There’s a certain weird problem that keeps popping up in the backgrounds of the men seeking to lead the forces of opposition to Stephen Harper. It’s happening so frequently, in fact, that I’m starting to wonder if it may be a symptom of some larger problem with the state of the Canadian left, rather than a mere quirky coincidence.
Thomas Mulcair, the Quebec MP who is currently the favored candidate to replace the late Jack Layton as leader of the federal New Democratic Party, is a dual citizen of Canada and France. This was a status he voluntarily sought following his marriage to the French-born Mrs. Mulcair (who is also, weirdly, a one-time failed conservative candidate for the French parliament) and he has gone through the effort of repeatedly renewing his French passport over the years.
Now that Mr. Mulcair sees himself as a future Canadian prime minister, his open willingness to declare loyalty to a nation other than the one he seeks to lead has raised more than a few eyebrows. In his typically passive-aggressive way, Prime Minister Harper has already made his own feelings on the matter known.
“Obviously, it’s for Mr. Mulcair to use his political judgment in the case,” he said last week. “In my case, I am very clear. I am a Canadian and only a Canadian.”
We may recall Harper offering similarly passive (and not so passive) put-downs to former Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff, who, though not a dual citizen himself, had lived many years in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and openly self-identified as an Englishman and American during both periods of exile.
We may also recall that Mr. Ignatieff’s predecessor as leader of the Liberal Party, the now-long forgotten Stephane Dion, also faced a Mulcair-style controversy over the fact that he too held French citizenship, though in this case it came via his immigrant mother, rather than wife.
So that’s literally three opposition figures in a row, each facing a dual-loyalty scandal. Dion nipped his quite quickly, renouncing his French citizenship prior to the 2008 federal election. Iggy, whose problem was somewhat less resolvable, did not, and had to basically spend his entire election being hammered on the issue. Mulcair, for his part, has simply doubled-down, insisting he has done nothing wrong and has nothing to atone for.
There are two basic ways to interpret a leading politician who elects to hold citizenship in a second country, and in my view, neither of them reflect very well on the individual’s character or politics.
The first is the obvious symbolic problem. Canada may not be in the midst of war with France, but the two countries are separate, and have different interests, priorities, and goals. In cases where their interests clash, we expect Canadians — especially the prime minister — to side with Canada without having to perform any complex mental calculations beforehand.
Granted, when framed like this the issue seems far more melodramatic and dire than it’s ever likely to be in practice. We can only assume that a politician who seeks to become prime minister of one country and not another has established his hierarchy of allegiances pretty clearly, and to imply otherwise is to cling to a overly literal interpretation of the situation. But this too is problematic.
A hierarchy of allegiance reduces citizenship of any nation to a mere hobby or passing interest, something no more substantial than a lifetime gym membership or frequent shopper card. You take it as seriously as you want it. It automatically calls into question the allegiances of all other Canadian dual citizens, as well. Who’s to say a lot of them don’t have the same nonchalant attitude towards Canada that we expect Mulcair to have for France?
These varying levels of seriousness lead directly into issue number two, which is the larger question of why. In practice, the only real reason to hold dual citizenship — especially if one is, in fact, more loyal to one country than the other — is to pull some sort of scam, either financially or bureaucratically. Mulcair, for his part, claims that he sought French citizenship mainly so he can get through European customs faster, which, if true, really brings the idea of flags of convenience to new heights.
Many EU-Canadian dual citizens retain their passports in case they “want to work in Europe someday” and thus step over all those poor suckers who had to immigrate to the continent in the traditional grueling way. Others may retain their second identity because their second country has better tax rates, or a better pension plan, or better health care, or cheaper post-secondary education. Something to watch from afar until the moment is right to return to and milk for all it’s worth.
This sort of thinking represents a fairly perverse and greedy attitude towards the state; the idea that governments exist simply to offer goodies to those savvy enough to find them — loyalty, allegiance, and sacrifice be damned. In an era of deficits, over-spending, and an unsustainable handouts, this is a particularly troubling worldview for any politician on the left to be openly spouting, since it personifies so much of what’s been wrong with the last three decades of entitlement politics. If one buys into the idea of politician-as-role-model, then a worse example of personal restraint and self-reliance vis-a-vis the welfare state would be hard to find.
Dual citizenship is legal in Canada, and considering the difficulty in enforcing the alternative, probably always will be. It remains a policy without any obvious benefit to the country, however, other than lowering what are already very meagre bars to entry and residence, and reinforcing a permanent “ask what your country can do for you” culture. Mr. Mulcair is entirely within his rights to dig in his heels and demand to be judged by the same standard by which the law judges everyone else, but it doesn’t say much about his ability to be a Canadian leader of great principle or pride.
Legal loopholes are rarely the stuff from which inspiring political careers are formed, after all.
