Urback: The Conservatives are right: Canada should end birthright citizenship

2025/10/11 Leave a comment

Nice to see my work cited and discussion of current and potential numbers:

…It’s difficult to get a complete picture of how many parents who are not citizens or permanent residents are giving birth. Using figures about women who “self-pay” for births at hospitals, Andrew Griffith at Policy Options calculated that tourism births – by which women travel to Canada specifically to give birth – increased to 5,219 in 2024, which is nearly back up to Canada’s prepandemic high. There may be some overlap in that number with the number of births by non-residents, such as temporary foreign workers and international students, since some of them will not be covered by provincial plans or direct-bill insurance from their schools. 

Those who are covered, however, are outside of that calculation. An analysis of hospital deliveries from the early 2010s to 2017 found that approximately 6,000 births annually were by non-permanent residents; “more specifically, around 4,000 births were by temporary foreign workers, more than 1,000 by international students, and around 1,000 by refugee claimants and TR permit holders, annually.”

In the last quarter of 2017, there were nearly 972,000 non-permanent residents living in Canada. By the last quarter of 2024, that number had ballooned to more than 3.1 million. If a comparable proportion of those residents have babies while in Canada, it will mean thousands more children with citizenship whose parents may or may not be entitled to stay in the country, but whose citizenship will absolutely complicate immigration decisions. …

Source: The Conservatives are right: Canada should end birthright citizenship

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Chris Selley: ‘Birthright citizenship’ is an outdated concept

2025/10/11 Leave a comment

More commentary on birthright citizenship:

…The Liberals say they’re not interested in changing the law — though they didn’t freak out and call everyone racist for even raising the subject, as you might expect them to. (Is it possible they can … learn?) And it’s difficult to imagine this issue ever floating to the top of the pile, even with a Conservative government in power.

But in the absence of legislative action, as with so many files, we could commit to start collecting relevant data about the birth tourism and non-resident birth phenomenon.

Statistics Canada reports that in 2024, 1,610 people gave birth in Canada who did not reside here. That’s the number usually quoted in reference to “birth tourism” — but does it include people on temporary visas, like students and temporary foreign workers? Those aren’t necessarily abuses of any system; people do shag, regardless of their immigration status, and sometimes those people do get pregnant.

When I inquired of Statistics Canada about this, I got an intensely Canadian answer. “The mother’s residency status is typically determined based on the information she provides on the birth registration form. However, the specific requirements and procedures may vary by jurisdiction,” a spokesperson explained. “Since this is self-reported, we can’t tell from the data whether someone is a temporary resident or not.”

Could we at least do better than that? Is that too much to ask — to know the scope of the problem that we’re probably not going to solve?

Source: Chris Selley: ‘Birthright citizenship’ is an outdated concept

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Inspections of temporary foreign worker employers in Canada have plummeted — despite a surge of workers

2025/10/11 Leave a comment

Not a good take:

The number of inspections of employers hiring temporary foreign workers has plummeted over the past five years — with most conducted without inspectors ever setting foot on worksites — even as the number of migrant workers and reports of abuse have surged, according to government data obtained by the Star.

Annual inspections fell 57 per cent, from 3,365 in 2020 to 1,435 in 2024, according to Employment and Social Development Canada, the department that oversees the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program.

There are three triggers for an inspection listed by the Immigration Department: a history of non-compliance, random selection and a reason to suspect non-compliance including a received allegation or complaint.

From 2020 to the end of 2024, 77 per cent of more than 12,000 employer inspections have been “paper-based only,” meaning the vast majority of these inspections take place remotely without any on-site reviews of the workplaces where it’s suspected that violations occurred.

The declining number of inspections comes at a time when the TFW program has ballooned, undergoing a massive expansion in the last decade, amid rising allegations of abuse and penalties issued to employers violating the program. Labour experts and advocates say the combination of fewer on-site inspections and rapid growth of the program raises serious concerns about oversight, enforcement and the protection of vulnerable workers.

