FORT SIMPSON - Frank Gu has lived in Fort Simpson for more than five years.

He has a job as a computer technician with the Dehcho Divisional Education Council and pays taxes. He enjoys living in Canada with his wife Judy Zou and their four-year-old son but is frustrated by the hurdles that are preventing him and Zou from becoming Canadian citizens.

Frank Gu, left, holds copies of the numerous letters he has sent government officials about his citizenship case while Judy Zou and Yaling Xin hold copies of the letters that summoned them to Inuvik for their citizenship tests. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

After applying for citizenship in June 2004, the couple heard nothing from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) until last August. At that point, letters sent from an Edmonton branch of the department on Aug. 3 asked them to appear in the Inuvik courthouse on Aug. 31 to take their citizenship test.

After realizing it would cost them more than $2,500 each in plane tickets, hotel rooms and meals the couple had to send letters saying they couldn't attend.

Asking people to travel from Fort Simpson to Inuvik to take the test and attend a citizenship ceremony is unfair, said Gu.

"I see it as a discrimination of human rights," Gu said.

Gu and Zou aren't alone.

Five potential Canadian citizens living in Fort Simpson received similar letters. Like Gu and Zou, all agreed that the cost of travel was too high and that they couldn't attend.

Yaling Xin said that she and her son Nate Huang haven't received any response to their letters. Despite repeated phone calls to citizenship officials, none of the five candidates has heard what is being done about their cases.

"It costs lots of money," said Xin about why they had to turn down going to Inuvik.

"Maybe coming here (to Fort Simpson) is better," she said.

All five of the potential citizens agree that with so many people in one community, a citizenship judge should be sent to Fort Simpson to administer the test and perform the ceremony.

As taxpayers, Gu said they have the right to take the test at a nearby location. All the applicants also had to pay a $100 fee, to have their case processed. In big cities, the test and ceremony takes about half a day and costs almost nothing, said Gu. The overall process is also faster. He has friends in Toronto who received their citizenship within half a year of applying.

Government officials should look into the citizenship process, said Gu. The government is encouraging immigrants to move to the North but their behaviour says the opposite, said Gu.

"You cannot ask people to travel for the ceremony unless the government pays," he said.

"Why do we have to waste our holidays on that kind of public service?"

A ceremony can't be held in Fort Simpson because of limited resources, said Randy Gurlock, director of Citizenship and Immigration Canada for Edmonton, Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

"It's very expensive and time consuming," he said.

To hold a test and ceremony a citizenship judge has to be sent from Edmonton or other parts of Canada because there are none in the territory. The judge has to be accompanied by a citizenship officer and a clerk. Currently there are only two citizenship officers serving the area the office covers.

"It's a matter of us being effective with our time," he said.

Tests and ceremonies are held once a year in Yellowknife where there's a Citizenship and Immigration Centre. In 2006, a ceremony was held in Inuvik for the first time in a number of years, said Gurlock.

Gurlock said service in the NWT can't be compared to somewhere like Edmonton where ceremonies are held two or three times a week. Close to 8,000 were granted citizenship in that city last year, said Gurlock, compared to 127 in the territory.

In northern Alberta, tests are run once or twice a year in Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray, but there are a number of communities with clients that officers can't travel to, said Gurlock.

"Whether it's in northern Alberta or the territories we have to try and balance out clients needs with being effective with the resources we have," said Gurlock.

A number of cases with complaints similar to those in Fort Simpson have reached the office of Dennis Bevington, the MP for the Western Arctic.

"We're not getting the kind of service we need here, that's clearly obvious," said Bevington.

In relation to other cases, Bevington said he has made a request on the issue to the minister of CIC. Their response was that they do tests on a per capita basis and that the government of Canada isn't prepared to put more money into it or put a citizenship judge in the Northwest Territories, he said.

"It's very inconvenient for people to go as far as the government of Canada is asking them," said Bevington.

There are a number of problems with the immigration process stemming from cutbacks in the 1990s, said Bevington. A backlog of 700,000 cases exist across the country. Bevington said his constituency office in Yellowknife is dealing with a number of citizenship cases.

More resources need to be put into immigration services and Bevington said his party will continue to press for this.

For the five potential citizens in Fort Simpson, Bevington said he would have their cases reviewed at his Yellowknife office to see what can be done.

Gu hopes something can be done about the Fort Simpson cases before Canada Day, a symbolic date.

Gu has sent numerous letters about his case to a variety of government and public officials including the prime minister, the governor general, the minister of CIC, Senator Nick Sibbeston and MLAs. Gu said all responses he has received have simply involved officials passing the case onto someone else.

"I'm a little potato and no one cares," said Gu.