C-3 Citizenship: My Planned Remarks

2025/11/17 2 Comments

It will be a long SOCI meeting, as the Senate is holding all testimony in an over 4 hour session. Given the other witnesses, I will be the only contrarian voice on the need for a five-year limit to meet the residency requirement and the need for annual reporting of citizenship proofs issued under C-3 provisions (which the House immigration committee recommended but the Liberals and NDP reverted to the original bill at third reading).

CBA and CILA submissions focus largely on adoptions, advocating for birth date of adoptees, not the adoption date). CBA argues against requiring a consecutive residency requirement but doesn’t acknowledge that this can be cumulative within a five year period and would likely still be Charter compliant (allowing, to use their example, for Disneyland holidays).

Given the compressed timelines due to the court deadline, and the witness list, unlikely that SOCI will recommend and changes to C-3.

My planned remarks below:

C-3 Citizenship SOCI Remarks – FinalDownload

Link to meeting: Agenda

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C-3 Senate Hearing 17 November: My Submission

2025/11/11 Leave a comment

My submission, focussing on the Liberal/NDP agreement to remove the recommendations by the House Immigration Committee is below.

While removal and the unlikely to withstand legal challenges to language, knowledge and security/criminality proposals makes sense, removal of a time limit of five-years to meet the residency requirement of 1,095 days does not.

More puzzling is the removal of the requirement for annual reporting on the number of persons reclaiming their citizenship. The Minister and officials appeared weak when discussing the numbers and expected impacts, underlying the need for IRCC to share this data on open data or annual reports as they will be collecting it anyway:

C-3 Citizenship SOCI SubmissionDownload

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Globe editorial: There can’t be two types of Canadian citizen [C-3 citizenship by descent]

2025/11/04 2 Comments

Very good Globe editorial assessing Conservative and Bloc amendments to C-3 and correctly distinguishing between the sound amendments of having a time limit of five-years to meet the residency requirement of 1,095 days and the requirement to have annual reporting on the number of persons claiming citizenship under the Bill’s provisions and the less sound amendments to require language and knowledge assessment and criminality/security checks that apply to new citizens, not those entitled to citizenship.

The Liberals and NDP removed the amendments at third reading. We will now see how the Senate deals with the Bill shortly, and whether it passes the original bill or provides some sober second thought and reinstates these two amendments:

…Last month, the Conservatives, supported by the Bloc, added an amendment in committee to change the requirement that in order to pass on citizenship, a foreign-born Canadian needs to spend 1,095 cumulative days in Canada before the child is born or adopted. The Conservative change would require the parent to spend 1,095 days in Canada within a five-year period. This revision makes sense, as it means these individuals have truly lived here, rather than just spent a few weeks at their grandparents’ cottage each summer. It demonstrates a more meaningful connection with Canada, and administratively, it will be easier to prove. 

The Conservative amendments would also require a report to Parliament annually on how many new citizens the bill creates. This is a sensible requirement. 

The problems lie with the Conservatives’ addition of an English or French language test, a security screening for criminal activity, and a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history. These requirements are similar to those needed by immigrants applying for citizenship, so it sounds logical – but it confuses the issue. 

Halt of ‘Lost Canadians’ bill could mean citizenship for thousands born to parents with no ties to Canada

Canadians by descent get their citizenship at birth based on their parents’ status. Presumably, under the Conservative rules, if these people applied as adults for citizenship certificates or passports and failed the tests, they could be stripped of their citizenship. Uyen Hoang, director-general of the citizenship branch at the Immigration Department, has warned that the tests would be “impossible to operationalize.” …

Source: There can’t be two types of Canadian citizen

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Liberals, NDP bid to undo Harper-era rule on citizenship for Lost Canadians

2025/10/27 Leave a comment

The Liberals and NDP, along with government officials, are right to raise concerns regarding the amended Bill’s requirement for knowledge and language assessment along with security and criminality checks as these would likely not survive legal challenges.

However, there is no such impediment to the amendment requiring the residency requirement of 1,095 days within a five year period prior to the birth of a child. Nor is there any such impediment for requiring annual reports on the number of Canadians claiming their citizenship under the Bill’s provisions:

The Liberals and NDP are pushing for a citizenship bill to move forward without Conservative changes that would require security screening and language checks before children born abroad to foreign-born Canadians could qualify for a passport. 

Earlier this month, Conservatives, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, voted through a raft of changes to the government’s proposed legislation, known as Bill C-3. 

The bill aims to reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 that stripped people born into this situation, who are often known as Lost Canadians, of their automatic right to citizenship.

But the Conservative amendments to the Liberal bill – expected to go to a vote on Monday – would make people aged 18 to 54 clear several hurdles in order to inherit Canadian citizenship, putting them on roughly even ground with immigrants seeking citizenship. 

They would have to pass an English or French language test, be subject to security screening to check for criminal activity, and pass a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history.

Bill C-3 requires Canadian parents born abroad to demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside the country. They would need to spend a cumulative 1,095 days – the equivalent of three years – in Canada before the birth or adoption of the child seeking citizenship. 

The Conservative changes would require the 1,095 days to be consecutively spent in Canada within five years, and not made up of a few weeks, months or days over many years. …

Source: Liberals, NDP bid to undo Harper-era rule on citizenship for Lost Canadians

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Chapman: Bill C-3 corrects inequalities, brings Citizenship Act into compliance with the Charter

2025/10/14 Leave a comment

Written before the amendments made by the House immigration committee although I expect Chapman likely opposes all of the amendments based upon his previous writings and testimonies.

And in his criticism of the CPC and their procedural maneuverings, he neglects to acknowledge that the Liberal government and the NDP in previous parliaments poisoned the chalice by expanding the scope of the narrow S-245 to include removal of the first-generation cut-off, hardly an example of being “respectful of democratic institutions:”

…Last week, I watched the committee discussion with concern as the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre returned to a familiar, dogmatic and troubling playbook—one that elevates fear over fact, and partisan rhetoric over responsible governance. Dismissing expert analysis, disregarding a clear judicial ruling, and inflaming public sentiment may deliver short-term political gain.

However, the long-term cost is steep: the steady erosion of the institutions that underpin our prosperity, our unity, and the rule of law itself.

Democracy depends not only on laws and courts, but on a shared commitment to uphold them. When a political party becomes comfortable with unequal treatment under the law, distorts public discourse, or refuses to acknowledge and correct its own mistakes—these are not isolated errors. They are signs of weakened accountability and declining leadership.

The moral and legal imperative to enshrine equal rights in the Citizenship Act is clear. Equality rights cannot be optional. Canadians must be cautious not to follow the troubling path of democratic backsliding visible else where. A decade ago, few would have predicted how quickly democratic norms in the United States would come under pressure. Institutional decline begins quietly—then accelerates. As with financial markets, trust builds slowly but can disappear overnight. 

And in politics, fear remains an expedient and dangerous currency—too often spent more readily than truth. Leadership of any party—indeed of any party—must be about more than electoral calculus. It must be rooted in principle—be respectful of democratic institutions, guided by evidence, and committed to the rights, dignity, and equality of all citizens.

Bill C-3 is a necessary step in that direction.

Source: Chapman: Bill C-3 corrects inequalities, brings Citizenship Act into compliance with the Charter

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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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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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C-3 Citizenship: My Submission Arguing for the need for a time limit

2025/09/29 Leave a comment

Citizenship C-3 CIMM SubmissionDownload

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