The number of TFW approvals has more than doubled in recent years, rising to nearly 51,000 approvals in the third quarter of 2024 alone, more than triple the 15,507 approvals from the third quarter of 2021.From 2020 to the end of 2024, 77 per cent of more than 12,000 employer inspections have been “paper-based only,” meaning the vast majority of these inspections take place remotely without any on-site reviews of the workplaces where it’s suspected that violations occurred.

The declining number of inspections comes at a time when the TFW program has ballooned, undergoing a massive expansion in the last decade, amid rising allegations of abuse and penalties issued to employers violating the program. Labour experts and advocates say the combination of fewer on-site inspections and rapid growth of the program raises serious concerns about oversight, enforcement and the protection of vulnerable workers.

The number of TFW approvals has more than doubled in recent years, rising to nearly 51,000 approvals in the third quarter of 2024 alone, more than triple the 15,507 approvals from the third quarter of 2021….

Source: Inspections of temporary foreign worker employers in Canada have plummeted — despite a surge of workers

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Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025): Interesting data requirement addition

2025/10/10 2 Comments

Complete text of revised bill. Only part that struck my interest that had not been reported previously was the data provision:

26.1 (1) Within three months after the end of each fiscal year, the Minister must prepare a report for the previous year that sets out the number of persons who become citizens as a result of the coming into force of An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), their countries of citizenship other than Canada, if any, their most recent country of residence and the provisions of this Act under which they are citizens.

(2) The Minister must cause the report to be laid before each House of Parliament on any of the first 15 days on which that House is sitting after the report is completed.”

Source: Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025)

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Ibbitson & Bricker: We must not allow immigration to become a major cultural concern for Canadians

2025/10/09 5 Comments

Perspective and a warning by Ibbitson and Bricker:

…Put all this together and the difference between Canada and the two largest members of the Anglosphere becomes stark. While Canadians still focus primarily on the impact of new arrivals on housing and social services, many conservative Americans see immigrants as a cultural threat, while Britons possess a race-and-culture-based hierarchy of who is most welcome.

Within Canada, Quebec is always sensitive about language and identity. But compared to the U.S. and Britain, the cultural backlash toward immigrants in Canada is still relatively muted. The central concern is the ability of governments to manage the flow. 

That has enormous political consequences….

But confidence in Canada’s immigration system has been shaken by the belief that the system is out of control. In response, the federal Liberals have announced cuts to the level of permanent residents, temporary foreign workers and international students allowed into Canada, while taking steps to expedite the asylum claim process.

The risk of resentment remains. If political leaders are unable to do what it takes to restore confidence in this country’s immigration system, we could see in Canada what we are seeing elsewhere: whites resenting non-whites; rural residents estranged from urban; ideologies hardening and polarizing; and resentment toward immigrants becoming the dominant political issue.

You have only to look south or east to see what happens after that.

Source: We must not allow immigration to become a major cultural concern for Canadians

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Worswick: Why the Temporary Foreign Worker Program needs to be eliminated

2025/10/09 Leave a comment

More sensible proposals from Worswick:

…The TFW program was controversial under both the Harper government and the Trudeau government. In both cases, the government of the day ultimately bent its will to employer lobbying to make the program larger until an understandable public backlash ensued. The result is that the TFW program’s brand is severely damaged and should be retired. In its place, smaller, targeted programs would make sense. Two, in particular, are worth considering. 

Retaining a separate agricultural temporary visa program has merits. These types of jobs are unique in that they are geographically remote and seasonal by nature. Filling them with Canadian citizens or permanent residents may require large increases in wages, putting many farm enterprises at risk. 

Having a standalone global talent temporary visa program would also benefit the Canadian economy so long as the earnings are above the Canadian average. Such a program should be limited in size to minimize any negative effects on wages of higher-income Canadians. The program could prioritize the highest-earning jobs, as has been suggested for the U.S. H-1B program. Individuals taking these jobs would be excellent candidates as economic permanent residents.

