When the Mark Carney government tabled Bill C-3 in June, the purpose of the proposed legislation was to reduce citizenship barriers for any foreign-born children of Canadians who were themselves born abroad, including both second and subsequent generations.
This would address controversy that surrounded the previous first-generation citizenship cutoff, which resulted in cases where Canadian parents born abroad could not pass on their citizenship to children also born outside of the country.
However, the biggest effect of these Citizenship Act amendments could be to complicate Canada’s citizenship administration and open the door to applicants who have minimal connection with Canada.
Bill C-3 is largely identical to the previous government’s C-71, which died on the order paper early this year when Parliament prorogued, followed by a new Liberal Party leader and the general election.
This citizenship reform was sparked after the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, in 2023, ruled as unconstitutional a 2009 law passed by the Stephen Harper government that ended the right of Canadians born abroad to pass down citizenship to any children born outside of Canada.
After a year of inaction while Ottawa’s political landscape evolved, this past spring the Ontario Superior Court of Justice gave the federal government a deadline of Nov. 20 to pass and implement the new legislation.
In addressing issues that led the 2009 law being declared unconstitutional, Bill C-3 significantly expands the definition — and the number — of Lost Canadians by not requiring a time limit under which parents born abroad can meet the cumulative physical-presence requirement of 1,095 days (three years).
Bill C-71 opens up a possible never-ending chain of citizenship
Questions persist as Ottawa prepares Citizenship Act amendments
If applicants did not have a five-year limit within which to amass three years of accumulated residency (as is the requirement for permanent residents), the new criteria would end up recognizing many as Canadian citizens whose links to Canada are tenuous.
Speaking last December to a Senate committee that was studying Bill C-71, then-immigration and citizenship minister Marc Miler said the time limit was being eliminated due to a concern that “we would create another series of Lost Canadians.” A senior official from Miller’s department told the committee that eliminating the time requirement was intended to make it easier for qualified recipients to claim citizenship, including those who “come to Canada to study every summer or visit their grandparents so they have built up that connection to Canada over many years and not in a short time frame.”
Testimony at the Senate committee also revealed that the government was basing the policy change on the relatively low numbers of previous cohorts of Lost Canadians, some 20,000 since 2009, most recently at a rate of about 35 to 40 per year. Miller stated, “It’s sure to go up, but I don’t think there are these wild scenarios where we’ll have hundreds and thousands of people.”
This casual assertion, however, contrasts greatly with perceptions held abroad, where headlines proclaimed that the new law would open the door to allow thousands of people to claim Canadian citizenship.
Given that the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has not provided estimated numbers and impacts beyond broad statements, how many members of the second generation born abroad could avail themselves of Canadian citizenship?
The potential number of people affected is substantial.
Of the estimated four million Canadian citizens living outside Canada, about half were born abroad. As of 2017, two-thirds of them lived in the U.S. Another 15 per cent were in the U.K., Australia, France, and Italy. Unsurprisingly the portion living in all other countries has been rising, from 14 per cent in 1990 to 20 per cent in 2017.
In the context of Bill C-3, this trend is noteworthy. Securing Canadian citizenship may not be a top priority for second- and subsequent-generation expatriates in the U.S., EU, and other politically stable places. But it would be much more of an urgent concern for those in less stable countries.
Further complicating the issues surrounding Bill C-3, expatriate Canadians are older than those living in Canada – 45.3 years old compared to 41.7. Citizens by descent (i.e. someone born outside Canada to a Canadian citizen) are younger still, at an average age of 31.7. Given their younger ages, citizens by descent are more likely to have children, who will then be able to obtain Canadian citizenship if their parents have met the residency requirement.
Without an established timeframe, it will be more challenging for applicants to provide citizenship officials with proof of residency, just as it will be challenging for the government to verify residency and predict citizenship acquisition year over year. For example, a person who has studied in Canada continuously for five years would have an easier time providing proof of residency than someone who has visited or worked in Canada at various times for different reasons.
In terms of protecting Canada’s sovereignty, the porous timeframe could also provide opportunities for long-term foreign interference by countries like China and India in recruiting and exploiting their own expats who have acquired Canadian citizenship. There is currently no security or criminality vetting for Canadians by descent and presumably the same would apply to the second generation born abroad as well.
Same rights, divergent pathways
Under current law my own grandson, who was born in Europe, cannot pass down Canadian citizenship to any of his future children. Under Bill C-3 he would gain that right, but only after first spending 1,095 cumulative days in Canada. For people like him, one strategy for achieving that would be to attend a Canadian university or college and accumulate most or all of the 1,095 days while getting a degree.
However, for a Canadian born abroad who, say, maintains a cottage in Canada and spends eight weeks a year there each summer, it would take nearly 20 years to acquire the right to give their descendants Canadian citizenship.
The road is even longer for second-generation Canadians who spend most of their life abroad. Even if they make occasional trips to Canada, they would not likely accumulate the 1,095-day requirement unless they return permanently, say, in retirement.
Descendants who are temporary residents (perhaps through a job transfer, or as spouses of skilled workers or students) would likely achieve the necessary physical-presence threshold, but temporary foreign workers on seasonal or short-term contracts would probably never meet the requirement.
Estimates of expected numbers needed
Citizenship officials say that the number of Lost Canadians who want to be found is much smaller, about 20,000 to date, than the “between one and two million” as claimed by some advocates. (Likewise, the low number of expatriates who register and vote at election time is another indicator that the number of Lost Canadians is lower than many suggest.)
However, Bill C-3’s potential impact could be disproportionately large, significantly affecting government workload and bloating the current processing time of five months or longer for citizenship proofs. Officials from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada need to determine estimates for the number of new citizens expected under the new law and the resources required to handle the increased workload.
Arguably, Bill C-3 would move Canada closer to being a hybrid jus sanguinis/jus soli regime, making it possible for families to maintain intergenerational Canadian citizenship through different scenarios. This currently is not possible.
In the broader sense, however, citizenship policy is about striking the balance between facilitation (making it easier to become citizens and fully participate in the political life of Canada) and meaningfulness (ensuring that becoming Canadian is a significant step in the integration journey for both applicants and Canadian society as a whole).
In my view, the accumulated-physical-presence requirement should be time-limited to five years, just as it is for new Canadians. As former prime minister Justin Trudeau stated, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” By implementing two time requirements — five years vs. no time limit — the bill would create two categories of Canadians.
Canadian citizenship is a precious gift. At the committee stage, members of Parliament must be able to fulsomely examine the implications, both good and bad, of an open-ended residency requirement and seriously consider the option of establishing a specific timeframe of five years within which to accumulate the required 1,095 days to qualify for Canadian citizenship.
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