Part of receiver Austin Collie’s value to the B.C. Lions is that he’s Canadian. The irony is that, last year at this time, he wasn’t Canadian...at least not in the eyes of the CFL.

His citizenship hasn’t changed. In fact, the five-year NFL veteran has been a Canadian citizen since November 11, 1985 – the day he was born in Hamilton, where his father Scott was an import receiver for the Tiger-Cats. What changed was the CFL’s - or, more accurately, the CFL Players Association’s - view of what qualifies a professional football player as a Canadian or national (formerly non-import.) Until the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement last June, getting the approval of the CFLPA had always represented the biggest obstacle preventing the CFL from making the terms “Canadian” and “Non-import” synonymous.

Here’s a brief history lesson to explain.

Many of those who followed the intricacies of last spring’s intense CBA negotiations noted the fact that all of the members of the CFLPA executive had two things in common. First of all, Scott Flory, Jeff Keeping, Brian Ramsay, Marwan Hage and Jay McNeil were all offensive linemen. Second, and most relevant, they were all Canadian. The strongest voices in the PA have always been Canadian and, as such, protecting the jobs of Canadian players has always been a very high priority. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a strong believer that maintaining a high level of Canadian content is critical to the survival of Our League. The issue was that, for many years, the PA chose to protect those non-import jobs by militantly limiting the pool of players who were eligible to compete for them...and the CFL effectively granted them the power to do so. To be fair, the league was by no means innocent in all of this, as the hardline stance of the PA was a direct response to a trend towards member clubs exploiting loopholes in both the standards and the process for qualifying a player as a non-import. In any case, the new rules, under which a player’s classification is based primarily on his citizenship at the time he enters the CFL (rather than time of residency or first exposure to organized football), represent, by far, the most logical and most easily regulated system the league has ever employed.

As for Austin Collie, he is one of a number of Canadian football players who saw his CFL status change from import (now international) to national under the new CBA and he becomes the first of those players to enter the CFL. Other imports-turned-nationals whose names you may recognize include recently retired NFL receiver Nate Burleson, veteran NFL linebacker Jamaal Westerman, Detroit Lions rookie receiver T.J. Jones, and San Francisco 49ers long snapper Kyle Nelson. Burleson, Jones and Nelson are all sons of former CFL players, while Westerman’s younger brother, Jabar, is a defensive tackle for the Lions. Other players, like current NFLers Colin Cole (DT, Carolina Panthers), Orlando Franklin (OL, Denver Broncos) and John Urschel (OG, Baltimore Ravens) have always met the non-import qualifying standards, but didn’t have that status simply because they never submitted an application. Now, because their Canadian citizenship is common knowledge, they are considered nationals without being required to endure that process. All of these players are eligible to enter the Canadian Football League as free agents. They can neither be placed on negotiation lists, nor drafted. Any new qualifiers who have not yet completed their college eligibility will be entered in their regularly scheduled draft class. In 2015, the most notable, among no fewer than four such players, should be highly regarded Idaho defensive lineman Maxx Forde, who is the son of former NFL and CFL linebacker Brian Forde (no relation to me.)

As one who has studied the topic extensively and lobbied the CFL and CFLPA for nearly a decade to adjust the standards to make the terms "Non-Import" and "Canadian" more synonymous, I'm ecstatic about the rule change. This league requires a strong pool of Canadian talent, particularly with the recent expansion to nine teams and the hope of soon reaching 10. Yes, Canada is producing more and better football players than it ever has, but that’s being neutralized by the NFL’s ever-increasing awareness of the Great White North as a talent source. Frankly, the Canadian talent pool also takes a hit because some top prospects forgo CFL careers to pursue more lucrative job options. That’s just a reality of the CFL. In any case, based on evidence gathered over the last decade, the tangible impact of this rule change is that it will add an average of about three NCAA Division I players to every CFL draft class. Having played American college football by no means guarantees that a Canadian will succeed in Our League, but when I look at the list of players who would have qualified as nationals had these regulations been in place in past years, I can confidently state that the rule change will at least offset part of the loss of prospects to the NFL.

An interesting footnote to this story is that, had the Canadian Football League and its Players Association implemented the current criteria for a player to qualify as a national 20 years earlier, several Hollywood movies might have looked very different. Most CFL fans know that pro wrestler turned actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a member of the Calgary Stampeders in 1995. However, what you may not have realized is that Johnson, who played in the CFL as an import, would today qualify as a national because he is a Canadian citizen by birth. As an Import, Johnson struggled to crack the lineup of the CFL's most dominant team of the era and, thus, rather quickly gave up football in favour of other pursuits. However, as a non-import, he would've been a coveted talent and likely first-overall pick in the '95 draft, and thus would've been granted ample opportunity to develop as a CFL player.

Despite his newfound national status, The Rock is never ("...and when I say never, I mean never, EVER!") coming back to play in the Canadian Football League...but the hope is that Austin Collie is just the first of many previously excluded Canadians who will take advantage of this opportunity.