Source: Why the Temporary Foreign Worker Program needs to be eliminated

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As concern about immigration grows, Conservative MP calls for an end to birthright citizenship

2025/10/09 Leave a comment

Getting some political attention, suspect its purpose given unlikely that the government will propose a bill to address birth tourism (both former ministers Fraser and Miller quoted but not Diab) and that the Bloc opposes, at least for the moment, any such initiative. Hope to have my annual update on CIHI numbers for non-resident births, which will be timely given Rempel-Garner’s raising the issue:

A Conservative MP’s unsuccessful push this week to end birthright citizenship is among a suite of stricter measures the party is proposing as concern about immigration grows for Canadians.

Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner made the pitch at a parliamentary committee meeting Tuesday night while proposing an amendment to the government’s “lost Canadians” bill, which aims to clarify rules for when Canadian citizens born abroad can pass along citizenship to their children.

Rempel Garner argued that with a rise in the number of non-permanent residents in Canada, including international students, people on work visas or asylum-seekers, citizenship should be granted only to people born in Canada with at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident. …

Source: As concern about immigration grows, Conservative MP calls for an end to birthright citizenship

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C-3: Canadian residency, language provisions added to bill on citizenship by descent

2025/10/08 Leave a comment

The irony, the Bloc casting the deciding vote to strengthen the requirements for citizenship by descent, including my point of the need for the residency requirement of 1,095 days to be met within a five-year period. No doubt the language and security requirements will be challenged at some point in the courts:

A parliamentary committee has passed changes to the citizenship bill to limit the passage of citizenship by descent to mirror what’s typically required of immigrants to become Canadian citizens.

On Tuesday, the standing committee on citizenship and immigration inserted into Bill C-3 language and knowledge requirements, as well as security checks for foreign-born descendants of Canadian parents who were also born abroad. 

To inherit Canadian citizenship by descent, those between 18 and 55 years old would need to have an “adequate” knowledge in English or French, and of the responsibilities and privileges of being a citizen. All adults would also be required to undergo security checks to determine if they would be inadmissible. 

Instead of the proposed cumulative 1,095-day physical residency required, a foreign-born Canadian citizen would need to have spent those number of days inside Canada in the five consecutive years before the birth of their child abroad in order to pass on their citizenship. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government tabled Bill C-3 in June, which is meant to comply with a court order that ruled the current two-generation cut-off provision of the Citizenship Act is unconstitutional because it limits the automatic passage of citizenship to the first generation of Canadians who were born outside Canada. 

The minority Liberal government must pass and implement the bill by Nov. 20 to make the law compliant with the Constitution’s Charter of Rights.

With the Liberals and Conservatives each holding four votes on the committee, Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean) held the balance of power in passing the amendments put forward by the Conservative opposition.

The MP said he didn’t see how these amendments on citizenship by descent would be deemed unconstitutional when the same rules are applied to naturalized Canadians.

“Everybody should be happy,” said Brunelle-Duceppe. “Am I wrong?” 

However, Uyen Hoang, a director general of the Immigration Department’s citizenship branch, said there’s a distinction between citizenship by descent and the naturalization process.

“These people become citizens at the moment of their birth, automatically by operation of law,” Hoang told the committee when asked for her opinion on the amendments. “The bill is to restore citizenship to lost Canadians. And with this type of requirement, we could potentially create another cohort of lost Canadians.” 

The committee will report Bill C-3 as amended to the House of Commons for debate before a final vote at third reading.

Source: Canadian residency, language provisions added to bill on citizenship by descent

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Rempel-Garner: Canada must now place restrictions on birthright #citizenship. Here’s why.

