A Man With No Country

Many have asked why I haven’t attended the Pig Roasts lately. My reason is legit even though it sounds more like a situation comedy rather than the truth. Let’s do a little background first, shall we. Some of you may know while others may not that I was born in England around the time of the crusades. My parents loaded me onto a rather large boat and we left the island for Canada. Growing up in this country I was allowed to obtain an education, work and I felt special that I was permitted to pay taxes. What was really special is that someone in government felt it necessary to collect even more taxes after they extracted them from my pay checks. This usually took place around the end of April. What is amazing is that I could do all this without anyone asking if I was a Canadian! It’s incredible that I could vote and no one asked me to prove my citizenship at the polling stations.

Back in the “day” I had very little difficulty crossing the border into the USA. All I had to do was show my badge at the border and the nice folks in the official uniforms would kindly smile and whisk me on my way where I supported the American economy and paid taxes there also. Life was wonderful.

Long story short. The American customs folks changed their minds about me and no longer smile. Now all they do is snarl; send me into a detention center where I’m questioned for an hour and then sent back home. I never realized that my last name of Lodge sounded like it derived out of the Middle East. The closest that I’ve gotten to the Middle East was watching the movie Lawrence Of Arabia. All of this treatment because I don’t have my papers. I’m starting to feel like I’m in one of those movies in the ‘40’s where the guards at the border are always demanding to see your papers and the victims shiver in fear.

It gets better! In order to leave the country to get to the Pig Roast I now need to apply for my Canadian citizenship. That will take me a year and a half. Wow, how special is this? I saw on the net that there was an 800 number to call if you were having problems getting your citizenship. Aha!!! Finally someone had seen my plight. I made the call and the gentleman kindly told me that I didn’t qualify because the assistance was for those immigrants who were WAITING to get into Canada!!! I mentioned that I had been here since I was 4, had worked in the fire service for 32 years and had been able to vote since I was 18. I loved his answer even though it was hard for me to understand with his accent, “Sorry, it seems that you have fallen through the cracks”. How nice!

Many nice people have tried to help me namely Ron Jones, Brian Masse and the MPP in my area Mike Wallace and for them I am truly grateful. In conclusion it will be easier to apply for a British passport that will take me only 6 weeks to obtain. The ironic part is that I will have to apply for a Permanent Resident Card from Ottawa. This will stop me from voting now as they have proven that indeed I’m not a citizen of this country. I would love to vote for those folks who helped me but I’m afraid that I can’t. Maybe in a year and a half I will be able to. Let’s hope they don’t hold another election until then.

So, until that time I say “cheerio” to everyone as I munch on my crumpet and take a sip of my cup of tea. : )