San Patricio’s day may be just around the corner, but it seems that Mark Carney can no longer say that he is Irish, since the new Prime Minister of Canada moved to renounce his Irish city and the United Kingdom, before starting his new work.
Carney had acquired the Irish citizenship through their family ancestry and obtained their passport from the United Kingdom while working abroad as governor of the Bank of England.
He has said that, while many parliamentarians have multiple citizens, “as prime minister, he should only have one.”
In fact, several million Canadians report that they have more than one citizenship, while very few prime ministers have done the same.
Having ties with more than one country can complicate the life of a politician.
“It’s less complicated if you only have one citizenship,” said Kathy Brock, a professor of politics at Queen University. Being confident with state secrets can cause voters’ concerns about loyalties if more than one citizenship is in the mixture, he says, and that is separated from any attacks of political opponents in the same line.
Mark Carney won the liberal leadership with an overwhelming majority, but will its popularity be translated to Canadians? The main political correspondent of CBC News, Rosemary Barton, breaks down what Carney’s victory changes for the imminent federal elections with the National broadcast panel.
Brock sees the resignations as Carney pointing to his commitment to his new work.
Not only could I help him in the domestic front, but he could also avoid a possible line of attack from the south of the border.
“Think about If Carney had British and Canadian citizenship and how much funny [U.S. President Donald] Trump would have done it with that, “he said, suggesting that he could allow Trump to produce Carney for whose opinions he was representing.
There is no rule against the prime ministers who have double citizenship, but, says Laura Stephenson, professor at the Western University of Political Science: “wants their prime ministers to be dedicated to the country they are governing.”
A short list
Nelson Wiseman, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, points out that there was no such thing as Canadian citizenship until 1947. Therefore, any prime minister of prime ministers would not have faced this problem before.
In fact, three of the first, John A. Macdonald, Alexander Mackenzie and Mackenzie Bowell, were born on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Similarly, the John Turner, born in English, had double citizenship during his brief mandate as Prime Minister in 1984. But the six who followed Turner did not.
Canada’s opposition leaders, however, have recently and repeatedly faced this issue.
Stéphane Dion, then the newly crowned liberal leader, said in 2006 that he would reluctantly resign from his French citizenship if he became prime minister.
Tom Mulcair also faced questions about his double citizenship of Canada/France before becoming the federal leader of the new Democrats.
While initially criticized suggestions that having two citizens somehow made a person less loyal to Canada, Mulcair then promised to renounce his French citizenship if he became PM.
These pressures were given despite the fact that their roles were not equivalent to a acting prime minister.
“They are not in the same role,” Stephenson said in Western. “They are not talking in the name of Canada on the world stage.”
In 2019, reports arose that the conservative leader Andrew Scheer was a citizen of Canada and that the United States announced that he was in the process of renouncing his US citizenship. However, the conservatives lost the elections of that year and Scheer later said that he had stopped the resignation, since he would not become prime minister.
Brock says that if Carney was going to her new work with the Canadian-American dual citizenship, that would be “a serious problem,” given the current political climate, it is not necessarily much more hospitable before this.
She remembers the criticisms collected against former liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, during the time she had simply spent living in the United States, without citizenship.
Carney could face similar attacks from his opponents.
“Mark Carny lived in Britain, he will have to answer for that. Therefore, he does not want to have to answer about the citizenship question also in an election,” Brock said.
The new Prime Minister of Canada will not face obstacles that eliminate these ties, according to the criteria listed.
Irish adults living outside the country can give up their citizenship, provided they have an equivalent position with another country. The process can develop rapidly, according to the Ireland Department of Justice.
“An individual ceases to be an Irish citizen with effect from the date of accommodation of the Alienage declaration. The citizenship division of citizenship issues a confirmation response of this process,” said the Ireland Department of Justice to CBC News in a statement.
The United Kingdom government has similar requirements. The Interior Ministry told CBC News that such requests generally take six months to complete, but “they are normally completed before.”
