The folks at Citizenship and Immigration Canada must rue the day that 70-year-old Barb Porteous of Osoyoos, B.C., became an unwitting, flag-waving media star.

Barb, you may recall, was a so-called Lost Canadian. She'd discovered that due to some archaic federal legislation she was not a Canadian citizen — and never had been — in spite of having believed she was throughout her adult life.

It was a shocker.

To the embarrassment of the federal government, CBC aired her story. Then both the New York Times and the Economist magazine picked it up, and finally, this spring, Barb was awarded that elusive passport.

But now she's back in the spotlight, this time in a glossy magazine published by the United Nations no less, called simply Refugees.

Flip to page 16 and there's the tale of Barb's battle with Ottawa, nestled amid horror stories of stateless thousands in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. Swell company.

And in spite of Barb's happy ending, it's presumably not the kind of attention any federal government actively seeks.