2025/10/08 1 Comment

Interesting that the Conservatives are raising birth tourism aspects of citizenship as part of their critique of Bill C-3)

…Today, there are millions of people living in Canada on temporary visas, comprising an astonishing 7%+ of the country’s population – a situation never before seen in Canadian history. Another estimated 500,000 undocumented persons are living in Canada too, as well as 300,000 people in the asylum claim queue (many with bogus claims). Many of the millions of temporary residents are set to have their visas expire, or have already expired.

In this context, it’s not much of a stretch to foresee that Canada’s practice of having no restrictions on jus soli citizenship acquisition is likely to be abused by people seeking to stay in the country after their visa expires or after a bogus asylum claim is found to be invalid. This is because while having a child on Canadian soil theoretically grants no immediate stay rights to parents who are temporary residents, in practice, court rulings, a deeply broken asylum system, protracted appeals, and sluggish deportationsfunctionally often allow them to remain.

Recent videos on social media advertising this loophole suggest this may be the case. The number of people born in Canada to temporary or undocumented residents is not publicly tracked, but recent policies by Canadian hospitals charging temporary residents for giving birth suggest it’s a problem. And birth tourism, the practice of non-residents (i.e. those on visitor visas) travelling to Canada to have their child on Canadian soil so that they can obtain citizenship, is also back on the rise. When former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper left office in 2015, birth tourism levels were 590% lower than today. Birth tourism is now at its highest levels ever, both in terms of absolute levels and percentages. These types of population growth are not typically accounted for in immigration levels planning….

Source: Canada must now place restrictions on birthright citizenship. Here’s why.

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Trudeau set a high bar on diversity in appointments. Will Carney match it?

2025/10/06 Leave a comment

I started collecting this data in early 2016 as I was curious to see how the “because its 2015” cabinet gender parity and the “government’s commitment to transparent, merit-based appointments, to help ensure gender parity and that Indigenous Canadians and minority groups are better reflected in positions of leadership” in ministerial mandate letters would translate in practice. This analysis demonstrates that this is one area where the Trudeau government delivered:

The Trump administration’s assault on diversity in government appointments is undoing years of progress in the United States toward more equitable representation in key positions of power. It stands in sharp contrast to the trend established by the Trudeau government over the last 10 years, which saw diversity in Senate, judicial, governor-in-council and heads-of-mission appointments increase dramatically.

Given this tension, it is fair to wonder what approach Prime Minister Mark Carney will adopt when it comes to diversity in government appointments. What is clear, as we explore below, is that the Trudeau government has given Carney an impressive challenge to match. But will he?

Trudeau delivered on diversity

Nearly a decade after the Trudeau government came to office promising gender parity in cabinet and a commitment to diversity, the data clearly shows that this was a promise largely kept.

Diversity as currently defined and measured by the Government of Canada includes women, Indigenous, visible minorities and persons with disabilities. They also increasingly report on LGBTQ+. Here’s an overview of the Trudeau government’s key contributions to improving diversity in government appointments:

  • Women formed the majority of Trudeau Senate, judicial, and governor-in-council (GIC) appointments.
  • Visible minority representation quintupled among judicial appointments and more than doubled among GIC appointments, tripling for deputy ministers.
  • Senate visible minority appointments only increased slightly compared to the Harper government.
  • Indigenous representation more than quintupled among Senate appointments, more than doubled among judicial appointments and tripled among deputy ministers.

Where readily available, this analysis also shows dramatic increases for LGBTQ+ and moderate increases for persons with disability.

The general benchmark comparisons are the overall percentages of the population: 50.9 per cent women, 26.5 per cent visible minorities, and five per cent Indigenous Peoples. For appointments requiring Canadian citizenship (Senate, judges, the majority of governor-in-council, heads of mission), the benchmark for visible minorities who are citizens is 19.5 per cent.

The following series of tables contrast the 2016 baseline with 2024 data….

Source: Trudeau set a high bar on diversity in appointments. Will Carney match it?

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