When dual-passport Canadians commit terrorist acts, it ought to concern every one of us personally. The government says the “Canadian” who helped blow up a bus loaded with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last summer was a dual-passport citizen living in Lebanon. Our disgust at this barbarity is natural but such acts are a serious warning. When the Canadian passport is used this way it diminishes the country and casts a serious shadow over just how your passport will be received at checkpoints all over the world. In a column today in the Charlottetown Guardian a man leaving soon for a visit to Egypt, Israel and Jordan says he hopes his Canadian passport will be respected as it has on previous trips. Canada is a large land and like many such countries it seeks to encourage immigration by permitting duel citizenship. At the very least, the Bulgarian atrocity, and the recent Algerian gas field hostage taking, should make the government wary about just who is permitted to hold our passport. This would seem particularly true for parts of the world where violent political acts are more or less standard practice.
