Growing up in Surrey, B.C. and Winnipeg, Bertha Funk has always celebrated Canada Day with picnics in local parks, fireworks and festivities with family and friends.The holiday will take on a new meaning for the 37-year-old Squamish, B.C.-woman this year, when she will be sworn in as a “new” Canadian at a ceremony at Canada Place in Vancouver, nine years after she was unknowingly stripped of her citizenship.“It is going to be the most special Canada Day for me, not one that I’m going to forget,” said Funk, who has lived in Canada almost her entire life after moving here from Mexico with her family in 1980 when she was 2 months old.“You don’t really give your national identity too much thought until you don’t have one. The fireworks on this Canada Day are going to be for me. The entire country is going to be celebrating with me.”Until last year Funk did not know that Canada changed its Citizenship Act in 1977, requiring those born outside the country to a foreign-born Canadian parent to reapply for citizenship before their 28th birthday if they were born between Feb. 15, 1977 and April 16, 1981, the date the law was repealed.Funk, now 37, only found out about this requirement — and her statelessness — when she called the Immigration Department to inquire about a replacement citizenship card she’d applied for when she misplaced the original months before.At the advice of immigration officials, she applied for a “discretionary” grant of citizenship, designed to alleviate cases of special and unusual hardship or to reward services of an exceptional value to Canada. But there was no guarantee it would be granted.In early June, while on a ride to Whistler with an out-of-town friend, Funk received a call from Ali Salam, Immigration Minister Ahmad Hussen’s chief of staff, informing her the request was approved and she would be contacted by immigration officials with ...
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