Immigration department suddenly suspends citizenship of scores of ‘Lost Canadians’

2026/06/18 Leave a comment

Further coverage with predictable comments by Chapman. Most of the coverage to date raises few concerns regarding the limited connection to Canada that most applicants have. Will continue to monitor numbers as they emerge:

…Don Chapman, who campaigned for decades for Lost Canadians to receive their citizenship, said for people with Canadian ancestors stretching back hundreds of years birth certificates were not always available, and other official documents such as census records have been accepted by IRCC. 

One Lost Canadian, he said, had an ancestor born in a part of Quebec that did not issue birth certificates. But it did have baptismal records. However, as her ancestors were Jewish they were not baptized. She relied on other official records, including the official census, to prove her ancestors was Canadian. 

“To revoke citizenship by e-mail and without a judicial review is horrifying. It also sets precedence in that no Canadian will ever be secure until citizenship is a right versus a legislated privilege,” he said. 

“I want everyone who was given citizenship to be reinstated, with assurances that they keep it. If not, I expect court challenges where the government should pay all expenses and damages.”

“After decades of being unconstitutionally denied their citizenship, Lost Canadians need to be welcomed home, not shunned,” he added. 

In its statement, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said that “trained officers review all the evidence before them before approving a citizenship certificate.”

The fresh review “is to determine, through an individualized process, whether the certificate was properly issued based on the evidence required by law,” the statement added. 

“This is a necessary and important safeguard, and all affected individuals will have an opportunity to provide additional documentary evidence in support of their case. If the review confirms that the individual is entitled to the certificate, it will be returned.”

Source: Immigration department suddenly suspends citizenship of scores of ‘Lost Canadians’

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Canada asks new citizens to hand back their citizenship certificates

2026/06/17 Leave a comment

Sigh…. Once again, none of these potential issues came up during Commons and Senate hearings on C-3, no such complications were raised and in general hearings did not focus on the effective shift to jus sanguines that C-3 engendered. Only Indian media I recall raised the “endless chain of citizenship” potential:

…The letters from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) give two reasons why these applications were flagged for review.

First, the documents submitted did not come from the source authority: the civil registry, the vital statistics office, provincial archive, or another official body that creates and holds the record needed to support a citizenship application.

Looking for a guide on how to obtain the needed descent documents from the province of Quebec? Visit our dedicated webpage to get all the details.

Second, when an applicant could not get a source document, they did not include a written explanation and proof that they had tried to obtain said documents.

Read against what citizenship by descent applicants describe as submitted, the cause for concern on the part of the citizenship department is generally that applicants do not adequately prove an unbroken lineage (through the appropriate documentation) from a Canadian citizen to themselves.

In other words, these surrender letters have been served to applicants who are Canadian but haven’t proven it the way the government needs.

Common trends among those who were flagged

Based on information they have submitted to citizenship forums, the people who received these surrender request letters tend to fall into a few groups.

Some used printouts from Ancestry or FamilySearch as their main proof for an ancestor. Some had certified records but from an archive rather than a vital statistics office, and now wonder whether an archive counts.

Some had a real gap; no birth record exists for an ancestor born in the 1850s, but they never formally documented the gap to IRCC in their application.

What can I do if I have already received a letter?

Individuals who have received a surrender letter are usually told explicitly what factors have raised an immigration officer’s suspicions, and they can still submit further documentary evidence in support of their application.

In the referenced round of issued letters, the two reasons cited (1. submitting “documents not from an original source authority”; and 2. missing explanations for unavailable records) point straight at the fix.

Utilizing the best practices covered in the previous section and carefully documenting any gaps in the supporting documentation proving your line of descent will already put your application on a significantly stronger footing.

Source: Canada asks new citizens to hand back their citizenship certificates

Government abruptly suspends citizenship certificates issued under ‘lost Canadians’ law

…Estimates of how many people could qualify for Canadian citizenship under the change vary. While the Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that 115,000 people could be affected by the change, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab told the House of Commons immigration committee that they didn’t expect a surge. 

Since the change went to effect on Dec. 15, the wait times for IRCC to process applications for citizenship certificates has increased substantially from five months in May 2025 to 15 months. 

