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K. was born in the U.K. in 1942 as the son of a serving member of the RCAF and a British warbride mother. He came to Canada with his mother and sister in 1946 on one of the "warbride ships". Raised in Canada he always considered himself to be a Canadian and was told that he was a Canadian citizen by an act of Parliament during WWII. He received his first Canadian passport at the age of 14. At the age of 16 he joined the RCAF and served for about 8 years before taking an honourable release as a Flight Lieutenant. He later joined the RCA (Royal Canadian Artillery, Militia). After graduate school he worked in the Department of Manpower and Immigration. In all of these positions he was subject to security clearance investigations by the RCMP. As his passports expired he had them renewed as he travelled frequently to other countries.

In early 1969 K. applied for a passport renewal. He was contacted by the Dept. of Secretary of State and advised that he could not be issued a new passport because he was not a Canadian Citizen and that he would have to apply for citizenship. At this time he was an employee of Manpower and Immigration. He protested that this was not necessary and that he was a citizen by birth in virtue of his father being a serving member of the RCAF in the UK at the time of his birth. He was then asked to come to Secretary of State to discuss this matter. When he arrived a departmental clerk, who was almost in tears, and her supervisor, advised him that he could not claim Canadian citizenship as his parents had not been legally married at the time of his birth. There was no suggestion that this was a universal policy being applied to all warbabies, but only applied to him because of his illigetimacy of birth. Under these circumstances he applied for citizenship which was granted (very quickly) and his passport renewed (clearly if the issue had applied to all warbabies the unfortunate clerk who was advising K. that he was a 'bastard' would have had no need to get into that issue!)

K. queried the departmental representatives as to why this had suddenly become an issue in that he had had several passports before this time. He was advised that departmental procedures for issuing passports had been significantly tightened as a result of the high profile case of James Earl Ray travelling on a Canadian passport after the assissination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

This conversation indicated that the change was procedural rather than legislative and K. left the meeting with the understanding that had his birth been legitimate, there would have been no issue.

K, April 24, 2005