Ciudadanía de conveniencia

¿Se acuerdan del escándalo que se armó en Canadá por las demoras en evacuar a los miles de ciudadanos canadienses en el Líbano? Mark Steyn, muy duro, sostiene que el verdadero escándalo no son las demoras sino el hecho de que la canadiense se haya transformado en una ciudadanía de conveniencia. Duro, muy duro:

Here's one of my favorite numbers: 50,000 -- as in "50,000 Canadians," as in "As many as 50,000 Canadians are believed to be in Lebanon" (CBC News), and "There were an estimated 50,000 Canadians in Lebanon when fighting broke out" (Canadian Press), and "There were some 50,000 Canadians in harm's way, trapped in a country that Israel was relentlessly bombing" (the Toronto Star).

The question is: Why are they "in harm's way"? How did "50,000 Canadians" come to be in Lebanon? Is it one of our major trading partners? Has Bombardier opened up a Ski-Doo plant there? Is Beirut where the Quebec Nordiques wound up? 50,000 Canucks out of a total Lebanese population of 3.8 million works out to about 1.3 per cent of the population. Hezbollah claims 400,000 supporters in Lebanon after 20 years of diligent recruiting and investment by Iran, but Canada has managed to amass an eighth of that figure with nary a thought. Despite significantly smaller populations than our G7 colleagues, we have more citizens in Lebanon than the Americans, British and Germans combined.