More than 60 years in Canada… without citizenship

QMI agency

Saturday, December 16, 2017 12:25

UPDATE
Saturday, December 16, 2017 12:28

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VANCOUVER, bc | After spending over 60 years in this country, a Columbian of German origin, has discovered with amazement that she did not have canadian citizenship.

Irene Gyselinck, 67 years old, was only a year when she arrived in Canada on August 25, 1951, reported Saturday CBC News. Arriving from Germany with his mother and brother, it was as a refugee that she has been welcomed to the country, the only one she had ever known.

Ms. Gyselinck grew up in Manitoba and now lives in Deep Cove, British Columbia. She has worked as a welder and retailer automobile, she got married and had two children. She has always had a social insurance number, health insurance, and she paid his taxes.

His life is awfully complicated when she discovered his true status in march 2012. She then tried to enter the United States with his driving licence, which was no longer possible for Canadians after 2009. The customs told him to get quickly real travel documents since there was no evidence his right to return to Canada.

She immediately took steps to have the confirmation of its official status. To her surprise, she learned never to have obtained his canadian citizenship.

Constant struggle

Since this time, she is in constant battle with Immigration Canada to have documents proving his / her permanent resident status. Unable to obtain valid identity cards, she may lose her health insurance. After the death of her husband in 2013, she is even denied the severance benefit to which she was entitled.

“I’ve always felt that I was part of the system, she confided in an interview for the CBC. Now, I feel that the 66 years I’ve spent here don’t count.”

Ms. Gyselinck don’t know why his mother has not filled out the forms for the obtaining of citizenship. Today, 95-year-old and suffers from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, her mother could not provide any assistance in the process.

Not possessing a non-paper-germans, Ms. Gyselinck is in any way deprived of citizenship. “I realize that I don’t have a country. I am an immigrant without documents.”

His brother does not have the same problem since he got his passport at the age of 18, when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy.