has two pictures of a moose in its yard!). And a Mountie on a horse would stop by for a visit once in a while. And the Mountie would look like Dudley Do-Right. :P

Alas, there’s not much like that in Winnipeg. There, I’d be thrilled to get something like this or this. Or maybe I’d get a new construction, something like one of these. This here looks like a really cool house as well. But I think these two might be the coolest of all. Why can’t they build entire neighborhoods with houses that look just like that? Or maybe I’d start off by renting for a year.

Anyway, it’s likely I’ll visit Winnipeg this summer, maybe in August. I’d also like to visit Montreal in the winter and go skiing at Mont Tremblant for a day, just as a vacation. Been wanting to go to Montreal for years. I’ve recently finally gotten a passport (a US one, not a Canadian one), and since I also know I can easily go into Canada without a hassle, might as well do it.

Now, if all that weren’t enough, I just got off a call with an immigration attorney in Berlin who specializes in German immigration, and learned that I’m likely eligible for German citizenship! (partly for reasons I explained here in my February story, but also because my mother was still a minor when she got her US citizenship, which I didn’t even know until this attorney told me he researched it himself!). I’m not sure I’d ever use it, but it would be really cool to have citizenship in three countries! However, it’s quite pricey to undergo the process for Germany and could take a few years, so I’m going to mull that one over and asked the attorney to put my case on hold for the time being.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/30/2302895/-Have-decided-to-get-my-Canadian-certificate-of-citizenship?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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