Karas: End unconditional birthright citizenship in Canada to curb abuses

2026/04/06 Leave a comment

Karas continues to argue, justifiably, against birth tourism.

While the legislative change in simple, implementation is more challenging given Canada’s federal system where birth registries and vital stats agencies are provincial responsibly. Former IRCC ministers Kenney and Alexander abandoned plans in 2012 given these difficulties and lack of provincial agreement: see my What the previous government learned about birth tourism:

…Ending “birthright by default” in Canada is not about closing the door to immigrants – it is about closing a loophole. A straightforward amendment to the Citizenship Act to require that at least one parent be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident for a child born in Canada to automatically obtain citizenship would dissuade birth tourism overnight. Genuine newcomers would still be welcome through our immigration channels, and children born in Canada could still acquire citizenship once a parent becomes a citizen or via a naturalization process. This reform would protect our social and health systems from unfair burdens and ensure that citizenship is reserved for those with a real stake in Canada. Notably, Canadians across the spectrum support such a change: in one poll, 64% of respondents agreed that birthright citizenship should be denied to babies born to tourists or short-term visitors.

Canada’s generosity should not be misused as a shortcut to a “dream passport.” Ending unconditional birthright citizenship is a prudent, necessary step to safeguard the value of Canadian nationality. It would shut down an entire boutique industry of “passport babies” that has thrived at our expense, particularly drawing in wealthy travel-from-abroad clients. It would affirm the principle that Canadian citizenship is earned through genuine connection – by blood, by upbringing, or by naturalization – not by accident of birth location. Dozens of other successful, welcoming countries have already made this change, striking a balance between openness and fairness. Canada can do the same. Closing this loophole would uphold the integrity of our immigration system, protect public resources, and underscore that being Canadian is a privilege to be gained through true attachment to this country, not purchased through birth tourism. It is about fairness: citizenship should be a deeper bond than just being born in the right place at the right time.

Source: OP-ED: End unconditional birthright citizenship in Canada to curb abuses

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Who counts as Canadian? The Charter case reshaping Canadian citizenship: Randolph Hahn for Inside Policy

2026/04/06 Leave a comment

Interesting how this view has emerged that this possibility was not raised in any substantive way during the parliamentary and other discussions of C-3 and predecessor bills, with discussion focused on retroactive application to the second generation born abroad, not earlier generations. Examples include Idées | Après la loi C-3, un réveil franco-américain, and the CBC article below this commentary, both with respect to early waves of Quebec emigration to the USA.

As the CBC story makes clear, considerable work is still required to document the family links, which I can appreciate having done some genealogy myself. IRCC may face challenges in verification.

As in all cases of “lost Canadians,” the degree to which individuals will wish to avail themselves of Canadian citizenship will likely be significantly less than the overall number of Canadian expatriates in the second generation and beyond. But given that most descendants of Canadians reside in the USA, there appears to be a Trump push factor.

2027 data will provide an indication:

…Stakeholders in citizenship law are now wondering how the new law will be interpreted and applied. An increasing consensus is emerging that the potential beneficiaries could include anyone who has an ancestor who was born in Canada, no matter how far back – even before 1867. It may be that many people in New England (who have ancestors from the Maritimes) or even Louisiana (who can trace their lineage back to the expulsion of Acadians in the 18th century) may now have claims to Canadian citizenship.

A report by House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration references a report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (for Bill C-71). A section titled “Volumes” includes an estimate of people affected by the legislative amendments beginning in 2025–26 but tellingly adds  “… estimates on Canadians living abroad and the projected total number of individuals that would be affected by the Bill are subject to uncertainty.”

Not included in Bill C-3 are any requirements for security checks on those who would claim citizenship under the new rules. Nor are they required to provide police certificates or pass language or knowledge tests. According to the Act, “Canadians who are currently born citizens by descent are not required to undergo security or criminality screenings in order to be or remain citizens.”

Moreover, a committee briefing from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration notes that most people currently excluded from citizenship because of the first-generation limit were born after 2009, when it came into force. This cohort consists largely of minors aged 16 and under in 2025 and are generally deemed to be lower risk for security or criminality purposes.

