Surge is normal and to be expected following the opening up of citizenship by descent beyond the first generation. It remains to be seen in a year or so how much of this is an initial surge versus ongoing demand. Given the expansive nature of C-3, the PBO assessment of some 20,000 per year, stated by the Minister and officials, may understate interest. But too early to call:
Applicants for Canadian citizenship certificates now have to wait a year because of a surge of interest from Americans interested in taking advantage of new Canadian citizenship rules, according to the Canadian government’s processing-time estimator.
U.S. applications surged during the first few months of 2026, with millions south of the border estimated to be eligible for Canadian citizenship based on their ancestry, after Canada changed its citizenship law.
Demand from U.S. citizens added 14,000 applicants to the queue. That includes a large concentration of people who live in New England, where an estimated three million Americans are eligible due to Canadian ancestry arising from mass migration south from 1870 to 1930, as previously reported by National Post.
The wait will be shorter for applicants who filed in December 2025, before the American surge.
Under the change, if a citizenship applicant was born before December 15, 2025, and can trace his or her lineage back to a Canadian ancestor, they are automatically eligible to apply for proof of Canadian citizenship….
…Buffalo resident William Siegner, whose maternal grandfather was born in Calgary, belongs to a group on Reddit created by people to share information about the process and documentations required. They also share their application information and timelines in an EXCEL file to track processing.
“There’s people who could be fifth-, sixth-generation Canadians, far further removed than I am, and have never lived in Canada,” said the 32-year-old urban planner, who accompanied his ex-partner to Canada for school in 2018 and worked in Vancouver for four years.
“They submitted after the law was passed and are having their things processed and having certificates issued.”
Based on the shared information of the Reddit group, Siegner has the impression that most of the people who applied under the interim measure have been referred to the Immigration Department’s program support unit. The unit is responsible for handling complex files.
He said he fell in love with Canada during his stay and would like to move back to Vancouver, where he has strong personal and professional connections. As soon as he heard about the interim measure, he and his mother started researching family records and gathering documents. They applied in March 2025.
Siegner has not received any update, and like Roetter, only found out through an access-to-information request that his case, too, has been referred to the program support unit….
As a United Church minister, I recently received a request for baptism information dating from 1858. The problem was that there were no churches and no travelling clergy in my community until the 1860s and no church records older that the 1880s. It may be fine to try to prove Canadian citizenship, but very often the records simply do not exist. They may have been lost, destroyed or even burned in a fire. We have shipped all our old records to the United Church Archives for storage. It is the best place for them.
More on the demand to prove citizenship links under C-3:
…Unlike record seekers before the new citizenship rule, Pugh said the people who reach out these days don’t usually have much information on their Canadian ancestors to guide the search. It creates more work for archivists.
“Because they don’t know where their baptism or that marriage took place, sometimes they don’t even know the city, they might just say, ‘I have a relative who was baptized in Ontario in 1850. Can you find it?’” he noted.
“It takes so much longer to prove a negative because we keep saying well, it could just be in this next register and so we have to look. So it’s much more time intensive than somebody who knows exactly which register it’s in.”
Also, records could be lost after being passed around multiple congregations as local churches amalgamated and separated over time, Pugh said. Variations of spelling, such as when a silent letter was missed or a name ended with an “ie” instead of a “y,” can all make the search that much more difficult, he added.
Where to start your genealogy search for citizenship
So far, Pugh estimated that his office has a 20 per cent success rate in searches based on the number of people that have come forward and the number of certified documents issued.
Due to the volume and complexity of requests, the United Church of Canada Archives has started to charge a $25 research fee and raised the fee for the certification of a pre-1900 certificate to $50 from $30 in order to hire a student archivist….
Yet another article on Americans seeking to establish Canadian ancestry. Good note of caution from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the weakening of citizenship:
…The change in citizenship law has meant a surge of requests from Americans for birth records at the provincial archives.
“So the old slogan, ‘be … in this place,’ if they can prove that they were in this place through descent, then they are eligible to become Canadian citizens,” said Joanna Aiton Kerr, the provincial archivist.
Aiton Kerr said the calls started coming in December of last year and haven’t slowed down since.
Provincial Archives staff are currently sifting through a backlog of over 1,000 requests, but it’s hard work, especially when they’re getting an additional 400 citizenship related requests a month.
“It’s certainly an increase in work, but the reason archives exist are to connect individuals who are seeking information with that information,” said Aiton Kerr.
“It’s the job, so we will cope.”
Widespread increase
The increase in requests from Americans looking for birth records can be seen in other provinces as well.
In 2024, the Nova Scotia Archives had received 262 “genealogical e-mail threads.” Through the first three months of this year, it’s already received 1,354.
Prince Edward Island’s Public Archives and Records Office has seen a 143 per cent increase in requests so far this year.
The Rooms in St. John’s, home to Newfoundland and Labrador’s archival records, has seen “a significant increase” in requests with the “majority of recent requests … coming from clients in the United States.”
