Oh, You Canadians
 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246288,00.html

That's just superb.

How does Canada even know where someone was on their 24th birthday? Canada is filled with spies. :\

That sounds like such an obscure and ridiculous law with a similarly insane loophole embedded somewhere in it. I hope they change that so that I won't have to worry about it in 5/6 years, as that's pretty far out there.

Well it's off the books, so it doesn't apply to anybody who celebrated a birthday out of the country after 1977.

Still, I mean, who's interest was this law made for?

Who knows? There are many obscure patches of law in any legal system. It takes time for them to surface and the government to weed them out.

Still, quite silly.

Hopefully Vancouver doesn't have that in effect. That's absurd, really absurd.

I hear something about thousands of Mennonites will not have citizenship either because of their parents or grandparents having kids out of wedlock. It was on cbc.ca.

How do you marry whilst already in wedlock?

Wow. That is one terrible law. I don't understand how it could ever have made sense to anybody.

Woah! I totally wrote THAT wrong. Its fixed now. Hope you understand it. I apologize for messing that up.:(

I don't think the Immigration offices are that pressed for funds that they need to implement something like this. Although, if each of those 20,000 people forked up $75, that's $1.5 million right there.

Regardless, this law is incredibly ridiculous, not to mention random. What's next, you lose your driver's license if it's not approved by some guy who lives in the Yukon?

...what is up with Canada lately? They're just going crazy. All that pot and neutrality is getting to them. But why talk about Canada anyway? They are possibly the most laid back country on the planet. I don't think they've ever pissed anybody off except their citizens.

Law's been off the books since 77, guys.

Having 2 000+ troops in Afghanistan doesn't make us neutral.

When was the LAST time you went to war with someone? Oh, and 2000 is a drop in the bucket.

And they can go on holiday to other countries and stuff without disguising their accents.

[quote[When was the LAST time you went to war with someone? Oh, and 2000 is a drop in the bucket.[/quote]

Right. Never mind the fact that Canada held the NATO command for the mission in Afghanistan until 2006 and that it has seen much of the recent combat there. Far more than "a drop in the bucket", especially considering the size of Canada's population and Canada's military.

By the way, Afghanistan was in invaded in 2001-2002, not 2000.

Wait... what? I never said that.

Right, 2000 troops, not the year 2000. My bad.

It's not a "drop in the bucket" considering where they are deployed - Kandahar, one of the most volatile provinces along with Helmand, controlled by the British. We also contributed aircraft in the Kosovo campaign and a contingent of ships, a field hospital and aircraft for the First Gulf War.

Ahh, we finally found a ultra-conservative that thinks that every country in this world should participate in THEIR war even though they get all the money and resources after it's over.

I'm for the Afghanistan mission. You know what? My city (which hosts a military base), has sent around 250 soldiers to Afghanistan. We care about our soldiers there. And the last thing I want is some ultra-conservative american that is telling me that we're not doing enough. We could send more , but that's up to the government to decide. I'm all for allowing small girls to go to school without worrying, women being able to work and make choices for themselves and that's why I think this mission is important. Irak was just a mistake...and it might be a good idea that we did not participate in that war now that I look at the siuation.

As loyalist said, we sent troops to Bosnia, we helped durign the Gulf War. Many Canadians fought bravely during the second world war and the first gulf war. Canada was even in the Korean War.

Anyway, that was quite off-topic.

As for that stupid law, it's the firt time I hear about it. But as the article says it only applied (for some reason) between 1947 and 1977. I'm guessing the government will define a new law or procedure so these people can be "canadians" officially. If not that would be completely stupid.

Resources? You're sending troops to Afghanistan, which used to be the leader in the world's Opium production.

Actually, Opium production has increased dramatically since NATO took over. I suppose you can do a lot more to curtail it when you have complete control of the civilian population...there's a lot of work being done to slow it down.

Simply not invading people for the hell of it hardly amounts to being "neutral".

You're right, I got that inverted. Even with the Taliban, though, Opium was Afghanistan's chief export. Nobody could conceivably call it a resource war.

I could see, though, how it would have been intended to lead up to one.

No-one declares war or launches a military operation without reason. Canada as a power simply does not have the resources to justify unilateral action. The only possible unilateral action that would have the faintest possbility for Canada would be something against Denmark up north, and that's an incredibly remote possibility.

Canada has always acted through coalitions, be it the British Empire, the UN, NATO or other multilateral coalitions such as the original mission to Afghanistan or the Gulf War. The fact of the matter is, at thirty million people and with no enemies close by, it would irresponsible for Canada to engage in unilateral military action. Our military strength, therefore, rests on gaining leadership in multinational coalitions such as NATO (as seen in Afghanistan) and the UN through contributing troops and resources.

In this respect, we have been very successful. We're able to influence American polic through participation in NORAD and other military allainces with the US, we're able to protect our own interests in the UN due to the favour we have there by contributing good (as opposed to resource-leeching) contingents on UN missions and we have signifcant sway in NATO resulting from our strong support for the alliance, as seen in our Cold War German bases, Kosovo support and strong Afghanistan operations. Plus, we have allies gained through both trade and ideology, allowing us to have a seat at the G8, observer status at the EU and a couple of friendly permanent memebers of the Security Council (the US and the UK).