In fact, Bill C-3 opens the door to citizenship for many people born before as well as after 2009. Among them are many people who might give rise to security concerns. But since they are now deemed Canadian citizens by law rather than by grant, they do not need to submit to security checks. This raises serious concerns in an increasingly dangerous world.

Equally important is the broader issue of what makes a person Canadian. By opening the citizenship door so widely, it diminishes the importance of an inherited history and a shared stake in the future.

While the government aimed for prospective uniformity, by sidestepping retroactive changes it may have inadvertently bolstered the case that Canada truly is “the first post-national state.”

Randolph Hahn is a partner with Garson Immigration Law and has practiced exclusively in citizenship and immigration law for many years. He is a former chair of the Citizenship and Immigration Section of the Ontario Bar Association and is the associate editor of the Immigration Law Reporter. He has authored many professional papers.

Source: Who counts as Canadian? The Charter case reshaping Canadian citizenship: Randolph Hahn for Inside Policy

Millions of Americans can now claim Canadian citizenship by descent. But they have to prove it

…In Quebec, official documents dating back to 1621 and up to 100 years ago are kept by the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), with more recent records available through the Directeur de l’état civil.

Sarah Hanahem, an archivist with the BAnQ office in Montreal, said while there’s always been an interest from Americans looking into their ancestry, requests for certified copies have exploded.

“In January 2025, we had 32 requests for certified copies of vital records and this year in January 2026, we’ve had over 1,000,” she said, adding most of those requests were made by Americans.

In statements to CBC, other archives across the country, including New Brunswick, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Ontario, have also seen a sizable increase in requests from the same time last year.

Because of the sudden surge in demand, Hanahem warned that international applicants should expect delays. 

The priority, she said, is to fulfil requests by Quebec residents.“BAnQ is a government entity and we are paid with Quebec tax dollars.”

But more than that, Hanahem said the process itself is lengthy and can involve a lot of research. 

There are sometimes discrepancies with the spelling of names, some of which might have changed over time, she said. Other times, critical information like which parish someone was born in, is unknown or key dates are approximate when actual dates are required.

“We have to go back to the original register,” Hanamen said, explaining some of the bound volumes are very old and need to be handled carefully. …

Source: Millions of Americans can now claim Canadian citizenship by descent. But they have to prove it

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C-3 Citizenship Transmission: Who is likely to apply

2026/04/06 Leave a comment

One of the frustrations during C-3 hearings on the removal of the first-generation citizenship transmission restriction was the weak data presented by the government and the overly general but nevertheless useful PBO analysis.

IRCC did, however, indicate some 4,000 interim applications had been received and shared the data regarding these applications: gender, age, country of residence.

This working paper presents the analysis for citizenship data nerds.

C-3 pending applications and citizenship proofsDownload

Filed under C-3, Citizenship

Bouie: The Birthright Con

2026/04/02 Leave a comment

Appears from today’s hearings that SCOTUS is inclined to agree with Bouie’s assessment:

…It is not so much that revisionism is on its face outrageous, but that any alternative reading of the citizenship clause must strike at the heart of the rejection of Dred Scott. On this count, Trump and his defenders fail. Their vision of citizenship — which would plunge countless children into statelessness as a permanently subordinate class — would bring Dred Scott back from the dead. And it would do this in support of a political agenda that seeks nothing less than the reconstruction of race hierarchy and the rank domination of despised minorities.

The evidence in favor of the traditional view of the citizenship clause is overwhelming. To rule otherwise is to say, in essence, that two plus two equals five. Which is to say that if the Supreme Court decides in favor of Trump, it will have less to do with law or history than the political power of the president and his movement.

Trump v. Barbara, then, is a stark reminder that the struggle over constitutional meaning involves the entire nation. The revisionist case rests less on new evidence than it does on Trump’s claim to embody the nation and its desires. If he is ascendant, then the people must want a closed, cloistered society.

Source: The Birthright Con

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Lynch and Mitchell: The government must change in these three key ways to meet challenges of the moment

2026/04/02 Leave a comment

Usual excellent diagnostique as well as usual weak analysis of the how. Lynch was clerk when Service Canada’s more ambitious approach of service driving policy rather than the usual policy driven service was killed:

…The key operational culprit is complexity — the dense web of rules, reporting requirements and oversight mechanisms originally meant to safeguard the integrity of government operations but whose cumulative effect has been to make operational delivery slower, more cautious and less effective — at the cost of public confidence.

