REGINA – Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said that he kept his US citizenship a secret until now for fear of being persecuted as a white heterosexual male from the United States.
“I didn’t want anyone to know that, in addition to my Canadian citizenship, I also have roots with a country that’s tremendously different,” said Scheer. “Growing up, I knew the white Catholic Canadian kids from Ottawa would treat a white Catholic Canadian kid from Ottawa with dual citizenship differently. I looked like most of the other kids, which made me feel so different.”
Scheer detailed the difficulties of fitting in, speaking the same language, and struggling to be just like all the other kids who didn’t have the right to vote in US elections or freedom to work in the world’s largest economy.
Scheer was routinely discriminated against in his schooling for not placing a “u” in words such as “colour” and “honour.”
“I had to change my life motto from life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to peace, order, and good government,” said Scheer.
With his renunciation of his American citizenship, Scheer is hoping no one questions his loyalty to Canada unlike what his party did to Stephan Dion and Thomas Mulcair for having French citizenships.
