What Makes Canadian Citizenship More Valuable Than a U.S. Passport | Opinion [Video]

Canadians like me have long looked to the U.S. as a land of opportunities.

Some might argue I started life as an American. According to my parents, I was conceived in California. My mother joined my father, a salesman for Hewlett Packard Canada at the time, on a business trip and enjoyed the warm sun. In any case, I later spent formative time on family sabbaticals following my mother, a professor, to Pennsylvania and Indiana. Then I did undergrad at a U.S. college with two campuses, which brought me as a young man to Maryland and New Mexico.

But in my 20s, I decided to move back to Canada. After being referred to jokingly by Canadian friends as “the American,” even while American friends called me “a Canadian,” I needed to explore the roots of my identity.