Canadian Passports Erase Palestinian Identity: Outrage Sparks Global Attention
Picture this: you go to get your passport renewed, and when you get the new passport, under ‘place of birth,’ it says ‘no country of birth.’ This was the fate of Palestinian Canadian content creator Blair, whose grandmother received a voicemail from the Canadian government saying that her passport wouldn’t include Palestine as her place of birth.
This is a new policy that’ll apply to any Palestinian Canadian citizen renewing their passport. It’s a literal erasure of their identity and nationality and has sparked a global outrage.
From Blair’s TikTok video alone, many commented on how this isn’t acceptable, that “even Anne Frank called it Palestine in her diary.”
In the comments, one TikTok user even shared a link to a document written by The Canada Palestine Association back in 1999 titled “Birthright Denied,” which takes a deep dive into the history of Canadian policy when it comes to Palestinian birthrights. It’s an issue with a long and harsh history in the country:
“Hanna Kawas, a citizen of Canada, asks our government to acknowledge, in his passport, a simple fact: that he was born June 2, 1948, in Bethlehem, Palestine. Our government accepts June 2. It accepts 1948. It accepts Bethlehem. But it refuses to acknowledge Palestine.”
This was just one mere example outlined in the document of the continuous erasure of Palestinian identity in Canadian history. It’s a slow and scary process that’s showcasing another example of how many countries are trying to erase Palestine.