While the backlog was in 56,000 applications in April and 70,400 in May, IRCC’s website shows 82,000 people are now waiting for their applications for citizenship certificates to be processed.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7bUPP/1

Lisa Middlemiss, a Montreal immigration lawyer, said it is very unusual for IRCC to suspend a citizenship certificate once it has been issued — let alone suspend so many of them at the same time.

“It’s very unfortunate and very concerning,” she said in an interview. “If IRCC had concerns about the documentary evidence submitted in favour of a proof claim, then they should have investigated that before making a positive determination and not be reopening people’s closed cases.”

Filed under C-3, Citizenship Tagged with ,

The world’s wealthy are migrating like never before

2026/06/15 Leave a comment

Good survey from The Economist. No fan of these programs as generally minimal benefit to the host country:

….Yet the wealthy can find that a warm welcome sometimes goes cold. In January 2025 Spain, once a popular destination, cancelled its €500,000 ($577,000) residency programme in an effort to curb property speculation. In April the European Union’s Court of Justice ruled that Malta’s scheme broke eu law because it “commercialised” citizenship (though the island’s “citizenship-by-merit” programme, which admits entrepreneurs, has since gained traction). In April this year Argentina cancelled a tender to set up an investment-migration programme, issued only in December, which had drawn interest from 11 firms. Last month Portugal extended most migrants’ waiting time for passports from five years to ten.

Many governments are facing pressure to increase the diligence of their citizenship and residency programmes, notes Mr Klasko. The big issue is: “Do you as a country know the background of people who you are giving passports to?” In other words, geopolitical uncertainty does not only trouble the rich. But plenty of countries will take them—and plenty of advisers are eager to help them choose. 

Source: The world’s wealthy are migrating like never before

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment, Immigration Tagged with ,

A ‘Birthright Citizenship’ Exception — From Canada: The pregnant Dutch crown princess and a quickie proclamation of ‘extraterritoriality’

2026/06/11 Leave a comment

Interesting:

“As the Supreme Court ponders the legality of restrictions President Trump is attempting to impose on “birthright citizenship” in the United States (expect a decision the day the justices leave town for the summer), one unique royal birth at an Ottawa hospital in the depths of World War II offers an exception to the jus soli laws in our neighbor to the north, which mirror our own. The question is whether it could be replicated in this country should the High Court not rule in the administration’s favor.

…Would It Work Here?

The question is whether a similar scheme could be replicated in this country to limit birthright citizenship to the newborn children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents by declaring any place children are born of other parents as “extra-territorial”.

Legally, it’s a longshot, but keep in mind that: (1) when King George issued his proclamation, nobody knew where Princess Juliana would give birth, and thus extraterritoriality followed her wherever she went before giving birth; (2) that proclamation was issued and effective under the same common law principles the Court relied on in Wong; and (3) it is a precedent, albeit a unique and foreign one.

As for the first — and key — point, consider the following question from Justice Barrett during the oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, the pending birthright citizenship case, to the attorney opposing the president’s EO on the accepted principle that there’s an exception to U.S. birthright citizenship for the children of diplomats:

[I]f you look at the diplomatic exception almost like diplomats and their children have little bubbles around them, like the embassy is really the territory of that country, and even when they’re traveling around, they’re all not subject to the jurisdiction by virtue of this territorial fiction, are those just applications of the rule?

Princess Juliana wasn’t subject to a diplomatic exception (she was a refugee, not a diplomat), but the king’s proclamation created a “bubble” around the heir-apparent wherever she went up to the time of Princess Margriet’s birth in much the same way as the diplomatic bubble described by Justice Barrett applies.

Here, in part, is how counsel responded to the question: “So the thing that all of the exceptions have in common, again, is this sense that the — the person is — has this fiction of extraterritorial — extraterritoriality around them.

If the accepted exceptions to birthright citizenship (the former one for Indians, and the current ones for children of diplomats, and children born in zones of enemy occupation and on foreign ships) have a “fiction of extraterritoriality around them”, what impact would an actual presidential declaration of “extra-territoriality” have

To ask that question is to answer it, but it begs a second question: Can the president, acting on his own, declare parts of the United States to be “extraterritorial” for the brief moments that children of those who are not citizens or green card holders are born there?

Does a 1942 proclamation by the British monarch, issued to avoid a potential succession crisis in the Dutch royal house, offer a precedent an American president could follow to bar the children of aliens here illegally and/or temporarily from automatically receiving U.S. citizenship? It’s a question the White House may want to ask, assuming the Supreme Court gives him bad news on its way out of town.”