What is needed is a focus on operational simplification and end-to-end results. When there is too much oversight, or too little, results suffer. When the process itself becomes the benchmark, results become secondary. When accountability for delivery is opaque, results decline. When there are too many priorities at one time, results become a casualty. When there is too much centralization and second guessing, results deteriorate. It is tangible delivery results that the public wants to see.

These are incredibly challenging times. They require an urgent transformation of state capacity. To preserve our economic, political and territorial sovereignty, Canadians need a federal government operating at its very best.

Kevin Lynch is a former clerk of the Privy Council. Jim Mitchell is a former senior public servant in the Privy Council Office and Treasury Board. 

Source: The government must change in these three key ways to meet challenges of the moment | Opinion

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NDP Leader Avi Lewis Wants to Reverse Carney’s Immigration Cuts

2026/04/02 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see how this plays out given current public opinion given the excessive numbers of the Liberal government (now being reversed) but there is a “more the merrier” crowd of settlement organizations, education institutions, academics and some in the business community:

…“We are calling very clearly for a single-tier immigration system, based on permanent residency and status on arrival, that gives rights and stability—like our grandparents received when they first came to this country. We need an immigration system that reunites families, welcomes refugees fleeing wars around the world, and does not create two classes of workers.

We will reverse Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cuts to immigration levels. Through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, we will hire 3,000 immigrant caseworkers immediately to address the backlog of 1 million immigrant applications that are stuck and going nowhere.

We will end provincial rules that restrict and tie foreign workers to specific employers. We will end limits based on sector, hours, occupation, or category—restrictions that make workers vulnerable. We believe we should create a network of reception centres for refugees across the country, with real funding for shelters and housing. We also need to fix credentialling problems. Many people come to Canada because of their skills, but credentialling issues prevent them from using the skills they brought with them.”

Source: NDP Leader Avi Lewis Wants to Reverse Carney’s Immigration Cuts

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Closed for business: The unravelling of Canada’s Start-Up Visa program: Nino Melikidze and Steven J. Paolasini

2026/04/02 Leave a comment

Good account of the troubled history of this program (I am generally sceptical of business immigration programs as governments rarely get them right):

…One of the most troubling aspects of the Start-Up Visa program is how long mismanagement was allowed without meaningful consequences. Over time, credible allegations surfaced that some designated organizations facilitated questionable investment arrangements, sold incubator placements, or approved start-up commitments with little genuine validation. Yet rarely, if ever, were organizations removed from the designated list or suspended until it was far too late to prevent the program’s collapse.

To restore credibility to Canada’s entrepreneur immigration system, the government must conduct a full investigation into the financial transactions and agreements executed under the SUV framework. The investigation should focus on the 10 designated organizations that were responsible for the majority of total program intake.

The goal of the audit would be to understand how the government permitted a small fraction of the organizations to monopolize such a massive share of the national inventory. Where mismanagement occurred, it should not simply be treated as a policy failure.”

Source: Closed for business: The unravelling of Canada’s Start-Up Visa program: Nino Melikidze and Steven J. Paolasini

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Expert’s report criticizes CRA over audit of Muslim charity, calls for improvements

2026/04/02 Leave a comment

Reasonable recommendations for more education and awareness:

…MAC has long contended that an audit of its activities by the revenue agency’s Review and Analysis Division was fundamentally tainted by systemic bias and Islamophobia.

During court proceedings over the agency’s audit, federal lawyers said preliminary audit findings identified “several serious issues’’ concerning the association’s non-compliance with its charitable registration obligations.

These allegedly included involvement in foreign political activities, buying considerable real estate, providing support to an organization listed as a terrorist entity and issuing improper donation receipts.

Gallant’s report says scrutiny for support of extremism places charities “in the unenviable position of making decisions about what actors, or actions, the administrator of charities law might think are linked to terrorism.”

“Despite the distinctive ambitions of the administrative agency — the effort to police terrorist abuse — in the case of the MAC audit that effort proved seriously deficient.”

