On October 2nd, 2025, the House Citizenship and Immigration Committee of the Canadian House of Commons deliberated bill C-31, a bill intended to address an earlier judicial ruling. The Bjorkquist Ruling of December 19, 20232, found that Canadian immigration rules had unconstitutionally restricted citizenship to first generation descendants. As one of the so-called “Lost Canadians”, I followed along with interest from my home office, closely following the discussions. After 40 years of trying to legally assert my Canadianness, the issue had finally found its way into open debate in the Immigration Committee. I had gone as far as to officially submit a briefing for inclusion in the Parliamentary record for the session and, at long last, I thought, some official recognition of what I’ve always known to be true was within my grasp.
Brad Redekopp, a Conservative MP, pointedly questioned Minister Lena Diab whether those affected by C-3 would be subject to language requirements, citizenship exams, and background checks.
“Are you saying that people who have violent criminal pasts or terrorism-related backgrounds are just going to be given citizenship through this pathway?”
My heart sank as no one corrected the fundamental misunderstanding that was occurring. We were not being given citizenship. We were already citizens who were being denied the ability to have it proven or to make any use of our citizenship.
“Obviously,” Michelle Rempel Garner said during the discussions, “the Liberals have written a chain migration bill that’s going to allow for rampant fraud.”
I tuned out. It was clear the Conservative MPs didn’t see “Lost Canadians” like me as Canadian, but instead as an immigrant trying to sidestep the system. As a criminal.
As a potential terrorist.
If I’d wanted to avoid this, I should have chosen to be born correctly.
Almost nine months earlier, on January 20th, 2025, Trump had issued Executive Order 141683, an order that declared the United States government did not recognize “gender identity” as a legitimate basis for governmental recognition.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” Trump’s order declares. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
Fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Nevertheless, I controvert.
“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” Trump’s order warns.
In other words, a conservative, perhaps the king of conservatives himself, made a royal decree that the US government would no longer recognize my gender identity and that describing me as I actually exist is “corrosive” to “the entire American system.”
Once again I had been declared a threat for simply existing.
I probably should have thought about all this before I’d chosen to be born wrong.
The US has no official religion; however, in June 2026, the US Department of Defense reduced the list of recognized faith codes from 211 to 31, in the process removing paganism and Wicca from official recognition for military services4. While I’m not directly impacted by the decisions of the US Department of Defense, I’ve defined myself as a pagan since 1994, and in a country with no official religion and a mandated separation of church and state, a prominent list of recognized vs unrecognized religions becomes a de facto list of recognized religions. Once again, with a pen, a conservative had written away a huge foundational piece of who I am as not sufficiently real.
How could these things foundational to my identity, to my sense of self, be so easily dismissed? Is who I am a house of cards built on claims and little else? Am I turtles all the way down?
The irony is that I spent a lifetime trying to convince myself most of it was just in my head. I’d wanted so badly to rid myself of my gender identity that I’d turned to psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, endocrinologists, medication, drugs, alcohol, hypnosis, religion, “tough love”, repression, shame, guilt, social withdrawal, and generally torturing myself… and still it remained. In trying to convince myself to be Christian I’d spent my life reading the sacred books of more religions than I can remember. I’d partaken of the sacraments. I’d traveled to China and sat with the Buddhists atop a mountain, trying to quiet my mind… none of it spoke to me as profoundly and immediately as the sound of a bird chirping, and the turning of the earth.
How am I supposed to exist in a world that increasingly denies the things that define my existence?
For now, I don’t know the answer.
Instead I sit in the grass of a cemetery in Nova Scotia, surrounded by my ancestors.
I smile when the waiter says to my wife and I “Separate checks tonight, ladies?”
I forgive when a nurse asks me if I have reason to believe I’m pregnant.
I observe when the Earth turns and the seasons shift.
I marvel at the power of nature when I see a waterfall has worn away stone.
…and I anger conservatives by continuing to exist, because I say so.
- Brad Redekopp and Michelle Rempel Garner quotes: House of Commons, Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM), Evidence, 45th Parliament, 1st Session, Meeting No. 5, October 2, 2025.
Official transcript (PDF): https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/451/CIMM/Evidence/EV13626849/CIMMEV05-E.PDF
Official transcript (HTML): https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/CIMM/meeting-5/evidence ↩︎ - Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, 2023 ONSC 7152 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice, December 19, 2023) — the ruling that struck down the Citizenship Act’s first-generation limit as unconstitutional.
CanLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2023/2023onsc7152/2023onsc7152.html ↩︎ - Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” signed January 20, 2025 (90 FR 8615).
Federal Register (official text): https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/30/2025-02090/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal ↩︎ - Department of Defense faith code reduction: a May 20, 2026 memo from the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness cut the list of recognized religious affiliation codes from 211 to 31, removing roughly 180 belief systems including Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, and Asatru designations, with implementation directed within 60 days.
Religion News Service: https://religionnews.com/2026/06/04/department-of-defense-drops-more-than-100-recognized-faith-groups/
Military.com: https://www.military.com/dod-officially-drops-180-faiths-from-militarys-recognized-religion-list ↩︎
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