Formerly stateless Yukon man celebrates hard-fought Canadian citizenship
2015/05/25 1 Comment
Nice to see a successful resolution to a case like this:
A decision by his anarchist First Nation father and Caucasian mother not to register his birth out of fear he’d end up in a residential school started a life-long bureaucratic tussle.
With no birth certificate, he couldn’t get identification, a legitimate job or even medical care.
But a team effort of citizen advocates, a pro bono lawyer, friends and family members, brought together by media attention, altered his plight.
Finally a Canadian, McGlaughlin said he can apply for a Social Insurance Number, health-care card, driver’s licence, marriage certificate, then travel to British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest to see the spirit bear and California’s redwood forests — a dream of one of his sons.
“All my life, yeah, dogs have had more rights,” said McGlaughlin. “They (governments) enact more laws pertaining to dogs and cats than they do to help stateless people. I’ve always said I should just go buy a dog tag and wear it around my neck, and there. There’s my ID. I’m Fido.”
McGlaughlin doesn’t know where or when he was born, only that it was between Rosebud, S.D., and where his maternal grandparents lived in Guelph, Ont., around Jan. 19, 1954, the day he celebrates as his birthday.
Fearing the government, his parents home schooled him and moved around Canada, he said, adding he broke loose when he was 15 and worked “migrant jobs” on farms.
About 30 years ago, he hitchhiked to the Yukon, where he has lived ever since, supporting himself by hunting and fishing on aboriginal land.
The first in a series of heart attacks struck in 2010 and because he had no health-care card his medical bills rose to about $130,000, he said.
Michelle Quigg, a lawyer with the Access Pro Bono Society of British Columbia, which helps people of limited means, said she began to help out after reading a news story about McGlaughlin in which he mused about declaring refugee status.
She helped him apply for citizenship, citing a “special and unusual hardship.”
“The … hardship in Donovan’s case is that he has no documents, which is very unusual,” said Quigg. “I mean most of us have birth certificates and all kinds of official documentation that Donovan didn’t have.”
Formerly stateless Yukon man celebrates hard-fought Canadian citizenship | CTV News.
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
I am so happy to hear that Donovan McGlaughlin has finally been successful in gaining citizenship after years of trying to get by without the usual documentation needed in our society. Donovan has been such an inspiration to many of us who are out of citizenship for one or another reason: many times, I’m sure, he thought it would never happen but he never gave up, hoping to get the citizenship he needed to provide as he wished to for his family. While pursuing that goal, he also provided support and encouragement to others sharing the same quest.
During many years as a support worker, I learned it is not as unusual as you might think to find people lacking documents and proof of citizenship, with no obvious easy route to getting it. Some have lived in rather marginalized families, moved frequently and find themselves unable, for instance in Ontario, to name someone who might act as a guarantor for a birth certificate, the basic document needed to get services such as health care or Native status. Working through the system often required assistance from a support worker, a community legal clinic and the local MPP and it was a lengthy process. For this reason, I would expect there are many others in Donovan’s situation who have just given up or don’t know where to begin to get actual proof of citizenship: they may not have the necessary funds for fees.
Congratulations to Donovan for proving that, if you keep trying and want it badly enough, you can indeed “fight city hall” and get that citizenship. It is a shame that it has been so difficult for him when we hear of others living in Canada for a short time and getting it quickly. I hope he and his family will enjoy the benefits of his citizenship for many years to come.