The sins of the Canadian father will be visited upon the Kiwi children

Visiting Canada with my kids would be a lot simpler if I weren't Canadian.

The kids are Kiwis. If we were all Kiwis and I didn't have Canadian citizenship, we'd just get an easy tourist visa. Done.

Canada's changed the rules for entry at the border. If they think you might be Canadian, you must travel on a Canadian passport. If Dad's Canadian, born in Canada, then the kids are likely sufficiently Canadian to need a passport.

But getting them Canadian passports requires proving that they're sufficiently Canadian. The process for proving somebody is Canadian is designed to weed out people faking being Canadian and who want to be Canadian and live in Canada.

It isn't designed for people forced to be Canadian by accident of their father's birth and who just want to go visit people.

And so there's a pile of stupid paperwork requirements that might make sense in the context of immigration control and making sure that non-Canadians can't fake being Canadian,* but that just stink when you're forced to do it if you want to be able to just go visit people.

If only there were some certificate of not-currently-deemed-Canadian that were easy to get and that would let them just use their Kiwi passports for travel. But oh no. Can't do that. Have to satisfy the High Commission that they're really Canadian enough.

The kids are currently sufficiently Canadian to be turned away at the Canadian border [or not allowed onto a plane] if they don't have a Canadian passport, but not sufficiently Canadian to have any easy way of getting a Canadian passport.

There's a big long form, and I have to send in my birth certificate, their birth certificates, a fee, wait five months for processing, then they'll have some "Yes you're a Canadian and you can now apply for a passport" certificate. And then we can apply for their passports.

You can check out of the Canadian Asylum any time you like, but you can never really leave.....

Anyway, I'm double checking with the High Commission on this one. It seems absurd, but it's a Canadian kind of absurd....

Update: the reply from the High Commission advised me to check the "Am I Canadian" quiz they have to see if the kids need to get their certificate of citizenship (less fun than it sounds). They also helpfully provided a list of some of the benefits of citizenship, none of which warmed my heart.

* We still need Canadian inspectors checking American backpacks for fraudulent Canadian sew-on flags in Europe....