Source: The pregnant Dutch cown princess and a quickie proclamation of ‘extraterritoriality’

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Canadian Immigration Tracker: First Quarter 2026

2026/06/09 Leave a comment

Delayed due to grandparent duty!

Covid-19 Immigration Effects – Key Slides – 2026 First QuarterDownload

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with

U.S. applications for Canadian citizenship surge, causing delays

2026/05/18 Leave a comment

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….

Source: U.S. applications for Canadian citizenship surge, causing delays

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C-3 and Baptism Records

2026/05/13 Leave a comment

Another little nugget on the interest that C-3 has created:

Why this Toronto man is being flooded with requests from Americans about their Canadian ancestors, May 8

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.

David Shearman, Owen Sound, ON

Source: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/proving-citizenship-with-old-baptismal-records-not-always-possible/article_b1b558bf-4c87-4bd8-a8cb-3664d2a13e09.html

Filed under C-3, Citizenship

Canada gave citizenship to a terrorist. Revoking it has been ‘ridiculously’ slow

2026/05/12 Leave a comment

Sigh….:

…Acquiring Canadian citizenship is a relatively straightforward process familiar to millions. Revoking it from those who never should have received it takes considerably longer.

A Global News review of cases that have come before the court over the past two years reveals that it routinely takes more than a decade to rescind citizenship from those who obtained it through fraud.

Even when immigration officials appear to have substantial evidence that foreign nationals obtained citizenship by submitting false information, the process is plodding.

Canada’s immigration department declined to disclose its “processing timelines” or discuss individual cases, but a Global News review identified 11 handled by the Federal Court since Jan. 1, 2024.

In almost every instance, the time between the start of an investigation and revocation was at least 10 years — and some are still ongoing.

The only one that took less time involved a Filipino man who became a Canadian using a fake name. Revoking his citizenship was an eight-year exercise. A court challenge that was denied in 2024 lasted another year.

The most common reason cited by the government for rescinding citizenship was that it was obtained under a false identity, according to the Global News review.

For example, when a Sri Lankan became a citizen in 2000 using the persona of a dead relative, and then married his cousin, it took 11 years to fix, plus two more for a court appeal.

In another case, a Canadian admitted in 2011 that he was paid to marry a Chinese woman and sponsor her for citizenship. Her appeals were only exhausted in 2026.

The cases also involved citizenship that officials said was wrongly granted to those who had concealed their involvement in crimes and war crimes.

The slowest and perhaps most harrowing recent case involved a former Guatemalan army officer who became a citizen in 1992 after hiding his role in a massacre….

Source: Canada gave citizenship to a terrorist. Revoking it has been ‘ridiculously’ slow

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation

Globe editorial: Looking beneath the myths of Alberta separatism [citizenship]

2026/05/12 Leave a comment

Yes, the citizenship and passport issue, and the assumption that dual citizenship would be automatic, becomes less likely in the case of separation:

…The Canadian passport is ranked as one of the most desirable in the world, allowing unfettered access to more than 180 countries. It’s understandable that Albertans voting for independence might want to keep such a valuable document. And under a recent Canadian law granting citizenship to descendants – even great-grandchildren – of Canadians, they would appear to be able to do so.

However, that presupposes the law is not changed. There’s no reason to believe it won’t be.

For starters, political entities rarely split up amicably. Alberta leaving Canada is more likely to be a rancourous process that produces unhappy people on both sides. The idea that the federal government would then allow millions of people from what is – let’s remember – another country retain their privileges as Canadians is nonsensical. 

Several 20th-century examples are worth noting here. 

When East Bengal split from Pakistan in 1971, Islamabad passed a law to strip residents of the newly independent state of their Pakistani citizenship. And when Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, residents of the new country became dual citizens only if they had specific ties to the old country. Most became, simply, Panamanians.

Separatists claim that, under current law, it would be possible for seceding Albertans to remain Canadians as well. Perhaps.

But the law would inevitably be changed, as history demonstrates….

Source: Looking beneath the myths of Alberta separatism

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Why this Toronto man is being flooded with requests from Americans about their Canadian ancestors

2026/05/11 Leave a comment

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….

Source: Why this Toronto man is being flooded with requests from Americans about their Canadian ancestors

Filed under C-3, Citizenship Tagged with ,

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