Is this at all common?

Last night at the bar after our Perl Mongers meeting, a guy who's new to town explained that his young son is soon going to have five citizenships.

He's German, which passes to his child.
His wife is British, ditto.
His wife's parent is Jamaican, which passes to her child.
The son was born in the United States.
They will soon be able to apply for Canadian citizenship.
None of the five will require relinquishing any others.

After hearing a few stories from tbiedl, I'm sympathetic for the bureaucracy this family may go through.

I wonder how much this is the Canadian experience: they tried to settle in the US some years back, but were denied citizenship; they went back to Europe, but decided they preferred North America, so Canada was it.