It’s not just provincial archives that are seeing an increase in requests.
…Commitment or convenience
Not everyone is as much of a fan of the new Canadian citizenship laws.
Daniel Bernhard, the CEO for the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, said becoming a citizen is a “transformative and special moment for so many immigrants.”
“A citizenship ceremony is a really beautiful and moving and emotional testament to the joys of being part of the Canadian family,” he said.
But Bernhard is concerned about what the new laws will mean for the value of Canadian citizenship in the future.
He said citizenship has both rights and responsibilities and he’s concerned the new law could mean more Canadian citizens with limited connection to the country who could use the citizenship as an insurance policy.
“This now kind of creates a sort of second less emotionally resonant, less patriotic, less committed citizen who will hold on to Canadian citizenship in some other home country … just in case,” said Bernhard….
More commentary on citizenship by descent and the government’s overly expansive approach. Don’t believe it is possible to revisit the court decision given that this would have to have been done within a certain period, now expired, and unclear whether residency tests would survive judicial review.
Unfortunately, current government will not make any changes unless the numbers explode and start to overwhelm the system:
…This raises a serious question that Ottawa has failed to answer. What does it mean to be Canadian? There was a time when our passport carried real significance. It reflected a country that valued responsibility, stability, and a shared sense of purpose. It was respected internationally because it stood for something clear and consistent. That did not happen overnight. It was built over generations through policy choices that reinforced the value of citizenship.
Today, it feels like we are moving in the opposite direction. We are not strengthening what we built. We are diluting it. There is a simple business principle that applies here. It takes years to earn trust and only moments to lose it. Canada has spent decades building a reputation and a national identity that people respected. It does not take long to weaken that if the standards behind it are lowered.
This is not about rejecting newcomers or closing Canada off from the world. Immigration has always been a core part of this country’s success. People who choose to come here, build a life, and contribute to our communities strengthen Canada. That is very different from extending citizenship indefinitely to individuals whose only link is a distant ancestor. Those are not the same thing, and treating them as if they are undermines the integrity of the system.
There are practical solutions available, and they are not complicated. The federal government can establish clear residency requirements tied to citizenship by descent. It can require applicants to demonstrate a tangible connection to Canada, whether through time spent living here, economic participation, or cultural ties. It can also revisit its decision not to appeal the court ruling and seek clarity at a higher level, ensuring that the law reflects a balanced and defensible definition of citizenship.
Instead, Ottawa has chosen the path of least resistance. It avoids a legal challenge in the short term but creates long-term consequences that will be far more difficult to manage. A country cannot afford to treat citizenship as an open-ended entitlement. It is a privilege that should reflect a real bond between the individual and the nation.
Canada matters. What we have built matters. If we continue down this path, we risk turning citizenship into something transactional rather than meaningful. That is not a minor policy concern. It is a shift that strikes at the core of our national identity. A government that takes that lightly is not protecting Canada. It is eroding it, one decision at a time.
More US coverage to the C-3 changes, this from the NYT. Keeps on amazing me that nobody, including myself, noted this implication during discussions of the Bill:
…The change could extend Canadian citizenship to “potentially millions of people around the world, many of whom have never lived in Canada and may have only a distant ancestral tie to it,” said Rick Lamanna, a Toronto-based partner at Fragomen, a global immigration and relocation company.
The new policy, he added, stood in contrast both to those of other advanced economies seeking to limit immigration, and to the Canada’s own significant tightening of other immigration routes.
In the last two years, Canada has slashed the numbers of foreign students, temporary workers and the number of permanent residents. That has already resulted in Canada’s population shrinking.
The policy expanding who can qualify for Canadian citizenship also stands in stark contrast to the evolving discourse about who should be American in the United States, where President Trump wants to see even birthright citizenship curtailed.
Among developed economies, Canada now has one of the most inclusive rules on passing down citizenship generation to generation.
Until 2024, Italy offered citizenship by descent without any generational limit, a path many Americans utilized, but it has since limited citizenship to people with an Italian parent or grandparent.
Only a handful of other countries have in recent years broadened their citizenship to people with more distant ancestry, including Portugal and Slovakia, but with some limitations.
The burden of proof to pursue this new route to becoming Canadian is still significant, a spokesman for the Canadian immigration ministry said, particularly since it could require deep archival research and recovering documents that could be more than a century old.
“While these recent changes extended access to Canadian citizenship by descent, having distant Canadian ancestry alone does not make someone automatically eligible,” said Matthew Krupovich, a spokesman for the immigration ministry.
Documents that meet the bar for the Canadian authorities can include birth certificates, citizenship or naturalization certificates, or other official records showing family relationships and citizenship status, but not information gleaned from genetic testing.
There is early evidence that the new rules are already spurring higher demand for historical records. The Nova Scotia Archives, for example, has seen a sharp increase in requests for official copies of historical records, from about 260 requests in all of 2024 to about 1,500 in just the first three months of 2026, said John Macleod, a manager at the archives.
