Multicultural Meanderings

He was given a Canadian passport by mistake — then went on a legal battle to keep it

Fortunately, common sense prevailed and the judge refused the request to “a proud Egyptian”. Poster child of a would be “Canadian of convenience”:

Nader Abdellatif certainly appeared to be a Canadian expat.

For 15 years, the executive with multinational corporations travelled with a Canadian passport. He would be invited to events and festivities hosted by Canadian missions in Cairo and Saudi Arabia. His residency documents and employment contracts in the Middle East listed him as Canadian.

But when Abdellatif applied to renew his passport in 2017, the Canadian government refused.

It told the 56-year-old that his passport had, in fact, been issued to him by mistake. Not once, not twice, but three times.

And so, Abdellatif began a fight for his Canadian passport and for his highly debatable claim to the country where he was born — and which he left, when he was two years old.

When Abdellatif was born in Ottawa in 1967, his father was the first secretary of Egypt’s embassy in Canada. The family left the country when Abdellatif was a toddler, and moved with subsequent diplomatic postings in Lebanon, Jordan, Sudan and the Netherlands.

Abdellatif later returned to Egypt for university but was able to keep his Egyptian diplomatic passport until he was around 26.

“To be honest, I can’t claim that I considered myself Canadian. However, I was proud that I was born in Canada, and I always flaunted it by virtue of saying ‘I’m Canadian,’ taunting my brother and friends,” he told the Star with a chuckle.

“It was always special to me, because I was born there. It’s attached in my birth certificate,” he said. “I always have that connection with Canada.”

But he wasn’t, actually, Canadian.

It’s true that under Canada’s Citizenship Act, all babies — including those of non-residents such as refugees, undocumented migrants and foreign students and workers — born on Canadian soil are automatically granted citizenship.

But there is an exception for children of foreign diplomats who are born in Canada. They don’t get automatic citizenship. And passport rules stipulate that only Canadian citizens are eligible for Canadian passports.

Abdellatif wrongly thought that, by virtue of his birth, he was entitled to Canadian citizenship and passport, and that he hadn’t been given one only because his father had been an active diplomat.

Around 1993, he no longer had an Egyptian diplomatic passport, he said, and figured Canada might reconsider.

Abdellatif said the status of his Canadian citizenship had never been clear to him. At the back of his mind, he said, it had been something he wanted to explore, but he had been busy with his career and looking after his father, who battled cancer and died in 1997.

In June 2003, Abdellatif decided to apply for a passport at the Canadian embassy in Cairo with a Canadian document he did have — his birth certificate.

“I said, ‘OK, let me go to the embassy and apply.’ And that’s what I did. And, lo and behold, I got it.”

Why the issue with Abdellatif’s passport bid was immediately spotted, isn’t clear. And there were — quite clearly, in retrospect — signs that things weren’t quite right.

A few months after submitting his own application, he had applied for Canadian citizenship certificates for his two sons, both of whom were born outside of Canada. His boys’ applications were subsequently refused on the grounds that Abdellatif was not a Canadian citizen.

Abdellatif said he was confused. He said he presumed he was still a Canadian citizen on the basis that he had been able to acquire his original passport. He would subsequently and successfully renew it at the Canadian consulate in Dubai twice, in 2008 and 2013.

At one point, while relocating for a new job, he even travelled to Canada briefly to apply for his residence permit from the United Arab Emirates embassy in Ottawa.

“They gave (the passport) to me legitimately. I lived with it for five years. I went to Canada. I came out of Canada. I renewed it and lived with it for five years. I renewed it again,” said Abdellatif. “It did not cross my mind that something was wrong or that it was an error.”

In December 2013, Abdellatif again applied for his sons’ Canadian citizenship certificates, in which he declared his father was employed by a foreign government at the time of his birth in Canada. It was refused two years later. Officials said he was ineligible for citizenship by birth due to his father’s diplomatic status.

It wasn’t until late 2017, when Canadian authorities refused Abdellatif’s own passport renewal on the basis that he was not a Canadian citizen that he decided to seek clarity about his eligibility to citizenship.

After years of petitioning immigration officials and politicians to look into his case, Abdellatif turned to the immigration minister, asking him in 2021 to use his discretionary power to grant him Canadian citizenship, a request that was refused last year.

In April, Abdellatif challenged the minister’s decision before Canada’s Federal Court.

His lawyer John Rokakis said: “There’s a provision for special hardship. The government kind of created this special and unusual situation for my client by giving him three passports in the past, even though they were in error. He relied on them and got positions overseas based on the fact that he had these passports.”

The case, said Rokakis, raises the question of whether the federal government should grant citizenship to children born to foreign diplomats in Canada after their diplomatic immunity expires.

It also raises questions about the oversight of passport granting abroad.

“I really don’t know how he got them. Neither did (the Department of) Justice, nor the judge,” Rokakis said.

“All three of us were a little perplexed how this happened.”

In a court submission, Abdellatif argued he built his career as a “Canadian Egyptian” executive on the strength of his belief that he was Canadian, because he was issued a passport.

A proud Egyptian, Abdellatif said his Canadian connection did give him an edge in life, and the refusal of his citizenship application harmed his reputation, professional opportunities and “social status.”

“Canada is at a different perception level and status than Egypt. As I mentioned, in my career, in my contract, in my country status, in my travel and mobility and ability to jump over to the U.S., to Europe for executive meetings,” said Abdellatif, “all these became inhibited.”

However, there were yet more strikes against his bid to become a belated Canadian.

Government records showed Abdellatif’s father had once made an inquiry about his citizenship status in 1981, through the Canadian ambassador in Sudan, where he was serving on the Egyptian mission at the time.

The information that Abdellatif was not eligible for Canadian citizenship or a Canadian passport was relayed to the family then, according to the Federal Court.

Abdellatif told the Star that his father had never told him that, and passed away before Abdellatif’s endeavour to acquire Canadian status.

The court said Canadian officials had informed him in writing in 2007, 2015 and 2017 that he was not a citizen by virtue of birth but he did not challenge those decisions. Instead, it pointed out, he chose to apply for a discretionary grant of citizenship.

It didn’t help, according to immigration officials in their submission, that Abdellatif never worked, lived or paid income taxes in Canada after age two.

“The administrative error which resulted in the Applicant being issued a Canadian passport three times does not create citizenship nor does it have any binding effect if the underlying legislative requirements are not met,” Justice E. Susan Elliott ruled in July in dismissing the case.

Abdellatif said he was disappointed but respected the court decision, and may one day return to Canada.

After all, his two sons have now graduated here as international students.

“I always teased my (older) brother that I was Canadian and he’s not,” Abdellatif said. “He’s American now by living there and I dropped this one. So the table is turned.”

Source: He was given a Canadian passport by mistake — then went on a legal battle to keep it