[jnbiche]

So do the children of "actual" Canadians who betrayed their true country and turned to work for foreign, non-Canadian governments have their citizenship annulled? The children of the Canadian counterparts to Ames and Hansson? (I'm sure there have been some)

Or have about those Canadians who work legitimately for foreign embassies? Canada clearly has those [1]. I assume their kids don't have their citizenship retracted.

My guess that this is meant as some sort of punitive action against the parents, but it seems wrong to punish the children. Even assuming the kids knew, as the article pointed out, what's a 16-year old who finds out his parents are foreign spies supposed to do? Call the FBI? I can see children in a totalitarian country reacting that way out of fear or an excess of patriotism, but have we really reached that point here in the West?

1. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/nnrsdnts/ntcs/frgn-eng.html

[cperciva]

Children of Canadian citizens acquire citizenship by blood. The "employees of foreign governments" clause only applies if the parents are neither citizens nor permanent residents.