Citizenship Test

Before I became a Canadian citizen, I had been examined and X-rayed and put through the bureaucratic wringer. I had spent thousands of dollars on paperwork and passport photos and fingerprints and background checks. I had been given an English proficiency test in a part of Toronto I had never seen, even though I was teaching Canadian students works of Canadian literature at a Canadian university at the time. I had visited every province, had been as far east as Cape Spear, as far west as Skidegate, and had gone dogsledding in Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park. Before I became a Canadian citizen, I had lived and paid taxes here for ten years, had celebrated Thanksgiving — in October! — on an island in Georgian Bay, had earned two graduate degrees, and had met my partner, whose father taught me how to portage.

Before I became a Canadian citizen, I had been tested on what it means to be Canadian (answering questions that continue to stump my Canadian-born friends), had...