U of T Chancellor Vivienne Poy probably doesn’t know it, but the frosty weather saved her from an equally frosty confrontation on Tuesday.

If the weather had not closed the university on Tuesday evening, and if a President’s Circle reception at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library had not been cancelled, Chancellor Poy would have met Don Chapman, a citizenship and immigration activist and a prominent donor to U of T.

“I was not going to be polite,” said Chapman.

Chapman’s family has a history with U of T; both his father and grandfather graduated here, and the Chapman Chair in Clinical Sciences at the Dentistry faculty is named for his parents.

“I go back 200 years in this country,” Chapman says proudly. But despite his many ties to Canada and U of T, Chapman is not a Canadian citizen, though he dearly wishes to be-and he sees Chancellor Poy as part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

And in a final twist, several hundred thousand dollars in funding for U of T may have hinged on their meeting.

Chapman was born in 1954 in Vancouver, but in 1961 his family moved to Hawaii and his parents took out US citizenship. Under Canadian citizenship laws at the time, Chapman became an American citizen when his father did, although he was not consulted about this and never voluntarily gave up Canadian citizenship.

Chapman calls it “a law that makes women and children property. Canada essentially rendered a child stateless.”

An amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act in 1977 means it is now impossible for a person born in Canada to be stripped of their citizenship involuntarily, but the change was not retroactive. As a result, people born in Canada between 1947 and 1977 who subsequently emigrated elsewhere cannot reclaim their Canadian citizenship without going through the long and expensive citizenship process which foreign-born immigrants do.

“It’s so widespread that it has the potential to affect hundreds of thousands of people,” Chapman says. “But nobody knows.”

Chapman therefore, is a leader of the group he calls the “Lost Canadians,” people who were born here but legally are not considered Canadian, a right which those born after 1977 take for granted. Chapman says that the difference is simple discrimination.

“Here’s Canada claiming to be number one on human rights issues, and here we have a law that splits up families,” he says. “Is this really what Canada wants to stand for?”

The reason that Chapman planned a chilly reception for the Chancellor is that when he asked her for help-Poy is, after all, a member of the Canadian senate and sister-in-law of Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson-she turned him down.

“I got a letter from her saying ‘obviously you’ve fallen through the bureaucratic cracks, I’m sorry, goodbye,” says Chapman. He is particularly irked that Poy is a frequent speaker on human rights and discrimination, but has not been active in fighting the citizenship law he feels is so clearly discriminatory.

The twist is, Chapman is in charge of his family’s foundation, which right now controls “several hundred thousand dollars” worth of funding at U of T.

“With Vivienne Poy [as Chancellor], I have no inkling of giving up this money unless she will a) resign (which I’m not asking her to do) or b) join with us.”

Chapman is quick to add that he is not threatening to withdraw the money, simply that he will not allow it to be used as long as Poy is Chancellor. While it may not be spent now, he says, “seven years from now there will be other students.” (U of T Chancellors serve for seven years.)

He says that U of T students can help him and help themselves by persuading the Chancellor to change her tune.

“Students are supposed to be active and stand up for issues. That’s what students are about. Is the passion missing from students in Canada, or is the issue unknown to them?” Chapman says. “I don’t think the students know.”

Chapman says the solution is simple.

“Please understand that I don’t want to get even with her,” he says. “I want her help. If she gets on board I’ll admire her. She’d have my full support.

“Please Vivienne, jump on board with us. Embrace us and we’ll embrace you.”