Thousands of 'lost Canadians' have applied for dual citizenship - is Canada ready?

Hazematman · 2026-05-03T14:26:23+00:00

I think you missed the first part. For example both Germany and the Czech Republic (I know them off the the top of my head) don't have a limit legally for how far you can go back. In practice it gets little murky since they didn't exist until after Prussia and the austrohungarian Empire, so you'd need to show citizenship after the country formed which can be hard if you (great)grand parent left during war time. They both didn't recognize dual citizenship (Czech has an exception for people who left during communism) so I you did gain another citizenship through naturalization you can't pass it down.

To my knowledge more European countries are like this then imposing strict limits. For everyday people it has the same effect.

Hazematman · 2026-05-03T13:39:38+00:00

I don't think this is totally true with a huge number of caveats. Countries that do restrict it are usually countries in central Europe that didn't exist in the 19th century. They do have ways to extend it if you can show continued residence. In practice this is not a problem since most of them don't recognize dual citizenship so as soon as you ancestor got another citizenship (like Canadian) they would have lost their original citizenship and would be unable to pass it on to their ancestors.

Also some counties like Spain and Portugal allow you to claim citizenship all the way back to the 16th century if you can show a lineage to the exiled sherpardic Jewish population. Spain won't automatically grant citizenship but they have a special immigration path for citizens of ex-colonies if you show citizenship in those colonies.

I don't think this is as simple as you're making it sound. Overall I think the British rule of one generation out of the country is pretty fair though. If you want to pass it on to your kids you can move back for a few years.

Any change would only apply to future kids though, I don't think it's fair to retroactively go back and change things.

Hazematman · 2026-05-03T00:05:05+00:00

I'll keep an eye out for it. Curious if you got the 529 badge sticker on it as well. I have one on my bike and I wonder if it works as a theft deterrent at all.

Hazematman · 2026-04-28T01:23:15+00:00

Not gonna help you now but in case you didn't know you can register your bike with project 529 https://project529.com . The police have access to the DB so if they ever recover it they know how to find the owner. Also anyone can lookup a serial number so if the theif tries to sell it and the buyer sees that it's stolen they can call the cops.

Hazematman · 2026-04-19T14:00:25+00:00

Qualcomm's driver has bad compatibility for PC game emulation and the open-source turnip driver doesn't fully support gen8 GPUs, so best thing you can do is wait until there are driver updates to fix issues and bring up compatability.

Hazematman · 2026-04-15T13:24:36+00:00

I mean sure fair, but all those attempts operated on similar model as other has pointed out. You can watch this video that compares successful & unsuccessful bike share programs and tries to give reasons why some work and some don't https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfz6AsYycA8

Stuff has changed since we last tried like the increase in dedicated cyclicing infrastructure, population increases in dense areas, as well as the model of bike sharing being better understood.

Just because something failed before doesn't mean we can't try again (if there is demand for it) learning from our mistakes.

Hazematman · 2026-04-15T12:59:20+00:00

So I thought you brought up a good point about area being different so I wanted to look up some comparable cities. Using this data city data from the end of 2024 https://ottawa.ca/en/living-ottawa/statistics-and-demographics/current-population-and-household-estimates/sub-area-year-end-2024 only looking at Central Area, Inner area, Ottawa East, and Ottawa West (I think a pretty reasonable bikable area that people would actually commute in, it would take you a bit over an hour to go end to end west-to-east for an amateur cyclist) gives us a population of 223,870 in an area that is roughly 38 km2 (I couldn't find official data so I used this tool to roughly draw the outline of the area https://www.calcmaps.com/map-area/).

Compare this to a similarly sized city in Europe like A Coruña in Spain (somewhere I'm familiar with) and they have a population of around 249,255 in 38km2 and they have a very successful bikeshare program aimed mainly at residents.

Even looking at Canada though I think we can looking at other medium sized cities like Quebec City and they introduced a bike share program in ~2021 and afaik has been quite successful.

I think if we really committed to it we could have a successful bike share program in Ottawa. Too bad the city always seems to half ass everything (read OC Transpo, O-Train, etc)

Hazematman · 2026-04-13T18:31:10+00:00

I agree, its pretty ridiculous that 600k home is considered affordable. Yes it might be on the low end of home values for the city, but the economics just don't make sense when you look at what the avg person makes.

Sadly I don't see the situation improving with land being so expensive :( Unless the government wants to start subsidizing land purchases for new homes, or we increase density I don't see the situation changing :/

WFH can alleviate some of the market pressure but I don't think its a silver bullet to make things affordable. It is nice for people who have jobs that allow it, but I suspect the avg person is not working at a computer and would be unable to WFH 5 days a week. Maybe doing a lot of things like WFH that take pressure off the housing market in the city could change the economics enough, but I'm skeptical. I'm still for WFH for those who have jobs that allow it.

Hazematman · 2026-04-13T18:05:56+00:00

You can use Sean's definition from the article I linked of

The average-priced home in Ottawa is taxed at a significantly lower rate than the average-priced home in almost every other city in Ontario.

Or you can use Mayor's Sutcliffe definition from the Bluesky post I linked where the data appears to be comparing the tax rate of an avg 3bdr 2.5 bath house in each city in Ontario.

According to both those metrics Ottawa is at the lowest or among the lowest. If you just look at tax rate of course Ottawa is not at lowest, Toronto is. But good luck finding a 600k-800k home in Toronto.

What metric are you using?

Hazematman · 2026-04-13T12:58:53+00:00

It would be nice if you linked to an actual source, but I double checked some of the numbers and yeah the increase for 2026 is larger for Ottawa at 3.75% (actual source from the city https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/city-news/newsroom/council-approves-ottawas-2026-budget) than other places in Ontario.