Still, the numbers for the first few weeks since the changes have gone into effect also highlight that most people fail to secure citizenship. Between Dec. 15 and Jan. 31, about 6,280 applications for proof of citizenship were processed by the Canadian authorities. Of those, 1,480 were confirmed as citizens by descent under the new rules, the immigration ministry said.
The motivation behind pursuing Canadian citizenship varies from person to person. …
Nothing new in the description but Fen Hampson nails it:
…Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said Canadians are generally a “welcoming people.”
“I think where people start looking askance is someone who’s never been to Canada, who has very thin ties. They can get a passport, becoming Canadians of convenience. People don’t like that,” he said.
Hampson said some also worry a surge of interest from Americans could delay efforts by refugees and asylum-seekers fleeing vulnerable situations.
“Canadians don’t like queue jumpers,” Hampson said.
More coverage on the increase of interest among American residents:
…Canada’s move is unusual at a time when many countries are tightening requirements for citizenship. A year ago, Italy passed a law restricting citizenship to the descendants of an Italian-born parent or grandparent, rather than the previous rule, which had no generational limit.
In 2024 Finland increased the required time living in the country before applying for citizenship to eight years from five. The change was said to promote integration by focusing on language skills and long-term residency. Sweden is considering a similar move to take effect this year.
As expected but still early to know whether PBO and IRCC estimates of about 20,000 annually are accurate or low:
Interest in Canadian citizenship by descent among citizens in a handful of countries — especially the United States — surged after the federal government passed a new law clarifying the rules.
C-3, which took effect on Dec. 15, 2025, allows someone born outside Canada to a Canadian parent who also was born outside Canada to file a citizenship claim — as long as the parent spent at least three years in Canada before their child’s birth or adoption.
The law was drafted and passed in response to a 2023 Ontario Superior Court order that found a law on citizenship by descent passed by Stephen Harper’s government was unconstitutional.
That Harper-era law said Canadians who were born abroad could only pass down their citizenship if their children were born in Canada.
The Liberal government under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, which did not appeal the 2023 ruling, faced a deadline to either pass legislation on new citizenship by descent rules or see the rules thrown out with no alternative.
Government officials, including then-immigration minister Marc Miller, told parliamentary committees studying the law that an unknown number of people would automatically become citizens without a legislated alternative in place.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reports receiving more than 12,000 citizenship by descent applications between Dec. 15, 2025 and the end of January.
While the December to January period saw a higher than normal number of applications, a department spokesperson said the government does not expect to see a “significant” uptick in applications.
The parliamentary budget officer estimated about 115,000 people would be eligible for citizenship under the bill.
The department approved almost 6,300 citizenship by descent applications between Dec. 15, 2025 and the end of January. Only 1,480 of them were approved under C-3; the remainder were approved through other laws.
U.S. citizens accounted for the largest national share of those applications. Nearly 2,500 Americans were approved in January alone.
Jacqueline Bart, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer, said there’s been a frenzy of interest among Americans looking to get a Canadian passport.
She said some of those applicants — including LGBTQ+ individuals and people with children requiring gender affirming medical care — are looking to move to Canada “right away.”
“It’s just been absolutely insane to the point where I can’t keep up with the work. I’m having to refer people to other lawyers,” Bart said.
Bart said while most of the inquiries are coming from lawyers looking for access to a second passport, she is beginning to get more inquiries from non-lawyers in the U.S.
“I think some of our inquiries are kind of spilling over into a more general sphere,” she said. “But the overwhelming majority of my clients are American. I would say maybe five per cent come from other countries, at most.”
While January 2026 saw a higher-than-average number of American citizenship by descent approvals, it only ranked third in terms of U.S. approvals in a single month in the last year. March 2025 saw more than 2,800 approvals out of the United States, while May saw almost 2,700.
The number of approvals from the U.K. — the country with the second highest level of interest in Canadian citizenship by descent — was also above average in January, at 290.
People from France saw 140 approvals in January. Other countries in the top 10 for citizenship by descent approvals include China, Hong Kong, India, Australia, the Philippines, the U.A.E. and Germany — they ranged between 75 and 120 approvals in January.
The vast majority of countries outside the top 10 saw no significant shifts in approval numbers — with the exceptions of Mexico and Belize.
Mexico was the source of 235 approved applications for citizenship by descent in January 2026; Mexican citizens received 610 approvals in all of 2025. Ninety applications out of Mexico were approved in December 2025 — a notable jump over the 2025 monthly average of 50 citizenship approvals.
While Belize accounted for only 45 approvals throughout 2025, it registered 40 in January of this year alone.
The immigration department issued about 82,500 approvals for citizenship by descent throughout 2025, with the United States generating the most — about 24,500 approvals.
The other countries in the top 10 accounted for only a combined 11,600 approvals in 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.
Multicultural Meanderings 