Gallant said the agency drew heavily on MAC’s links and ties with others in its analysis.

“Considerable dispute exists over the implications and effectiveness of such ‘links,’ or associational, methods,” she wrote. “It risks capturing innocent activity through associational connections, risks ‘over-inclusion’ and can fail to accurately discern between suspicious activity and authentic legitimate activity.”

Leaders of Muslim charities, volunteers and employees exist within their religious communities, the report adds. “Any anointing of the notion that associations — connections — indicates terrorist abuse risks overidentification and the attraction of ‘guilt’ by association,” it says.

The revenue agency could play a bigger role in educating charities about the possible risks of involvement with certain groups or people, Gallant said in an interview.

“I think that if the charities directorate was a little more forthcoming in educating, specifically — don’t interact, don’t be doing things here, we’re suspicious about these things — then charities can make a choice, right?” she said….

Source: Expert’s report criticizes CRA over audit of Muslim charity, calls for improvements

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Refugee tribunal ruled on more than 45,000 cases since 2019 without in-person hearings

2026/04/01 Leave a comment

Yet another policy and program failure that undermines public confidence in immigration and refugees:

The independent tribunal that decides refugee claims has since 2019 ruled on more than 45,000 asylum cases based on paperwork alone without an in-person hearing, raising concerns from the Conservatives and experts that this could dilute scrutiny and compromise national security. 

Figures provided to MPs on the Commons immigration committee by the Immigration and Refugee Board show that in that period, Iranian asylum claimants have had the most claims decided without an in-person hearing, with 10,730 claims decided based on paper reviews of their files. 

Last year, 2,218 cases of alleged persecution in Iran – where the theocratic regime has imprisoned and killed scores of its critics – were decided after reviewing the files of asylum applicants, with 2,105 decided without a hearing in 2024 and 3,124 in 2023. 

Between 2019 and 2025, the IRB decided 45,595 cases through “paper processes.” These included 4,220 paper-only asylum decisions on cases from Afghanistan. There were 484 such “file-review” adjudications from Palestinians, 6,827 from Turkey, 1,273 from Yemen, 2,542 from Pakistan and 256 from Iraq, the IRB figures show. 

Asylum claimants from Haiti had 3,379 cases decided without a hearing between 2019 and 2025, including 2,471 last year. …

James Yousif, a former member of the IRB who adjudicated on cases, has been raising concerns that paper-only decisions could heighten the risk of fraud and weaken security screening.

“It is not possible to tell a true claim from a made-up claim just by reading the documents in each file,” he said in an e-mail. “Asking questions at a hearing is absolutely essential to detecting fraud and risks to Canada’s national security. There is no substitute for this.” 

Ms. Metlege Diab previously told MPs on the committee that each person claiming asylum is subject to security screening. She said decisions are made on a case-by-case basis by the IRB tribunal, which operates independently of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

But in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Redekopp expressed concern that the file-review process is being used “to expedite asylum claims without interviewing claimants, even from high-risk countries like Iran.” 

“Even worse, the Immigration Minister won’t take responsibility for this security gap, saying the IRB is independent – even though she is the minister responsible for the IRB,” he said. “Canadians expect a rigorous and thorough immigration vetting process and we are calling on the Immigration Minister to take action.”…

Source: Refugee tribunal ruled on more than 45,000 cases since 2019 without in-person hearings

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Quebec’s Bill 94 overwhelmingly affects Muslim women like me

2026/04/01 Leave a comment

A reminder of the perverse effects of Bill 94:

…If I can be barred from volunteering at my own children’s school, what guarantees do I have that tomorrow my profession won’t be questioned too? When I see women whose dreams of becoming teachers, lawyers, or educators have been shut down by legislation, I have to ask: Where does this end?

Let me be clear: Secularism is an important value for us in Quebec, and I support it. We do not send our children to public school to receive religious instruction. But preventing mothers from volunteering at their children’s schools – that is not secularism; it is outright exclusion. Creating this fear that children might be threatened by a mother simply practising her religion is both illogical and harmful – and it sows division instead of fostering cohesion.

Aisha Khan is an occupational therapist based in Quebec

Source: Quebec’s Bill 94 overwhelmingly affects Muslim women like me

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