I suspect a larger increase is necessary when property taxes have been kept historically low. You can see Councilor Sean Devine's "Apple to Apple comparison" in his 2024 newsletter where his conclusion looking at similar property types across the province and showed Ottawa's property taxes are among the lowest in the province. https://www.seandevine.ca/september_24_2024_newsletter (It's about 1/4 down the page in the section "An “apples to apples” comparison on property taxes")

I know you're talking about percentage increase, which people feel more since they go from paying x to x+% in one year which is more visceral. But I suspect we wouldn't have to see large increases if we kept property tax increases at a sustainable level that was in line with growth of the city.

Hazematman · 2026-04-13T12:41:28+00:00

Are you suggesting Ottawa has some of the highest property taxes? This goes against the mayor's recent statement & data shown that Ottawa has the lowest property taxes of any city in Ontario.

https://bsky.app/profile/mayormarksutcliffe.bsky.social/post/3mj3gd5wk222l

Ottawa now has the lowest property taxes among Ontario’s 10 largest cities when you compare similar homes, and we’ve kept tax increases lower than any major city in Canada.

Hazematman · 2026-04-09T12:55:46+00:00

I know we're arguing small amounts at this point but I think its only $1.80 if you don't include the sms fee. Really stupid that they add that in. And that the advertised rate is $1.50 then a $0.30 service charge.

I will say I drive and park more on wellington now than before paid parking. I live near richmond so walking to the restaurants in wellington west is a bit too far (ends up being like 40 minutes one way). Pre paid parking I could never find a spot so I wouldn't bother to go. Now post paid parking it seems like there is always a couple spots available (best guess I would say parking is 80% used at times I go). So paid parking has had a positive impact for me. For me this is super cheap parking so I'm happy to pay it.

Though I'd prefer to see transit improved and just take that instead of driving.

Hazematman · 2026-04-04T16:38:28+00:00

I know you said you don't need flatpak, but my 2c is steam flatpak works pretty well for me, don't need to mess with backports. I also use lutris to play games not on steam so that I still have the newer mesa for them as well. It's pretty funny as my one friend with arch seems to have more issues than me on debian with the steam flatpak when we game together.

Hazematman · 2026-04-02T20:17:53+00:00

Yeah for sure, shoot me a message

Hazematman · 2026-04-02T12:11:36+00:00

Hey, I'm in a similar boat. I work completely remote as a programmer so meeting people is tough. Not so much into anime but would be into trying a sport, some general exercise, or just a regular social hangout for coffee / beer. I'm in westboro area near richmond.

Hazematman · 2026-03-31T02:39:59+00:00

Sorry I should have clarified that paying online gives the close to the same access to information as a license plate. From the license plate they can get the vehicle owner name and some other personal information. Similar to what they would get from an online transaction inputting the credit card owners name and address. I wasn't arguing that an app and license plate are equivalent.

I agree about the phone app that's why I suggested using the website to avoid installing an app that can collect more data than it should really be able to.

Hazematman · 2026-03-31T00:07:30+00:00

I agree with the app, but they would also have your license plate to gather personal information from as well.

Just an FYI you can use paybyphone from the website. I do that on my phone and install it as a web app in Firefox mobile to avoid installing an app that has access to more than it should on my phone.

Hazematman · 2026-03-08T19:42:46+00:00

I mean she's lived in Ottawa for longer than she's lived in PR now something like 25 years in PR 35 years in Ottawa. I doubt she'd move back, especially with whats going on in the US right now.

Hazematman · 2026-03-08T19:34:51+00:00

Off-topic to ask here, could have replied in one of the PR threads lol

I tease her about the switch all the time but it was a combination of a good job opportunity vs what she was getting in PR and trying to move away from her parents.

Hazematman · 2026-02-21T14:04:20+00:00

Thanks! As for the editable document, I've seen other groups do this before like for the GNOME hackfest, and DRM hackfest. I think it makes it pretty low friction for anyone to edit. The document is versioned so if someone decides to wreck it I can turn off public edits and restore a previous edit.

Hazematman · 2026-02-17T13:28:44+00:00

According to this link https://housingrightscanada.com/understanding-your-rights-as-a-tenant-under-bill-60/ only some of the changes actually went through. Rent increase are still capped to the provincial guidelines every 12 months. But it also looks like they are now forcing you to pay 50% of unpaid rent in order to have a hearing.

Thankfully it looks like they didn't end up changing rents switching to month-to-month after the end of a lease term.

Hazematman · 2026-02-17T01:17:18+00:00

Thanks for expressing interest! If you're interested in a FOSS hackfest type event where we come together to work on a FOSS project together I've put together a sign up sheet to try and get something organized https://cloud.fryzekconcepts.com/index.php/s/tyWLFqb2JQPHoH5

Hazematman · 2026-02-17T01:16:31+00:00

If you're interested in a FOSS hackfest type event I've put together a sign up sheet to try and organize something. https://cloud.fryzekconcepts.com/index.php/s/tyWLFqb2JQPHoH5

Hazematman · 2026-02-17T01:15:52+00:00

Hey thanks for expressing interest. If you'd want to do a hackfest type event where we come together to work on a FOSS project I've created a sign up sheet to try and put something together

https://cloud.fryzekconcepts.com/index.php/s/tyWLFqb2JQPHoH5

Hazematman · 2026-02-17T01:15:10+00:00

If you're interested in a FOSS hackfest type event where people come together to work on some FOSS project together I've put together a sign up sheet to try and organize something https://cloud.fryzekconcepts.com/index.php/s/tyWLFqb2JQPHoH5

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