Canadian Citizenship Oath: Pledging Allegiance to the Queen to be Challanged

I came across an article in the Toronto Star this morning that just makes my temperature rise and makes me shake my head.

Here is the article in full:

Forcing would-be Canadians to pledge allegiance to the Queen before they can become citizens is discriminatory and a violation of their constitutional rights, three permanent residents are set to argue in court on Friday.

All three maintain they oppose the oath on religious or conscientious grounds, saying pledging allegiance to Canada should be sufficient.

The Citizenship Act requires applicants for citizenship to swear or affirm they will be “faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.”

The oath requirement “effectively bars” these applicants from enjoying citizenship rights such as voting or obtaining a Canadian passport, their application to Ontario Superior Court states.

People born in Canada or abroad to Canadian parents are automatically citizens and don’t have to take any such oath.

“All of the applicants would willingly take an oath to observe the laws of Canada and fulfil their duties as Canadian citizens,” the document says.

One of the applicants, Michael McAteer, 79, a retired journalist who immigrated almost 50 years ago, says his father was persecuted in Ireland for supporting Irish independence.

“Taking an oath of allegiance to a hereditary monarch who lives abroad would violate my conscience, be a betrayal of my republican heritage, and impede my activities in support of ending the monarchy in Canada,” McAteer says in his affidavit.

For its part, the federal government argues that taking an oath to the Queen has been around since Confederation as a condition of “acquiring membership in the Canadian polity.”

“The swearing of an oath to Canada’s head of state has been a constant regardless of other legislative changes that have been made over time in the process for becoming a naturalized Canadian,” the government states in its factum.

Roach died last fall and the case is now proceeding with McAteer and two others, Simone Topey, and Dror Bar-Natan as applicants.

Topey, who was born in Jamaica and came to Canada in 1978, says swearing allegiance to the Queen — whom Rastafarians regard as the “head of Babylon” — would violate her deeply held beliefs.

Bar-Natan, 47, a math professor who came to Canada in 2002, maintains taking an oath to the Queen would be “repulsive.”

“It’s not that I believe in total egalitarianism,” Bar-Natan said in an interview. “On the other hand, having royalty is a bit much.”

As always in cases like these, I just can't believe someone would challenge something like this! If you want to become a Canadian, JUST DO IT! This is our oath, and it won't hurt you to say these words, it hasn't hurt anyone else before! No one is asking you to swear allegiance to a monster. And if you look at the things Canada has done as a country with their respective leaders down through the centuries (Residence Schools and the terrible treatment of the Natives, and all of the other things in Canada's past, like in any country's past) how is it any different? Elizabeth II is just the same as the current Prime Minister - they just happen to be the head at the time, but can they be responsible for all the problems in the past? There will always be issues as long as this world exists.

If you're coming to Canada for a better life, is swearing allegiance to a queen that doesn't really have much impact on the running of the country day-to-day so terrible compared to what you're leaving behind?

It's all semantics at the end of the day, because it's a reality that she's our Queen. If you're going to become a Canadian or you already are a Canadian, swearing allegiance to Canada is basically the same thing as also swearing allegiance to the Queen, as she is the head of our country!

In my opinion these people need to get a life (I don't mean to be rude) and find other things to take issue with that really matter.

Here is a link to that article in the Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/11/canadian_citizenship_oath_to_queen_will_be_challenged_in_court.html

Take some time to read the comments at the bottom, they are always interesting!