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On March 23, 1976, Bill Janzen-- Mennonite Central Committee’s  Ottawa office director at the time-- brought a 17-page letter to citizenship officials in Ottawa.  The letter asked the officials to allow 13 Low German-speaking families from Mexico to reclaim their Canadian citizenship.  These families were now living in southern Ontario and the hope was they could reclaim their citizenship without first becoming landed immigrants. That plea, 35 years ago, helped open doors that in subsequent decades saw tens of thousands of Low German Mennonites reclaim Canadian citizenship.

Following is an account by Janzen of what transpired in the months and years that  followed.

I wrote that letter at the request of Rev. David Friesen from Aylmer, Ontario. He had helped quite a few Mennonites to obtain landed immigrant status but the criteria for that, relating to education, job qualifications, knowledge of English, and other factors, had been tightened a lot. These families were not able to meet the new criteria so they were in line to be deported. But immigration officials in London, Ontario, seeing that the people were of Canadian background, had urged David to explore possibilities under Canada’s citizenship law. With that in mind, David called me at the new-created MCC Ottawa office.

Citizenship officials in Ottawa took their time but they became sympathetic. In an August 24, 1976 response, R. W. Nichols, then Registrar of Canadian Citizenship, wrote: “As a result of your letter of March 23, requesting special Ministerial consideration for a group of Mennonite families from Mexico, who are now back in Canada without status we have undertaken an extensive research program....For this reason, I would ask you... to bear with us a little longer in an attempt to find a truly satisfactory solution to this difficult situation.”

What emerged early in 1977 was a new policy allowing for “delayed registration” of citizenship. The citizenship law of 1947 stated that children born outside of Canada, under that law, could be “registered” as Canadian citizens if (i) they were born of a Canadian father and in wedlock, or, (ii) of a Canadian mother and out of wedlock. The registration was to be done before a child’s second birthday “or within such extended period as the Minister may authorize in special cases.” A few Mennonites in Mexico had registered their children before their second birthdays but most had not. Now the government would let those who otherwise qualified, to register regardless of how old they were, though they had to state in writing that they intended to live in Canada.

When the government first opened this door, (together with another door for people born in wedlock of a Canadian mother and a non-Canadian father) it did so only for a two-year period. I then informed workers in southern Ontario and elsewhere about how to help people make the appropriate applications.

After the first two years, the government decided to keep this door open for another two years. It did so again and again and again, until 2004.  Also, after the first few years it dropped the requirement that people declare an intention to live in Canada even though we did not ask that this be dropped. The effect was to allow people to regain Canadian citizenship without having an immediate intention of moving to Canada. Before long more workers, in more places, were helping people with applications for citizenship. I did little of that but there continued to be issues that required long submissions in Ottawa.

One issue for which we never found a good solution stemmed from the fact that Mexico recognizes only civil marriages, not church marriages. Since most Mennonites there, from the time of their arrival in the early 1920s to the late 1930s, had only church marriages, many children were technically born out of wedlock. And people born before the 1947 law, could claim Canadian citizenship only if they were born of a Canadian father and in wedlock. The effect was that quite a few people were ineligible for Canadian citizenship.

Another difficult issue involves a “retention” requirement. The 1977 law stated that certain people born outside of Canada, though they could get certificates of Canadian citizenship, had to make another application and take other steps before turning 28 if they wished to remain Canadian citizens.  Unfortunately, the government did a very poor job of explaining which people were in this category. As a result quite a few ceased to be citizens when they turned 28, even if they had lived in Canada for most of their lives. Getting their citizenship re-instated continues to be an arduous process.

Another issue is that in 2009 the government changed the citizenship law so that now people born outside of Canada can claim Canadian citizenship only if one of their parents was born in Canada. This greatly reduces the number of these Mennonites in Latin America who can obtain Canadian citizenship. Meanwhile the criteria for obtaining landed immigrant status have been tightened further. As a result the flow back to Canada in the years ahead will be considerably smaller.

In a sense then a chapter is closing. The total number of the Mennonites who’ve come to Canada due to these “doors”, together with the children they’ve had here, is probably well over 60,000. (The door was open to non-Mennonites too but not many used it.) Most of the returning Mennonites have settled in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. Not all the effects have been positive, either here or in the communities they left. In an early visit to Mexico, I said to Rev. Heinrich Dyck, the Aeltester in the largest colony, that we did not want to encourage people to return to Canada. We wanted to respect the desire of the churches in Mexico to keep their people there, but we also felt that some were returning to Canada anyway, often for reasons of poverty. Therefore it was better for them, and for Canadian society, if they could then live in Canada with secure legal status.

How well we pursued this goal can be debated but many of the returnees have said, with gratitude, that here they are better able to provide for their families.